Demi Lovato Replaced in New NBC Series by Surprising Modern Family Star

Modern Family and Sofia the First star Ariel Winter has been cast as the lead of NBC’s upcoming multi-camera comedy series Hungry, replacing actor and singer Demi Lovato in the lead role. On Sunday, it was confirmed that Lovato, who has been attached to the project since January of 2021, will be stepping down from acting in the project due to scheduling issues. They will still remain an executive producer on the series alongside their manager, Scooter Braun. This recasting comes as production is just about to begin on the project later this week. 

Hungry follows a group of friends who belong to a food-issues group helping one another as they look for love, success and the perfect thing in the fridge that’s going to make it all better. The pilot will also star Valerie Bertinelli, Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, Ryan McPartlin, Alex Brightman, and Ashley D. Kelley. It is written and executive produced by Suzanne Martin, with James Burrows directing. Other producers on the projects will include Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner via their Hazy Mills banner, alongside SB Projects and Universal Television.

Winter is best known for playing Alex Dunphy across eleven seasons of Modern Family, the award-winning ABC sitcom which came to a close in 2020.

“This is new territory for me,” Winter said of her post-Modern Family life during an interview with Teen Vogue in 2020. “I was doing something very specific for so long. Now I have to reset my mind and retrain myself to be in that place of, ‘All right, I am ready to look for the next thing.’ I am ready to work. I am ready to do everything I can. I am ready to be in the right mindset to go in there again and be able to face the rejection that will come, and be able to move past that and go to the next audition and be ready for it. And be ready for things in my personal life. Just living.”

“I want to stay the same person I am,” Winter continued.  “It’s way more rewarding at the end of the day. I want to stay the person I am, work hard, and see what happens.”

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