Pilot ordered for TV series about a Filipina doctor

SHANNYN SOSSAMON

A television pilot is in the works centering around a Filipina doctor, who becomes an undocumented immigrant.

Shannyn Sossamon has been cast as the lead character. Sossamon is of Irish, French, Dutch, Hawaiian Filipino, German and English descent, Deadline reports.

The Cleaning Lady is a drama based on the Argentinian series La Chica Que Limpia. 

The American remake is being written by Miranda Kwok and directed by Michael Offer, the pilot is a project of Kwok, Melissa Carter, Shay Mitchell’s Amore & Vita Productions, Warner Bros TV and Fox Entertainment. Mitchell, who starred in Pretty Little Liars, is a Filipina Canadian.

A Deadline synopsis of the one-hour darkly aspirational character drama tells the story of a Filipina doctor, Reyna Salonga played by Sossamon, who comes to the US for a medical treatment to save her ailing son. But when the system fails and pushes her into hiding, she refuses to be beaten down and marginalized. Instead, she becomes an on-call cleaning lady for the mob. Willing to do anything to save her son, Reyna walks the tightrope of morality, breaking the law for all the right reasons — and eventually forges her own path in the criminal underworld as she starts playing the game by her own rules.

Kwok, who will executive produce The Cleaning Lady, wrote and produced the CW Network's The 100, which will enter its seventh and final season later this year.

Sossamon, 31, was born in Hawaii and raised in Reno, Nevada. Her grandmother is of Hawaiian and Filipino descent.

The actress starred opposite Heath Ledger in A Knights Tale. After that role, she was cast as the love interest in several films and co-starred on the series, Wayward Pines and Sleepy Hollow.