EXCLUSIVE: Fox‘s breakout Doc, starring Molly Parker, is getting a high-profile new cast addition for Season 2. Felicity Huffman has been tapped as a series regular on the medical drama from Sony Pictures TV and Fox Entertainment Studios, which is set to return this fall. This marks only the third series regular role on an ongoing series for Huffman following her starring turns on ABC’s Sports Night and Desperate Housewives, the letter earning her an Emmy Award.
This also is Huffman’s biggest role since the college admission scandal as she continues to rebuild her career. It reunites her with Fox and Sony TV after her guest stint on the anthology drama Accused last year.
Huffman will play Dr. Joan Ridley. Double-boarded in internal medicine and surgery, she’s the kind of doctor who never has to raise her voice. Incredibly charming and charismatic with a wicked sense of humor that masks her ferocious ambition. She proudly describes herself as an “old-school broad.” She drinks whiskey, smokes the occasional Marlboro red, and treats herself to solo steak dinners. Joan was Dr. Amy Larsen’s (Parker) med school professor and early mentor — and Amy was her standout student. Their dynamic is layered, charged, and deeply rooted in mutual respect, with just enough friction to keep it honest which is why Michael (Omar Metwally) offers her the open Chief of Internal Medicine job at Westside, succeeding Dr. Richard Miller (Scott Poter). While it’s true that she’s here to help Amy, and the rest of the department, she also has a secret that’s motivating her even more.
As has become typical in film and TV, Huffman will play Parker’s med school professor while their real-life age difference is 9.5 years.
Based on the Italian series Nelle tue mani, Doc follows powerhouse physician Dr. Amy Larsen (Parker) as she continues to rebuild her life after a car crash erased eight years of her memory. No longer Chief of Internal Medicine at Westside Hospital, Amy must restart her medical journey as an Intern in the hopes of becoming the doctor she once was. She’ll confront hard truths about her missing years, work to repair fractured relationships, and seek to reconcile the person she used to be with the one everyone else has come to know.
In addition to Parker and Metwally, Huffman joins returning series regulars Omar Metwally, Jon Ecker, Amirah Vann and Anya Banerjee as well as Season 1 recurring players Patrick Walker and Charlotte Fountain-Jardim who have been promoted to regulars for Season 2.
Doc, which received a rare in the current environment 22-episode Season 2 order, is co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and Fox Entertainment Studios. Barbie Kligman and Hank Steinberg serve as co-showrunners and executive producers. Erwin Stoff, Russell Fine, John Weber, Frank Siracusa, Carol Barbee, and David Foster also serve as executive producers. .
Huffman, an Academy Award nominee for Transamerica, is a five-time Emmy nominee, twice for Desperate Housewives and three times for the ABC anthology series American Crime. Most recently, Huffman starred in Lifetime’s two-part film The Thirteenth Wife: Escaping Polygamy, which tells the true story of Rena Chynoweth, a woman who escaped a life of oppression and violence within a polygamous cult. Her recent credits also include a guest starring arc on Criminal Minds: Evolution and a UK stage debut in the 2024 Park Theatre production of Hir. She is repped by Atlas Artists.
