Jessica Alba To Star In & EP ‘Confessions On the 7:45’ Series In Works At Netflix From ‘Encanto’s Charise Castro Smith

Nellie Andreeva
·2 min read

EXCLUSIVE: Jessica Alba has closed a deal to executive produce and headline a series based on Lisa Unger’s international bestseller Confessions on the 7:45, which is in development at Netflix, sources tell Deadline. Charise Castro Smith, co-writer and co-director of Disney’s Oscar-winning Encanto, is attached to adapt Unger’s novel. She also serves as showrunner and executive produces with Alba and 3 Arts’ Michael Rotenberg and Oly Obst.

Confessions on the 7:45 is a psychological thriller in which a working mom (Alba) meets a stranger on a train as she is commuting home who upends her life. As her life unravels and betrayals are revealed, she questions whether we can ever truly know the people closest to us.

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Alba, a working mom herself, had a strong reaction when she read Confessions on the 7:45, leading to her involvement in the project.

“I could not put this book down. The moment I read the line, ‘If you want to keep a secret you must first hide it from yourself,’ I was hooked,” Alba said. “This book is about trying to bury secrets and the shame we carry until the truth exposes us. I can’t think of a more exciting person to partner with on this project. Charise is so ridiculously talented and truly gets every nuance under the skin of these characters and their web of lies.”

This would mark the second project Alba is starring in and executive producing for Netflix. She also has the upcoming action thriller Trigger Warning. In the movie directed by Mouly Surya and produced by Thunder Road, Alba plays an active-duty Special Forces officer who takes ownership of her grandfather’s property after his sudden death.

Alba, a Golden Globe-nominated actress, advocate, bestselling author and founder of The Honest Company, has made more than 25 feature films that have earned a combined box office total of $800 million-plus, including Fantastic Four and Sin City. In TV, she and Gabrielle Union recently headlined and executive produced the action drama series, L.A.’s Finest, which has done well on Netflix following its original run on Spectrum and also aired on Fox. Alba, author of the New York Times bestselling book The Honest Life and co-author of A Bear to Share, is repped by UTA, 3 Arts and Sloane Offer.

This marks Castro Smith’s return to Netflix, where she was a writer-producer on The Haunting of Hill House, earning a WGA Award nomination for her work. Her series credits also include The Exorcist and Sweetbitter. On the feature side, she recently shared an Annie Awards directing nomination with Jared Bush and Byron Howard for Encanto, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. She is repped by UTA and McKuin Frankel Whitehead.

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