Hey all you cool cats and kittens! Kate McKinnon is here as the most suitable copycat embodying Carole Baskin.
The Saturday Night Live star, who signed on to star as the big cat enthusiast in the Tiger King miniseries coming to Peacock, NBC and USA, was spotted in her Baskin-best while filming in Queensland, Australia on Thursday, Oct. 7. For her on-screen look, the 37-year-old actress wore a leopard and floral-patterned sweater paired with a pair of denim and a cardigan—with long blonde extensions to boot. Pictured alongside her was co-star Kyle MacLachlan, who will play Carole's husband, Howard Baskin. For his part, he rocked grey hair, glasses and a short-sleeve flannel shirt.
The miniseries, which has a working title of Joe Exotic, will also have actor John Cameron Mitchell star as Joseph Maldonado-Passage, a.k.a., Joe Exotic himself. Audiences were first introduced to the controversial CEO of Big Cat Rescue when her rivalry with zookeeper Joe was placed front and center in the Netflix series, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness.
Per UCP, the studio company producing the series, "Joe Exotic is a limited series based on true events following Carole Baskin (McKinnon), a big cat enthusiast, who learns that when fellow exotic animal lover Joe "Exotic" Schreibvogel is breeding and using his big cats for profit, she sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry. But Carole has a checkered past of her own and when the claws come out, Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy. The results prove dangerous."
And just what does Carole think of Kate portraying her on the small screen? Carole called her "a wonderful actress" in a statement about the project and requested that the show use only CGI tigers instead of real ones.
The series is set to follow the ongoing battle between Carole and other members of the animal rescue community, including Joe—who btw, is currently serving time in prison after being charged with two counts of attempted murder-for-hire for an alleged plot targeting Baskin.
E!, UCP, NBC, Peacock, and USA are all part of the NBCUniversal family.