Screenplay comes from Thor, X-Men: First Class and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous scribe Zack Stentz.
Set several millennia before the timeline of the books, The Age of Legends will chart the emergence of “the Dark One.” when the world descended into darkness and war. The film will delve into the corrosive nature of power and pride, as seen through the tragic tales of the Forsaken – once honored leaders who fell victim to the Dark One’s seduction, each personifying distinct elements of human weakness and ambition. The story will also portray the valorous sacrifices of unexpected heroes who rise against the Dark One to defend humanity in the face of overwhelming odds.
Skogland is best known for directing series such as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Walking Dead and House of Cards, as well as upcoming movie sequel Wind River: Rising.
The film is being produced by Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon of iwot productions and Ted Field of Radar Pictures. Separately, Selvage, Mondragon, and Field are executive producers for the TV adaptation of The Wheel of Time co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon Studios.
Eva Longoria, James Leon, Mike McGuiness and Justin Smith are executive producers.
“Directing The Age of Legends is a remarkable opportunity to bring a beloved universe to life and delve into the rich lore that has long captivated the hearts of millions of book readers around the world,” Skogland said.
“My vision is to honor the worldbuilding of Jordan’s masterwork, while peeling back the layers of legend and myth to reveal the flesh-and-blood characters underneath — flawed heroes and villains alike — ordinary people forced to make extraordinary choices as their world unravels.”
“Kari’s brilliance in crafting visually stunning worlds makes her the ideal director for The Age of Legends,” said Rick Selvage, president of iwot productions. “This film is not just an adaptation; it’s an exploration of an original world that blends fantasy with elements of science fiction, and Kari’s mastery in storytelling is crucial for bringing Jordan’s vision to life.”
Iwot is also in development on animated feature The White Tower, which is also a Wheel of Time origin story.
Skogland is represented by Adriana Alberghetti at WME, Adam Schulman and Rosalie Swedlin at Anonymous Content, and Barry Littman at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller. Radar is represented by Buchwald, Stentz is represented by Susan Solomon at Circle of Confusion and Bryan Swatt and Ken Richman at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
The Wheel of Time novels are owned by The Bandersnatch Group, who is represented by Joel Gotler of Intellectual Property Group for film and television.b
Longoria directed Flamin’ Hot, the story about the creation of the spicy Frito-Lay snack. The film also took awards for Best Feature Film with Jesse García taking the accolade in the Best Actor – Feature Film category for his portrayal of Richard Montañez.
Other winners of the night included Zoe Saldaña for her acting work on Avatar: The Way of Water and Antonio Banderas for his voice-over work in the animated film Puss In Boots: The Last Wish.
Winners in the television categories included Acapulco’s Enrique Arrizon as Best Actor in a Comedy, Jenna Ortega as Best Actress in a Comedy for Wednesday, Kate del Castillo as Best Actress in a Drama for Volver a Caer and Pedro Pascal as Best Actor in a Drama for The Last of Us.
The 38th an independent panel of entertainment industry executives and Latina and Latino community leaders determined Annual Imagen Awards winners.
Breaking her silence on the 2019 cheating scandal that led to a 14-day prison sentence for the actor, Huffman said in an exclusive interview with Los Angeles ABC affiliate KABC, “It was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”
The KABC interview was featured on Good Morning America today. See the video above.
Huffman was one of the more than 30 parents of college-bound children who paid admissions consultant Rick Singer to, among other things, fraudulently raise SAT scores to better the kids’ chances of getting into top-notch universities. Also caught up in the scheme was actor Lori Loughlin.
Huffman, who was accused of paying $15,000 to raise her daughter’s SAT scores, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, and was sentenced in 2019 to 14 days in prison, a year of probation, 250 hours of community service and fined $30,000.
In the interview with KABC, the Emmy-winning Huffman said, “I know hindsight is 20/20 but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So I did it.” She recalled that, as she drove her daughter to take the admissions test in 2017, she “kept thinking, turn around, just turn around.”
“And to my undying shame,” Huffman said, “I didn’t.”
When the FBI showed up at her home the following year, Huffman and her daughters were woken up at gunpoint, she says, recalling that, as she was taken into custody, “I literally turned to one of the FBI people in a flak jacket and a gun and I went, ‘Is this a joke?'”
Huffman’s husband, actor William H. Macy, was not charged in the scheme.
During the interview, Huffman, who served 11 days in jail, apologized to “the students and the families that sacrifice and work really hard to get to where they are going legitimately.”
After completing her community service with the non-profit organization A New Way of Life, which assists women who have been incarcerated with housing, clothing and job training, Huffman joined the non-prof’s board of directors, and now wants to use her spotlight to benefit the cause.
“I want to use my experience and what I’ve gone through and the pain to bring something good, which is to shine a light on the organization,” Huffman told KABC’s Marc Brown.
Singer was sentenced in January to 3 1/2 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $10 million he received in the scam.
Wednesday, November 22
Donna Mills, Nicollette Sheridan and Morgan Fairchild on Ladies of the 80s: A Divas Christmas.
MONDAY, JAN. 22
8:00 p.m. “The Bachelor” (two hours)
10:01 p.m. “20/20” (all-new limited edition true-crime series, title to be announced)
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 7
8:00 p.m. “The Conners”
8:30 p.m. “Not Dead Yet”
9:00 p.m. “Abbott Elementary” (one-hour premiere)
10:00 p.m. “Judge Steve Harvey”
SUNDAY, FEB. 18
8:00 p.m. “American Idol” (two hours)
10:00 p.m. “What Would You Do?”
TUESDAY, FEB. 20
8:00 p.m. “Will Trent”
9:00 p.m. “The Rookie”
10:00 p.m. “The Good Doctor”
THURSDAY, MARCH 14
8:00 p.m. “9-1-1” (First Look)
9:00 p.m. “Grey’s Anatomy”
10:00 p.m. “Station 19”
The network had delayed pickup decisions on two spinoffs, bubble drama series The Rookie: Feds and the Good Lawyer pilot. Today, the call was made, and neither is moving forward.
The Good Lawyer originated as a Good Doctor planted spinoff, with the backdoor pilot airing as an episode of the hit medical drama last spring. It was well received, with ABC brass high on McMann and Huffman’s performances.
The options on the cast were up Aug. 15. Because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, the hold period was extended for the duration of the work stoppage, so ABC had another month to make a decision on The Good Lawyer. (For The Rookie: Feds, the deadline was in December.)
As Deadline has reported, the longer the strikes went past Labor Day, the longer the odds were for outstanding series to get a pickup. ABC also canceled Home Economics at the end of September.
ABC had planned to launch The Good Lawyer this coming spring when the broadcasting networks are running out of shelf space as they try to accomodate all of their popular returning scripted series.
For that reason, ABC in late September opted to push its only new scripted series, the one-hour High Potential to next fall. That project, starring Kaitlin Olson, is the only ABC 2023 pilot to get a series order.
The Good Lawyer, from Sony Pictures Television and ABC Signature, was written by The Good Doctor co-showrunners David Shore and Liz Friedman. In the backdoor pilot episode, Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) seeks legal representation to help him win a case and puts his faith in a promising, young lawyer, Joni DeGroot (McMann) who has obsessive compulsive disorder.
The film is set in a town called Bethlehem, where border agents have just intercepted a coyote smuggling in a group of tired, desperate, and frightened refugees. There, an 11-year-old girl runs into a 7-year-old boy, Yosef, seeking refuge. Maya and Yosef become fast friends, and their ensuing adventure nearly kills them both but ends up warming the hearts of the townspeople with life lessons stretching far beyond their own borders.
Archstone Entertainment is securing world sales rights with Joshua Harris of Gala Media Capital Financing. Turner also serves as producer through Wonderstruck, alongside Gabrielle Almagor for Urban Tales Productions and Michael Slifkin, Scott Martin, and Jack Sheehan of Archstone.
Lutz is repped by Innovative and Zero Gravity, McDonough is with WME and Luber Roklin, Harris is repped by Paradigm and Complete Management Group, Savante is with Exclusive Artists Agency and Opus Entertainment, Esposito is with WME and Authentic, Hirsch is with TalentWorks, and Van Dien is with WME and Link Entertainment.
The organization, formerly known as Women In Film, Los Angeles and celebrating its 50th anniversary, will bestow the awards at its annual benefit gala November 30 in Los Angeles, it said Thursday.
The five are joined on the full 2023 honors list by Yara Shahidi, who was previously named WIF’s recipient of the Max Mara Face of the Future Award.
Ferrera, one of the stars of this year’s box office behemoth Barbie, was selected to receive the Jane Fonda Humanitarian Award for her activism and work with the charities Harness and Poderistas. Fonda, who received the inaugural honor in 2021, selected Ferrera for this year’s award and will present it to her at the ceremony.
The Crystal Award for Advocacy, given to individuals and groups creating opportunities for the advancement of women working throughout the screen industries, will go to Longoria and screenwriter Chávez, who teamed on Longoria’s feature directing debut Flamin’ Hot; and Song and Lee, who wrote-directed and starred, respectively, in the Korean romantic drama Past Lives.
Both Longoria and Chavez and Song and Lee will participate in a conversations about their collaborations.
“The work of this year’s honorees exemplifies outstanding creative vision and the change WIF has worked to create in its 50 years as an organization,” said Monica Levinson and Talitha Watkins, co-chairs of the WIF Honors Committee. “Our industry is better because of these women and their commitment to spurring lasting impact in Hollywood, both in front of and behind the scenes.”
WIF said it is working directly with SAG-AFTRA to ensure strike guidelines are adhered to for the gala benefit, which supports WIF’s educational and philanthropic programs and its advocacy for gender parity in the entertainment industry.
The role-playing game takes place in the 22nd century in the aftermath of a planet-wide nuclear war, where inhabitants of underground “vaults” must venture into a radioactive wasteland in order to procure items that will help save themselves and their neighbors. The TV series (which comes from Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy) will be an original story set in the Fallout universe that will also be considered part of the games’ canon.
The series’ cast includes Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), Walton Goggins (The Righteous Gemstones), Aaron Moten (Next), Moisés Arias (The King of Staten Island), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), Sarita Choudhury (And Just Like That…), Michael Emerson (Evil), Leslie Uggams (Empire), Frances Turner (New Amsterdam), Dave Register (F.B.I.), Zach Cherry (Severance), Johnny Pemberton (Superstore), Rodrigo Luzzi (Dead Ringers), Annabel O’Hagan (Law & Order: SVU) and Xelia Mendes-Jones (The Wheel of Time).
Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel) and Graham Wagner (Silicon Valley) serve as executive producers, writers and co-showrunners. Nolan and Joy (Westworld) executive produce.
Pic centers on a high-powered female executive and Grinchy workaholic CEO (Stables), whose whole world comes crashing down amidst unforeseen circumstances, despite her self-perceived importance. With help from a Salvation Army Santa (Blake Leeper) and a little holiday magic, the protagonist finally realizes the key to letting go of her painful past is the answer to becoming the twinkling light that both her community and her family need.
Rounding out the cast are James Maslow (Big Time Rush), Emily Tosta (Mayans M.C.), Caylee Cowan (Willy’s Wonderland), Drew Fuller (Army Wives), Brian Thomas Smith (The Big Bang Theory), Haley Reinhart (American Idol), Kelli Mi Li (Bling Empire), singer-songwriter Jake Miller, and TikTok star Montana Tucker. Producers on the project included Garvin (The Trial of the Chicago 7) and Scott Rosenfelt (Home Alone).
The exec producer of the forthcoming romantic drama What About Love, starring Sharon Stone and Andy Garcia, which is slated for release on Valentine’s Day 2024, Garvin has also previously served as co-EP on titles including Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7. In a statement on the ETM acquisition, she expressed her gratitude for “the invaluable collaboration with and support from my outstanding cast, crew, and producer teams” while making her first feature.
“Through many trials and tribulations, we managed to stay independent and create a family oriented movie with an original music sound track designed to be a light for people who are suffering in many ways through tough times,” Garvin continued. “It’s a story of overcoming adversity, rolling with the punches, and finding joy in the journey along the rocky road of life. It’s my personal passion that it will inspire audiences to be resilient, forgiving and transformative.”
The pair have launched Hyphenate Media Group, a new Banijay-backed venture that will develop and produce its own slate as well as invest in creator-led companies.
The company, which has been in the works for months, was announced during a keynote with the duo, who have been friends for years, at Mipcom.
Abrego will serve as the CEO of the company, and Longoria will serve as its Chief Creative Officer.
