After supporting turns in collection reminiscent of “American Horror Story,” “Empire,” and “Difficult People,” Gabourey Sidibe is ready to topline “1266.” Deadline experiences that Onyx has ordered a pilot for the comedy, which is impressed by the Oscar nominee’s life.
The potential collection follows “Gabby Brixton (Sidibe), who’s living with her mom and making half-hearted attempts to become a singer/model and overnight millionaire. When she’s fired from her job, she stumbles upon the gig of a lifetime ― phone sex. What initially seems like a quick way to make money turns into a life-changing experience when she meets the women who become her chosen family and learns how powerful, profitable and prolific her voice can be.”
In 2021, Sidibe shared extra about that chapter of her life. “I started as a talker, and after two months, I was promoted and then eventually became a monitor. So my job, day in, day out, was to listen to phone-sex calls for quality insurance and to make sure the rules were being followed and what have you,” she defined. “And that was my life at the point. I had been there for three years and I knew women who were at that company for 15, 20 years, which is a long time. I don’t know what people think phone sex is, but it’s exactly what I said. It’s phone sex. It’s with random strangers and people who are paying for it. Not everyone is nice. There are very few phone calls that you might enjoy doing, and it can be very degrading work and I couldn’t imagine doing it for much longer.”
Sidibe, Thembi Banks (“Only Murders in the Building”), and Julie Bean (“grown-ish”) are among the many venture’s exec producers. The latter two will function co-showrunners, and Banks is penning the teleplay and directing the pilot.
In 2010 Sidibe acquired an Oscar nod for her main position in “Precious.” Her memoir, “This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare,” was printed in 2017.