‘Designated Survivor’: Zoe McLellan Joins Season 2 Of ABC’s Kiefer Sutherland Drama
NCIS: New Orleans alumna Zoe McLellan has been cast as a season regular opposite Kiefer Sutherland and Maggie Q for the sophomore run of ABC’s politcal drama Designated Survivor, from the Mark Gordon Company and ABC Studios.
McLellan will play Kendra Daynes, a brilliant and wily attorney who lands her dream job as White House counsel. Her journey is a personal and professional one, as she develops close relationships with the White House staff while wrestling legal issues that find their way to her desk because she advises the most powerful man in the world.
The casting comes days after former The Deep End star Ben Lawson landed a series-regular role as an MI6 operative on Designated Survivor.
The political drama has undergone some changes as it heads into Season 2, with former The Good Wife executive producer Keith Eisner tapped as new showrunner, succeeding Jeff Melvoin, who is staying on as an executive producer. Eisner will be the fourth showrunner on the series, following Amy B. Harris, Jon Harmon Feldman and Melvoin. In addition, Season 2 will be without Virginia Madsen, who recurred on Season 1 as Kimble Hookstraten, a conservative congresswoman and the GOP’s designated survivor.
McLellan played Meredith Brody on NCIS: New Orleans, after originating the character on the mothership series NCIS. She also was a series regular on the 2000s dramas Dirty Sexy M0ney and JAG. Represented by Domain Talent and Abrams Entertainment, she most recently guested on Suits and Law & Order: SVU .