“Grey’s Anatomy” star Sarah Drew and “Blindspot” actress Michelle Hurd are the new Cagney and Lacey. Deadline confirms that the duo have been cast as the leads of the “Cagney & Lacey” reboot. Rosemary Rodriguez (“The Good Wife”) has been tapped to helm the CBS pilot.
“Cagney & Lacey” is an update of the Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless-starring 1980s police procedural of the same name. Both series center on the titular detectives and friends. The reboot will see Drew plying LAPD Detective Cagney, Lacey’s nimble and easygoing partner and protégée. Hurd’s Lacey is athletic, polished, a former high school track and field champion. Empathetic and straightforward, she’s the more experienced partner,” the source details.
“Lacey was conceived and written as African American in the reboot,” Deadline adds. Both Cagney and Lacey were white in the original series.
Bridget Carpenter (“Parenthood”) penned the pilot and will EP alongside Rodriguez.
Drew will leave “Grey’s Anatomy” at the end of this season, the show’s 14th. She has portrayed Dr. April Kepner since 2009. News broke of her and co-star Jessica Capshaw’s exit last week. Drew can be seen next in the faith-based film “Indivisible,” a drama about a chaplain who returns home after serving in the army.
Hurd was a series regular on the second season of NBC memory loss thriller “Blindspot.” Her other credits include “Lethal Weapon,” “Hawaii Five-0,” and “Daredevil.”
Rodriguez has helmed features such as “Silver Skies” and “Acts of Worship,” as well as episodes of series including “Jessica Jones” and “The Walking Dead.” In a guest post for Women and Hollywood, she wrote, “As a director, it’s crucial for me to listen to my heart because in the end, that’s where my stories live. And my life revolves around telling them.”