EXCLUSIVE: On the heels of the recent Season 2 renewal of Hulu/20th Television’s Tell Me Lies, the breakout drama’s creator/executive producer/showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer and executive producer Emma Roberts are re-teaming for another series at Hulu and 20th TV, Second Wife.
Roberts and Lucifer alum Tom Ellis will star in and executive produce the darkly comedic half-hour, created, executive produced and to be showrun by Oppenheimer. Roberts is exec producing through her Belletrist TV banner the series, which also reunites Ellis with Hulu and 20th TV; he stars in their upcoming limited series Washington Black.
Second Wife is a romantic dramedy about the ups and downs of a blended family. Fresh off a terrible breakup, Sasha (Roberts) flees her life in New York to start over in London, where she meets and quickly falls in love with a recently divorced father named Jacob (Ellis). When they impulsively decide to get married, they will soon learn that there’s a lot they don’t know about each other – and they can’t outrun their pasts forever. Darkly comedic in tone, Second Wife is an exploration of intimacy, failure, and second chances.
The series marks the first creative collaboration between husband-and-wife duo Ellis and Oppenheimer and draws some parallels to their story.
Oppenheimer’s career got off to a hot start when her first screenplay, The Remains, made the 2013 Black List. She went on to co-write the Zac Efron film We Are Your Friends for Working Title Films. In TV, she wrote on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead before selling Broken to ABC, which went to pilot starring Anna Paquin and Blair Underwood. Oppenheimer, who is often drawn towards stories about mental health, generational trauma, and dysfunctional love, went on to create, executive and showrun dark comedy Queen America for Facebook Watch, starring Catherine Zeta Jones. She is repped by CAA, Anonymous Content and Yorn Levine Barnes.
Roberts, whose recent features included Abandoned and About Fate, is repped by CAA, Sweeney Entertainment and Felker Toczek Suddleson.
Ellis, whose previous series credits include BBC’s Miranda and The Fades, will next be seen in Netflix’s Players in addition to Hulu’s Washington Black. He is repped by CAA, UK’s Hamilton Hoddell, Anonymous Content and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.