As part of its launch, Hyphenate has acquired the full slate of Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, which has been behind series such as NBC’s Telenovela, ABC’s Grand Hotel, and CNN’s Searching for Mexico.
As such, Hyphenate will take on Apple TV+’s Land of Women, a six-part series starring and exec produced by the Desperate Housewives star that will launch in 2024.
The company will develop and produce both scripted and unscripted series and both of them will produce for the business with all television projects directed by Longoria also coming under the new banner, which is set to firm up its leadership team later this year.
Abrego, who founded Below Deck producer 51 Minds Entertainment in 2003, will remain Chairman of Americas for Banijay and he also serves as Chair of the Television Academy Foundation and a member of the Executive Committee for the Television Academy.
“The train has left the station”
The move marks Banijay’s first investment into the scripted space in the U.S.
Speaking at Mipcom this afternoon, Abrego spotlighted the decision-making behind launching a diverse content company, as he quoted research that found 50% of American under-18s are not white.
“Supporting creatives in their vision is what we will do,” he added. “The train has left the station and the content has to reflect that.”
He cited influential and talented diverse creatives such as Jordan Peele and Ali Wong, whose work “used to be niche but is now the centre.”
Reflecting on the company’s name and MO, Longoria said people had always mistaken her for an actor-turned-producer but she is in fact a “producer-director that fell into acting.”
“That multi-hyphenate is not surviving in Hollywood because the industry wants you to stay in your lane, particularly women,” she explained. “So it was my frustration and Cris’s ambition a couple of years ago after I realized it’s not just me who feels this way. I know creators who are being suffocated by the system so Hyphenate will create the ultimate model.”
Longoria added that the current U.S. labor action is “a direct result of creators taking control back.”
The theme park announced the next group of storytellers for the EPCOT Candlelight Processional during EPCOT’s International Festival of the Holidays.
The Candlelight Processional retells the story of Christmas along with a choir, orchestra and the Voices of Liberty.
There will be nine new voices: Chrissy Metz, Luis Fonsi, Ann-Margret, Brendan Fraser, Eva Longoria, Joey McIntyre, Sterling K. Brown, Jordan Fisher and Audra McDonald join the fan-favorite tradition.
Here is the complete schedule:
Chrissy Metz: Nov. 24-Nov. 25
Luis Fonsi: Nov. 26- Nov. 27
Ann-Margret: Nov. 28- Nov. 29
Simu Liu: Nov. 30-Dec. 2
John Stamos: Dec. 3- Dec. 5
Neil Patrick Harris: Dec. 6- Dec. 8
Marlee Matlin: Dec. 9- Dec. 11
Brendan Fraser: Dec. 12- Dec. 14
Eva Longoria: Dec. 15-16
Joey McIntyre: Dec. 17-18
Sterling K. Brown: Dec. 19- Dec. 20
Jordan Fisher: Dec. 21- Dec. 23
Steven Curtis Chapman: Dec. 24- Dec. 26
Audra McDonald: Dec. 27-Dec. 28
Lisa Ling: Dec. 29- Dec. 30
In addition to the Candlelight Processional, Disney World will have a new selection of merchandise, food offerings, beverages and decorations just in time for the holiday festivities at EPCOT.
As the tentpole for its holiday movie slate, Lifetime will air Ladies of the 80’s: A Divas Christmas, a festive romp starring Loni Anderson (WKRP in Cincinnati), Morgan Fairchild (Falcon Crest), Linda Gray (Dallas), Donna Mills (Knots Landing) and Nicollette Sheridan (Knots Landing).
Filmed earlier this year, the movie follows five soap opera divas as they reunite to shoot the final Christmas episode of their long-running sudser. The producer, Alex (Travis Burns) and director Nell (Taylor Ann Thompson), who happen to be old college friends, do their best to keep things on the rails but as the ladies come together, old rivalries resurface that threaten to tear the production apart. With the show nearly canceled before it even begins due to the ladies’ famous diva behavior, they reluctantly agree to set aside their differences and past secrets to “act” as if they all still love each other. When old sparks reignite between Alex and Nell, the ladies become eager to play cupid and conspire to bring the couple together.
Naturally, they all learn the meaning of Christmas at the same time.
Eighties’ heartthrob Christopher Atkins, along with Patrika Darbo, Alec Mapa and Donna Mills’ real-life daughter, Chloe Mills, also star. The movie’s theme song Ladies of the 80’s was written by Song Writer Hall of Fame’s Steve Dorff and Michael Jay and is performed by 80’s pop sensation Tiffany (I Think We’re Alone Now).
“The opportunity to bring together Donna, Morgan, Loni, Linda and Nicollette, five powerhouse women into one holiday movie, has been like finding the perfect gift under the Christmas tree,” said executive producer Larry A. Thompson (Liz & Dick, Amish Grace).
An airdate will be announced in the coming weeks, along with the rest of the channel’s It’s a Wonderful Lifetime holiday movie slate.
Ladies of the 80’s: A Divas Christmas is executive produced for Lifetime by Thompson. Christie Will Wolf (Christmas on Candy Cane Lane, The Art of Passion) directs from a script by James Berg & Stan Zimmerman (The Golden Girls, Gilmore Girls) with Robert G. Endara II and Ed Polgardy producing..
Alongside Banijay Americas Chairman Cris Abrego, the Emmy-nominated director, producer, and activist will delve into the latest themes defining the entertainment industry, forecasting how they may shape the future both creatively and commercially.
The keynote will take place in the Grand Auditorium of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes on Monday, October 16 at 4pm local time, as part of Mipcom’s Media Masterminds track.
Longoria and Abrego have been professional collaborators for more than two decades. Their talk will highlight their experiences and insights as industry leaders.
Besides her acting roles, Longoria has run her own production business UnbeliEVAble Entertainment since 2005. The company is behind ABC’s Grand Hotel, NBC’s Telenovela, and Netflix’s Emmy Award-nominated documentary Reversing Row, and culinary docuseries Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico for CNN. She made her feature directorial debut through Flamin’ Hot, which released earlier this year through Searchlight Pictures on Disney+ and Hulu, and engages in philanthropical work and activism on issues such as diversity in the media and Latina entrepreneurialism.
Abrego, the founder of 51 Minds Entertainment and a key player in the establishment of reality TV in the U.S., is one of the most prominent TV execs in the Americas and currently leads acquisitions and new business ventures across North and South America for Banijay.
“Mipcom Cannes is one of the industry’s most significant global marketplaces, and it’s an honor to join the conversation as a keynote speaker alongside Cris,” said Longoria. “Our industry is facing tremendous disruption and transformation which can lead to opportunities that can transform and reshape the future of what content looks like. I’m looking forward to discussing how we can drive what’s to come.”
Mipcom will run from October 17-19 in Cannes, France. Several industry keynotes such as Warner Bros Discovery International President Gerhard Zeiler have already been announced..
Even though the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes impacted TV and film productions, Hallmark anticipated the labor dispute by getting a head start on production in Canada. “Christmas is a year-round business at Hallmark, so we were able to mitigate early in the year understanding that the strikes were unfortunately imminent,” Lisa Hamilton Daly, EVP of programming at Hallmark Media, was recently quoted as saying. “We’re grateful to meet all our goals for a full, all-new holiday slate and to bring our viewers the content they love most to celebrate the season.”
Holiday programming kicks off Friday, Oct. 20 with the channel’s Countdown to Christmas and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries’ Miracles of Christmas.
Among the actors set to headline Hallmark’s movies include Lacey Chabert (A Merry Scottish Christmas, Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up); Benjamin Ayres, Katherine Barrell, Catherine Bell, Jonathan Bennett, Krystal Joy Brown, Warren Christie, Cindy Busby, Erin Cahill, Paul Campbell, Nikki DeLoach, James Denton, Brooke D’Orsay, Jaicy Elliot, Brennan Elliott, Tyler Hynes, Dan Jeannotte, Hunter King, Bethany Joy Lenz, Luke Macfarlane, Chandler Massey, Niall Matter, Barbara Niven, Ryan Paevey, Janel Parrish, Brendan Penny, Kristoffer Polaha, Michael Rady, Marcus Rosner, Ronnie Rowe Jr., Jessy Schram, Kimberley Sustad, Andrew Walker, and Victor Webster.
Here’s the full slate for Hallmark Channel:
Friday, October 20: Checkin’ It Twice starring Kim Matula and Kevin McGarry. A journeyman hockey player (McGarry) falls for a real estate agent (Matula) in a career crisis when he’s traded to her hometown and moves into the cottage in her hockey loving family’s backyard.
Saturday, October 21: Where Are You, Christmas? Starring Lyndsy Fonseca, Michael Rady, Jim O’Heir, Julie Warner. When Addy (Fonseca) wishes for a year without Christmas, she wakes up in a world of black and white. She must work together with the town mechanic (Rady) to restore Christmas.
Sunday, October 22: Under the Christmas Sky starring Jessica Parker Kennedy, Ryan Paevey. Kat (Kennedy) is an esteemed astrophysicist, who is scheduled for her first trip into space next year until an accident grounds her. While on leave, coming to terms with the reality that her dream of being an astronaut is over, she volunteers at the local planetarium. There, she is paired up with by-the-book David (Paevey) to work on an exhibit opening right before Christmas. Will the stars align to bring these two together at the holidays?
Friday, October 27: Christmas by Design starring Rebecca Dalton, Jonathan Keltz. A fashion designer (Dalton) gets accepted into a Christmas challenge to create a new holiday-themed collection and not only finds the inspiration for her next line but decides to redesign her approach to what’s most important in life.
Saturday, October 28: Mystic Christmas starring Jessy Schram, Chandler Massey, Patti Murin, William R. Moses. Juniper (Schram) travels to Mystic, Connecticut during the holidays to work at the rehabilitation center and aquarium. She reconnects with Sawyer (Massey), the owner of the pizza shop.
Sunday, October 29: Joyeux Noel stars Jaicy Elliot, Brant Daugherty. When a romantic painting of a Christmas market captures the imagination of copy editor Lea (Elliot), she is sent to France with pragmatic reporter Mark (Daugherty) to uncover the mystery behind the artist.
Friday, November 3: Flipping for Christmas starring Ashley Newbrough, Marcus Rosner. It’s almost Christmas when busy realtor Abigail (Newbrough) agrees to help her sister with the “simple flip” of a recently inherited home. Unfortunately, co-beneficiary Bo (Rosner) has other plans in mind.
Saturday, November 4: Never Been Chris’d starring Janel Parrish, Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes, Tyler Hynes. Home for the holidays, BFFs Naomi (Parrish) and Liz (Lamothe-Kipnes) reconnect with high school crush Chris Silver (Hynes). A complex love triangle forms, forcing them to take stock of their lives and find the value of friendship.
Sunday, November 5: The Santa Summit starring Hunter King, Benjamin Hollingsworth. It’s time for the annual Santa Summit, in which revelers put on Santa suits and hop around designated locations in town to eat, drink, and be merry. Three best friends decide to go together: Jordin (King), a recently dumped art teacher looking to cut loose; Ava, a shy woman hoping to run into her crush; and Stella, a Christmas cynic with no interest in the Santa Summit whatsoever. At the start of the night, Jordin meets and bonds with Liam (Hollingsworth), but doesn’t get his name before getting separated and lost in a sea of Santas. As the night progresses and hijinks ensue, amidst the chaos, celebration, and a sea of Santas, they all find what they’re looking for: Christmas spirit, potential romance, and a strengthened bond of friendship.
Friday, November 10: Everything Christmas starring Katherine Barrell, Cindy Busby, Corey Sevier, Matt Wells. Lori Jo’s (Busby) love for Christmas takes her on a road trip to Yuletide Springs with her roommate Tori (Barrell), where Christmas is celebrated year-round, to participate in a longstanding town tradition to honor her late grandmother. Along the way, the friends meet Carl (Sevier) and Jason (Wells), and the foursome make stops during their journey to enjoy more small-town Christmas attractions. But when a series of events puts a damper on their plans, a little Christmas magic may put this trip back on the right path.
Saturday, November 11: Christmas Island starring Rachel Skarsten, Andrew Walker. When a snowstorm diverts Kate’s (Skarsten) first private flight en route to Switzerland to Christmas Island, she must team up with an air traffic controller (Walker) to secure her dream job as the family’s pilot.
Sunday, November 12: A Heidelberg Holiday starring Ginna Claire Mason, Frédéric Brossier. Heidi Heidelberg (Mason) receives the dream opportunity to sell her beautiful, handmade glass ornaments at the prestigious Heidelberg Christmas Market in Germany. While there, she meets Lukas (Brossier), a local artisan who helps her reconnect with her lost heritage.
