Seems like two-time Oscar nominee, Viola Davis (The Help, Doubt), will be getting away with murder as she will play a law professor and criminal defense attorney in the drama from executive producers Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers.
Move over Kerry Washington, there’s a new hot female lead in Shondaland, as Davis will star in the ABC drama pilot How to Get Away With Murder. It’s a sexy, suspense-driven legal thriller centers on ambitious law students and their brilliant and mysterious criminal defense professor who become entangled in a murderous plot that rocks the entire university as well as changes the course of their lives.
Davis will play Annalise DeWitt, the law professor and renowned criminal defense attorney who is brilliant, passionate, creative, charismatic but also ruthless in the courtroom as well as her classroom, in which she calls her Criminal Law 100 class, “How to Get Away With Murder.” While you can describe Olivia Pope as a motivator, Davis’ character, Annalise DeWitt, is a manipulator of people, evident to the fact she’s married to a psych professor but having an affair.
The drama will film in Philadelphia and will also features Matt McGorry, Aja Naomi King, Alfie Enoch, Karla Souza, Jack Falahee and Charlie Weber. This is Davis’ return to television as she was previously featured on Showtime’s United States of Tara, NBC’s Law & Order: SVU and City of Angels but this will her first full-time role in a television series. One can only imagine that How To Get Way With Murder may be paired with Shondaland’s hit drama, Scandal in ABC’s lineup.
Will Shonda Rhimes get Annalise DeWitt in so much trouble that Olivia Pope has to save the day? Oh, the possibilities!
