In an interesting twist, Fox announced that Megan Fox will be cast in a recurring role in New Girl. The role is designed to fill in the gap that will be left by Zooey Deschanel when she goes on maternity leave.
Fox will be part of the show’s fifth season, which is set to premiere in January. Her role will be as Reagan – a sexy pharmaceutical rep who rents out Jess’ (Deschanel) room while she’s in town for business. Jess, meanwhile, has been called to jury duty and will leave the show by episode six. Her leave will thankfully only be temporary, considering that much of the show hinges on Deschanel’s presence.
Fox, 29, is currently working on several projects, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, which is in post-production and is slated to be released in June of 2016. She was also featured in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2014. The Transformers star has been a bit social media-shy lately, most likely as a result of her split from husband Brian Austin Green. The couple was married for five years, and they have two kids together: Noah, 2, and Bodhi, 19 months. She requested joint custody in her paperwork.
Deschanel currently has one child – a girl – with husband Jacob Pechenik. The two have been married for less than six months, and Deschanel did not make a fuss about the wedding. She recently revealed her post-baby body and appears to be doing well.
On Fox’s role as a funny character, executive producer Liz Meriweather had this to say: “It’s insane to me that such a gorgeous person can be so funny, but I guess we just all have to accept it.” According to Meriweather, Fox was exactly the person the crew had in mind when writing the role of Reagan. An interesting note is that both Fox and Deschanel have long, dark hair and blue eyes – perhaps done on purpose so viewers won’t miss Deschanel too much?
What’s nice about Deschanel’s maternity leave is that the crew won’t have to clumsily tiptoe around her pregnancy. Many shows either write the pregnancy into the plot line (looking at you, Bones) or use strange camera angles and loose, outdated clothing to hide it. Only time will tell what exactly the fifth season of New Girl has in store.