Friday, November 17: Navigating Christmas starring Chelsea Hobbs, Stephen Huszar. Recently divorced Melanie (Hobbs) and her son Jason visit a remote island for Christmas, only to find themselves running a real working lighthouse where she connects with the curt but cute owner (Huszar).
Saturday, November 18: A Merry Scottish Christmas starring Lacey Chabert, Scott Wolf. When estranged siblings, Lindsay (Chabert) and Brad (Wolf) Morgan travel to Scotland at Christmas to reunite with their mother Jo, a big family secret is revealed.
Sunday, November 19: Holiday Hotline starring Emily Tennant, Niall Matter. After leaving London, Abby (Tennant) connects with an anonymous caller while working at a cooking hotline. The caller is single dad “John” (Matter) who Abby unknowingly has become smitten with in real life.
Thursday, November 23: Catch Me If You Claus starring Italia Ricci, Luke Macfarlane. Avery Quinn. (Ricci) is an aspiring news anchor who’s finally getting her big break on her station’s Christmas morning newscast. But that’s put in jeopardy when she captures an intruder in her home wearing a red suit claiming to be Chris (Macfarlane), Santa’s son, who is on his first mission. A night of adventure ensues as they find themselves being pursued by the police as well as some shady characters. Along the way, they connect over living in the shadow of their parents and inspire each other to go after their dreams.
Friday, November 24: Letters to Santa starring Katie Lecler, Rafael de la Fuente. When young siblings receive a magic pen from Santa that appears to be granting wishes, they request a Christmas gift they want more than anything – for their separated parents (Leclerc, de la Fuente) to reunite.
Friday, November 24: Holiday Road starring Sara Canning, Warren Christie. When bad weather leaves each of them stranded at the airport for the holidays, a tech entrepreneur (Christie), a travel writer (Canning), a devoted mother (Enid-Raye Adams) and her son (Kiefer O’Reilly), a stubborn senior (Trevor Lerner), an enigmatic woman with a hint of mystery (Brittany Willacy), a couple traveling from Hong Kong (Sharon Crandall, Ryan Mah) and a social media influencer (Princess Davis) all agree to rent a shared van to embark on a road trip to Denver. When their unexpected journey brings them into uncharted territory, they navigate a series of misadventures together and form a deeper bond that just might change the trajectories of each of their lives. Inspired by true events.
Saturday, November 25: Christmas in Notting Hill starring Sarah Ramos, William Moseley. Famous soccer star, Graham Savoy (Moseley), has always been too busy for love, but when he comes home to Notting Hill for Christmas, he changes his mind after meeting Georgia (Ramos) – a visiting American and the one person who has no idea who he is.
Saturday, November 25: Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up starring Lacey Chabert, Wes Brown, Stephen Tobolowsky, Melissa Peterman, Ellen Travolta, Seth Morris, Jennifer Aspen. As the holidays approach, Emily (Chabert) and Jared (Brown) are looking forward to celebrating the holidays together again, this time as a couple. Emily, now embracing Evergreen Lane’s uniquely festive spirit, is ready to work with Jared, Ned (Tobolowsky), Mary Louise (Travolta) and Pamela (Peterman) to make this year’s Christmas celebrations the best yet – even if being the HOA president’s girlfriend doesn’t stop those dreaded decorating citations. When a house on the block goes up for sale, it causes quite a stir with residents. When the soon-to-be neighbors turn out to be holiday royalty (Morris, Aspen), it looks like this year’s competition is about to heat up. While there, she unwittingly discovers the ability to travel to the 1947 set of His Merry Wife through the help of an hourglass, where she meets one of the film’s stars, Jack Huston (Polaha).
Sunday, November 26: Our Christmas Mural starring Alex Paxton-Beesley, Dan Jeannotte. Olivia (Paxton-Beesley) is a single mom who returns home for Christmas. Her mom secretly enters her into a mural contest; she wins but partners with teacher Will (Jeannotte) to create a Christmas masterpiece.
Sunday, November 26: A Biltmore Christmas starring Bethany Joy Lenz, Kristoffer Polaha. Lucy Hardgrove (Lenz) is a screenwriter who lands the job of a lifetime when she’s hired to pen the script for a remake of the beloved, holiday movie classic, His Merry Wife!, which was filmed in 1947 at beautiful, historic Biltmore House. When the head of the studio isn’t satisfied with the ending Lucy wrote because it deviates from the original’s feel-good conclusion, he sends Lucy to Biltmore Estate for research and inspiration. While there, she unwittingly discovers the ability to travel to the 1947 set of His Merry Wife! through the help of an hourglass.
Friday, December 1: My Norwegian Holiday starring Rhiannon Fish, David Elsendoorn. JJ (Fish), grieving the loss of her grandmother and seeking dissertation inspiration, stumbles upon an unexpected holiday destiny. Meeting Henrik (Elsendoorn), a Norwegian from Bergen, their connection deepens when he discovers she has a troll figurine from his hometown. To explore the troll’s history and her grandmother’s ties, JJ agrees to join Henrik on a journey to Norway. In Bergen, they’re drawn into Henrik’s family Christmas and wedding traditions, with his sister’s wedding the day before Christmas Eve. JJ embarks on a holiday adventure, uncovering the troll’s origins and finding her own path to healing, love and family.
Saturday, December 2: A Not So Royal Christmas. Starring Brooke D’Orsay, Will Kemp. Tabloid journalist Charlotte (D’Orsay) attempts to land an interview with a reclusive Count. In response, the royal family has a groundskeeper (Kemp) pose as the Count since the real one fled years ago.
Sunday, December 3: Christmas with a Kiss starring Mishael Morgan, Ronnie Rowe Jr., Jaime M. Callica. A Mahogany Presentation. A woman (Morgan) returns home to help with her family’s Christmas Carnival and romance ignites. A photo journalist (Rowe) curates a surprise reunion.
Friday, December 8: Magic in Mistletoe starring Lyndie Greenwood, Paul Campbell. Harrington (Campbell) is the author of a popular book series but commercial success has left him a bitter recluse. As he returns to his hometown for an annual Christmas festival celebrating his books, he’s joined by April (Greenwood), a publicist for the major publishing house he works with. April is there for damage control after Harrington’s recent comments on social media have ruffled some feathers. But as she gets to know him better, hope springs that April can unlock Harrington’s guarded heart and help him rediscover the spirit of the holiday.
Saturday, December 9: Christmas on Cherry Lane starring Catherine Bell, Jonathan Bennett, John Brotherton, Erin Cahill, James Denton, Vincent Rodriguez III. A young couple preparing to welcome their first child (Brotherton, Cahill); an empty-nester (Bell) and her fiancé (Denton) ready to start a new chapter; and a couple (Bennett, Rodriguez III) who unexpectedly have the chance to expand their family on Christmas Eve celebrate the holiday as they navigate these turning points in their lives.
Sunday, December 10: Round and Round starring Vic Michaelis, Bryan Greenberg, Rick Hoffman. Rachel’s (Michaelis) stuck in a time loop, reliving the night of her parents’ Hanukkah party. Can Zach (Greenberg), the “nice boy” Grandma’s trying to set her up with, help her make it to tomorrow?
Friday, December 15: The Secret Gift of Christmas starring Meghan Ory, Christopher Russell. Bonnie (Ory) is a personal shopper who helps her new, widowed client Patrick (Russell) reconnect with his young daughter. Though Bonnie and Patrick’s ideas of shopping couldn’t be more different, she is determined to get Patrick and his daughter everything on their wish list.
Saturday, December 16: Sealed with a List starring Katie Findlay, Evan Roderick.This holiday season, festive Carley (Findlay) sets out to conquer her list of abandoned resolutions from last year. Aided by coworker Wyatt (Roderick), she finds love and the confidence to chase her dreams.
Sunday, December 17: Friends & Family Christmas starring Humberly Gonzalez, Ali Liebert. Daniella (Gonzalez) has recently moved to New York to pursue an art career and decides to stay in town to share the holidays with her circle of artist friends, instead of going home to see her sweet, if overbearing parents. Amelia (Liebert) is a talented entertainment lawyer trying to stay focused on her work after a broken engagement. When Daniella and Amelia are set up by their parents, they agree to pretend that they are dating, to appease them for the holidays. However, as they spend time in eachother’s worlds, they soon build a connection that is deeper than either of them could have hoped for.
“The writers weren’t barred from the set, but we weren’t exactly welcome,” Patty Lin, who worked on Season 1 of the hit ABC show, claimed in her new book, “End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood.”
“Usually we’d only see the cast at table reads, where we’d sit quietly in the back and try not to make eye contact with Teri Hatcher.”
Lin did not elaborate on why staffers didn’t make eye contact with Hatcher, and reps for the actress did not immediately return Page Six’s request for comment.
This is not the first time there has been negative claims about one of the show’s leading actors.
In 2019, creator Marc Cherry alleged in a legal letter in support of Felicity Huffman, who was awaiting sentencing for the college admissions scandal at the time, that she was polite to a “big star” who displayed “big behavioral problems” on the “Desperate Housewives” set.
“Everyone tried their darndest to get along with this woman over the course of the show. It was impossible,” he wrote — without naming the actress.
“And things went from bad to worse. Felicity still insisted on saying, ‘Good morning’ to this actress, even though she knew she wouldn’t get a response. I found out about this and asked Felicity about it.”
Cherry further claimed that the unnamed actress was “determined to be rude.”
Aside from Hatcher, 60, and Huffman, 58, Eva Longoria, Nicollette Sheridan and Marcia Cross starred on the hit series, which lasted for eight seasons from 2004 to 2012.
Lin also claimed in her book, which hit shelves on Tuesday, that Cherry himself exhibited toxic behavior.
She wrote that the TV producer and writer showed “overt racism,” citing as an example a time when he compared Lin to comedian Margaret Cho, who is of Korean descent.
“One day at lunch, the topic of Margaret Cho came up, and someone mentioned ‘All-American Girl,’ Cho’s short-lived sitcom about a Korean American family. Marc turned to me and said, ‘Patty, you should write a show like that,'” she wrote.
“I love Margaret Cho, but please don’t lump us together just because we’re both Asian women in show business.”
Lin accused Cherry of telling his staff to “gang bang” a draft without the knowledge of the original writer.
“With this wildly inefficient system, it’s a miracle that any episodes of ‘Desperate Housewives’ ever got made,” she added.
“The quality that had attracted me to the pilot — the dark humor — was lost in the slapdash, assembly-line approach to what was supposed to be a creative process.”
Lin was fired from the series after the first season, which she wrote was “no surprise” after being excluded from multiple writers meetings.
“I knew our days were numbered,” she wrote of her and two others who weren’t called in to work. “I had to remind myself over and over that I hated this job and wanted out.”
Reps for Cherry and ABC did not immediately return Page Six’s request for comment..
Williams’ involvement comes as producers announce the full cast for the musical: In addition to the previously announced Iglehart as Armstrong, the principal cast of A Wonderful World will feature Ta’Rea Campbell (The Lion King, The Book of Mormon) as Lucille Wilson, Jennie Harney-Fleming (The Color Purple, Hamilton) as Lil Hardin, Brennyn Lark (Six, Les Misérables) as Alpha Smith and Khalifa White (Caroline, or Change, Little Shop of Horrors) as Daisy Parker.
Following Armstrong’s musical path from New Orleans to Chicago, A Wonderful World will premiere this year at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans (October 1-8) before moving to the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago (October 11-29). Producers plan to move the show to Broadway, although dates and other details have not been announced.
“I became interested in joining the producing team after I worked with Carl White and Greg Rae on a play I am starring in and co-producing called One Reach Away,” Williams said in a statement. “They told me about this Louis Armstrong piece, and I had to read it. What captured me was the life of Louis was told through the perspectives of his four wives, and that’s when my producing partner Liz Curtis and I dove in.”
Williams joins producers Thomas E. Rodgers, Jr., Renee Rodgers, Andrew Delaplaine, Liz Curtis, and Martian Entertainment (Carl D. White and Gregory Rae).
Williams, whose TV credits include Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives, has starred on Broadway in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Sondheim on Sondheim, The Trip to Bountiful, After Midnight, POTUS and the 2002 revival of Into the Woods for which she received a Tony nomination. A Wonderful World marks her theatrical producing debut.
