Meryl Streep Joins the Cast of ‘Big Little Lies’

The second season of “Big Little Lies” is getting bigger.

Meryl Streep has been cast in the Emmy-winning HBO series, the network said Wednesday, joining Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon as television continues to attract major stars.

Streep, who received her 21st Oscar nomination this week for “The Post,” has not done much TV work over the years, though she has won three Emmys, the last in 2004 for the HBO miniseries “Angels in America.”

In “Big Little Lies,” Streep’s character comes to the show’s beachside California town “searching for answers” following the death of her son, Perry, played by Alexander Skarsgard. Her character is the mother-in-law of Kidman’s character.

Though HBO hasn’t announced the rest of the cast, the network said it expected that most of the actors from the first season would return. TV Line reported this week that even Skarsgard was expected to return in some way.

The next season will be based on a story by Liane Moriarty, whose book inspired the first season. HBO has not said when it expects the show to return but the earliest it could be on the air would be 2019.