Jean Smart Wants to Appear in the Designing Women Reboot

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Jean Smart approves of the new “Designing Women.”

Smart, who starred on the CBS ensemble sitcom as Charlene Frazier Stillfield, is on board to return for the reboot being developed by ABC. 

“I’m gonna try to definitely make an appearance,” Smart told Variety on Thursday night at the premiere of her latest film, “Life Itself.” “As a matter of fact, I was talking to [show creator] Linda Bloodworth-Thomason just today. It’ll be interesting to see. She hasn’t sent me the script yet.”

Smart described the new series as a “‘Designing Women’ next generation, with our kids.” The original ran for seven seasons before ending in 1993.

Yesterday’s news of the reboot came just hours after Thomason claimed in The Hollywood Reporter that former chairman-CEO Leslie Moonves sabotaged her career, keeping her on contract for seven years while nixing all of her show ideas.

Smart said she wasn’t aware of Moonves’ alleged treatment of Thomason. “Les did things a certain way that I didn’t always appreciate, but no, I had no idea that Linda was going through that,” she said. “I was shocked.”

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Smart added, “I just texted her and I said, ‘Oh my God, Linda. You go, girl.'”

Moonves was ousted from CBS on Sunday after he was accused by several women of sexual assault and harassment. He said in a statement, “Untrue allegations from decades ago are now being made against me that are not consistent with who I am.”

“When ‘Designing Women’ was ended, I wasn’t still on the show, but when it ended, he just did a clean sweep of all the shows about women,” Smart said. “I mean [he] just lined up all these shows that were starring men.”

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