Riverdale star Mark Consuelos has been cast in a recurring role in HBO Max’s political drama The Girls on the Bus, according to Deadline. The series will follow all the drama and political action that comes from a Presidential election in the US, from the perspective of the journalists covering it all. Consuelos is said to play one of the presidential hopefuls.
While the series will be based on fictional events with fictional characters, it is in part inspired by Tim Crouse’s 1973 book The Boys on the Bus, about the life on the road of journalists tasked with covering the 1972 Presidential Election, and Amy Chozick’s 2018 book Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling, about the 2008 and 2016 elections. The Girls on the Bus will star Melissa Benoist as Sadie McCarthy, a young journalist who “romanticizes” Crouse’s book and decides to leave her life behind to get her own chance to cover a campaign. The presidential hopeful Consuelos will be playing is said to be a popular action movie star-turned-politician. He decides to run for President after a Twitter poll showed “46 percent of Americans would vote for him — regardless of party affiliation.” The series is also set to star Carla Gugino, Christina Elmore, Brandon Scott, Griffin Dunne, and more.
Consuelos got his start with his popular run on the hit soap opera All My Children. Since then, he has starred in series like 1-800-Missing, Pitch, and Alpha House. Recently, Consuelos has spent multiple seasons as the main antagonist, Hiram Lodge, on the hit teen drama Riverdale. He has also had guest roles in hit series like American Horror Story and Only Murders In The Building.
The Girls on the Bus comes from writers Chozick and Julie Plec. Plec is a seasoned television writer who has previously created series like The Vampire Diaries and The Originals. Meanwhile, Chozick is a political journalist who was a member of the traveling press for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008 and covered Clinton’s 2016 Presidential campaign for The New York Times. The Girls on the Bus will also be executive produced by Chozick, Plec, Rina Mimoun, Greg Berlanti, and Sarah Schechter.
A release date for the HBO Max series has yet to be announced but stay tuned to Collider for any future updates on The Girls on the Bus. Watch a trailer for the upcoming content coming to HBO Max and read the official series description below:
The Girls On The Bus centers on Sadie McCarthy (Melissa Benoist), a journalist who romanticizes Tim Crouse’s Boys on the Bus book and who scrapped her whole life for her own shot at covering a presidential campaign for the paper of record. Sadie hits the trail and eventually bonds with three female competitors, Grace (Carla Gugino), Lola (Natasha Behnam), and Kimberlyn (Christina Elmore). Despite their differences, the women become a found family with a front-row seat to the greatest soap opera in town: the battle for the White House.
