Stephanie Hsu is returning to Peacock! The Oscar-nominated actor known for playing Joy Wang/Jobu Tupaki in Everything Everywhere All at Once appeared in an episode of Peacock’s Poker Face last year alongside Natasha Lyonne. Now, Hsu has signed on for a new Peacock series called Laid, which is based on the Australian show of the same name. According to Peacock’s press release, the streamer has a straight-to-series order for the comedy, which follows “a woman who finds out her former lovers are dying in unusual ways and must go back through her sex timeline to confront her past in order to move forward.”
Laid is described as a “f*cked up rom-com” that is being written and executive produced by Nahnatchka Khan (Totally Killer, Young Rock, Fresh Off the Boat, Always Be My Maybe) and Sally Bradford McKenna (Son of Zorn). John Davis and John Fox are also exutive producing for Davis Entertainment along with Jennifer Carreras for Fierce Baby; Marieke Hardy, Kirsty Fisher, and Liz Watts for Porchlight Films; and All3Media International. Hsu is also signed on as an executive producer. The Australian version of Laid was created by Marieke Hardy and Kirsty Fisher, and produced by Liz Watts.
Poker Face Writers Were “Starstruck” By Stephanie Hsu:
The Poker Face episode, “Escape From Shit Mountain,” was filming around the time Everything Everywhere All at Once was released, which left the showrunners “starstruck.” During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, co-showrunners and the episode’s writers, Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman, talked about working with Hsu and their surprising connection to the actor.
“Now-Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu came to set and we were getting to know each other,” Lilla explained. “And we discovered that not only did she grow up in our hometown, but that Stephanie and I had the same high school drama teacher: Jim Bell from Palos Verdes High School, the man who is responsible for turning me into a theater geek and sending me off on this path. Obviously, Stephanie is a superstar now. And we both grew up doing musical theater with the same drama teacher at our high school.”
Nora added, “We had all just gone and seen Everything Everywhere, days before she showed up to set. It was one of the first movies we had seen in theaters since the pandemic, and a bunch of us including Rian had gone to a theater in Poughkeepsie, New York, to see it. So when Stephanie showed up on set, we were just starstruck. We were like, ‘I think this [EEAAO] is going to be really big for you.’ She was like, ‘I don’t know, maybe!’ So hopefully all the fans will come watch her in this episode, because her performance is just great and she’s hilarious.”
Stay tuned for more updates about Laid. Poker Face is now streaming on Peacock.