‘Cruel Intentions’: Kate Levering To Play Annette In NBC Pilot; Witherspoon Role

Another main character from the cult 1999 movie Cruel Intentions is returning for the NBC reboot. Drop Dead Diva alumna Kate Levering has been cast in the pilot as Annette Hargrove, the role played by Reese Witherspoon in the film. Levering joins Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is reprising her role as Kathryn Merteuil from the movie, in which she starred alongside Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe.

Set in present day, Cruel Intentions picks up more than 15 years after the movie left off. It follows the beautiful and cunning Kathryn Merteuil (Gellar) as she vies for control of Valmont International as well as the soul of Bash Casey (Taylor John Smith), the son of her brother, the late Sebastian Valmont (played in the movie by Ryan Phillippe), and Annette. Upon discovering his late father’s legacy in a hidden journal, Bash is introduced to a world of sex, money, power and corruption he never could have imagined. Kathryn is privately shaken by the arrival of Bash and the re-appearance in her life of Annette, the girl she wronged years ago.

Co-starring in the pilot are Samantha Logan and Sophina Brown.

Cruel Intentions comes from the film’s writer-director Roger Kumble and producer Neal H. Moritz as well as Lindsey Rosin and Jordan Ross, the duo behind the The Unauthorized Musical Parody Of Cruel Intentions, whose staging at Los Angeles’ Rockwell Table & Stage in May generated buzz and drew Kumble, Witherspoon, Gellar and co-star Selma Blair to see it. Kumble will direct and wrote the pilot script with Rosin and Ross. He also executive produces with Moritz and Pavun Shetty of Original Film; Rosin and Ross co-executive produce.

Sony Pictures TV is producing alongside Original Film and AMBI.

Kate Levering is repped by Paradigm and Forward Entertainment.