The official trailer for CBS’ Cupertino just gave fans their first look at the legal drama featuring Busy Philipps, who appears in a surprising role following her health challenges.
CBS’ Wednesday, September 9, sneak peek featured “a scrappy lawyer takes on a powerful tech giant in a high-stakes legal battle, navigating the cutthroat world of Silicon Valley while fighting for justice and the little guy’s rights,” according to the official synopsis.
Mike Colter and Rachel Keller lead the cast as their characters rebound after they were cut loose from their tech-related jobs, creating their own firm to help those going up against Silicon Valley’s powerful conglomerates.
Philipps, 47, appears in several scenes as Natalie. In a previously released character description, Natalie is described as “the beautiful and delightfully blunt first wife of an AI Billionaire, who divorced her when she turned forty. Now Natalia wants revenge and agrees to finance Michael and Olivia’s start-up law firm in order to go after his and other AI businesses.”
“We are the disrupters now,” Natalie says in one scene. Elsewhere in the trailer, Natalie is seen nonchalantly pulling out a gun from her purse.
Cupertino, which premieres October 8, also stars Ella Stiller, Nik Dodani and Renée Elise Goldsberry. Guest stars include Stephen Kunken, Fisher Stevens and Stephen Pasquale.
After filming season 1, Philipps revealed she underwent surgery in early March — weeks before she started production on Cupertino.
“I’m grateful that I’m alive,” Philipps told People last month while calling this period “the weirdest six months of my life.”
Philipps credited a Prenuvo full-body scan for helping confirm the presence of a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare slow-growing tumor. Philipps underwent surgery, where doctors removed a 2.6-centimeter mass from her brain.
“It is considered malignant, but it has the best prognosis of all of the malignant gliomas,” Philipps’ neuro-oncologist, Dr. Alexandra Miller, told People. “It’s sort of defined as a cancerous tumor based on the ability of the tumor to regrow over time, rather than it looking very malignant under the microscope.”
Philipps recalled facing more challenges when she contracted a staphylococcus on her incision and needed a second surgery for wound debridement. The actress has since taken to social media to thank everyone for their outpouring of support.
“Everyone (mostly) has been so overwhelmingly kind in the past 24 hours, so thank you so much for all your well wishes and love and prayers and support,” she wrote via Instagram in August. “But just to reiterate, because the internet loves a clickbait [story], I AM ALREADY RECOVERED! You all have literally watched me recover since March 2, you just didn’t know it! I AM TOTALLY FINE! YAY MEDICINE!”
Cupertino premieres on CBS Thursday, October 10, at 10 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Paramount+.
