Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Ving Rhames is set to star opposite Alfred Molina is David E. Kelley’s TNT medical drama pilot Chelsea General. Based on CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta’s upcoming novel Monday Mornings, the project follows the lives of five surgeons as they push the limits of their abilities and confront their personal and professional failings. It uses as a backdrop the hospital’s Monday Morbidity and Mortality conference, considered the most secretive meeting in all of medicine, where doctors gather for a confidential review of complications and errors in patient care. Rhames, who was pursued for multiple pilots this season, will play a physically imposing former professional football player who now is the most celebrated trauma chief in the country. In addition to Rhames and Molina, the cast of the project includes Bill Irwin, Jamie Bamber and Jennifer Finnigan. Kelley and Gupta, who is a practicing neurosurgeon, are executive producing Chelsea General; Kelley’s frequent collaborator Bill D’Elia is set to direct the pilot. Rhames, whose credits include the Mission: Impossible franchise and series Gravity and Kojak, is with Innovative and Kramer Management.

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