Apple TV+ fan-favourite to add Oscar-winner next season – and I'm thrilled

Apple has added a massive new star to one its flagship shows, according to a new report. 

Variety's sources say that The Morning Show will add Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard for its fourth season, in what must be considered a bit of a coup for Apple's streaming service.

When it first made a splash with a new streamer and every intention of disrupting what was then a bit of a duopoly between Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, The Morning Show was at the centre of Apple's strategy to build the best streaming service out there.

With major stars in the form of Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carrell and Reese Witherspoon, it had the glitz and production values that Apple wanted to demonstrate it could bring to the table, along with a surprisingly fantastic role for Billy Crudup.

He's scooped up an Emmy already for playing Corey Ellison, the embattled executive trying to keep his network on the rails, and dancing with professional death at every turn.

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Now it would seem another player is entering the fray – Cotillard will apparently play Celine Dumont, who was described to Variety as "a savvy operator from a storied European family". That might mean we're getting more from the world of legacy media in the next season, which will only make comparisons to HBO's now-finished masterpiece, Succession, more obvious.

It's not a comparison that does brilliantly for The Morning Show, which has had a more mixed critical reception, and that's fair enough – it's not as funny or clever as HBO's show was, for all that it's set in the same world.

Still, it's also more of a drama and less of a dramedy, and I've solidly enjoyed its first three seasons – and, in particular, how it's handled its foundational questions about workplace harassment and power structures with some actual sensitivity and empathy. 

It'll be fascinating to see where the show goes in its fourth season, but there's never really a downside to adding an actor as impressive as Cotillard to your cast. It's also particularly impressive to have roped her in given how little TV she's appeared in over the course of her career so far.

With the third season only having dropped in late 2023, though, it's unlikely that we'll get much of a sniff of The Morning Show season 4 until sometime in 2025, so you might just have to keep an ear out for more casting news in the meantime.