Marisa Tomei Joins ‘Empire’ Cast: ‘My Cousin Vinny’ Actress Takes Recurring Guest Star Role [Video]
Marisa Tomei is now part of the Empire team. Marisa just landed a guest star role that will recur throughout season 2 for the popular Fox show, reported Deadline.
Tomei will be featured as in the role of venture capitalist Mimi Whiteman. The character portrayed by Marisa is fond of staying on top of the hottest social trends and upper-class fashion. In addition, Mimi is said to be a billionaire ranked on the Forbes list who is passionate about gorgeous women and hip-hop music.
Although Marisa guest-starred on the FX channel’s Rescue Me, she’s become known primarily for film rather than TV series. However, Tomei currently is starring in and creating a mini-series about feminist Gloria Steinem, which she will co-produce with George Clooney. She’s also set for CBS Films’ Love The Coopers.
Others already on the Empire season 2 guest star list are Lenny Kravitz, Alicia Keys, and Chris Rock. Last season’s roster of famous folks who guest-starred on Empire were Snoop Dogg, Naomi Campbell, and Jennifer Hudson.
Marisa began her acting career on As the World Turns, according to IMDB. Tomei then rose to fame as Joe Pesci’s girlfriend in My Cousin Vinny, for which she took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Marisa also starred in Untamed Heart, Only You, and What Women Want. And Tomei showed her wit when she played herself as a guest star on Seinfeld.
But even with Marisa on its side, will Empire’s opening episode be able to top last season’s finale? The two-hour finale of Empire attracted 17.6 million viewers during its final hours, according to USA Today.
In particular, the show is popular among young adults to middle-aged adults. That highly-coveted viewer group ranging between age 18 to age 49 has made Empire its number one network series. That’s a blow to The Big Bang Theory, which previously was the runaway in the category.
In addition, Fox revealed that the finale of Empire was the number one night for that viewer niche since American Idol‘s 2012 premiere.
Social media also gave Empire‘s send-off a big hand, with 4.2 million U.S. Facebook users producing almost 16 million comments, shares, or Likes. In addition, 2.4 million tweets filled the internet, focusing on Empire.
As the Inquisitr reported, Empire also made history in the courtroom recently when defense attorney Matthew Fletcher was speaking out for Marion “Suge” Knight.
https://youtu.be/t-WWU696CYE
The lawyer created the Empire defense, based on the popular show. In that defense, he claimed that the prosecutor watched Empire and thus had used the fictional plot to concoct the charges and accusations.
“It’s like she watches Empire and comes in and says, ‘He was an unrepentant and shameless criminal. Prosecute him,'” argued Fletcher.
[Photo by Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images for Breyers Gelato Indulgences]
