Judy Reyes (Scrubs) is joining lead actress Justina Machado (One Day at a Time) in a recurring role in the upcoming Amazon Studios series The Horror of Dolores Roach.
Originally a one-woman play and then a podcast, the 8-episode series will follow “Magic Hands” Dolores Roach (Machado), an ex-convict who returns to her home of Washington Heights where she reunites with a stoner friend who allows her to set up a massage parlor in the basement of his rundown empanada shop.
“We at Amazon Studios fell in love with this story along with everyone else as the podcast captured listeners,” Marc Resteghini, head of development at Amazon Studios, said earlier this year. “We couldn’t be more excited and fortunate to be working with such world-class creatives to bring Dolores Roach to screen in what is sure to be a captivating series.”
Reyes will play Marcie, the neighborhood marijuana dealer who reaches out to Dolores to see if she wants to work together, but soon becomes her nemesis when Dolores turns the job down.
“Killing it!” Reyes wrote on Instagram along with a screenshot of an article from Deadline.
In the original stage production and podcast, Dolores was played by Daphne Rubin-Vega (In the Heights). The story is described as “a grotesque Sweeney Todd-inspired tale of eat or be eaten – a macabre urban legend of love, betrayal, weed, gentrification, cannibalism and survival of the fittest.”
Rubin-Vega will join the production as an executive producer along with Gloria Calderón Kellett (One Day at a Time) and others. “This is gonna be killer! Literally!!” Calderón Kellett wrote on Instagram. “So excited to also have this show that I’m executive producing shooting in Toronto!”
Reyes will next be seen alongside Isabela Merced (Dora and the Lost City of Gold) in the romantic drama Turtles All the Way Down, which is based on the 2017 novel of the same name by author John Green.