Lizzy Caplan’s spent a lot of time working on period dramas lately. She recently wrapped the WWII film, Allied, co-starring Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, and she’ll be back for a fourth season of sexology and making Michael Sheen really work for a living when Masters Of Sex returns on September 11. But according to Deadline, she’ll soon find herself stuck in a troubled present. Caplan’s signed on to star in Friend Of Bill, a dark new comedy from Bron Studios and Gloria Sanchez Productions, the woman-led arm of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company. Caplan is producing along with Ferrell and McKay.
The title is a reference to members of Alcoholics Anonymous—the “Bill” or “Bill W.” in question is the organization’s co-founder, William Griffith Wilson. Caplan will play an alcoholic writer who, after being arrested for public intoxication, withdraws to her “idyllic” hometown to detox. But giving up her old coping mechanism is made nearly impossible by all the small-town drama she encounters, including juggling two suitors. Sure, it sounds an awful lot like 28 Days, right down to meeting one of her romantic prospects in the program. But the script by Harper Dill was on the 2011 Blacklist, and the film will be directed by Amy Rice (By The People: The Election Of Barack Obama), so it probably won’t end up a maudlin mess.