Faces to watch 2006

LOUIS C.K.

Comedian

After a 20-year career in clubs, movies and TV writing rooms, the famously raunchy comedian Louis C.K. will produce, write and star in a sitcom of his own, “Lucky Louie,” next year on HBO. The cable network’s first foray into the traditional multicamera sitcom format launches in June with the balding redhead reprising his stand-up persona -- a marginally likable, sexually deprived and foulmouthed husband and father of two.

With its attitude and cable-strength language, fans are hopeful “Lucky Louie” will reinvent the troubled sitcom and perhaps cement the comedian’s checkered career. He won an Emmy for writing “The Chris Rock Show,” but none of his three previous autobiographical sitcoms ever made it to the air.

After seeing the first three episodes, HBO executives ordered eight more beyond the original 13. C.K. (whose real name, Szekely, is pronounced something like CEE-kay) called “Lucky Louie” “a massive opportunity. I’m getting to say exactly what I want to without a filter.”