Naomi Watts is set to star in the long-awaited second season of the FX anthology series Feud, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
- This news of a second season of Feud comes five years after the first season debuted on FX.
- The series is produced by Ryan Murphy and Gus Van Sant is set to direct with Jon Robin Baitz writing and serving as showrunner.
- The second season will be subtitled Capote’s Women and will be based on Laurence Leamer’s book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era.
- Capote’s Women will be set in the 1970s and will tell the story of how the author had a bitter falling out with a number of New York society women – including Barbara “Babe” Paley, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy’s sister) Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill and C.Z. Guest – whom he called his “swans.”
- Struggling with writer’s block following the publication of In Cold Blood, Capote attempted to write a novel titled Answered Prayers. He eventually published a piece of it, “La Côte Basque 1965,” in Esquire. The very thinly veiled fiction revealed a number of scandals among the circle of women.
- Watts, a two-time Academy Award nominee, will play Paley, the wife of then-CBS chairman Bill Paley, in the series and serve as an executive producer.
- Casting searches are underway for actors to play Capote and the other women.
- The first season of the series was titled Feud: Bette and Joan and followed the rivalry between Hollywood icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of the 1962 camp classic film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.
- FX previously had plans for a second season following the dissolution of the marriage between England’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana but eventually scrapped the idea.