'New Girl' season 5 cast news update: Megan Fox joins the series as Zooey Deschanel takes a maternity leave

There's a new girl in town! Entertainment Weekly reports that Megan Fox will be appearing in the fifth season of FOX's "New Girl," which is set to air next year. The casting is in lieu of the show's main star, Zooey Deschanel's maternity leave. USA Today reported last month that the 35-year-old actress and her husband, producer Jacob Pechenik, welcomed a baby girl.

"I am thrilled to confirm that Zooey Deschanel and her husband Jacob Pechenik are new parents to a beautiful healthy baby girl," Lauren Auslander, Deschanel's representative, told USA Today. The pair, who announced their engagement and Deschanel's pregnancy in January, also wed last June in Texas, US Magazine reported.

In season 5, audiences will see Deschanel's Jess holed up in jury duty, as Meriwether told The Hollywood Reporter in May, "Jess gets sequestered on a jury. The idea behind it was to be able to do those pastel courtroom sketches, so you could still see her in the jury. It's a little weird, but we're having fun with it. It's a way to have all of the guys check in with her. They watch the news reports on the trial. And they show being set in L.A., this is a city where celebrities get into trouble and juries really do get sequestered."

Due to Deschanel's absence from New Girl, Fox will portray Reagan, a "gorgeous, straight-shooting pharmaceutical sales rep." The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" star was cast in a multi-episode story arc, in which she rents out Jess' room and "comes to town on business and shakes things up in the loft."

Executive producer Liz Meriwether told EW, "It’s insane to me that such a gorgeous person can be so funny, but I guess we just all have to accept it. I’ve been a fan of her comedic skills since This is 40, and I’m so excited to have her on the show. We had Megan in mind when we wrote this part – she’s the perfect person to come in and shake these guys up."

Meriwether also told The Hollywood Reporter, "The first episode without her is actually called 'No Girl.' I think in the first or second season, it would have been hard, but now it feels like this creative opportunity to learn more about the other characters. And it's a little bit of a challenge. People are going to be asking, "How are they going to pull this off?" I'm kind of asking that question of myself. I directed the first episode without Zooey, that's the last one we shot this year, and it's really funny. It's a guys' episode. It's an opportunity to stretch ourselves...Or it will be a total disaster, and then she'll come back."

Fox is slated to debut on New Girl's sixth episode, while the new season is set to premiere in January 2016.