The live production of Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons is fleshing out its cast.
Anthony Anderson and Ike Barinholtz have been added to the cast, as well as Amber Stevens West, Sean Hayes, Stephen Tobolowsky, Jovan Adepo and Jackée Harry. They join Jamie Foxx, who has already been cast as George Jefferson, Wanda Sykes, who will play Louise Jefferson, Will Ferrell as Tom Willis, Justina Machado as Florence Henderson, Elie Kemper as Gloria Bunker Stivic, Marisa Tomei as Edith Bunker and Woody Harrelson as Archie Bunker.
Anderson will play George Jefferson’s brother Henry, who was once Archie Bunker’s neighbor in Queens. Adepo will play Lionel, George and Louise’s son, who marries Jenny, Tom and Helen Willis’ daughter, who will be played by Stevens West. Tobolwsky will play Harry Bentley, the Jeffersons’ neighbor, and Harry will play Louise’s friend Diane Stockwell. Barinholtz will play Archie’s foil and son-in-law, Mike “Meathead” Stivic, and Hayes will play Mr. Lorenzo, another of Archie’s neighbors as well as a househusband.
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons is a love letter of sorts to Norman Lear’s profound effect on TV.
As the special’s title suggests, the special will recreate two episodes from Lear’s classic series All in the Family and The Jeffersons with today’s stars. As Lear himself has said, the special shows how much the series’ stories still resonate today as much as they did back in the ’70s and ’80s.
“They have said over and over again that these two shows were meant for the ’70s and would not work today,” said Lear about the special. “We disagree with them and are here to prove, with two great casts depicting All in the Family and The Jeffersons, the timelessness of human nature.”
Lear and Jimmy Kimmel are executive producing along with Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions and Justin Theroux. The live event will take place May 22 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
