The Netflix series based on Kate Andersen Brower’s The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House has added 11 new cast members, including Andre Braugher, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Ken Marino, Deadline reports.
Brower’s nonfiction book, published in 2015 by Harper, is a history of the service staff—cooks, housekeepers, and florists, among others—of the White House. A critic for Kirkus praised the book as “a work of great historical interest that is also quite entertaining.”
The series, which is being developed by Shondaland (Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder), focuses on a detective, to be played by Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), investigating a murder in the White House. The show is described as a “screwball whodunit.”
Braugher (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) will play the White House’s chief usher, with Watson (This Is Us) taking on the role of an assistant usher. Marino (Party Down) will play an adviser to the president.
Other newly added cast members include Jason Lee (Chasing Amy), Bronson Pinchot (Perfect Strangers), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (The Wire), and Edwina Findley (If Loving You Is Wrong).
The first episodes of the series will be directed by Liza Johnson, who has helmed episodes of shows including What We Do in the Shadows and Dead to Me, and the teleplays come from Paul William Davies (For the People). Davies and Shonda Rhimes are among the executive producers of the series.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
