The Princess of Hollywood

The Princess of Hollywood
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Valerie Walsh
Starring	Laura Dern Kelly Bishop Dallas Roberts Halston Sage Emma Kenney Geena Davis Emma Thompson Jane Fonda Stellan Skarsgard Bill Skarsgard Timothee Chalamet
Opening Theme	"Malora's Theme"
Location	Los Angeles, CA
Country Of Origin	United States of America
Number Of Episodes	170
Running Time	22 minutes
Original Channel:	NBC
Original Air Date	25th September 2013 - January 28th 2021
Produced by	NBC Television
Directed by	Various

The Princess of Hollywood is an American television sitcom that airs on NBC. First aired on September 25th 2013, the series was created by Valerie Walsh and focuses on Hollywood actress Malora Wallace, played by Laura Dern, who is trying to revive her career after a 20-year hiatus due to her marriage to the heir to the Swedish throne.

The show also features an ensemble cast, including Wallace's assistant (Halston Sage), her teenage daughter (Emma Kenney), her neurotic best friend (Dallas Roberts) and her alcoholic mother (Kelly Bishop). Additional cast members over the series including Malora's ex-husband, Hans, King of Sweden, played by Stellan Skarsgard; Malora's manager, Rufus, played by Bradley Whitford; and Malora's godmother, Jane Fonda, played by herself. The cast also includes various recurring characters, including Emma Thompson, who plays the head of NBC throughout the show's run, Geena Davis plays Malora's rival Heather in season 1, before returning as a regular in season 5, and Bill Skarsgard recurs in the first three seasons as Hans II, the heir to Sweden's throne and Malora's eldest son. It has been announced that Timothée Chalamet would recur in season 7 as Malora's frequently-mentioned middle child, Antoni. It has also been announced that the series' mockumentary style will be directly addressed in the final season.

The series is presented in mockumentary style, with characters frequently breaking the fourth wall.

The series premiered its seventh season on September 25th 2019. Shortly after, NBC announced an early renewal for the series, confirming a shortened 16-episode eighth season would air during the 2020/21 television season and would serve as a conclusion to the series. By the series finale, the show will have aired 170 episodes.

Over its first four seasons, The Princess of Hollywood was critically acclaimed, but the show became less critically appealing as it progressed. The show won Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys in 2014 and 2015, with Laura Dern earning the Outstanding Leading Actress in a Comedy Series trophy in 2014 and 2016, with Kelly Bishop earning an award in the supporting category in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The series has continued to be nominated throughout its run, but has failed to win since its third season.

Premise

The Princess of Hollywood revolves around Malora Wallace, who until recently was the Princess of Sweden. Before marrying the Hans, the heir apparent of the Swedish Throne in 1989, Malora was a high-profile A-list Hollywood actress. She left the spotlight in Los Angeles to raise the future king of Sweden in Stockholm, however in 2013, just weeks after the death of her father-in-law, her now-reigning husband files for divorce in order to marry his mistress, the Swiss princess, The Duchess of Geneva. Fleeing back to Los Angeles with her tail between her legs and her aspiring-actress daughter in tow, Malora returns to her childhood home in Beverly Hills and tries to reconstruct the career and friendships she threw away over 20 years earlier.

Cast

Main

• Laura Dern as Malora Wallace, a formerly-royal recent divorcée who tries to revitalise her broken Hollywood career.
• Kelly Bishop as Helen Wallace, Malora's alcoholic socialite mother, who managed her career as a child star in the 1970s. She is notoriously a black widow in Hollywood, having been married and widowed 8 times, although she staunchly denies any involvement in their deaths. (Main season 1 - 3, 5 - 8, recurring season 4)
• Halston Sage as Becky Saunders, an aspiring screenwriter who snaps up the job as Malora's assistant just days after moving from Sacramento. She eventually becomes a successful screenwriter and helps with Malora's plot to win an Academy Award before her 50th birthday. (Main season 1 - 4, recurring season 5 - 8)
• Emma Kenney as Anna Svensson, Malora's teenage daughter who wants to be an actress and moves to Los Angeles with her mother after her parent's divorce. She idolises her grandmother, who she tries to convince to launch her career like she did for Malora in the 1970s.
• Dallas Roberts as Benjamin St Clair, a flamboyant Hollywood actor and Malora's best friend, he welcomes her back with open arms but is reluctant to be seen in public with her.
• Geena Davis as Heather Monroe, Malora's former rival-turned-frenemy, the pair starred opposite one another in many films during the late 1980s, while Heather maintained an award-winning career, she continued to be jealous of Malora's marriage. She eventually befriends Malora and they begin working on a movie together, (recurring season 1, main season 5 - 8)