The cast of A Wonderful World also features DeWitt Fleming, Jr., Gavin Gregory, Matthew Greenwood and Matt Wolpe, with Ronnie Bowman, Eean Cochran, Lindsey Corey, Jamal Christopher Douglas, Alexandra Frohlinger, Afra Hines, Alan Kelly, Ashley McManus, Aurelia Michael, Alysha Morgan, Jarran Muse, Aaron Michael Ray, Khadijah Rolle, Dave Schoonover, Brett Sturgis, Renell Taylor and Dori Waymer.
Conceived by Christopher Renshaw and novelist Andrew Delaplaine and directed by Renshaw, A Wonderful World has an original book by Aurin Squire and features songs recorded and made popular by Armstrong.
Fillion will portray Guy Gardner — one iteration of the superhero Green Lantern — with Merced as Hawkgirl and Gathegi as Mister Terrific. David Corenswet will play Clark Kent aka Superman, as previously announced, with Rachel Brosnahan as his love interest Lois Lane.
DC co-boss James Gunn is directing from his own script, which draws on DC characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Safran is serving as producer.
Fillion currently leads the ABC police procedural The Rookie and has appeared most recently on the film side in such comic book titles as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Suicide Squad, both of which Gunn directed. Also on the docket for him is the Austin Peters-directed thriller Skincare with Elizabeth Banks.
Merced has a full dance card ahead with roles in everything from Sony’s Madame Web to the Fede Alvarez-helmed Alien: Romulus, action thriller Ballerina Overdrive and Hannah Marks’ Turtles All the Way Down. Recent credits for the actress on the film side include Rosaline and Father of the Bride.
Currently seen starring in Apple TV+’s sci-fi drama For All Mankind, Gathegi also counts amongst his recent credits films like The Harder They Fall and shows like Briarpatch. Upcoming projects include the sci-fi drama Aporia with Judy Greer and the Netflix series Zero Day with Robert De Niro.
Starring alongside Banks are Lewis Pullman (Top Gun: Maverick), Michaela Jaé Rodriguez (Pose), Luis Gerardo Méndez (The Resort) and Nathan Fillion (The Rookie).
Directed by Austin Peters, Skincare is described as a vanity thriller set in Hollywood, though specifics as to its plot are under wraps. Peters wrote the script with Deering Regan and Sam Freilich. The film is the third on which Schwartz and Lerman have collaborated on as producers following A24’s The Vanishing of Sidney Hall and CJ ENM’s Press Play. Andrea Iervolino and Lady Monika Bacardi financed and produced the film through their Iervolino & Lady Bacardi Entertainment banner, alongside the duo, with Regan and Freilich serving as executive producers.
“We are delighted to announce another international production involving such world-class actresses and actors,” said ILBE CEO Iervolino. “‘Skincare’ is a film with a strong visual impact that, because of the cast and the workers it involves, has enormous potential. It is a film that we at ILBE believe in very much.”
Said Schwartz and Lerman, “We are super excited to see Elizabeth Banks take on this type of role, and ecstatic to be working with Austin Peters. We are grateful to Andrea Iervolino and ILBE for their support.”
Added ILBE’s Head of Production, Richard Salvatore, “It was impossible for this great project not to turn out phenomenally well since we had an awesome creative team and the cast was incredible.”
A three-time Emmy nominee, Banks will next be seen starring opposite Zach Galifianakis in Apple TV+’s true-life dramedy The Beanie Bubble, which hits select theaters on July 21st, and in Christine Jeffs’ medical drama A Mistake. The multi-hyphenate, known as much for her work behind the camera as in front of it, recently starred opposite Sigourney Weaver in the Sundance-premiering drama Call Jane. Other notable acting credits for her include The Hunger Games franchise, Love & Mercy, The LEGO Movie and Mrs. America.
Part of the cast of Prime Video’s sci-fi series Outer Range, Pullman’s film credits include Top Gun: Maverick, Bad Times at the El Royale and Battle of the Sexes, to name just a few. He stars alongside Brie Larson in the forthcoming Apple series Lessons in Chemistry and will also soon be seen in films including The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and Warner Bros’ Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot.
A Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee best known for her work on the groundbreaking FX series Pose, Rodriguez currently stars opposite Maya Rudolph in the Apple comedy series Loot, which has been renewed for a second season. She voices the robot Nightbird in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and has also featured in films like tick, tick… BOOM! and Saturday Church.
Known for his work on series like Paramount+’s The Envoys and Peacock’s The Resort, Méndez’s film credits include Me Time, Charlie’s Angels and Murder Mystery, to name just a few.
Currently leading ABC’s beloved police procedural The Rookie, Fillion is also known for starring in series including Firefly and Castle. Recent film credits for the actor include Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Suicide Squad.
Currently working on the forthcoming Michael Mann film Ferrari starring Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey and Jack O’Connell, Iervolino and Lady Bacardi Entertainment most recently produced the film Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend, a look at the life of Lamborghini founder Ferruccio Lamborghini that stars Frank Grillo, Gabriel Byrne, Mira Sorvino and Fortunato Cerlino. The company is otherwise perhaps best known for the anthology film Tell It Like a Woman, made in collaboration with Chiara Tilesi’s non-profit We Do it Together, which brought Diane Warren an Original Song Oscar nom for her tune “Applause” performed by Sofia Carson.
The producers’ deal for Skincare was made by Chris Perez and Natalie Locke of Donaldson, Califf and Perez, along with WME and UTA. The deal for director Peters was made by attorneys David Feldman and Ariela Moskowitz of Brecheen Feldman Breimer, as well as manager Noah Rothman.
Banks and her Brownstone Productions banner are represented by UTA, Untitled Entertainment and Ziffren Brittenham. Pullman is repped by CAA and Anonymous Content; Rodriguez by UTA, 111 Media and Del Shaw Moonves; Méndez by UTA, CMX in Mexico, Goodmanagement and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Fillion by CAA, Three 3 Three Management and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Peters by Canopy Media Partners and Brecheen Feldman Breimer; and Regan and Freilich by Lichter, Grossman, Nichols.wf
Supreme: The Battle for Roe is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and will be available on the iHeartRadio app and all major podcast listening platforms beginning June 28 with new episodes available weekly on Wednesdays.
The series follows the journey of Sarah Weddington (Hawke), who at 26, is the youngest woman ever to argue a case in the Supreme Court. Macy will play Justice Harry Blackmun.
Rachel Winter directs and also produces alongside Ben Spector, Aaron Tracy and Eva Longoria.
“Before Roe V. Wade, Sarah Weddington had never worked on a contested case or even been inside a courtroom. Harry Blackmun had never authored a major opinion. They were both new, untested and the least likely vehicles for the abortion controversy you can imagine,” said Tracy. “But their collision at the Supreme Court ended up defining their entire lives and changed the course of history. The moment I stumbled onto the story, I was desperate to write it. I’m thrilled it’s now come to life with such brilliant collaborators and I can’t wait for people to hear this incredible story on iHeart.”
In addition to Hawke and Macy, the series also stars Abigail Breslin (Linda Coffee), Andrea Savage (Deb Margulies), Felicity Huffman (Dottie Blackmun), Laura Benanti (Bea Cuttriss), Garrett Hedlund (Ron Weddington), Josh Hamilton (Reverend Herbert Ragle), Luke Kirby (Roy Lucas) and William Fichtner (Chief Justice Warren Burger).
“I am honored to be a part of this project, alongside such a talented cast and creative team, to share Sarah Weddington’s story of remarkable courage and determination,” said Hawke in a statement. “This podcast will shed light on an important, but largely unknown figure in history, and bring her inspiring legacy to life for a new generation.”
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Longoria said the show – which ran from 2004 to 2012 – had storylines that would cause outrage today. Longoria played Gabrielle Solis on the show, an ex-model in an unhappy marriage.
“I don’t know if we could do the show today,” she said. “I think we’d get canceled. I mean, not canceled on TV, but like canceled in culture, because it was so groundbreaking. We said and did so many things that were shocking at the time.”
Despite that, Longoria wouldn’t mind a reboot. “I’d be the first one to sign up. I’d probably be the only one.”
Longoria was part of the ensemble that included Teri Hatcher (Susan Mayer), Felicity Huffman (Lynette Scavo) and Marcia Cross (Bree van de Kamp) in the show.
The network has yet to make final calls on renewals for comedy Home Economics and The Rookie: Feds as well as The Good Lawyer, a backdoor pilot spinoff of The Good Doctor.
It comes after ABC passed on four of its pilots: Anthony Anderson-fronted Public Defenders and Ellie Kemper-led Keeping It Together, which is a remake of British comedy Motherland, as well as dramas The Hurt Unit, starring Melissa George and Ben McKenzie, and Judgement starring Sex/Life’s Sarah Shahi.
Deadline understands that ABC is unlikely to make all of these decisions until the writers strike is over and the future of the fall season is clearer. A decision on Home Economics may come first out of the three.
Part of this lies in the fact that cast options for broadcast shows generally expire at the end of June so if ABC is still keen to keep any of these shows, it will either have to make a decision before that expiration or extend the casts. Extending the cast on The Good Lawyer will be the most straightforward as it was a backdoor pilot with only a small original cast including Kennedy McMann and Felicity Huffman.
Home Economics comes from Michael Colton and John Aboud and stars Topher Grace.
Inspired by Colton’s real-life experiences, the series documents the uncomfortable yet heartwarming relationships of three siblings in very different situations: one in the ultra-rich, one in the middle class and one scraping by.
The series also stars Caitlin McGee, Jimmy Tatro, Karla Souza, Sasheer Zamata, Shiloh Bearman, Jordyn Curet, Chloe Jo Rountree and JeCobi Swain.
The third season premiered in September and its 13-episode season ended in January.
Colton and Aboud serve as executive producers alongside Grace and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum of The Tannenbaum Company, whose Jason Wang co-executive produces along with Tucker Cawley and Julieanne Smolinski. Dean Holland directed the pilot and multiple episodes and also serves as an executive producer. Home Economics is produced by Lionsgate and ABC Signature.
The Rookie: Feds is a spinoff of the long-running police drama series and stars Niecy Nash-Betts. The series, which premiered at the end of September, scored a full season order in October following solid numbers, particularly with delayed multiplatform viewing.
It stars Nash-Betts as Simone Clark, the oldest rookie in the FBI. Clark is a force of nature, the living embodiment of a dream deferred – and she works together with her new colleagues at the Bureau to bring down the country’s toughest criminals.
It also stars Frankie R. Faison, James Lesure, Britt Robertson, Felix Solis and Kevin Zegers.
Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter are co-creators, co-showrunners and executive producers. Mark Gordon, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nathan Fillion, Michelle Chapman, Bill Norcross, Corey Miller, Michael Goi and Bibby Dunn exec produce.
The lead studio eOne, which produces with ABC Signature.
The Good Lawyer is a spinoff of The Good Doctor. ABC aired a backdoor pilot in March starring Nancy Drew’s Kennedy McMann and Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman, in her first broadcast acting gig since she completed a short prison sentence for her role in the college admission scandal.
The legal drama’s backdoor pilot episode said The Good Doctor’s Dr. Shaun Murphy, played by Freddie Highmore, seeking legal representation to help him win a case and puts his faith in a promising, young lawyer, Joni DeGroot (McMann) who has obsessive compulsive disorder.
The brilliant, funny and self-aware Joni is relatively new to her prestigious law firm when she takes Shaun’s case. Living with OCD, Joni has never wanted to be treated differently. While her symptoms take a toll on her personal and professional life, her attention to detail allows her to see cases through a different lens.
Huffman plays Janet Stewart, a highly regarded attorney and partner at the law firm with a fierce intellect and dry wit. A seasoned veteran, Janet has represented Dr. Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) in several legal matters over the years, so he turns to her to represent his beloved protégé. But when Shaun declares that he wants Joni to represent him, Janet is forced to let Joni take lead on the case.
The drama comes from The Good Doctor executive producers/co-showrunners David Shore and Liz Friedman. Sony Pictures Television and ABC Signature produce in association with Shore’s Sony-based Shore Z Prods.
“She’d be an influencer for sure,” Longoria said about Gabby’s whereabouts now during an interview on Access Hollywood while promoting her feature directorial debut Flamin’ Hot. “She’d be like a social media mogul.”
Longoria said that she “would be the first to sign up for a reboot” adding, “I miss Gabby so much. I miss being Gabby Solis.”
However, the Telenovela alum said that she doesn’t think series creator Marc Cherry would be interested in revisiting Wisteria Lane.
“I’ve talked to him several times,” she said. “He feels like there’s no why now? For the sake of a reboot, he wouldn’t do it. he feels like, ‘What do I have to say with these characters that we haven’t already fully mined?'”
