{"id":30149,"date":"2026-08-06T19:12:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=30149"},"modified":"2026-08-06T19:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T14:12:50","slug":"cooper-levy-originally-cast-as-manny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=30149","title":{"rendered":"Cooper Levy Originally Cast as Manny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"segment-text-only\">\n<p><strong>Cooper Levy<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> had to get into character twice for <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Anna Pigeon<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight:400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Overcompensating<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> star, who plays Jesse Garland in the new USA series, shared that he was originally cast in <\/span><strong>Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u2019s role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe casting for th<span style=\"font-weight:400\">e show was a little wild,\u201d Levy exclusively told E! correspondent <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/eonline.com\/news\/will_marfuggi\"><strong>Will Marfuggi<\/strong><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> at the Aug. 5 premiere. \u201cOriginally, I was cast as Manny and there was a shift. A week went by, I was Manny and then they called and said, \u2018We want to try just playing Jesse.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">And while Jesse isn\u2019t featured in the original <\/span><strong>Nevada Barr<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> books, Levy revealed his character is the TV counterpart\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/videos\/2510069827783\/tracy-spiridakos-reveals-the-surprising-skill-she-had-to-learn-for-anna-pigeon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noopener noreferrer\">love interest for <\/a><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/videos\/2510069827783\/tracy-spiridakos-reveals-the-surprising-skill-she-had-to-learn-for-anna-pigeon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Tracy Spiridakos<\/strong><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u2019 Anna, detailing, \u201cIn<\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> Track of the Cat<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight:400\">, it\u2019s Rogelio.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cThey were like, \u2018Give it a shot,\u2019\u201d Levy continued. \u201cWe did the chem read and it was a wonderful time. Being Jesse, I was like, \u2018It\u2019s going to be throwing it to the wind and just being a love interest.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Levy emphasized that while taking on the role of Jesse was a bit intimidating, the set couldn\u2019t have felt more comfortable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cooper Levy had to get into character twice for Anna Pigeon.\u00a0 The Overcompensating star, who plays Jesse Garland in the new USA series, shared that he was originally cast in Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz\u2019s role.\u00a0 \u201cThe casting for the show was a little wild,\u201d Levy exclusively told E! correspondent Will Marfuggi at the Aug. 5 premiere. \u201cOriginally,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/akns-images.eonline.com\/eol_images\/Entire_Site\/20260806\/76207ddb-22f9-4cf9-bfb6-27f24757d6b5_1786021135.jpg?fit=around%7C1200:1200&output-quality=90&crop=1200:1200;center,top","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}