Jon Voight, Elliott Gould join Showtime's 'Ray Donovan' pilot

Liev Schreiber stars in the troubleshooting drama

By Daniel FienbergThursday, Feb 9, 2012 5:55 PM

Jon Voight from his "24" days

Credit: FOX

Jon Voight and Elliott Gould are the latest actors to join Liev Schreiber in Showtime's drama pilot "Ray Donovan."

Created by Ann Biderman ("Southland"), "Ray Donovan" features Schreiber as a Los Angeles-based professional troubleshooter, hired to make even the biggest problems disappear. Naturally, as befits an quality Vocational Irony Narrative, Ray can fix everybody's troubles except for the problems in his own life, specifically with his family.

Eddie Marsan and Dash Mihok are already attached as Ray's brothers, while Paula Malcomson will play his wife.

Voight will play Ray's father Mickey, an ex-convict who leaves jail and decides to return to LA to reconnect with his family.

Gould will have a recurring role as Ezra Goodman, a powerful lawyer who is Ray's mentor and confidante, but also fighting early stages of dementia.

An Oscar winner for "Coming Home" and a nominee for "Midnight Cowboy," "Runaway Train" and "Ali," Voight has Emmy nominations for the telefilms "Uprising" and "Pope John Paul II." He was most recently seen on the small screen in FOX's "24."

Guild was nominated for an Oscar for "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" and a Golden Globe for "MASH," but a generation of viewers probably know the "Long Goodbye" star either as Ross and Rachel's father on "Friends" or as one of the stars of Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean" franchise.

Production on the "Ray Donovan" pilot will begin in Los Angeles early this year.

Daniel Fienberg
Executive Editor

A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.

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Ray

Sounds like another interesting series for Showtime. But I'm wondering: when would this (and Masters of sex as well) air? Given the rest of their shows, the only time they'd have a Sunday night timeslot open would be in the summer, but certainly they won't be ready by then. Then you got Dexter/Homeland in the fall, Shameless/House of Lies/Californication in the winter, and Nurse Jackie/The Big C/The Borgias in the spring. Even in the summer they'll still have Weeds and Episodes to worry about, so they'd only have time for one of them, not both.

Showtime needs to either cancel some of their shows (*cough* Dexter *cough*) or schedule some of them on another day of the week.
February 9, 2012 at 7:22PM EST Reply to Comment
- Ray - Realistically, there's no reason to think *both* this and "Masters of Sex" will be ordered to series. But Showtime can always branch into Mondays again? Or... other things. They definitely need more programming in the pipeline, especially if Dexter only has two seasons left in it...
  
  -Daniel
  February 9, 2012 at 7:43PM EST