Longoria noted that the television landscape has changed since Desperate Housewives first premiered in 2004 when the series orders were heftier.
“I come from the generation of 24 episodes a year for a decade of our lives. There’s no more six-episode per season stuff that there is now,” she explained. “This was 24 episodes a year, we fully mined those characters. There was nobody on the street that was left to sleep with. I slept with everybody. I was like, ‘Uh, what do we do now?'”
She continued, “Twenty years ago we were saying something about ageism and saying something about being a housewife, and it was shocking. There’s a lot of things we said and did that was groundbreaking, and I don’t think it is now. Now it’s like the norm.”
Watch Longoria’s interview in full in the video posted here.
The actress turned activist and director told the UK’s Times newspaper that Hollywood is not the “progressive entity” people believe.
She said:
“We are getting less jobs as directors than two years ago. People look at Hollywood as a progressive entity and it’s not… I think we’re more aware, thanks to the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, about what’s appropriate in work environments.
“That’s been a game-changer for our industry as far as how we’re treated on sets or in writers’ rooms and meetings. Has it led to hiring more women? I don’t think so.”
Longoria, who came to fame as Gabrielle in the hit series Desperate Housewives, has directed her first feature film, Flamin’ Hot, telling the story of janitor turned executive Richard Montañez, who created Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in 1992 and turned the company brand around.
Longoria told The Times:
“I knew I was gonna have to work twice as hard and out-hustle everybody. And I’m OK with out-hustling anybody in the room. Then [I got it] and I was like, ‘Oh God, am I gonna have to do everything I just said I was gonna do?’
“People think I’m an actor turned director. But I am a director-producer turned actor. I’ve always been way more interested in behind the scenes, in how the sausage is made.”
Flaming’ Hot will be available to watch on Disney+ from June 9. Longoria already has more than a dozen TV series director credits under her belt and her company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment is teaming up with Paris-based Mediawan and Elefantec Global to co-produce a Spanish-speaking Americas version of the hit series Call My Agent! Longoria will also direct the first two episodes.
She added in the same interview that she’d be the first to sign up for a Desperate Housewives reunion, although she believes the changes of it happening are slim:
“I miss Gaby. I miss the girls. I miss Wisteria Lane. But I’ve talked to Marc Cherry [who created the show] quite a bit about it. His big thing is, ‘What would we say? We fully explored these characters.’”
Todd Turner (Good Neighbor) wrote and will direct the film. Turner will also serve as producer through Wonderstruck, alongside Gabrielle Almagor for Urban Tales Productions and Michael Slifkin, Scott Martin, and Jack Sheehan of Archstone. Principal photography is scheduled to start September 2023 in Massachusetts.
The pic is set in a town called Bethlehem, where border agents have just intercepted a coyote smuggling in a group of tired, desperate, and frightened refugees. There, an 11-year-old girl runs into a 7-year-old boy, Yosef, seeking refuge. Maya and Yosef become fast friends, and their ensuing adventure nearly kills them both but ends up warming the hearts of the townspeople with life lessons stretching far beyond their own borders.
“I am really happy to be a part of The December Cross. We have an amazing cast, and the subject matter has such a unique and timely voice concerning immigration, family, and love,” Lutz said. “As an actor, I look for meaningful stories to tell and I’m looking forward to playing a character with such internal and external conflict.”
Archstone most recently produced The Best Man, starring Luke Wilson and Dolph Lundgren, which was released theatrically last month via Saban. They also recently acquired and are selling Adam The First with David Duchovny, Futra Days with Tania Raymonde and Brandon Sklenar, and The Greatest Surf Movie In The Universe starring Luke Hemsworth, Kelly Slater, and Mick Fanning.
FilmHedge is a fintech platform that provides private credit and financing for TV and film producers.
Lutz is repped by Innovative and Zero Gravity, McDonough is with WME and Luber Roklin, Harris is repped by Paradigm and Complete Management Group, Esposito is with Special Artists Agency and Authentic, and Savante is with Exclusive Artists Agency and Opus Entertainment.
Replies the button-down manager, “OK, I can see you’re gonna be a weird one.”
Welcome to the first trailer for Flamin’ Hot, director Eva Longoria’s tale of a janitor who channeled his Mexican-American heritage and upbringing into an idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, which disrupted the food industry and became a pop culture phenomenon. As Montañez says in the trailer, “I’m the guy who helped bring the world the most popular snack it’s ever seen.”
Layoffs are hitting the PepsiCo snack-food giant because “Frito-Lay isn’t getting enough orders to keep the factory open,” the workers are told. But Montañez has the answer: “It’s a spicy chip. It’s gonna change everything.” Doubts converge among the higher-ups — “Why are we wasting time on this janitor’s crazy idea?” — but he starts to convincing.
Talking to roomful of execs, Montañez says, “If we knew there was a product out there for us, we’d say, ‘Take all our money, cabrones!” A mini-montage later, he admits, “I got a little ‘hood there at the end, but …”
Annie Gonzalez, Dennis Haysbert, Emilio Rivera, Tony Shalhoub, Matt Walsh, Pepe Serna, Bobby Soto, Jimmy Gonzales, Brice Gonzalez, Vanessa Martinez, Fabian Alomar, Mario Ponce, Hunter Jones also star in the Searchlight Pictures film, which will be the first pic to hit both Disney+ and Hulu in its streaming debut, on June 9.
“A friend of mine informed me that I am still listed as married on IMDb and Wikipedia, etc,” Burgi revealed. “It has been a very trying year and a half. After losing a great job for something that had nothing to do with my work as an artist, and then, with much difficulty, my second marriage ended.”
The veteran actor joined the cast of Y&R as the villainous Ashland Locke back in March 2021, but he was let go in January 2022 because he unwittingly violated the soap’s COVID protocols. The role was recast with GUIDING LIGHT veteran Robert Newman, who continued telling Ashland’s story until the character met a violent end.
Burgi married his first wife, Lori Kahn, in 1995, and they have two sons, Jack and Samuel. After their divorce, he married Liliana Lopez in February 2012. But now that union has also sadly come to an end.
“Divorce is painful and devastating but the good Lord has a way of leading you to things you need and away from things that you don’t,” Burgi declared thoughtfully. “The loss of a job, relationship, or any other important thing is like a death and takes time, good friends, and family or nurturing people and places to get through.”
He then suggested to anyone going through the same kinds of experiences a couple of places that helped him to recenter his life and move past the darkness. “Oniya in Montana is one of those places,” Burgi said. “The staff, the facility, the natural elements, as well as the horses are truly a transformational experience.
“Also check out LeahKalish.com,” he added. “She and her husband, Bruce, offer another amazing life-affirming experience for those looking for growth, healing, and change. With these and more, I am in a great place and grateful for this beautiful life… Onward!”
Season to date, the Nathan Fillion-fronted ensemble drama has averaged 6.5 million total viewers and a 0.7 rating (with Live+7 playback), up in audience and off just a tenth in the demo from last season’s tallies. Out of the 10 dramas that ABC has aired this TV season, The Rookie ranks as No. 1 in total audience and ties for No. 2 in the demo (trailing only Grey’s Anatomy).
ABC, meanwhile, notes that since moving from the Sunday closer role to the Tuesday leadoff spot this past January, The Rookie has improved its time slot over the comparable weeks last season by 40% in total viewers and 17% among Adults 18-49.
The status of the Niecy Nash-led freshman spinoff The Rookie: Feds — which following a strong start currently ranks No. 8 in audience and ties for seventh in the demo amongst all ABC dramas — is currently TBD.
The Rookie resumes Season 5 this Tuesday with an episode titled “S.T.R.,” in which Officer Tim Bradford’s ex-wife (returning guest star Mircea Monroe) returns to ask the team to help her save someone from her undercover past. Isabel’s return, though, also creates additional pressure in Lucy and Tim’s relationship, as they assist her in said search.
The Rookie airs its season finale in Tuesday, May 2.
The film follows Mike (Metcalfe), the owner of a small comic shop in a strip mall in Las Vegas, as he struggles with addiction and his seemingly impossible dream of becoming a comic book illustrator. That’s Hollywood’s Ron Singer (The Story of Everything) and Reed (I Am Michael) are producing alongside Cynthia Huffman, with Joshua A. Cohen and Eduard Osipov co-producing. Metcalfe, Bowen and Chaz Rainey are the EPs.
Metcalfe is represented by Gersh, Link Entertainment and Brecheen Feldman Breimer.
The actress was playing the role of Juanita Solis, daughter of Eva Longoria’s Gabrielle Solis, on TV hit Desperate Housewives. But the joy of being on a huge TV show was spoiled for her thanks to cyberbullying, as she related to Elizabeth Vargas on the Heart of the Matter podcast.
The abuse cause De La Garza to develop an eating disorder.
“They said things like they wanted me to die because of what I looked like,” De La Garza said. “It was just horrible, like, ‘ugly fat cow,’ and ‘I hope you get cancer and die because you’re so fat.’ Just horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible things and this was when I was 6, 7, 8 years old.”
“Reading comments like that definitely affected my mental health and ultimately played into me developing an eating disorder at a very young age,” she added.
De La Garza was a chubby child, and her character’s appearance was prominently mentioned on the series. “This was talked about literally in the script of the show,” De La Garza said. “The whole joke of my character was that Eva was this thin, beautiful model, and her daughter turned out to be quite the opposite.”
De La Garza said Longoria was not to blame, and said she “went out of her way to make me feel special” and offer compliments.
The actress said she is now two years into recovery from an eating disorder, and is now eight months sober after drug use.
Page will make his first appearance during the May 4 episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” playing Sam Sutton. According to the character description provided by ABC, Sam is “an Air Force pilot who is seriously injured in a base-jumping accident. Although he’s coping with trauma, he somehow maintains his sense of humor and charm.” The episode is titled “Come Fly With Me,” and in the logline, it says the character of Link (Chris Carmack) willl be wrestling “with his own self-doubt as he preps for a massive surgery.”
Will that massive surgery be performed on Sam? Perhaps!
Page co-starred on the series “The Bold Type” — a five-season-long Freeform show that drew a cult following, especially among media people — as a publishing executive (and endgame for Meghann Fahy’s character, Sutton). He also appeared as a recurring cast member on the original “Gossip Girl,” “Desperate Housewives,” “House of Cards,” and on “Mad Men,” on which he played Greg Harris, Joan’s (rapist!) husband.
Page is represented by UTA, Silver Lining Management and attorney Alan Wertheimer.
Last month, ABC announced an early renewal for “Grey’s Anatomy” for a historic 20th season. Executive producer Meg Marinis will take over as showrunner from Krista Vernoff, an original writer for the medical drama who’s been running “Grey’s” since Season 14. The Season 20 status of Ellen Pompeo as Meredith Grey — around whom “Grey’s Anatomy” has revolved since its 2005 premiere, but who said goodbye to Seattle on the Feb. 23 episode — remains in flux.
In addition to producing the show as founding CEO of UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, Longoria will also direct the first two episodes.
Longoria already has more than a dozen TV series director credits under her belt and recently made her feature directorial debut with Flamin’ Hot, which world premiered at SXSW.
“Like so many people around the globe, I’ve been a huge fan of the original series since it first premiered,” said Longoria.
“I’m so excited to partner with Mediawan and Elefantec Global to bring one of the greatest properties that gives a witty and satirical look behind the curtain of the entertainment industry for the Spanish-speaking American market.”
Elefantec Global CEO Pepe Baston echoed Longoria, saying: “Made with Latin flavor for a global audience, we are sure this iteration will find success and viewers worldwide,”
The original version of Call My Agent, illustrating the world of celebrity agents at a top Paris talent agency, first aired on France Télévisions for four seasons with record audiences, before being acquired by Netflix and achieving international fame.
The series has already been adapted for a number of other territories including Turkey, the UK, and most recently Italy, by Mediawan subsidiary Palomar.
The original series was produced by Mediawan Group label Mon Voisin Productions and Mother Production.
“Joining forces with Eva Longoria and Pepe Baston to take Call My Agent to Latin America is a unique opportunity,” said Mediawan CEO Pierre-Antoine Capton.
“Their talent and know-how combined with their international renown guarantee an innovative and premium adaptation of this series, a real funny and moving gem that the French creators were able to bring to life and which has since been travelling to audiences worldwide.”i
As expected, Jones (Doctor Foster, Gentleman Jack) and Leslie (Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey) will return as detectives Amy Silva and Kirsten Longacre. Gary Lewis (His Dark Materials) also returns as DS Robertson.
