For those of you who can't get enough of Kate Beckinsale, steel yourselves, because we've got some news. Beckinsale has recently signed on to lead Paramount +' Guilty Party, a half-hour dark comedy series from Funny or Die. She replaces Isla Fisher, who needed to exit the project due to pandemic-related circumstances.
Directed by Trent O’Donnell (No Activity, Saved by the Bell, The Letdown) and written by Rebecca Addelman (Dead to Me, New Girl, Ghosted) Guilty Party stars Beckinsale as Beth Baker, a discredited journalist desperate to salvage her career by latching on to the story of a young mother sentenced to life in prison for maiming and murdering her husband, crimes she claims she didn’t commit. In trying to uncover the truth, Beth finds herself in over her head as she contends with Colorado gun-smugglers, clickbait culture, the doldrums of marriage, and her own tarnished past. (via Deadline)
“Guilty Party is a genre-bending show that tackles contemporary issues – the prison system, the death of print journalism and pervasive gun culture, to name a few – but has, at its core, smart, funny, ambitious and deeply complicated female characters,” Addelman said when the series was first greenlit back in March. Addelman's statement was presented just one week prior to when Hollywood was forced to shutter production across the board due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Known to many as Selene from Screen Gems' Underworld franchise, Beckinsale recently starred in the ITV/Amazon series The Widow as Georgia Wells, a woman looking into the mysterious death of her husband. She's also set to star in Tanya Wexler's Jolt, an upcoming action film that centers on a bouncer with a slightly murderous anger-management problem that she controls with the help of an electrode-lined vest she uses to shock herself back to normalcy whenever she gets homicidal. After the first guy she's ever fallen for is murdered, she goes on a revenge-fueled rampage to find the killer while the cops pursue her as their chief suspect. Joining Beckinsale for Jolt are actors Jai Courtney, Babby Cannavale, Stanley Tucci, Laverne Cox, and David Bradley. Last but certainly not least, Beckinsale will also star alongside Travis Fimmel and Jillian Bell in El Tonto, a Charlie Day comedy. in the film, a fool for love becomes an accidental celebrity only to lose it all.