Molly Ringwald Joins Another Huge TV Show

Molly Ringwald is reuniting with Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story co-creator Ryan Murphy to star in the second season of his Feud franchise for FX. Feud Season 2 is titled Capote’s Women and is inspired by Laurence Leamer’s book about the fallout of a Truman Capote short story that centered on Capote’s friends. Tom Hollander, Naomi Watts, and Diane Lane also star in the series.

Ringwald will star as Joanne Carson, the second wife of The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, reports Deadline. She was also a close friend of Capote’s until the In Cold Blood author’s death. Hollander will star as Capote while Watts stars as Babe Paley, the wife of CBS CEO Bill Paley.

As with most Murphy projects, Feud: Capote’s Women will feature many other A-listers in important roles. Calista Flockhart plays Lee Radziwill, sister of Jackie Kennedy, while Diane Lane plays socialite Slim Keith. Chloe Sevigny will play fashion icon C.Z. Guest. Other roles that will need to be cast include Palma Churchill Harriman, who would later marry Keith’s second husband, Broadway producer Leland Hayward; and fashion icon Gloria Guinness. Demi Moore is reportedly in talks for a role.

Gus Van Sant (Milk, Good Will Hunting) is set to direct all eight episodes of Capote’s Women. Jon Robin Baitz (Brothers & Sisters) will adapt Leamer’s book and is serving as the showrunner. The show will be set in the 1970s after Capote published the short story “La Côte Basque 1965” in Esquire. The story, which was later published as one of the chapters in Capote’s unfinished novel Answered Prayers in 1986, was a thinly veiled roman à clef story with characters based on his female friends.

Murphy, Van Sant, Baitz, and Watts are executive producers of Capote’s Women. Dede Gardner, Tim Minear, and Alexis Martin Woodall of Plan B are also executive-producing. 20th Television, Plan B Entertainment, and Ryan Murphy Productions are the studios behind the show. Filming is set to start this fall. This is the first season of Feud since Feud: Bette and Joan aired in 2017 and since Murphy scrapped a planned series about King Charles III’s relationship with Princess Diana.

Ringwald can now be seen in Murphy’s latest true crime Netflix limited series, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. She plays Jeffrey Dahmer’s stepmother, Shari Dahmer. Ringwald became an icon in the 1980s thanks to Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club and was recently seen in The CW’s Riverdale. She has also published the books Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family and Finding the Perfect Lipstick and When It Happens to You: A Novel of Stories.