In Season 2, Deadline has learnt that the leads will enter the closed and hostile environment of the Royal Air Force as they’re tasked with uncovering the cause of multiple unexplained fatalities at a Scottish military base.
Garai (Becoming Elizabeth, The Hour) and Scott (Crime, Enigma) will take major roles, as will Amir El-Masry (SAS Rogue Heroes, Limbo), David Elliot (The Liberator, Bulletproof), Chris Jenks (Sex Education, Karen Pirie), Tommy Sim’aan (The Midwich Cuckoos, Doctors), Oscar Salem (House of the Dragon, Des), Jonathan Ajayi (Noughts + Crosses) and newcomer Hiba Medina.
Shooting on Line of Duty producer World Productions’ six-part season begins in Spring in Scotland and Morocco. The BBC confirmed it was returning to BBC One and BBC iPlayer nearly a year ago today but casting and plot details have been heavily guarded until now. ITV Studios has international distribution rights.
Simon Heath and Jake Lushington, Executive Producers for World Productions, said in a statement: “We’re excited to be taking the Silva & Longacre investigative partnership into a very different part of the British military, high in the skies rather than deep underwater. We’re also delighted to welcome to the cast two brilliant actors we’ve worked with on previous World shows, Romola Garai and Dougray Scott.”
The BBC’s first season of Vigil was UK television’s most-watched new drama launch since Bodyguard in 2018, with the debut episode taking a consolidated 13.8 million viewers after 28 days. In the U.S. it is on Peacock. The debut run also won an International Emmy and gained a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Series.
Garai said it was “a huge privilege to be welcomed in as a part of Vigil Season 2 and to be playing such a layered, complex character,” adding: “I can only hope to do justice to the shows continued fascinating, challenging and thrilling storytelling.” Further details of her character weren’t revealed.
Scott added: “I’m delighted to be joining the cast of Vigil series 2 – the first was so highly regarded and widely watched, and I’m really looking forward to collaborating with Tom Edge and Andy De Emmony. Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie are great talents and I’m excited to be working with them.”
Jones said the season had “brilliant new scripts and some amazing additions to the cast,” adding: “Buckle up. It’s quite a ride.” Leslie said creator Tom Edge had written “another gripping case for us to grapple with in a whole new setting.”
Edge is writing the new season, with episodes penned by Maryam Hamidi, James Smythe and Ryan O’Sullivan & Matilda Wnek. Andy De Emmony (The Nest, The Last Kingdom) is the director andMarcus Wilson (Doctor Who, Luther) is producer. Associate Producer is George Aza-Selinger. Executive producers are World’s Heath and Lushington for World Productions, Gaynor Holmes for the BBC, and Edge.
BBC Drama Director Lindsay Salt said: “Vigil series one took the country by storm, and I could not be more excited for BBC viewers to find out what comes next. With a highly original mystery and a richly fascinating new world for Silva and Longacre to explore, this is blockbuster television with brains as well as brawn.”
In the latest installment of HBO Max’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?, the titular host about a third of the way in cued up a clip from Longoria’s two-and-a-half year run as Y&R‘s Isabella.
Longoria appeared caught off-guard by Wallace digging up said clip. Afterward, she let out a hearty laugh, then shared an anecdote about how Y&R was paying her so little at the time that she retained her job at a temp agency to make ends meet. (You can find a Twittered clip down above, or watch on HBO Max, starting at the 8:15 mark.)
Eric Braeden — an eight-time Daytime Emmy nominee (and winner in 1998) for his iconic, decades-long run as Y&R‘s Victor Newman — loudly took issue with how Longoria reacted during the Who’s Talking segment.
In a series of Sunday night tweets, Braeden said, “Eva Longoria, you just made derogatory remarks about daytime actors! You simply weren’t good enough to survive the pressures of this medium! You were very lucky to get on that ‘housewife’ show [ABC’s Desperate Housewives]! You did one [Desperate Housewives episode] in 8-12 days, with mediocre but salacious dialogue! Our actresses would run rings around you!! And they did then!! From Robert De Niro to whoever they all are, many of them started in the medium you denigrate! It shows a complete lack of class!!”
Called out by some for overreacting to how Longoria reacted to the Y&R clip and what she said afterwards, Braeden doubled down, tweeting that “the whole tenor of that segment was one of embarrassment about her stint in Y&R.” He also said that “when people who have not made it in the [daytime-TV] medium or have no idea what it is about say pejorative things about it, I get pissed off! Because I’m one of few people in it who have done it all, from theater to films to loads of nighttime guest star roles! I know what I’m talking about!'”
The pic is based on the true story of Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), a Frito-Lay janitor who disrupted the food industry by channeling his Mexican-American heritage to turn Flamin’ Hot Cheetos from a snack into an iconic global pop culture phenomenon.
“I’m so excited for the world to see Flamin’ Hot on these two streaming platforms making this universal, inspirational story accessible to an even wider audience,” director Longoria said. “Now everyone can celebrate the joy, power and heart of this film that also happens to uplift Latinos both in front of and behind the camera.”
Added Searchlight Presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield. “Eva’s inspiring film is a joy to experience and we could not be happier that it will now be available to even more families and audiences around the world.”
Producer DeVon Franklin said: “From the moment I found Richard Montanez’ story seven years ago, I knew it would resonate with and inspire audiences everywhere. I’m so grateful to Searchlight, Hulu, and now Disney+ for giving us this historic opportunity to bring his uplifting true story to over 200 million subscribers around the world!”
The film is a Franklin Entertainment Production written by Lewis Colick (October Sky, Charlie St. Cloud) and Linda Yvette Chávez (Gentefied creator-writer). It stars Jesse Garcia (Quinceañera) as Richard, Annie Gonzalez (Gentefied) as his wife, Judy; Emilio Rivera (Venom) as Richard’s father, Nacho; Dennis Haysbert (24) as Richard’s mentor, Clarence; and four-time Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico. Other cast members include Matt Walsh (Veep), Bobby Soto (Narcos) and Pepe Serna (Scarface).n
Previously announced Oscars presenters include Riz Ahmed, Halle Bailey, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Glenn Close, Jennifer Connelly, Ariana DeBose, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Danai Gurira, Salma Hayek Pinault, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Nicole Kidman, Troy Kotsur, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Deepika Padukone, Florence Pugh, Questlove, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver and Donnie Yen.
The 95th Oscars will be held Sunday, March 12, 2023, at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be televised live on ABC and in more than 200 territories worldwide.
Nancy Drew star Kennedy McMann and Emmy-winning Desperate Housewives alumna Felicity Huffman guest star in the episode, introducing their characters who would lead The Good Lawyer if the legal drama is picked up to series.
In “The Good Lawyer” episode, written by The Good Doctor co-showrunners David Shore and Liz Friedman and directed by Ruben Fleischer, Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) seeks legal representation and puts his faith in a promising, young lawyer, Joni DeGroot (McMann) who has obsessive compulsive disorder.
Huffman, in her return to acting following the college admission scandal, plays Janet Stewart, a highly regarded attorney and partner at the law firm who has represented Dr. Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) in several legal matters over the years, so he turns to her to represent his beloved protégé. But when Shaun declares that he wants Joni to represent him, Janet is forced to let Joni take lead on the case.
The trailer (you can watch it above) teases Shaun’s first meeting with Janet and Joni. it also sheds some light on the malpractice case he is being sued over. Sony Pictures TV co-produces with ABC Signature.
Brass & Unity delves into Sheren’s experience as a five-foot tall female artillery gunner going into battle and coming out a broken soldier, forced to rediscover her purpose in life. Sheren served with Canadian, American, and British armed forces, deploying to Afghanistan in 2009 at age 19, and upon being sent home with PTSD, embarked on a new war with herself.
From the depths of despair, broken and suicidal, though, she emerged stronger than ever. Finding respite in a jewelry business that utilized spent shell casings, along with brain treatment, psychedelics, and regaining a combat community, Sheren not only survived but continues to thrive — and works tirelessly to spread the word and help others.
Sheren now hosts a podcast, also titled Brass & Unity, which brings in notable guests from all career paths and walks of life to discuss issues of mental health. She also runs the successful jewelry and eyewear brand of the same name, which puts 20% of its net profits toward helping vets suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.
“Ruvé and I are very excited to bring the story of Kelsi Sheren’s life to the screen. And we couldn’t be more excited to have the launch of her book coming out to coincide with preproduction on our project,” actor-producer Neal McDonough told Deadline. “To be the only female in an all male platoon in Afghanistan and what she went through is truly a project about bravery, faith, and never giving up hope. We are so blessed to be part of this team.”
Neal and his wife Ruvé McDonough most recently teamed to produce Boon — the sequel to the indie thriller Red Stone, in which Neal starred opposite Tommy Flanagan and Christiane Seidel. The film, released last year by Cinedigm, had him reprising his role as Nick Boon, a mercenary attempting to atone for his life as an enforcer for a merciless syndicate.
Neal also previously exec produced the Brent Christy Western The Warrant in which he starred, with Ruve as producer. He alone exec produced Red Stone, also serving in that capacity on his college football pic, Greater. Notable onscreen credits of late for the in-demand actor include Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star, The CW’s The Flash and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.
Neal McDonough is repped by Luber Roklin Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.
The film heading into production in North Carolina in April tells the story of Nora, Ginny and Mary, who have been best friends since childhood, spending their summers together inseparably at sleepaway camp. As the years have passed, they’ve seen each other less and less, so when the chance to reunite for a summer camp reunion arises, they all take it, some begrudgingly and others, excitedly. Each of their lives might not be where they’d imagined, but one thing is for sure — Nora, Ginny, and Mary need each other, and summer camp reminds them why.
Summer Camp is a Saks Picture Company production, in association with and financed by Taylor & Dodge and Grant S. Johnson’s Project Infinity. Producers include Alex Saks (No Hard Feelings, Book Club), Dori A. Rath (Pig), Keaton, Stephanie Heaton-Harris (Mack & Rita) and Tyler W. Konney (May December). Johnson (May December) is exec producing, with Mariela Villa, Nicholas Erickson and Elayne Schmidt serving as co-producers. Konney’s Taylor & Dodge and CAA Media Finance are co-repping world rights.
“Alex, Dori, and I wanted to develop a fun, high energy comedy for Diane, that really allowed us to see women spreading their wings and taking on new life during what used to be the traditional slowed-down retirement years,” Landon told Deadline of the inspiration behind the project. “We hit on this idea, pitched it to Diane, who loved it, and set out to cast legendary actors that have always wanted to work together, and I couldn’t be more excited. The chemistry is going to be undeniable…and I can’t wait to reveal who else we have attending our zany camp.”
Keaton is an Oscar and Golden Globe winner known for roles in such iconic films as Annie Hall and The Godfather who will next be seen reunited on screen with Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen in Book Club: The Next Chapter — Focus Features’ sequel to the Bill Holderman-directed comedy Book Club, which grossed over $104M upon its release in 2018.
Bates is an Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award winner who recently inked a deal to star in a Matlock reboot at CBS. Among the actress’s other upcoming films are Lionsgate’s adaptation of the Judy Blume coming-of-age novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which hits theaters on April 28, as well as Netflix’s rom-com A Family Affair with Zac Efron, Joey King and Nicole Kidman, which debuts on the platform on November 17.
Woodard is an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award winner and Oscar nominee who recently wrapped production on The Book of Clarence, The Harder They Fall filmmaker Jeymes Samuel’s epic biblical dramedy for Legendary, which has her starring alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy, David Oyelowo, LaKeith Stanfield and more. She’ll next appear in Warner Bros/New Line’s supernatural horror Salem’s Lot, based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King.
Landon is best known for directing After We Fell and After Ever Happy — two installments in the hugely popular After series of romantic dramas, based on the novels by Anna Todd, which star Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin. Her next film Perfect Addiction, based on the bestselling Claudia Tan novel — which has garnered 81 million reads on the social storytelling platform Wattpad — is set for two nights in theaters via Fathom Events later this month and will subsequently become available for streaming on Prime Video.
Keaton is represented by WME and Pearlman & Tishbi; Bates by CAA; Woodard by CAA, Circle of Confusion and Gochman Law Group; and Landon by Verve. Johnson, Project Infinity, Konney, and Taylor & Dodge are with Singh, Singh & Trauben LLP.e
In the episode, which was previously scheduled for March 6, Dr. Shaun Murphy (played by Freddie Highmore) “seeks legal representation to help him win a case and puts his faith in a promising, young lawyer (Nancy Drew‘s Kennedy McMann) who has obsessive compulsive disorder,” reads the official synopsis.
