HBO Max Renews 'Julia' For a Second Season

Looks like we'll all be having seconds of Julia, the HBO Max drama based on the life of the famous chef, cookbook author, and television personality Julia Child. The streamer announced that it had renewed the comedy series on the eve of its first season finale, promising more culinary and marital adventures to come in 2023.

The series stars Last Tango in Halifax alum Sarah Lancashire as the titular Julia, and the series is inspired by Child's life and her long-running cooking show The French Chef, which essentially pioneered the entire idea of food television as we understand it today. From Child’s perspective, the series explores the emergence of public television as a new social institution; feminism and the women’s movement; and the ever-evolving nature of celebrity in America.

“Julia Child tends to make people happy," Executive Producers Chris Keyser and Daniel Goldfarb said in a statement. "In a bleak world, she is a welcome balm. Making this show has done the same for us. Working with our cast—with Sarah and David—our production team, writers, directors, and editors, who have become our friends, makes us happy. In the language of Julia, it feeds our souls. The genuine love and care that HBO Max has shown for our show has been overwhelming. They allowed us to tell the simple story of a group of remarkable, oddball, passionate people, who joyfully live their lives to the fullest. That we get to keep them alive for another season makes us the happiest of all, and we are already hard at work.”

The series' cast also includes David Hyde Pierce (Frasier) as Julia's husband Paul; Bebe Neuwirth (Blue Bloods) as Childs's best friend Avis; Brittany Bradford (Fear the Walking Dead) as the WGBH employee who first became a champion of Child's work; Fran Kranz (Dollhouse) as the WGBH producer who helped create The French Chef; and Fiona Glascott (Indian Summers) as the editor who worked on the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. (We're presuming all these folks are back for Season 2.)