HBO Max has given an eight-episode first season order to the Max Original, “Julia” based on the life of world-renowned chef Julia Child. The series from Lionsgate Television and 3 Arts Entertainment starring Sarah Lancashire (“Happy Valley”) and David Hyde Pierce (“Frasier”), directed by Charles McDougall (“House of Cards”) and written by Daniel Goldfarb (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), is scheduled to continue production late spring in Boston, where the pilot was filmed.

“Julia” is inspired by Julia Child’s extraordinary life and her long-running television series, “The French Chef,” which pioneered the now popular genre of cooking shows. Through Julia and her singular can-do spirit, the series explores an evolving time in American history – the emergence of public television as a new social institution, feminism and the women’s movement, the nature of celebrity and America’s cultural growth. At its heart, the series is a portrait of a loving marriage with an evolving and complicated power dynamic. In addition to Lancashire and Hyde Pierce, JULIA stars Brittany Bradford (Broadway’s “Bernhardt/Hamlet”), Fran Kranz (“Homecoming”), Fiona Glascott (“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald”), Bebe Neuwirth (“Madam Secretary”), Isabella Rossellini (“Silent Retreat”) and Jefferson Mays (“I Am the Night”).