Queen Latifah has landed a lead role in Lee Daniels’ untitled music project at Fox, which was formerly titled “Star,” Variety has learned. Three more regulars — all relative newcomers — have also been cast.
The Untitled Lee Daniels Music Pilot goes into production this month in Atlanta, and while the potential series has only been ordered to pilot at this point, Queen Latifah’s star power, combined with Daniels’ “Empire” track record at Fox, makes the project a strong contender for the 2016-17 television season.
The pilot revolves around three young women, who form a girl group with hopes of making it big in the music industry. The project has been described in the vein of “Dreamgirls,” while incorporating the manufacturing of modern-day girl groups, showcasing the allure and heartache of the cut-throat music scene, and exploring cultural themes from a new perspective.
Queen Latifah will anchor the young cast, playing Carlotta, the owner of an Atlanta beauty salon who has an amazing voice and becomes a surrogate mother to the three girls in the group, even though she doesn’t approve of their musical dreams.
Following a nationwide casting call, actress and singers Jude Demorest, Ryan Destiny and Brittany O’Grady have been cast as the leading girl group members.
Demorest (“Dallas,” “The Middle”), from Detroit, has landed the role of Star, the tough 18-year-old who spent her childhood in and out of foster homes after the death of her mother, and who will do anything to become the star she was named to be; Destiny (“Low Winter Sun”), also from Detroit, has been cast as Alexandra, the wealthy 20-year-old who grew up on New York’s Upper East Side, but who, for years, has tried to put her privileged world behind her, so she can make real, authentic music; and O’Grady (“The Messengers”), from Washington, DC, will play Simone, Star’s younger sister who dreams of the day Star will return to rescue her from the abusive foster home in which she was placed five years before.