USA Adds Asner, Cumming to Cast of ‘Briarpatch’

By Jon Lafayette
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

USA Network said that award-winning actors Ed Asner and Alan Cumming will have recurring roles in the upcoming drama Briarpatch.

Briarpatch stars Rosario Dawson as an investigator who returns home to Texas to find out who killed her sister and gets embroiled in local corruption.

Also starring in the series are Kim Dickens, Jay R. Ferguson, Brian Geraghty and Edi Gathegi.

Briarpatch is based on a novel by Ross Thomas and is written for television by Andy Greenwald. Greenwald will executive produce along with Sam Esmail, the creator of USA’s Mr. Robot, through his production company Esmail Corp., and Anonymous Content’s Chad Hamilton.

The series is currently filming in Albuquerque, N.M., and is produced by UCP and Paramount Television.

Related: USA Orders More ‘Growing Up Chrisley’

Asner, who starred as the fictional editor Lou Grant, plays the president and owner of the town’s only newspaper. The character is a racist and has a powerful temper. Asner is also in Netflix’s Dead to Me and YouTube’s Cobra Kai.

Cumming plays a fugitive arms dealer being investigated by Dawson’s character. Cumming’s credits include CBS’s The Good Wife on TV and the films Eyes Wide Shut and Smurfs.

Jon Lafayette
Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.