Lynn Whitfield, Merle Dandridge And Desiree Ross Join OWN’s New Drama Series GreenleafPosted by Wilson Morales
August 25, 2015
Source: Deadline
Deadline is reporting that Lynn Whitfield, Merle Dandridge and Desiree Ross have been cast in OWN’s megachurch drama series Greenleaf.
Created by Craig Wright (“Six Feet Under,” “Lost”), with Oprah Winfrey and Wright also serving as exec producers, the series has an order for a 13 episode season.
Greenleaf focuses on the unscrupulous world of the Greenleaf family and their sprawling Memphis megachurch, where scandalous secrets and lies are as numerous as the faithful. Greenleaf World Ministries is described as the center of the community for the thousands of predominantly African-American members who attend services there.
But beneath its steeple lies a den of iniquity — greed, adultery, sibling rivalry and conflicting values — a multigenerational matrix of deception that involves the church’s founding family but also extends to the congregation and prominent members of the Memphis community and beyond. Yet, amidst all of the mayhem and deception, the power of something greater persists, calling everyone to conscience for their sins.
Whitfield, a veteran actress who won an Emmy Award for her performance as Josephine Baker in the HBO biopic The Josephine Baker, will play Bishop Greenleaf’s imperious wife Lady Mae, a steely woman who loves money and power and will do absolutely anything to protect her position as the First Lady of Greenleaf World Ministries.
Dandridge, last seen on NBC’s The Night Shift, is Lady Mae’s estranged daughter Grace, a disillusioned former preacher who returns home after having fled her contentious family 20 years ago.
Ross, who’s currently on TNT’s Falling Skies, plays Grace’s teenage daughter, Sophia, who finds her new extended family and extravagant new surroundings a welcome change from her previously isolated, middle-class life in Phoenix.
