Nothing describes Los Angeles denizens better than Heather Graham’s smile, which is exuberant and youthful, but seemingly trying to suffocate some long-gestating anguish. That might be why she was cast in Fox’s new “family dramedy” pilot Studio City—or she was cast because she’s Heather Graham and she wasn’t doing anything else all that important.
As previously reported, Studio City, developed by Shameless executive producers Krista Vernoff and John Wells, focuses on a young female singer who moves in with her songwriter father, played by Eric McCormack, and discovers that he’s a drug dealer to the stars. The premise is inspired by Vernoff’s real-life experience growing up with a father who sold drugs to celebrities, because the exegesis of family problems is very therapeutic for screenwriters. (It’ll also buy one hell of a second home.)
Graham will play the father’s third wife, Stevie, a former stand-up comedian described as “generous and kind, with the mind of a teenager” and “filled with passionate ideas—just not very good ones.” You might think that sounds more like an idea of a person than an actual person, but Los Angeles is filled with ideas of people who haven’t yet become actualized. The real question of realism is whether anyone working on the Fox lot has actually been to Studio City, which would require them to take the 2 all the way to the 110 and then follow that north into the Valley. Sure, they could also take La Cienaga to Laurel Canyon, but traffic would be awful at this time of day.