VIDEO : Leighton Meester Opens Up About New TV Role

Leighton Meester?s new role as a sharply-opinionated single mother in the ABC fall comedy ?Single Parents? may seem like a departure for the one-time ?Gossip Girl? star, but the actress said it?s a role that better reflects her current life and interests.
?I hadn?t been actively seeking [to play a mom], but I think it makes sense to me,? Meester, herself the mother of a young child, said in an interview with TheWrap. ?Those roles, by their nature, are given the room to have a little bit more depth. ? After having a kid, watching roles come in, I connect to those types of roles more now.?
Much like ?New Girl,? co-creator Elizabeth Meriwether and J.J. Philbin?s last project, ?Single Parents? revolves around a group of oddballs ? in this case, solo parents of elementary school-aged kids (widowed, divorced, never married ? the show, at least for the time being, is less interested in their backstories than their current realities). The pack of misfits develop a borderline co-dependent friendship out of proximity and necessity.
Meester stars as Angie, the de facto leader of the group ? part-carpool network, part-support system ? who has little patience for Will (Taran Killam), an eager new class parent whose whole life has been consumed by attending to the needs of his daughter. Brad Garrett, Kimrie Lewis and Jake Choi also star.