HBO may have canceled Enlightened just as it was hitting its stride, and nothing ever came of the proposed show about the Fabios of the world, but HBO still wants to be in the Mike White business. The network picked up a pilot for White’s Mamma Dallas in October, and now the series—about a drag queen serving as a nanny for a conservative Texas family—has filled its leading role.
According to Deadline Hollywood, British actor Augustus Prew of Kick-Ass 2, Charlie St. Cloud and BBC’s The Village will play Liberty, an upbeat drag queen who becomes a nanny to the Texan family to avoid a life of prostitution and petty crime. So basically it sounds like Mrs. Doubtfire if Hubert Selby Jr. had written the screenplay, but hopefully it’s not that depressing.
No other details about Mamma Dallas have emerged, but with Prew on board, the next step is casting the actors to play the family’s children, who will forced to choose between doing chores and lip-syncing Donna Summer’s version of “MacArthur Park.” If they’re the least bit smart, they’ll be serving up Lone Star State realness, honey.