EXCLUSIVE: The fifth season of Apple TV’s multi-award winning The Morning Show is adding Jesse Williams. The actor will play Vernon, UBN’s newest Head of News, who is known as a brash pot-stirrer with a talent for grabbing and keeping an audience.
Williams joins returning Morning Show cast Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, two-time Emmy Award winner Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Nestor Carbonell, Karen Pittman, Nicole Beharie and Emmy Award winner Jon Hamm, along with newly announced Jeff Daniels.
Season four of The Morning Show” took place in spring 2024, almost two years after the events of season three. With the UBA-NBN merger complete, the newsroom must grapple with newfound responsibility, hidden motives and the elusive nature of truth in a polarized America. In a world rife with deepfakes, conspiracy theories and corporate cover-ups — who can you trust? And how can you know what’s actually real?
The Emmy, SAG and Critics Choice Award-winning series is executive produced by Witherspoon alongside Lauren Neustadter for Hello Sunshine, and also EP’ed by Aniston alongside Kristin Hahn for Echo Fims. Charlotte Stoudt is the showrunner and EP with Mimi Leder EP and director. Other EPs are Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer through Media Res. Zander Lehmann and Micah Schraft also EPs.
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The third season of The Morning Show received 16 Emmy Award nominations and Crudup landed his second Emmy Award win for his turn as Cory Ellison in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category. Crudup also won a Critics Choice Award for his portrayal of Ellison in the show’s third season. Season three was honored by the American Film Institute on its prestigious list of the 10 best television programs of 2023.
Williams is known for playing Dr. Jackson Avery in 277 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. His Broadway debut as Darren Lemming in Take Me Out scored him a Tony Award nomination for Featured Actor – Play in 2022.
Last August, Williams starred in the Amazon Prime Video series Hotel Costiera, which immediately hit #1 on the streamer. On the film side, he most recently co-starred in Max’s The Great Lillian Hall opposite Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates. He has had notable roles in Hulu’s Actor Award winning Only Murders in the Building, the Netflix romantic comedy Your Place or Mine opposite Witherspoon, and Paramount+’s Secret Headquarters with Owen Wilson.
Williams has produced a string of critically acclaimed projects including the 2020 Oscar-winning short Two Distant Strangers (Netflix), Norman Lear’s EPIX docuseries America Divided and the 2025 Sundance-nominated short Hoops, Hopes and Dreams, which premiered on Hulu this past January.
The actor is repped by CAA, Entertainment 360, and Granderson Des Rochers.