Eric Roberts to play wealthy businessman on "Crash"

Actress Eric Roberts, one of the stars of the television comedy series ''Less Than Perfect'', poses as he arrives for the 73rd annual Hollywood Christmas Parade in Hollywood November 28, 2004.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Eric Roberts is joining the cast of the Starz series "Crash."

On the second season of the drama, Roberts is joined by five other new cast members: Dana Ashbrook, Linda Park, Jake McLaughlin, Tess Harper and Julie Warner.

Dennis Hopper is back, along with fellow returning cast members Ross McCall, Jocko Sims and Moran Atias.

The new season's first episode is slated to debut Friday, September 18.

The Los Angeles-set show -- the pay channel's first original drama series -- will continue to revolve around the intersecting lives of Angelenos from different social strata.

Roberts will play Seth, a billionaire entrepreneur who plans to give Los Angeles a long-desired new professional football team. Ashbrook ("Twin Peaks") will play Jimmy, a charismatic gambler who plays fast and loose with the law. Park ("Jurassic Park III") will play Maggie, a children's book author who writes of a joyful life but has trouble living it.

McLaughlin ("In the Valley of Elah") will play Bo, a former high school pitching ace and shoo-in for the big league who has been derailed by a career-ending injury. Harper ("No Country for Old Men") will play his mother, Wendy, a middle-class San Fernando Valley shop owner forever reliving Bo's glory days; and Warner ("Doc Hollywood") will play Andrea, ambitious and manipulative right-hand woman to Seth.

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)