Don’t call it a comeback. Days after coming up short in the Emmy race for best supporting actress in a limited series for her work in Wandavision, Kathryn Hahn has bounced back by booking the lead role in a different limited series. Variety reports that Hahn will step into the fabulous shoes of the legendary comedienne Joan Rivers in Showtime’s limited series The Comeback Girl.
Along with starring in the project, Hahn will serve as executive producer. 13 Reasons Why creator Greg Berlanti—who was a classmate of Hahn’s at Northwestern University—will direct and executive produce, and two-time Black List screenwriter Cosmo Carlson will write and executive produce. The Comeback Girl will follow the iconic Rivers at a low point in her career, after the cancellation of The Late Show with Joan Rivers—which made her the first woman to ever host a late night talk show and ruined her relationship with The Tonight’s Show Johnny Carson, whom she regularly guest-hosted for. The cancellation of Rivers’s late show also coincided with the suicide of her husband, Late Show producer Edgar Rosenberg.
“Trailblazer. Adored. Cruel. Diva,” reads the series’s logline, per Variety. “Joan Rivers had a life like no other. At age 54, she was a superstar comedienne…and then it all fell apart. The Comeback Girl is the awe-inspiring untold story of how Joan Rivers persevered through near suicide and professional abyss to rebuild herself and her career to become a global icon.” The Comeback Girl is the latest project to be inspired by the life and times of Joan Rivers, whose direct influence can be seen in both Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and, even more explicitly, in HBO Max’s Hacks, which also follows a trailblazing female comedian after she’s lost her late-night television show.
Hahn will next be seen in Apple+’s The Shrink Next Door, and recently completed filming on Rian Johnson’s highly-anticipated sequel Knives Out 2 starring Daniel Craig. Sometimes, you don’t need to take home the Emmy to come out on top.
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