McMann’s Joni DeGroot is a “brilliant, funny and self-aware lawyer who is relatively new to her prestigious law firm when she takes Shaun’s case.”
Felicity Huffman (American Crime, Desperate Housewives) co-stars as Janet Stewart, “a highly regarded attorney and partner at the law firm with a fierce intellect and dry wit,” while Bethlehem Million plays Joni’s compassionate and practical older sister and roommate.
Katherine Langford stars as Samantha Bird, who, while visiting family in New England, reconnects with her childhood sweetheart (Finn Jones) and falls headlong into a seemingly perfect storybook romance. But underneath their fever dream lurks a more unsettling interpretation of this affair. The series is described as a haunting portrayal of addictive love and the repercussions that a relationship has on the families in a small New England town.
Czerny will play Teddy, Samantha’s father and a former artist and teacher. Theodore “Teddy” Bird moves to Little Yorn with his wife, Nan, reuniting with their longtime friends, Al and Carol Minot.
Savant plays Al Minot, a sharp businessman who is deeply invested in maintaining the town of Little Yorn as it has been for generations.
The two actors join previously announced cast Embeth Davidtz (The Morning Show), Brenda Strong (13 Reasons Why), Adam Faison (Everything’s Gonna Be Okay), Shalini Bathina (Little Voice), Francesca Reale and Tyrone Marshall Brown (Love Is). Anna Moriarty created the series, and Larysa Kondracki (Power, Better Call Saul) is EP and a director on four episodes, including the pilot. Nicole Jefferson Asher (P-Valley, The First Lady) is co-EP.
Czerny returns this summer, 25 years later, to reprise his famed role of Kittridge opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One in theaters on July 14. He’s also starring in Dead Reckoning, Part 2. He’ll also be seen in Spyglass Media and Paramount’s Scream VI, in theaters on March 10, as well as the upcoming Hulu feature Zombie Town, opposite Dan Aykroyd. Czerny starred in the lead role of director Mark O’Brien’s feature film The Righteous and the Searchlight comedy-horror feature Ready or Not. Television credits include HBO’s Sharp Objects and ABC’s Revenge. He is repped by Innovative and manager Perry Zimel.
Savant starred as Tom Scavo on 175 episodes of ABC’s Desperate Housewives and in 159 episodes of the Fox 1990s series Melrose Place as Matt Fielding. He has continued working in a wide variety of series including 9-1-1, Dirty John, Halt and Catch Fire, 24, among others. Savant is repped by SDB Partners and Liberman-Zerman Management.
The film written and directed by Brock Heasley marks the first original theatrical effort from Angel Studios, the studio behind the crowdfunded streaming series The Chosen. Plot details are under wraps. But Liz Tabish, Paras Patel and Jordan Walker Ross will also feature in the cast of the pic from Ken Carpenter’s Nook Lane Entertainment.
McDonough is repped by Luber Roklin Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Astin by Luber Roklin, Stewart Talent and Brecheen Feldman Breimer; and Reid by Innovative Artists and attorney Jared Bloch.
Cast: Rob Lowe as Owen Strand; Gina Torres as Tommy Vega; Ronen Rubinstein as T.K. Strand; Sierra McClain as Grace Ryder; Jim Parrack as Judd Ryder; Natacha Karam as Marjan Marwani; Brian Michael Smith as Paul Strickland; Rafael Silva as Carlos Reyes; Julian Works as Mateo Chavez; Brianna Baker as Nancy Gillian
Guest Cast: Neal McDonough as Sgt. Ty O’Brien; Amanda Schull as Special Agent Rose Kacey
That's right ... you could be the lucky owner of the 2007 Aston Martin DB9 Volante Eva whipped around Wisteria Lane during the show's heyday.
The vehicle's current owner, David Teitelbaum tells TMZ the luxury car is one of a kind, factory-made specifically for "Desperate Housewives" ... even down to the color combo. We're told the vehicle was given to Eva after wrap, and has factory door plaques to commemorate it.
The car is currently listed on eBay with a starting price of $39K, or can be purchased outright for $49K. Unclear why Eva decided to part with it originally -- but David is selling the car after just 2 months because he says he's too tall to comfortably drive it.
Of course, it comes with just as much power as it does pretty -- with a naturally aspirated V12 engine and 450 horsepower.
Other features include -- a $2k Apple CarPlay installation Bluetooth and plug-in, as well as brand new tires and brake pads. It has just over 50,000 miles on it.
Now's the chance to ride like Eva!!!
The eight-episode series revolves around Langford’s Samantha Bird, who, while visiting family in New England, reconnects with her childhood sweetheart (Jones) and falls headlong into a seemingly perfect storybook romance. But underneath their fever dream lurks a more unsettling interpretation of this affair. The series is described as a haunting portrayal of addictive love and the repercussions that a relationship has on the families in a small New England town.
Jones will play Jake Minot, the fearless, ruggedly handsome and quietly charismatic former childhood sweetheart of Samantha Bird. It’s been many years since they’ve seen each other, but when they meet again during Sam’s trip to New England, they pick up, it’s like no time has passed.
Reale portrays Ellie Bird, Samantha’s confident, intelligent and pleasantly outspoken youngest sister. Articulate and well-educated, Ellie has a close relationship with her sister and they seem comfortable talking about anything and everything…but all the while Ellie is quietly keeping a watchful and protective eye on Sam.
Strong plays Nan Bird, Sam’s mother.
Faison portrays Nigel, a local New Hampshire-based podcaster, and close friend of Ellie Bird.
Bathina is Dr. Priyanka Yalen. Reserved and sophisticated, she’s Jake’s therapist, much to the chagrin of her husband.
Brown plays Gideon Yalen, Priyanka’s husband who has concerns about Jake, and his wife taking him on as a patient.
In addition to Kondracki and Asher, Salvatore Stabile (Waco) is executive producer, Jessica Rhoades (Station Eleven, Sharp Objects) executive produces through her Pacesetter Productions shingle, with Rachel Polan serving as co-executive producer, Lisa Vinnecour is co-exec producer and Jessica Yu (Fosse/Verdon, Billions) is consulting producer. The series is created by Anna Moriarty, who also serves as executive producer.
Known for his role as the title character in Iron Fist, Jones can currently be seen as the lead of the feature The Visitor and he recently starred as one of the leads in the series Swimming With Sharks. He’s repped by CAA, Curtis Brown Group, Atlas Artists and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson McGinnis Ryan.
Davidtz’s recent credits include the recurring role of Paige on The Morning Show and guest roles on Tales of The Walking Dead and Love, Victor. She’s repped by CAA, The Artists Partnership in the UK and Berwick & Kovacik.
Strong was recently a series regular on 13 Reasons Why, which she also directed in the final season. She’ll next be seen recurring in AMC’s 61st Street and Hulu’s Unprisoned. She’s repped by SDB Partners and Liberman-Zerman Management.
Bathini’s recent credits include the role of Prisha in Apple’s Little Voice and Paramount/Spectrum’s Long Slow Exhale. She’s repped by ESI Network and APA.
Faison can currently be seen as a lead in the reboot of Hellraiser directed by David Bruckner. Faison was previously a series regular on Everything’s Gonna Be Ok and he can next be seen in the independent film Sweet Dreams. Faison is repped by Hyperion, Avalon Management and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson.
Brown’s recent credits include recurring roles on Power and Love Is__ and guest roles on FBI and Bull. He’s repped by Gersh and Luber Roklin Entertainment.
Cast: Roselyn Sánchez as Elena Roarke; Kiara Barnes as Ruby Akuda; John Gabriel Rodriquez as Javier
Guest Cast: James Denton as Dutch; Teri Hatcher as Dolly; Andy Richter as Game Show Host; Alexa Mansour as Helene; Bryan Cid Borrero as Harrison
ABC has formally ordered an embedded pilot episode of The Good Doctor titled The Good Lawyer, which will guest star McMann and Huffman and will introduce their characters. Airing March 6, the episode, written by The Good Doctor co-showrunners David Shore and Liz Friedman and directed by Ruben Fleischer, marks the first acting gig for Huffman since she completed a short prison sentence for her role in the college admission scandal almost three years.
In “The Good Lawyer” episode, Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) seeks legal representation to help him win a case and puts his faith in a promising, young lawyer, Joni DeGroot (McMann) who has obsessive compulsive disorder.
The brilliant, funny and self-aware Joni is relatively new to her prestigious law firm when she takes Shaun’s case. Living with OCD, Joni has never wanted to be treated differently. While her symptoms take a toll on her personal and professional life, her attention to detail allows her to see cases through a different lens.
McMann, who has been open about her lifelong struggles with OCD, emerged as the top choice for the role by early September.
Huffman will guest star as Janet Stewart, a highly regarded attorney and partner at the law firm with a fierce intellect and dry wit. A seasoned veteran, Janet has represented Dr. Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) in several legal matters over the years, so he turns to her to represent his beloved protégé. But when Shaun declares that he wants Joni to represent him, Janet is forced to let Joni take lead on the case.
The relationship between Joni and Stewart somewhat echoes that between Sean and Glassman on The Good Doctor.
Developed by Shore based on the Korean series, The Good Doctor ranks as ABC’s No. 1 entertainment series this season in total viewers, tying The Rookie. After 35 days of viewing on linear and digital platforms, the series has attracted nearly 9.4 million total viewers this season. The Good Doctor jumps more than six times over its initial Live+Same Day rating among Adults 18-49, soaring by +509% after 35 days of multiplatform viewing.
The Good Doctor stars Highmore as Shaun, Hill Harper as Dr. Marcus Andrews, Schiff as Glassman, Fiona Gubelmann as Dr. Morgan Reznick, Will Yun Lee as Dr. Alex Park, Christina Chang as Dr. Audrey Lim, Paige Spara as Lea Dilallo, Bria Samoné Henderson as Dr. Jordan Allen and Noah Galvin as Dr. Asher Wolke.
Shore and Friedman executive produce alongside Daniel Dae Kim, Erin Gunn, Thomas L. Moran, David Hoselton, Peter Blake, Jessica Grasl, Garrett Lerner, Mike Listo, Highmore, Shawn Williamson, David Kim and Sebastian Lee. The series is from Sony Pictures Television and ABC Signature.
McMann is coming off playing the title role on the CW series Nancy Drew whose upcoming fourth season will be its last.
Huffman has a long history at ABC. All three TV series she has been a lead of have been on ABC and all have garnered critical acclaim: comedy Sports Night, dramedy Desperate Housewives and drama anthology American Crime. The roles earned Huffman major award nominations; she won an Emmy for Desperate Housewives. Last season, Huffman was attached to star in a Sacramento River Cats comedy, which had a pilot production commitment at the network.
Teri Hatcher and James Denton guest-star in the third episode (Jan. 16, 8/7c) of the Fox reboot’s upcoming sophomore season, and TVLine has an exclusive first look at the dangers awaiting them upon their arrival.
The TV spouses formerly known as Susan and Mike Delfino are now playing a couple of empty nesters named Dolly and Dutch, who come to the island to “seek clarity on how to spend their next chapter.”
But because no island experience goes as the guests expect, Dolly and Dutch soon find themselves as contestants in a twisted game show — hosted by Andy Richter, no less! — centered around their fraught marriage. And with quicksand as the punishment for an incorrect answer, the stakes are ridiculously high.
Other familiar faces visiting the island in Season 2 include Rachael Harris, Cheryl Hines, Daphne Maxwell Reid, Brett Butler, Lynn Whitfield, Joely Fisher and Jonathan Bennett.
Fantasy Island returns on Monday, Jan. 2 at 8 pm.
Marvin Lemus, the co-creator and showrunner of Gentefied, a bilingual series that ran for two seasons on Netflix, will direct the feature, which is intended for Disney+ and being produced by Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and The Jim Henson Company.
This new version follows a Mexican American family who have recently lost their connection to each other and their roots, as they embark on an epic road trip that immediately goes hilariously wrong.
Longoria will play Alexander’s mother, a travel writer who has lost her passion for work, while Lopez has been cast as the family’s grandfather, a tough biker.
Matt Lopez (Father of the Bride, Clifford the Big Red Dog) wrote the script.
Production is eyeing a spring start in New Mexico.
Levy, Dan Levine and Lisa Henson produced the 2014 film that first adapted the book for Disney. The trio are back as producers, joined with time by 21 Laps’ Dan Cohen.
Emily Morris will executive produce, with Blanca Lista also overseeing for Henson.
21 Laps is coming off the record-breaking fourth season of Stranger Things as well as the announcement of Levy directing Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in Deadpool 3, which will shoot next year. 21 Laps is currently in postproduction on All the Light We Cannot See, a Netflix limited series that Levy directed and adapts the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning book.
