Nellie Andreeva

iCarly alumna Miranda Cosgrove has been cast as a lead opposite Christina Ricci in NBC’s single-camera comedy pilot Girlfriend In A Coma, from Wolf Films and Universal TV. Written by Nurse Jackie‘s Liz Brixius based on Douglas Coupland’s book, it centers on Karen (Ricci), a woman who was in a coma for many years and unexpectedly comes out of the coma to find she has a 17-year-old daughter, Evie (Cosgrove). Evie is a small-town, overachieving loner whose world is turned upside down when her mom wakes up, and every hope she ever had of keeping her nose to the grindstone, saving money, and getting grades for an out-of-state college is thrown out the window. Cosgrove, who has Despicable Me 2 coming out July 3, is with WME and Anonymous Content.

British actor Humphrey Ker has been cast as one of the leads in another NBC comedy pilot, Justin Spitzer’s Holding Patterns, from Peter Traugott’s TBD Prods and Uni TV. It is an ensemble multi-camera comedy about a group of friends whose lives completely change after they survive a plane crash. Ker will play one of them, Griffin, a cautious, often-uptight, over-analytical workaholic.

Quinn Shephard has joined the cast of Hostages, CBS‘ drama pilot from writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Jerry Bruckheimer TV and Warner Bros TV. Based on an Israeli format, the project centers on Ellen (Collette), a successful surgeon living in Washington, D.C. who is selected to operate on the President of the United States. She is thrust into the middle of a political conspiracy when her family is taken hostage, and it is up to her to save the lives of her husband and children. Shephard, repped by Innovative, will play Ellen’s teenage daughter who has a dramatic secret of her own that will be revealed in the pilot.

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