‘The Comeback’ Season 3 First Look, Andrew Scott Joins Cast

The third season of revived HBO series “The Comeback” has unveiled a first-look image at Lisa Kudrow back in action as actress Valerie Cherish, alongside the news that Andrew Scott is joining the cast. The new season will premiere in March, HBO chief Casey Bloys announced during a HBO Max slate presentation in London on Wednesday night.

Kudrow and her “The Comeback” co-creator Michael Patrick King joined Bloys on stage during the presentation, where they also revealed that the plot of Season 3 revolves around Valerie being cast in the first-ever sitcom written by AI.

“The joke that’s already played out is that AI is bad,” King said. “I mean, that was two awards shows ago — everybody said, ‘My speech was written by ChatGPT.’ So we had to go deeper and figure out what would be the issue if AI was actually learning fast and that people were trying to stay ahead of it. So yeah, I mean we worried about what’s going to happen to everybody. It feels like a real moment.”

Bloys added that when Kudrow and King pitched Season 3 to him, he encouraged them to get it out there quickly because of the fast-moving nature of the subject. “When we come on in March, we think we might still be a little bit ahead of the curve, but we don’t think anyone will have owned it yet,” King said.

Scott will play a studio head who Kudrow comes up against. “We decided that a very important part of the story would be the person who ran the studio,” King added. “Not the villain, but a very important character, and we got a very important actor to play him.”

When the crowd reacted to that actor being Scott, Kudrow exclaimed: “I know, I almost cried!”

Kudrow also shared that they shot “The Comeback” on the “Friends” sound stage. “I had to guard myself every day that we were on that stage, otherwise I would cry,” she said. “Just because … this trilogy, this character and this show means so much to me, and then ‘Friends’ obviously meant a lot to me too.”

Other returning “The Comeback” cast members including Dan Bucatinsky (who plays Val’s publicist), Laura Silverman (reality show producer, Jane) and Damian Young (Mark, Valerie’s husband).

Though Scott may be best known in the TV world for his role as a hot priest in 2019’s “Fleabag,” he most recently graced the silver screen in the Netflix psychological thriller series “Ripley” and also had a cameo role in Lena Dunham’s latest series “Too Much.”

“The Comeback” originally aired on HBO for a 13-episode season in 2005 before being canceled, and then revived for an eight-episode second season in 2014. Shot in a found-footage style, “The Comeback” follows B-list sitcom actress Valerie Cherish (Kudrow) as she chronicles her return to television after a decade through a reality series. Its second season saw Valerie attempt to producer her own reality TV pilot for famed “Real Housewives” producer Andy Cohen. Further plot details about Season 3 have yet to be released.

Co-created by Kudrow and King, “The Comeback” Season 3 cast also includes Tim Bagley, Matt Cook, Jack O’Brien, Ella Stiller, John Early, Barry Shabaka Henley, Abbi Jacobson, Tony Macht, Brittany O’Grady, Zane Phillips and Julian Stern. Kudrow and Patrick King also executive produce alongside Bucatinsky and John Melfi.

Scott is repped by CAA, United Agents, Relevan and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.