Jean Smart joins Families Stone cast

Jean Smart will play Craig T. Nelson's love interest in The Families Stone.

The Hacks actress has signed up to star in the long-awaited sequel to the 2005 romantic comedy as the new partner of Kelly Stone, following the death in the first film of family matriarch Sybil Stone, who was played by the late Diane Keaton.

News of Jean's casting comes just days after it was announced most of the cast of the original, including Claire Danes, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Rachel McAdams, would be back for the sequel.

Joining them will be Dermot Mulroney was Everett Stone, Luke Wilson as Ben Stone, Tyrone Giordano as Thad Stone, Elizabeth Reaser as Susannah Stone, Paul Schneider as Brad Stevenson and Brian White as Patrick Thomas.

The official logline for The Families Stone reads: “Twenty years after their mother’s passing, the Stone family reunites for Christmas only to face the season’s biggest surprise: their father has unexpectedly invited the woman he’s fallen in love with to meet the family.”

The original movie followed eldest son Everett as he brought girlfriend Meredith (Parker) home to meet his family for Christmas, when he planned to propose. But after Meredith received a hostile reception, she asked her sister Julie (Danes) to join her for support, sparking further complications.

Director Thomas Bezucha first revealed he was working on a sequel a month after Stone family matriarch Diane passed away in October 2025 at the age of 79.

He told CNN: "I’ve been haunted by the loss of Sybil for months now while I worked on it, and so this was a blow on a tender bruise already. Mentally, I’ve been spending time in that house where I’ve been missing her for a while already.”

As well as wanting to "honour her even more" with the sequel, Bezucha is even more motivated to "do a good job by the rest of the cast".

Although Parker is "excited" for a sequel to The Family Stone, she called it a "bittersweet quandary" because of Keaton's death.

In January, she told Variety: "I’m so excited … but it’s a rather bittersweet quandary given the loss of Diane Keaton.

"But it was a very special group of actors, and prior to Diane’s passing, there had been conversations with everybody, so I hope that we’ll be able to.

And Wilson thinks the sequel will be "even more meaningful" following the death of Keaton.

He said: “Tom Bezucha is a great writer and a great director, and I read the script, and it’s really funny, and it’s so nice that everybody wants to work together again.