Julia Roberts in talks to lead Amazon’s Charlotte Walsh Likes To Win
David Farnor | On 02, Mar 2019
Julia Roberts is in talks to lead Amazon’s new adaptation of Charlotte Walsh Likes To Win.
The book, published last summer, was written by Jo Piazza, an award-winning journalist who has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and the bestselling author of The Knock Off, How to Be Married and Fitness Junkies. It asks the timely question of what happens when a woman wants it all — political power, a happy marriage, and happiness — but isn’t sure just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to get it.
It follows Charlotte Walsh, who’s running for Senate in the most important race in the country during a midterm election that will decide the balance of power in Congress. Still reeling from a presidential election that shocked and divided the country and inspired by the chance to make a difference, she’s left behind her high-powered job in Silicon Valley and returned, with her husband Max and their three young daughters, to her downtrodden Pennsylvania hometown to run in the Rust Belt state.
Once the campaign gets underway, Charlotte is blindsided by just how dirty her opponent is willing to fight, how harshly she is judged by the press and her peers, and how exhausting it becomes to navigate a marriage with an increasingly ambivalent and often resentful husband. When the opposition uncovers a secret that could threaten not just her campaign but everything Charlotte holds dear, she has to decide just how badly she wants to win and at what cost.
Deadline reports that Roberts in talks to star in a series based on the book, which is backed by wiip and Roberts’ own Red Om Films production company. Indeed, Roberts would, if talks are successful, exec-produce the drama, as well as take on the lead role. The project would mark a reunion between Amazon and Roberts, after she starred in, and exec-produced, the first season of Homecoming, based on the podcast of the same name. That ongoing relationship would be a coup for Amazon Studios, with Homecoming marking Roberts’ first TV role.
The series is being adapted for the screen by playwright Jon Robin Baitz, behind NBC’s remake of Australian drama The Slap. Roberts would exec-produce alongside Red Om’s Lisa Gillan and Marisa Gill, ScratchPad’s Baitz, Rebelle Media’s Laura Lewis, and wiip’s Paul Lee and Mark Roybal.