Recurring

• Stellan Skarsgard as Hans, King of Sweden, he is Malora's ex-husband and Anna's father. He tries to make frequent contact with Anna in order to convince her to return to Stockholm and officially become a Swedish princess. He also is ordered by law to support Malora financially. (seasons 2 - 4, 6 - 8)
• Bill Skarsgard as Hans II, Prince of Sweden, Malora's eldest child and the heir to the Swedish throne, he visits his mother on various occasions, usually to inform her of news, such as his wedding and the birth of his first child. He pities his mother and is a harsh critic of his father. (seasons 1 - 3)
• Emma Thompson as Patricia White, the head of NBC television.
• Bradley Whitford as Tom Backcrack, Malora's manager.
• Timothée Chalamet as Antoni Svensson, Malora and Hans second son, who has refused royal titles and lives as a novelist and pianist in Italy, until one of his books is optioned for a movie and he relocates to Los Angeles, where he reluctantly reconnects with his mother and sister. (season 7 - 8)
• Jane Fonda as herself, a close friend of Helen and Malora's godmother. She oversees Malora's behaviour while Helen is in rehab, and then frequents visits more often thereafter. (seasons 4 - 8)

Episodes

Season 1

Season 1 of The Princess of Hollywood premiered on September 25th 2013 and ran for 22 episodes.

Episode	Title	Synopsis	Airdate
1	Pilot	Malora Wallace arrives in Los Angeles with her daughter for the first time in nearly 20 years.	September 25th 2013
2	The First Audition	Malora reconciles with her old manager and has an audition for a soap opera at NBC.	October 2nd 2013
3	My Daughter's An Actress!	Malora enters an existential crisis when Anna informs her that she wants to be an actress.	October 9th 2013
4	The Assistant's Script	Malora discovers her assistant is a screenwriter. Anna and Helen attempt to bond.	October 16th 2013
5	Joker Pants	Benjamin buys Helen a pair of joker pants for her birthday, but she takes them seriously and wears them to a public function, leading to a PR disaster.	October 23rd 2013
6	Hollywood Halloween Spooktacular	Helen decides to throw a Halloween party, much to Malora's dismay. Malora discovers Heather Monroe is moving back to Los Angele after doing Broadway for 2 years.	October 30th 2013
7	The Dinner Party	Malora is surprised when she's invited to one of Heather Monroe's infamous dinner parties. But she's left red-faced when she learns the invite was in fact for Helen.	November 6th 2013
8	Mr and Mrs Swedish America 2013	Tom books Malora as a judge for the Mr and Mrs Swedish America pagent, and Malora learns how little she learnt about Swedish culture during her time there.	November 13th 2013
9	Thanks for What?	Helen organises a thanksgiving dinner, but with Malora's career struggling, she's less than thankful.	November 20th 2013
10	The End of the World as Malora Knows It	Tom threatens to drop Malora as a client unless she agrees to do a nude scene in a new movie by an infamously-perverted director. Helen agrees to become Anna's manager.	November 27th 2013
11	No Thanks, Anna Svensson	Anna's first audition results in a rejection, but a stroke of luck leads her to be cast on a midseason pilot instead. Malora discovers that her daughter's income is higher than her own.	December 4th 2013
12	Beverly Hills 9021-No!	With Christmas around the corner, Anna is hard at work learning her lines for her upcoming pilot, while Malora is solidly unemployed.	December 11th 2013
13	New Malora's Resolutions	Malora is offered a part in a major franchise movie, and on her first day on set, she decides a major overhaul of her diva personality is in order. Meanwhile, Anna and Helen attend Anna's first day on set of her new show.	February 5th 2014
14	Valentine's Dinner	Malora agrees to a date with the director of her new film, completely unaware that he's engaged to Heather Monroe.	February 12th 2014
15	Son of a Who? Part 1	Malora's eldest son arrives in town to announce his engagement.	February 19th 2014
16	Son of a Who? Part 2	Malora struggles to come to terms with the fact that her ex-husband has banned her from re-entering Sweden for their son's wedding.	February 26th 2014
17	Not Today	Becky takes Malora on a road trip to her grandmother's funeral in Sacramento.	March 26th 2014
18	Helen's Hunt	Helen learns that the ashes of actor Edmund Turner are being auctioned secretly at a Beverly Hills hotel, so she uses Anna's connections to find out where.	April 2nd 2014
19	The Lost Jane Fonda Workout	Malora finds an unpublished Jane Fonda workout VHS featuring her mother, and learns that selling it may earn her a pretty penny.	April 9th 2014
20	Nice Try, Wise Guy	Hans II returns to Los Angeles with good news for his mother's financial future.	April 16th 2014
21	Everything's Coming Up Malora Part 1	Malora gets cast as the lead in a new NBC drama, but there's a catch.	April 30th 2014
22	Everything's Coming Up Malora Part 2	Malora agrees to rehire Tom as her manager, but Heather Monroe may be in the way of her future successes.	May 7th 2014