Rashida Jones is returning to the small screen, taking on her first starring role in a series since “Angie Tribeca” wrapped in 2018. The “Parks and Recreation” and “Office” alumna will topline “Sunny,” an Apple TV+ dark comedy based on the book “Dark Manual.” Katie Robbins (“The Affair”) is penning the adaptation and is among its exec producers.
The half-hour show follows Suzie (Jones), “an American woman living in Kyoto, Japan, whose life is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash,” per Variety. “As ‘consolation’ she’s given Sunny, one of a new class of domestic robots made by her husband’s electronics company. Though at first Suzie resents Sunny’s attempts to fill the void in her life, gradually they develop an unexpected friendship, as together they uncover the dark truth of what really happened to Suzie’s family, becoming dangerously enmeshed in a world Suzie never knew existed.”
Jones was last seen on the big screen in “On the Rocks,” Sofia Coppola’s 2020 daughter-father comedy. She has recently appeared in “Ghosts of Tinseltown” and #BlackAF,” and voices a character on “Duncanville,” an animated series on Fox that’s co-created by her “Parks and Rec” co-star Amy Poehler. Her upcoming slate includes “Wool,” an Apple TV+ dystopian series that’s led by “Dune’s” Rebecca Ferguson.
The multi-hyphenate’s credits behind the scenes include the 2012 pic “Celeste & Jesse Forever,” which she co-wrote and starred in, and “Quincy,” a 2018 doc about her dad, Quincy Jones, that she helmed. She’s an exec producer on Niecy Nash-starrer “Claws,” a TNT crime dramedy that’s currently in its fourth and final season on TNT.
Asked how she feels about navigating “predominantly white professional spaces as a mixed woman of color,” Jones told HelloGiggles, “I’m lucky now in the sense that I’m in a position where I can hire people. I think earlier in my career as an actress, I just had to wait for people to say yes or no, and if they said no, there’s nothing I could do. But now that I’m in a position where I can bring people with me, I feel a responsibility to make sure that I’m part of the solution of diversifying the room. So that’s part of how I navigate it,” she explained. “I try in a way that I feel like I can be empathetic and be heard. I try to call people out on their privilege. I try to check myself on my own privilege. It’s an active thing. It’s not just about saying it or accusing other people of it — the only way it really works is if you see yours and see others’ [privilege] at the same time.”
