Michaela Watkins has been tapped to star in comedy series Casual. Additionally, Life Unexpected creator Liz Tigelaar has boarded the comedy as an exec producer. Casual, picked up straight to series in October, revolves around a dysfunctional family with a bachelor brother and his newly divorced sister. Together, they coach each other through the crazy world of dating (online and off-), while living under one roof again and raising a teenager.
Watkins will top line the comedy and play Valerie Cole, a newly divorced woman who is reentering the world of casual dating. Valerie is a therapist who does not practice what she preaches. She knows everything about sex but has closed herself off sexually in the last years of her marriage. She is the mother of a 16-year-old daughter and currently living with her brother, Alex, with whom she shares everything, including double dates. With new perspective, Valerie sheds her reservations and opens herself up to the joys and horrors of being newly single.
Zander Lehmann is on board to pen the series, which hails from Lionsgate Television. Reitman (Up in the Air, Juno) will executive produce and direct the premiere. Reitman’s Right of Way Films production partner Helen Estabrook (Whiplash, Young Adult) also will exec produce alongside Lehmann. Production will begin this year for a 2015 debut on Hulu.
