EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has assembled the cast around Ted Danson in comedy series A Classic Spy, created and executive produced by Mike Schur. Danson will be joined in the project (fka Untitled Mike Schur/Ted Danson comedy series) by Mary Elizabeth Ellis (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Stephanie Beatriz (Twisted Metal, Encanto), Lilah Richcreek Estrada (Chicago Med), two-time Tony nominee Stephen Mckinley Henderson (Dune), two-time Emmy Award winner Sally Struthers (All In The Family, Gilmore Girls), Eugene Cordero (Loki), Academy Award nominee Margaret Avery (The Color Purple), John Getz (Grace and Frankie), four-time Emmy nominee Susan Ruttan (L.A. Law, Mom), Lori Tan Chinn (Joy Ride), Clyde Kusatsu (Never Have I Ever), Marc Evan Jackson (Lessons In Chemistry) and Jama Williamson (Single Parents).
A Classic Spy reunites Cordero and Jackson with Danson and Schur. Cordero and Jackson both recurred on NBC’s The Good Place, which was created/executive produced by Schur and starred Danson. Jackson also had a major recurring role on Fox/NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which Schur co-created and executive produced.
In A Classic Spy, based on the 2021 Oscar-nominated documentary The Mole Agent, Charles (Danson), a retired man, gets a new lease on life when he answers an ad from a PI and becomes a mole in a secret investigation.
Ellis plays Emily, a married mother of three boys who has to adjust when her father Charles (Danson) makes a surprising late-life career move and becomes an undercover detective.
Beatriz plays Didi, the all-seeing, all-knowing managing director of the Pacific View Retirement Residence in San Francisco.
Estrada plays Julie, a San Francisco-based private investigator, Julie hires Charles to be her mole and pretends to be his daughter to maintain the ruse at the retirement home.
Henderson plays Calbert, a transplant from Washington, D.C. who is the stoic eyes and ears of the Pacific View community.
Struthers plays Virginia, the vivacious life of the party who immediately takes a shine to Charles.
Cordero plays Emily’s husband Joel, a supportive and exceedingly competent 10th grade science teacher.
Avery plays Virginia’s sweet best friend Florance who loves poetry and the Golden State Warriors in equal measure.
Getz plays Pacific View’s resident lothario Elliott who immediately feels threatened by all the attention Charles gets when he moves in.
Ruttan plays Gladys, a glamorous former costume designer from New York who lives next door to Charles at Pacific View.
Chinn plays Susan, the President of the Pacific View resident council, which she rules with an iron fist.
Kusatsu plays Grant, a Princeton grad at Pacific View, who is deeply concerned with you knowing he is a Princeton grad.
Jackson plays Evan, the client who hires Julie to investigate the theft of his mother’s necklace.
Williamson plays Beatrice, the Pacific View Activities Director who has never had a bad day in her life.
A Classic Spy is executive produced by Schur and Morgan Sackett via Schur’s Fremulon, David Miner for 3 Arts Entertainment, Maite Alberdi and Marcela Santibañez for Micromundo Producciones as well as Julie Goldman and Christopher Clements for Motto Pictures. Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.
Estrada is repped by Mark Schumacher Management, A3 and Myer & Downs.