Summer Roberts is going Southern belle again.
Entertainment Weekly reports that Rachel Bilson has been cast as a series regular in CMT's country music drama Nashville. The news comes after the recent departure of Connie Britton, whose lead character Rayna James died last month after succumbing to injuries from a car crash.
No details about the new character played by Bilson have been revealed just yet, though we're pulling for a big-haired country crooner with an axe to grind. The 35-year-old actress famously played Summer on four season of teen drama The O.C. before taking on the role of a New York doctor, Zoe Hart, who moves to Alabama in CW's Hart of Dixie. This will be her first major TV project since Hart of Dixie finished its 4-season run in 2015.
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She's not the only new face who'll be hanging around Music City. Kaitlin Doubleday, best known for playing the dearly departed Rhonda Lyon on Empire, will also be joining the cast for the second half of season 5. No return date has been announced.
“We welcome Rachel and Kaitlin into our incredibly talented ensemble,” Nashville showrunner Marshall Herskovitz told EW. “We fondly anticipate the second half of the season filled with surprising twists and turns that make Nashville so beloved by the fans.”
Both actresses have shared photos from their new hometown.
Doubleday, no stranger to musical dramas, shared a snap of the Bluebird Cafe.
"This will definitely be a change of pace!" she wrote.
"Music City, here I come," Bilson, who has a 2-year-old daughter with fiancé Hayden Christensen, captioned her shot of Highway 65 Records.
Now, here comes the big questions: Can these gals belt out some Reba-style ballads, will they butt heads with Hayden Panettiere's Juliette Barnes, and can they fill Rayna's giant cowboy boots? Stay tuned, y'all.
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