Tony Shalhoub To Star In ‘BrainDead’ CBS Series

Tony Shalhoub is set for a lead role opposite Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Tveit and Danny Pino in BrainDead, CBS’ comic-thriller series set in the world of Washington, D.C. politics. The show, set to premiere this summer, comes from Robert and Michelle King, creators and executive producers of The Good Wife.

In BrainDead, Laurel (Winstead), a young, fresh-faced Hill staffer, gets her first job in Washington, D.C. to discover two things: The government has stopped working, and alien spawn have come to earth and eaten the brains of a growing number of Congressmen and Hill staffers. Shalhoub will play Red Wheatus, a hard-drinking, fun-loving Republican senator who has spent decades in Washington making deals, until a radical transformation turns him into a health-conscious extremist who would rather destroy the government than compromise.

“Tony Shalhoub is funny, dramatic, subtle, and broad when he needs to be,” said Robert and Michelle King. “To our minds, he can play anything. We were thinking of making the character a 12-year-old blind girl hunting for her mother in Belgium to see what he did with that.”

Shalhoub won three Emmy awards for his starring role as the obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk on USA Network’s dramedy Monk. He recently recurred on Showtime’s dark comedy Nurse Jackie and previously starred on the CBS comedy We Are Men. Shalhoub’s feature credits include the Men In Black and Cars franchises, and he also is a two-time Tony nominee for his stage work.

The Kings, Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Brooke Kennedy and Liz Glotzer executive produce BrainDead for CBS Television Studios, Scott Free Productions and King Size Productions. Judy Smith serves as co-executive producer. Nikki M. James also co-stars.

Shalhoub is repped by ICM Partners, Mary Goldberg Management and Skrzyniarz & Mallean.