It’s not a question of if but when JoAnna García Swisher will join her Reba costars on Happy’s Place — and it sounds like she has her pick of possible roles on the show.
During the NBCUniversal Backlot Summer Experience on Monday, August 4, Happy’s Place creator Kevin Abbott addressed when Swisher, 45, would guest star, teasing to Us Weekly and other reporters, “We are working on that. We really, really want JoAnna to be on the show.”
Abbott, who worked on Reba, said there wasn’t a specific character they had in mind for Swisher.
“We have a couple of roles that we are juggling to decide which would be the most fun for her,” he noted. “Because we don’t want to bring somebody on and just have them be on. We want to bring them on and have — even if it’s just for us — a fun reason that they are playing the role that they are playing. But Joanna is at the top of the list of the people we want to bring on as guest stars.”
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Happy’s Place, which premiered in October 2024, brought Reba McEntire and Melissa Peterman back together more than 17 years after their hit series Reba ended its six-year run on The WB. Reba also starred Christopher Rich and Steve Howey — who have made cameos already — and Scarlett Pomers and Mitch Holleman, both of whom have yet to appear on the NBC sitcom.
McEntire, 70, for her part, recently told Us that Swisher is “definitely” next after playing her onscreen daughter in Reba.
“JoAnna is so busy. She’s producing, she’s got three movies and she’s [working on] Sweet Magnolias. So she is a very busy lady but she said she’d definitely be there,” McEntire exclusively confirmed to Us in May. “Melissa Peterman, JoAnna and Steve Howey have been very busy. To get to bring Steve in already for our Christmas episode and to bring Chris [Rich] back in — that was the most special.”
Two months later, Swisher hinted that she would be joining Happy’s Place very soon. “I cannot wait to go shake it up over there with them,” she told Us last month. “Steve Howey has already done it, and Chris Rich has done it.”
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Swisher continued: “This is my family. We are all so very close, but getting the opportunity to slide back into a sitcom stage with all of them would be so exciting. I would not be surprised if that was in the very near future.”
As fans await news on Swisher’s involvement with Happy’s Place, they can still look forward to seeing McEntire, Peterman, 54, Belissa Escobedo, Rex Linn, Pablo Castelblanco and Tokala Black Elk reprise their roles when the show returns for season 2 on November 7.
“We had such success in that first round of the show. It’s always scary to come back together with new people and I was nervous,” Peterman said on Monday about reuniting with McEntire after their time together on Reba two decades prior. “As soon as I met the [rest of the cast], it just felt so very natural. Even after we finished shooting the pilot, I was so proud of what we had done and so happy about it.”
Happy’s Place returns to NBC on Friday, November 7, at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Olivia Bria