Blythe Danner Boards NBC Miniseries THE SLAP

Tony and Emmy winner Blythe Danner has signed on to guest star on NBC's upcoming miniseries THE SLAP, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Danner will take on the role of "Virgina, the grandmother of Anouk (Uma Thurman), a TV writer dating her show's young leading man (Penn Badgley). Virginia, a celebrated Columbia Medical School Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is both extraordinarily wise and capable of utter thoughtlessness, within the same sentence. She and her daughter are very close because Anouk has found a way of treating her mother as a friend, rather than a parent, a compromise that has great cost to it."

Meet Hector (Peter Sarsgaard, "An Education," "Blue Jasmine"), a public servant, husband, father and valued friend on the cusp of his 40th birthday. Meet Aisha (Thandie Newton, "Crash," "Beloved"), Hector's beautiful and intelligent wife who is planning his party filled with friends and his very boisterous Greek family. Sounds like the makings of a great day, right? Wrong.

As Hector tries to navigate family politics, awkward friendships and the young woman he is dangerously captivated by, the built-up tension explodes when Hector's hotheaded cousin slaps another couple's misbehaving child. Everyone is understandably stunned, and the party abruptly ends with the child's parents vowing legal action. What the hosts and guests don't know, however, is that this moment will ignite a chain of events that will uncover long-buried secrets within this group of friends and family ... and vigorously challenge the core values of everyone involved. "

The Slap" also stars Zachary Quinto ("Star Trek," "American Horror Story"), Melissa George ("30 Days of Night," "In Treatment"), Thomas Sadoski ("The Newsroom") and Brian Cox ("X-Men 2," "Red 2").

From writer/executive producer Jon Robin Baitz ("Brothers & Sisters"), executive producers Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald ("Gladiator," "Men in Black" franchise) and director/executive producer Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right," "Olive Kitteridge"), comes this unflinching look at how one little slap can have a huge impact.

Danner won two Emmy awards for her role on Showtime's "Huff" and was nominated twice for roles on "Will & Grace" and in Joyce Carol Oates' "We Were the Mulvaneys." She received a Golden Globe nomination for Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grownups, and her list of career accomplishments continues with a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in Butterflies Are Free and nominations for roles in Harold Pinter's Betrayal, Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire and Stephen Sondheim's musical Follies. She most recently appeared on Broadway in the musical Nice Work If You Can Get It, and Off-Broadway in The Commons of Pensacola. Her film roles include Woody Allen's Alice, The Great Santini, the Meet the Parents trilogy, What's Your Number? and Sylvia, a film in which she appeared with her daughter, actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

Photo by by Walter McBride

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