Madeleine Arthur has finished shooting a role on the pilot Chad!
Nasim Pedrad’s comedy has found a new home at TBS, which has picked it up to pilot three years after the project was ordered to pilot by Fox.
Chad, created and written by Pedrad, is a single-camera Middle-Eastern family comedy that follow a 14-year-old Persian boy, played by Pedrad during high school as he desperately tries to fit in, cope with his mother’s dating life, and reconcile his cultural identity.
The show was a creative swing for Fox, which picked it to pilot in 2016 that was directed by Jason Winer and searched worldwide for Middle-Eastern actors to play Chad’s family. After Fox ultimately passed on the pilot, producing studio 20thCentury Fox TV shopped it to other platforms. The studio is not involved in the TBS’ version of the project, which has been reworked for cable. Studio T is producing.
Pedrad, who made her name on Saturday Night Live, has played a number of young children on the NBC sketch show as well as Kim Kardashian. She also played outspoken feminist cop Aly Nelson on New Girl and her gory comedy feature Corporate Animal, in which she stars alongside Ed Helms and Demi Moore, just premiered at Sundance.
The Iranian-American actress is exec producing and co-showrunning with Hayes Davenport. 3 Arts’ Oly Obst and Rob Rosell also serve as executive producers.
“I’m so grateful to TBS for believing in Chad and giving an adult Middle-Eastern woman the opportunity to play a teenage boy while also running the show behind the camera,” said Pedrad.
Added Thom Hinkle, TBS’ Executive VP of Original Programming, “Nasim embodies this role so perfectly, you forget you’re watching a woman playing a young boy. It’s such a funny, endearing script that evokes a modern-day Wonder Years centered around a middle eastern family.”
The Terror is an American horror drama anthology television series for AMC. The first season was developed by David Kajganich based on the 2007 Dan Simmons novel of the same name. The series premiered on March 25, 2018, and is a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition to the Arctic in 1845–1848. The first season cast includes Jared Harris, Tobias Menzies, and Ciarán Hinds.
Inspired by a true story, The Terror centres on the British Royal Navy’s perilous voyage into unchartered territory as the crew attempts to discover the Northwest Passage. Faced with treacherous conditions, limited resources, dwindling hope and fear of the unknown, the crew is pushed to the brink of extinction. Frozen, isolated and stuck at the end of the earth, The Terror highlights all that can go wrong when a group of men, desperate to survive, struggle not only with the elements, but with each other.
Sara Southey has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in the 72 hour film Race for the film “The Visit” by October Studios in Vancouver, Canada.
Hartigan’s coming-of-age dramedy Morris From America won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, while This Is Martin Bonner won the Best of Next! Audience Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and also received the John Cassavetes Award at the 2014 Indie Spirit Awards.
