Jim Carrey Showtime Series Brings Catherine Keener on Board

SHOWTIME has announced that Oscar, Emmy® and Golden Globe® nominee Catherine Keener (Get Out) has been cast as a series regular in Jim Carrey’s upcoming Showtime half-hour comedy Kidding. The series stars Carrey in his first series regular role in more than two decades and reunites him with Oscar winner Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), who will direct the project.

Carrey plays Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, an icon of children’s television. Mr. Pickles is a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him and his multimillion dollar branding empire. But when Jeff’s own family begins to implode, he finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis. A kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity that is being described as hilarious and heartbreaking.

Keener joins the series playing artisan who builds all the puppets on the hit children’s show while never being allowed to voice them. According to Showtime, Keener struggles to take the simple lessons preached by Jeff and apply them to the darker complications of actual parenting.

With a 10-episode first-season order for KIDDING, Carrey will executive produce with Gondry, Emmy nominee Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), Jim Garavente (Bad Words), Raffi Adlan (The Green Hornet) and Michael Aguilar (I’M DYING UP HERE). KIDDING was created by Dave Holstein (WEEDS, Raising Hope), who wrote the pilot and will serve as showrunner.

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