· Nick Nolte is in final negotiations to join the Michael Mann-directed HBO series Luck, about the world of horse racing. The series, created by horse-owner David Milch, previously cast Dustin Hoffman in the lead role an intuitive veteran gambler. Kevin Dunn also joins the cast as a prodigious misanthrope who is the ringmaster of a syndicate of misfits. If negotiations go through, Nolte will play the trainer of a top racehorse. John Ortiz and Dennis Farina round out the cast. Nolte's last major TV part was over three decades ago, in an ABC miniseries called Rich Man, Poor Man. [THR]
Tom Cavanagh finds another role as an Ed, Jean Smart lands a tropical vocation, and more TV Bites after the jump.
· Tom Cavanagh, star of the vastly underrated Ed, will hopefully return to television as the title character in ABC's pilot Edgar Floats, a character-driven procedural from Life creator Rand Ravich. The series focuses on a police psychologist who moonlights as a bounty hunter and "understands everyone but himself." Robert Patrick and Alicia Witt round out the cast. [EW]
· Hawaii Five-O has recruited another established actor to its cast: Jean Smart (Samantha Who?) will play Hawaii Governor Pat Jameson. [THR]
· The writing seems to be on the wall for CBS's Numb3rs, whose cast member Rob Morrow has joined Jerry Bruckheimer's legal drama The Whole Truth at ABC. The project already stars Joely Richardson as a prosecutor who regularly faces a defense attorney played by Morrow in court. [EW]
· In other casting news, the David E. Kelley dramedy pilot Kindreds, which is retinkering its lead role for Kathy Bates, has cast Brittany Snow (American Dreams). The project follows a miserable former patent lawyer (Bates) and her group of misfit associates at a storefront law firm. Snow will play her assistant. [THR]
· Whew! NBC has renewed its deal to televise the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants. [THR]