EXCLUSIVE: The Morning Show is staging a Must See TV reunion. Emmy winner Sean Hayes is joining the upcoming fifth season of the Apple TV drama series, headlined by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, for a major recurring role. He will play Wyatt, Bro’s (Boyd Holbrook) quick-witted older brother and manager.
Aniston and Hayes starred in NBC’s top two comedy series of the early 2000s, Friends and Will & Grace, respectively. Friends helped launch Will & Grace during its freshman 1998-99 season, serving as the newbie’s lead-in on Thursday for the last five episodes. Starting with the 2000-01 season until Friends’ end in May 2004, Friends and Will & Grace were the 8 PM and 9 PM comedy tentpoles of NBC’s Must See TV Thursday night lineup.
Hayes is the latest big name recurring cast addition to Season 5 of The Morning Show, joining Jeff Daniels, Reneé Rapp and Jesse Williams.
Along with Aniston and Witherspoon, the ensemble cast of the Apple series includes Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Karen Pittman, Nicole Beharie and Jon Hamm. The Morning Show, which hails from television studio Media Res, is showrun and executive produced by Charlotte Stoudt, and directed and executive produced by Mimi Leder.
This marks the biggest drama series commitment to date for Hayes whose only previous credit in the genre was a three-episode arc on NBC’s musical drama Smash.
He won an Emmy Award for his role as Jack McFarland on Will & Grace. In 2023, he won the Tony Award for his performance in Good Night, Oscar, and recently earned a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for the production’s West End transfer. Hayes is currently appearing in the Off-Broadway solo thriller The Unknown. He also co-hosts the popular podcast SmartLess, alongside Jason Bateman and Will Arnett. Hayes was repped in the deal by Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.