Saturday Night Live stalwart Colin Jost is looking to take on a completely new challenge with his next project.
The 43-year-old is executive producing a new Peacock drama series based on a true crime podcast. If the show is picked up, he will also star as the main character.
Jost, who joined the hit NBC sketch show in 2005 as a writer before replacing Seth Meyers on the “Weekend Update” desk in 2014, also took up hosting duties for Prime Video’s Pop Culture Jeopardy! in 2024.
The project represents a new frontier for Jost, who has previously dabbled in acting, appearing in Fly Me to the Moon alongside his wife, Scarlett Johansson, How to Be Single, and the upcoming comedy The Breadwinner. He has not previously starred in or executive produced a dramatic series.
The series will chronicle the saga of dentist-turned-drug kingpin Larry Lavin, with Jost set to star as Lavin. While it is currently untitled, it is based on season one of the true crime podcast Wolves Among Us.
The official description for the project states, “By day, Larry Lavin was a respected Ivy League dentist and family man—by night, the East Coast’s most elusive cocaine kingpin. This series is inspired by the shocking and absurd true story of the suburban dentist who built a drug empire behind the façade of the American dream.”
The Goldbergs’ showrunner Alex Barnow will serve as showrunner as well as an executive producer. Lavin himself will also be an executive producer on the show.
Lavin, a suburban dentist, was the founder of the “Yuppie Conspiracy,” a drug operation based out of Philadelphia that distributed as much as 110 pounds of cocaine a month across 14 states, Washington D.C., and Canada, between 1978 and 1984.
Following his 1984 arrest, Lavin and his family fled from authorities, living on the run for two years until he was eventually captured in 1986. He was sentenced to 42 years in prison; it would later be reduced to 21 years on appeal.
