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Jay Baruchel is heading to FX.
The Undeclared alum has been tapped to star in FX’s comedy pilot Man Seeking Woman, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Based on Simon Rich‘s book The Last Girlfriend on Earth, the half-hour comedy is described as a sweet and absurd look at the life-and-death stakes of dating.
Baruchel will play Josh Greenberg, a naive romantic on a desperate quest for love. When his girlfriend dumps him, Josh enters the dating scene — a nightmarish hellscape of untold horror. Despite the agony, Josh continues his search in the hopes of finding someone who will make the misery worth it.
Man Seeking Woman was created by Saturday Night Live‘s Rich, who executive produces and serves as showrunner. Jonathan Krisel (SNL, Portlandia) will exec produce and direct the pilot, which hails from FX Productions and Lorne Michaels‘ Broadway Video. Michaels will also exec produce. The pilot will be filmed in the spring in Toronto.
The casting marks a return to series television for Baruchel, who most recently had roles in features This Is the End, Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder and has Robocop and the sequel to How to Train Your Dragon coming up. He also wrote, produced and starred in last year’s critical Seann William Scott hockey dramedy Goon. Baruchel broke out with his starring role in Judd Apatow‘s Freaks & Geeks follow-up Fox comedy Undeclared and last year developed a semi-autobiographical comedy for ABC. He’s repped by CAA, Thruline and Lichter Grossman.
This marks the latest casting coup for FX, which has pilots in the works starring Billy Crystal, Tracy Morgan and Michael Cera as well as Zach Galifianakis. Fun fact: Baruchel’s Undeclared co-star Seth Rogen also has an animated series (Bigfoot) coming up at the network.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
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