By Nellie Andreeva @ theusdaily.com

 

 

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Meet David E. Kelley’s newest discovery — Charity Wakefield.

 

After making Calista Flockhart a household name by tapping her as the title character in “Ally McBeal,” the prolific producer has cast the 27-year-old English actress as the female lead in “Legally Mad,” his new quirky legal drama for NBC.

Jon Seda also has been cast in the show, in which Wakefield plays a woman who takes a job at her father’s law firm and quickly becomes the practice’s center.

Her character is deeply devoted to her father and chose to work for him despite being offered several prestigious clerkships out of law school. She is easygoing, deadpan funny and disarms with charm.

Seda (“Homicide”) will play a rugged, grumpy but lovable equal-opportunity offender. The two join previously cast Kristin Chenoweth.

Wakefield, a graduate of the Oxford School of Drama, got her break last year as a star of the BBC’s latest adaptation of Jane Austen’s”Sense and Sensibility.” In the miniseries, which aired in the U.S. on PBS, she portrayed Marianne Dashwood, a role played by Kate Winslet in the 1995 feature.

 

Sense and Sensibility’s Charity Wakefield will star in upcoming soap spin-off, Casualty 1907.That period drama is just one of two major projects set to boost her profile this year.

She can also be seen with The Bill’s Amita Dhiri in new movie Act of God.

That thriller will feature Max Brown, who played Mark Russell in the revamped Crossroads.

Peter O’Brien, star of Neighbours, The Bill and Casualty, has also signed up to appear in the big-screen offering.