Alanna Ubach To Play Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro In Jay Roach’s Untitled Roger Ailes Feature

EXCLUSIVE: After working with Jay Roach on Meet the Fockers, Alanna Ubach is set to play Fox News spitfire host Jeanine Pirro in the filmmaker’s upcoming untitled feature about the women who battle against network boss Roger Ailes and his hostile corporate culture. Pirro was one of the Fox News hosts who defended Ailes, ripping apart FNC colleague Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment lawsuit back in July 2016.

Carlson will be played by Nicole Kidman in the movie. Pirro has known Ailes for three decades going back to her assistant DA days in NYC. At the time when Carlson’s suit hit, Pirro felt Ailes wasn’t capable of the abuse Carlson was subjecting him to.

Bron Studios is co-financing the production which is already shooting and Lionsgate is finalizing their domestic deal to distribute and co-finance; the studio is already selling foreign on the pic as Deadline exclusively reported from AFM.

In Meet the Fockers. Ubach played the maid-turned caterer who devirginized Ben Stiller.  Last year she voiced Mama Imelda in the Disney/Pixar hit Coco and she’ll next be seen opposite Julianne Moore in A24’s March 8  theatrical release Gloria Bell, and in the pilot for HBO’s Euphoria series and on Hulu’s Crossing Swords series. 

This year, Ubach wrapped five seasons starring on Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce in addition to Dietland and an arc on FX’s Snowfall. Ubach recently won an Imagen Award and was honored by the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts for her work in Coco and she previously received a Peabody Award for Men of a Certain Age. Last year, Ubach was in two Sundance features, The Last Word and To the Bone. Other prolific credits include the Legally Blonde franchise.

Ubach is repped by Gersh and Margrit Polak Management.