EXCLUSIVE: How I Met Your Father star Hilary Duff is returning to Hulu and reuniting with 20th Television for Pretty Ugly, a single-camera comedy series she is attached to star in and executive produce. The Disney streamer is developing the project, from writer Kirker Butler, director Silver Tree and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment.
Butler is writing Pretty Ugly based on his 2015 novel of the same name. Miranda Miller’s (Duff) mission in life is to make her ten-year-old daughter Bailey the most successful child pageant contestant in the United States. A former teenage pageant queen herself, Miranda dreams of endorsement deals, beauty brands, maybe even a TV show. Bailey, however, wants none of it. She’s been doing pageants since she was three months old and is burned out.
But Miranda can’t imagine slowing down. In fact, she’s seven months pregnant and already mapping out her unborn daughter’s future pageant career. While Miranda is busy building her empire, her husband Ray, a nurse with a hobby of taking random pills, has knocked up the eighteen-year-old granddaughter of one of his hospice patients; and her mother Joan, a widowed shut-in, is plotting a murder with Jesus. It’s all pretty ugly.
Duff, Butler and Silver Tree executive produce alongside Kaplan. 20th TV and Kapital are the co-studios.
Former Lizzie McGuire star Duff most recently headlined Hulu’s How I Met Your Mother offshoot How I Met Your Father, produced by 20th TV. She also starred in the TV Land comedy Younger, which found new popularity on Netflix this year. Duff is repped by CAA, Linden Entertainment and Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks.
This marks the latest collaboration between Butler and Kaplan. He previously worked on Kapital’s series The Neighbors for ABC, Life In Pieces for CBS and HouseBroken for Fox, as well as the HBO Max pilot Delilah. Butler’s series credits also include Only Murders in the Building, Family Guy and The Cleveland Show. He is repped by WME and Jackoway Austen.
Silver Tree recently wrapped the pilot of Prime Video’s YA series Off Campus as director and executive producer. She will next film a block of Netflix’s limited series The Altruists. Silver Tree previously served as director and executive producer on the Netflix dark comedy series No Good Deed. She worked in the same capacity on Paramount+’s Fatal Attraction, HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant Season 2, Netflix’s You Season 3, and Showtime’s Shameless. She is repped by CAA and CAA and Circle Management + Production.
At Hulu, Kapital previously produced the drama series Black Cake.
