EXCLUSIVE: Broadway actress/musician Alison Luff (Waitress) has been cast as the female lead opposite Stephen Amell and Alexander Ludwig in Heels, Starz’s eight-episode hourlong drama set in the outrageous world of independent professional wrestling.
Written by Michael Waldron and directed by Peter Segal, with Mike O’Malley as showrunner, Heels is a story about the men and women who chase their dreams in the world of small town pro wrestling. Set in a close-knit Georgia community, it follows a family-owned wrestling promotion as two brothers and rivals, Jack (Amell) and Ace (Ludwig) Spade, war over their late father’s legacy. In the ring, somebody must play the good guy (Ludwig) and somebody must play their nemesis, the heel (Amell). But in the real world, those characters can be hard to live up to — or hard to leave behind.
Luff will play Staci Spade, the reluctant young matriarch of a family-owned Southern wrestling promotion. Having married into the world of independent wrestling, she soon learns that she has to contend with the emotional stakes her in-laws have invested in their wrestling goals and the demands it puts on her family.
Heels is produced by Lionsgate TV in association with Paramount TV. Along with Waldron, Segal and O’Malley, LBI Entertainment’s Julie Yorn, Chris Donnelly and Patrick Walmsley serve as executive producers.
Luff recently starred on Broadway in the Sara Bareilles hit musical Waitress. Her previous stage starring roles include Jimmy Buffet’s Escape to Margaritaville, Les Miserables, and Matilda. In TV, Luff is set for a recurring rile on the current second season of NBC’s popular medical drama New Amsterdam. She is one half of the singer/songwriter duo The Bones, which frequently performs in venues throughout NYC and Los Angeles. Luff is repped by ICM Partners, Soffer/Namoff Entertainment and Jackoway Austen Wertheimer.
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