Laura Dern, Issa Rae to Star in, Produce HBO Limited Series The Dolls

Laura Dern and Issa Rae are teaming up to star in and produce the limited series The Dolls, which is now in development at HBO.

Inspired by true events, The Dolls is set in 1983 in two small Arkansas towns, where riots erupted over the Cabbage Patch Dolls craze. The series explores class, race, privilege and what it takes to be a “good mother,” per Deadline.

The two leads both have stellar track records at HBO, for which Dern most recently starred in the Emmy-nominated film The Tale, and Rae in the third season of Insecure, which she co-created with Larry Wilmore and has been renewed for a fourth season. Dern also recently wrapped production on the second season of Big Little Lies, for which she picked up both an Emmy and Golden Globe for her performance as the cutthroat Renata Klein in its first season.

Dern and Rae will both also serve as executive producers on the series, as well as writers and co-executive producers Laura Kittrell and Amy Aniobi, plus Jayme Lemons of Dern’s Jaywalker Pictures and Deniese Davis of Issa Rae Productions.

On the film side, Dern is currently in production on Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and, up next, is set to star opposite Allison Janney in Tate Taylor’s Breaking News in Yuba County. Rae recently made her film debut in The Hate U Give, and is also set to star in Universal’s Little with Regina Hall and Black-ish breakout Marsai Martin, out next spring.