ABC sets Pace for "Daisies"

By Nellie Andreeva

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Lee Pace is set as the lead, a man who can touch the dead and bring them back to life, in ABC's drama pilot "Pushing Daisies,"
Barry Sonnenfeld is directing the romantic high-concept procedural.

Pace, who gained notice as the star of Showtime's "Soldier's Girl," most recently was seen in Universal Pictures' "The Good Shepherd." His next big-screen work is in Yari Film Group's "Addicted."

In other major pilot castings:
* Mark-Paul Gosselaar is set to star in CBS' untitled Barry Schindel comedy-drama, which revolves around a group of Los Angeles public defenders. Gosselaar will play a charismatic 30-year-old who leaves his life of privilege to run for Congress. He will star opposite Janeane Garofalo, who originally was cast as the head of the Public Defenders' Office but has switched roles to play an irreverent public defender.

* Martin Henderson has been tapped as the male lead, opposite Jordana Brewster, in ABC's drama "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Doug Liman, who directed the hit 2005 feature on which it's based, is directing the pilot.

* Cole Hauser will star in Fox's drama "K-Ville," a buddy cop show set in post-Katrina New Orleans.

* Fox's "Supreme Courtships," which center on the lives of six Supreme Court clerks and the judges they work for, has added two actors to its cast: "That '70s Show" alum Kurtwood Smith as a justice and Zachary Knighton (Fox's "Life on a Stick") as a clerk.

* Paula Newsome ("Little Miss Sunshine") has come on board the Fox drama pilot "Women's Murder Club," playing one of four girlfriends who solve tough murder cases.

* Seth Gabel ("The Da Vinci Code," FX's "Nip/Tuck") will play Jeremy Darling, a member of a rich, powerful family, in the ABC drama pilot "Dirty Sexy Money."