Close to Do Some Damages for FX

Emmy Award-winning actress Glenn Close is returning to FX in her first-ever starring role in a TV series in new legal drama Damages,which will debut this summer.

Close’s most recent television work was as Capt. Monica Rawling for the entire fourth season of FX’s The Shield, for which she received Emmy and Golden Globe award nominations for best actress in a drama series.

The pilot episode of Damages was filmed in New York beginning in late January and completed in early February.

FX placed a 13-episode order for the show, in which Close plays Patty Hewes, one of America’s foremost litigators going after corporate titans. One of Hewes’ targets is Arthur Frobisher, played by Ted Danson.

Series co-stars include Rose Byrne as Ellen Parsons, who joins Hewes’ firm as a first-year associate; Tate Donovan as Tom Shayes, a partner at Hewes & Associates; Zeljko Ivanek as Frobisher attorney Ray Fiske; and Noah Bean who plays David Connor, Parsons’ fiancée.

Damages marks a reunion between Close and Danson, who turned in award-winning performances for the miniseries Something About Amelia.

Production of the drama, which will be shot in New York, will begin in May.

Damages was created by Todd A. Kessler (The Sopranos), Daniel Zelman and Glenn Kessler, who will also serve as executive producers, writers and show runners. Allen Coulter (The Sopranos, Hollywoodland) directed the pilot episode. The series is produced by FX Productions and Sony Pictures Television.

For FX, Damages is the eighth drama series ever to receive a network order and only the tenth drama pilot ever made by the network -- Emmy and Golden Globe Award winners The Shield and Nip/Tuck; Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated Rescue Me; Over There; Emmy Award winner Thief (received a limited series six-episode order); Dirt; and The Riches.