Ray Donovan will be welcoming a second Oscar winner to its cast, as yet another movie actor has decided to join the ranks of television. It’s been confirmed that Susan Sarandon will play a recurring role in the upcoming fifth season of the Showtime series, reports Deadline.
The series stars Liev Schreiber as the title charcter, a professional “fixer” in Los Angeles. To put it simply, very wealthy and/or famous people who are in trouble call him when they need to make problems go away. He always gets the job done, but oftentimes, it’s in pretty questionable ways.
Sarandon will play Samantha Winslow, the “strong and focused” head of a motion picture studio. It’s unclear how her character arc will interact with Ray: Might she be someone who calls Ray to do some fixing? Or maybe she’ll be the latest candidate for an illicit love affair.
Sarandon joins others who have had recurring guest-starring roles on the popular series, including Hank Azaria, Katie Holmes, Ian McShane, and Lisa Bonet. The series also stars Oscar winner Jon Voight as Ray’s troublemaking father, Mickey. Both Schreiber and Voight have received Golden Globe nominations for their roles, with Voight picking up one win. Azaria also won an Emmy for his guest-starring role.
As a five-time Oscar nominee and one-time winner, for Dead Man Walking, Sarandon has a lengthy and impressive résumé in Hollywood. Though her work has mainly been on the big screen, she has done a number of TV miniseries, including The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe (2015), and has made many appearances on TV series over the past five decades. Some of her most notable work has been on Mike & Molly, The Big C, 30 Rock, the TV movie You Don’t Know Jack, Rescue Me, Malcolm in the Middle, and Friends. And, of course, who can forget her role as Justin Timberlake’s mother in the series of viral hit music videos from Saturday Night Live?
Sarandon’s most recent project is the Ryan Murphy-created anthology series Feud, in which she stars as Bette Davis opposite Jessica Lange, who plays Joan Crawford.
The fifth season of Ray Donovan will debut this summer. If history repeats itself, we can expect the inaugural episode some time in late June or early July.
