Hulu's upcoming "Veronica Mars" revival already has a pretty stellar cast, featuring both beloved original characters and intriguing (and Kristen Bell-adjacent) newcomers. Now, a huge star has just joined the latter camp.

TVLine reports that J.K. Simmons has signed on for a key role in the eight-episode limited series. The Oscar-winning actor will be playing someone who has a connection to a character not seen since the third season of the show's original run.

Here's the lowdown on the actor's role:

Simmons’ character, Clyde Prickett, is an ex-con who served 10 years for racketeering, and was smart enough to be the first guy in Chino to offer protection to Neptune’s richest real estate developer, Big Dick Casablancas (David Starzyk), on Big Dick’s first day in prison. Now a free man, Clyde works as Big Dick’s fixer. He’s the smarter and more dangerous of the pair, and he has a network of fellow ex-cons he can count on to keep his own hands clean.

We're guessing that Clyde and Dick's dirty deeds will have some connection to the larger mystery of the new season, which revolves around the murder of spring break revelers in Neptune. Veronica (Kristen Bell) is hired by one victim's family to help crack the case, and is thrust into a dispute between the city's wealthy elite, who would rather the partying come to an end, and the working class population, which depends on the annual cash influx that's being hampered by the crime spree.

The "Veronica Mars" cast also includes Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni, Percy Daggs III, Francis Capra, Max Greenfield, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and Patton Oswalt. The revival will hit Hulu sometime in 2019.

[via: TVLine]