‘Julia’: HBO Max’s Julia Child Drama Gets Premiere Date

HBO Max will serve up its Julia Child drama series, Julia, this March.

The WarnerMedia streaming platform revealed during its TCA presentation on Tuesday that the starring Sarah Lancashire in the titular role will premiere March 31. Julia, whose pilot was written by Daniel Goldfarb and directed by Charles McDougall, is inspired by Child’s extraordinary life and her long-running television series, The French Chef, which pioneered the popular cooking-show genre. Through Julia and her singular can-do spirit, the series explores an evolving time in American history: the emergence of public television as a new social institution, feminism and the women’s movement, the nature of celebrity and America’s cultural growth. At its heart, the series is a portrait of a loving marriage with an evolving and complicated power dynamic.

During the drama’s TCA session, Lancashire spoke about the process of embodying the television pioneer, who she first learned of through the 2009 film Julie & Julia starring Meryl Streep as the prolific chef. . Source material on the internet was the starting point, but research eventually moved onto reading Child’s various books and letters. However, Lancashire said she decided not to dig any deeper into archives given the nature of the HBO Max project.

“It didn’t make sense with what we were trying to do,” she said. “We’re making a drama, not a documentary.”

Lancashire added that she spent “many, many hours watching” Child who she said “makes you feel better about the world – she’s a tonic.”

The eight-episode series also features David Hyde Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, Erin Neufer, Fiona Glascott, Brittany Bradford and Fran Kranz.

Julia is produced by Lionsgate and 3 Arts. Chris Keyser serves as showrunner executive produces along with 3 Arts Entertainment’s Erwin Stoff. McDougall, Goldfarb and 3 Arts’ Kimberly Carver also executive produce. Todd Schulkin is a consulting producer on behalf of the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts.