The President of the United States is conducting a new side project with one major focus–the military.
It was announced that executive producer and actress Julie Louis-Dreyfus, most-renowned for her roles on Seinfield and, currently, Veep, would head the newest addition to the HBO miniseries catalog, a series called Soldier Girls, according to Deadline on Friday. The show has now started development with the announcement.
The series will be essentially based on award-winning journalist and author Helen Thorpe’s nonfiction book, Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home. As the title suggests, the work chronicles the lives of three military women as they path through from wearing the camouflage uniform and fighting across the world to returning home and adjusting to civilian life, which as many fellow former members of the military know, can be quite difficult–even more so as they begin motherhood as well. The book focuses on, and presumably the miniseries will as well, the friendship between these three women and how that can be made malleable as life transitions from the force to whatever weathering factors come after military combat–kids, the civilian workforce, relationships with men and substance abuse, death, and even being hit by a truck and surviving.
Released in 2014, the book received widespread celebration across the smorgasbord of literary reviews, from People magazine to The Boston Globe for its raw power. The New York Times Book Review called it”something far greater than describing the experience of women in the military,” and Publishers Weekly labeled Thorpe’s work as “the best book of the year.”
As to how much detail the show, as brief as its time will be, will delve into, no one from the production nor Louis-Dreyfus herself has made a hint as to what viewers can expect. No names of talented actors and actresses, though their abilities are heightened coming off of award season, have surfaced for the series yet either, but it will only be a matter of time before the Soldier Girls team makes their first selections.
As for who will headline behind the scenes, that has been made clear. According to Deadline, Brad Hall, another Saturday Night Live alum and husband to Louis-Drefyus, will join his spouse as co-executive producer. This project will be an unusual take-on for both Hall and Louis-Dreyfus, as the pair’s filmography shares one similar trait–mostly comedy across the board.
Nicole Riegel, a former member of the military herself, has been brought on to write the script for the entirety of the series. Soldier Girls will not be her only war-themed work either; Riegel is already crafting multiple series and movies, from her Sundance film Lynch (the story of war-hero Jessica Lynch) to a to-be-named story about brothers in Afghanistan.
Louis-Dreyfus has not made any statement regarding her previous commitments to other projects, including Veep which is already set for more seasons by the same company, HBO, but it is very unlikely that the award-winner will abandon one for the other.
As the series is only beginning development now, no release date has been chosen for Soldier Girls yet.