Longoria will next star in and exec produce Land of Women, a six-episode dramedy adapting the best-selling novel by Sandra Barneda for Apple TV+. She recently wrapped production on Flamin’ Hot, centered on the janitor who claimed to have developed Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Longoria directed the drama, which will be released by Searchlight in 2023. She is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen.
Lopez will be seen in Blue Beetle, Warner Bros.’ movie based on the DC hero that will hit theaters in 2023. He is also making his return to broadcast television, starring in Lopez vs. Lopez, a comedy for NBC.
Lemus, whose first season of Gentefied was a nominee for a 2020 Peabody Award, is repped by UTA and Mission Entertainment.
Voice Cast: Nick Offerman as Beef; Jenny Slate as Judy; Will Forte as Wolf; Paul Rust as Ham; Aparna Nancherla as Moon; Dulce Sloan as Honeybee; Megan Mullally as Alyson and Alanis Morissette as Alanis Morissette.
Guest Cast: Brooke Dillman as Dell and Zoya, John Early as Henry, Jo Firestone, Ziwe Fumudoh as Amelia, John Gemberling, Patti Harrison as Debbie, David Herman as Gill Beavers and Santiago Carpaccio, Julio Torres as Crispin Cienfuegos, Ariel Tweto as Kima Brewper, Tuc Watkins as Danny Vroom.
Williams made history in 1983 by becoming the first Black woman to be crowned Miss America. Weeks before completing her reign, she was forced to resign her title under pressure from the organization when controversy ensued after nude photos of her taken prior to her Miss America win were published without her consent in Penthouse Magazine.
Faced with adversity at the start of her career, Williams was able to overcome the scandal and become an award-winning actor and singer in one of entertainment industry’s most remarkable comeback stories.
Zadan/Meron Productions’ Meron and Mark Nicholson will executive produce with Stephen Roseberry and Jon Carrasco of Encore Endeavor 1 (EE1), a wholly-owned subsidiary of kathy ireland Worldwide. Top Hollywood attorney Martin Singer, who has repped kiWW for years and was instrumental in making the project come together, will also serve as executive producer, with Steve Glick, EVP Content and Broadcasting for EE1, serving as producer. Williams has been a client of SWC (Sterling Winters Company), a wholly owned subsidiary of kathy ireland Worldwide, for a long time and has collaborated with kiWW in different areas.
“This project is incredibly personal to me,” said Williams. “There are so many inaccurate and untrue accounts of the events surrounding this period in my life, and as a mother, and as a Black woman, it is important to me that my truth be told and be documented from my perspective. This is not just a story about racy photos, it is about misogyny and racism and I want to shine a light on that for future generations. I was not only able to survive what could have been a career-ending scandal, but rose above it and have achieved a body of work I am extremely proud of. I look forward to continuing my long relationships with Sony, Neil Meron and Mark Nicholson, and working closely with my partners Kathy Ireland, Stephen Roseberry, Jon Carrasco and Steve Glick to bring this story to the screen.”
Williams, a three-time Emmy nominee for supporting actress for her work on Ugly Betty, also has received 11 Grammy nominations, a Tony nomination, three SAG award nominations and seven NAACP Image Awards. The Desperate Housewives alumna recently completed a praised run in the new Broadway comedy POTUS and has completed filming the second season of RuPaul’s Paramount+ reality competition Queen of the Universe, where she serves as a judge. Her platinum single, “Colors of the Wind,” from Disney’s Pocahontas, won the Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and she is currently preparing to record a new album.
“I am so grateful that Vanessa has entrusted Mark Nicholson and I to share her remarkable story of breaking barriers,” Meron said. “She faced a culture of discrimination and hate yet her indomitable integrity guided her to the many triumphs she has had during her remarkable career. She is a testament to living her truth and a role model for everyone. We’re thrilled to be working with Vanessa, as well as Kathy Ireland’s impressive executive team at EE1/kiWW, Stephen Roseberry, Jon Carrasco and Steve Glick.”
Williams has opened up in the past about the traumatic Penthouse scandal experience, which she also recounted in an Oprah’s Master Class interview. (You can watch it below.)
“Vanessa Williams is an extraordinary artist, and a great inspiration for women and girls to dream their own dreams … and live them. Vanessa morphed from a vulnerable, genius young talent to become one of the world’s most beloved pop culture icons, and successful multi-hyphenates in acting, music, dance, and production,” said Ireland, co-founder of EE1 and founder, chair and CEO of kathy ireland? Worldwide. “Vanessa brings courage to Broadway stages, films, recordings and television in her endless fight against bigotry of all sorts. Vanessa is bold, brave and brilliant.”
News of the Williams’ Penthouse Magazine limited series comes on the heels of the success of another limited series about celebrities grappling with intimate private materials being made public without their consent, Hulu’s Pam & Tommy.
“It’s been almost 40 years since Vanessa was crowned Miss America — the first African American woman to win the crown in the pageant’s history. Her historic win, unfortunately, was marred by the greed of people who didn’t care about the consequences of their actions on the lives of Vanessa, her family and our country. We are looking forward to working with Vanessa, Neil, Mark and Sony in bringing this inspiring story about heroism and determination to the screen,” said Carrasco and Roseberry, creative director of EE1 and kiWW and president/CMO of EE1 and kiWW, respectively.
Williams is repped by Glick, SWC, UTA and Lavely & Singer. (Video)
McDonough plays Sgt. Ty O’Brien, a hard-assed police sergeant who we met last season when he butted heads with Owen (Lowe). McDonough guest-starred as the character in one episode in Season 3.
Woodside will portray Trevor, a wholesome, handsome, charismatic, father and preacher. His new job has brought him and his daughter to Texas, but their new city greets them with a rare and dangerous storm.
Schull will play Special Agent Rose Casey, an FBI agent investigating the members of an extremist group. She believes the group is planning a dangerous attack and needs Owen’s help gathering evidence to strengthen the case.
In 9-1-1: Lone Star, 9/11 firefighter Captain Owen Strand (Lowe), along with his son, T.K. (Ronen Rubinstein), moved to Austin to help rebuild a firehouse which had experienced a tragedy of its own.
Gina Torres, Sierra McClain, Jim Parrack, Natacha Karam, Brian Michael Smith, Rafael Silva, Julian Works and Brianna Baker also star.
9-1-1: Lone Star is produced by 20th Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television and Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision. Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear are creators, executive producers and writers on the series. Bradley Buecker is an executive producer and directed the series premiere. Alexis Martin Woodall, John J. Gray, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe, Bob Goodman and Kelly Souders & Brian Peterson are executive producers.
McDonough was most recently seen reprising his role as Damien Dark on this season of CW’s The Flash and played Dwight D. Eisenhower in Season 10 of FX’s American Horror Stories. On the film side, McDonough recently wrapped production as producer, alongside his wife Ruvé, and star of western The Warrant: Breakers Law, and just wrapped Boon which he starred in, wrote, and produced with Ruvé. He also just starred opposite Bruce Willis in the sci-fi action film Apex. He’s repped by Luber Roklin Entertainment and Stuart Rosenthal at Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher.
Known for his work on the Emmy-winning series 24, Woodside recently completed a one-season leading role in Netflix’s The Night Agent, and also recently wrapped his final season as Amenadiel on Netflix’s Lucifer. He also previously starred as Jeff Malone on Suits. Woodside is repped by Gersh, MJ Management and Matt Rosen in Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher.
Schull is known for her role as Katrina Bennett on USA’s drama series Suits. Schull recurred for six seasons on the series and was promoted to series regular for season 8 and 9. Her other credits include recurring roles on One Tree Hill and Pretty Little Liars, among others. She most recently wrapped production on Hallmark’s Marry Go Round and recurred on Netflix’s Graymail. She’s repped by Innovative Artists and Sweeney Entertainment.
Tuc also starred in the Tony Award-winning, The Boys in the Band on Broadway, and reprised his role in the Netflix film adaptation. He can currently be seen on HBO Max’s The Other Two and the Netflix hit comedy Uncoupled, opposite Neil Patrick Harris.
Daytime fans remember Tuc for his role as David Vickers on One Life to Live. In primetime, he was a series regular on ABC’s Desperate Housewives and Showtimes’ Beggars and Choosers. He has had recurring roles on Black Monday, Major Crimes, Awkward, Parks and Recreation.
He recently guest starred on The Sex Lives of College Girls, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Ballers, Bob’s Burgers, and the Great North. On film Tuc has appeared in, The Mummy with Brendan Fraser, Robert DeNiro’s The Good Shepherd, and Retake.
Tuc won big money on the celebrity edition of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and donated it to his sister’s non-profit organization, Courtney’s Creative Adventures.
Brec Bassinger (Stargirl, Bella and the Bulldogs) stars in the title role of Dawn Longchamp, alongside Emmy winner Donna Mills (Nope, General Hospital) as Lillian Cutler. Also set to star are Emmy nominee Fran Drescher (The Nanny), Joey McIntyre (New Kids on the Block) and Jesse Metcalfe (Desperate Housewives).
Dawn follows the story of Dawn Longchamp (Bassinger), who after growing up in humble surroundings with a very hardworking and loving family suddenly has everything she loves ripped away from her when she is thrust into a new family whose dark and twisted secrets change the course of her life forever. As Dawn struggles to fit in, her wicked grandmother Lillian Cutler (Mills) rules her life with an iron fist and inflicts cruel punishments when Dawn does not follow her strict orders. When Dawn finds herself entrenched in the mysteries surrounding the family, it becomes clear that a dark and unescapable curse looms over the Cutlers.
McIntyre portrays Dawn’s infamous singing teacher and Broadway star, Michael Sutton. Drescher plays Agnes Morris, the out of work actress and overly made up drama queen who is the house mother at the performing arts school where Dawn resides. Metcalfe is Ormand Longchamp, Dawn’s adoptive father, while Khobe Clarke (Yellowjackets) portrays Dawn’s adoptive brother Jimmy Longchamp. Cast also includes Jason Cermak as Dawn’s father Randolph Cutler; Miranda Frigon as Dawn’s mother, Laura Jean Cutler; as well as Elyse Maloway (Super Monsters, The Magicians) and Dane Schioler (Prom Pact) as Dawn’s siblings Clara Jean and Philip Cutler. Additionally, Corey Woods plays Dawn’s boarding school roommate, Tricia; and Helena Marie plays Sally Longchamp, Dawn’s adoptive mother.
Earlier this year, A+E acquired the rights to Andrews’ library of the bestselling novels for screen adaptation. The first book in the series, Dawn, which tells the dark and twisted history of the Cutler, Longchamp and Booth families, is followed by Secrets of the Morning, Twilight’s Child, and Midnight Whispers. The final novel of the series, Darkest Hour, is currently in development.
The book series was originally started by V.C. Andrews and completed by ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman after her death.
The V.C. Andrews Dawn Cutler Series is produced by VC Secrets Productions with Merideth Finn, Michele Weiss, Timothy Johnson, and Stacy Mandelberg serving as executive producers and Navid Soofi serving as producer. Linda-Lisa Hayter is set to direct the first two movies Dawn and Secrets of the Morning, and Jacquie Gould will direct Twilights Child and Midnight Whispers. Georgy Small and Richard Blaney serve as screenwriters for the first three movies and Allison Lea Bingeman serves as screenwriter for the fourth movie Midnight Whispers. The book series was originally started by V.C. Andrews and completed by ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman after her death. Finn and Weiss also executive produced Lifetime’s 2014 Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind.
The Desperate Housewives creator has struck a direct talent deal with Fox and has set up his first project at the network – psychic-fueled spy drama Jenny Is A Weapon.
The project has landed a script commitment from the network and is being eyed for a potential straight-to-series order.
It follows the story of a sheltered Maryland housewife who, at the moment her marriage falls apart, discovers she has special psychic powers and is recruited by a secret government agency where she will have to juggle her broken family and saving the world.
Fox’s President of Entertainment Michael Thorn told Deadline that it’s the “unlikely story of a heroic housewife”.
“It has the signature Marc Cherry 40-something female lead,” he added. “This is not a procedural, it’s not a classic franchise, but it’s one of the first things that he’s done that has an episodic engine underneath a really unique character drama. It’s more like how the dead bodies were used in Six Feet Under than for a case of the week but we’re very excited for Marc Cherry to try something that has a case element.”
It marks Cherry’s return to linear broadcast television, having made two seasons of Why Women Kill for CBS All Access/Paramount+ and Devious Maids for Lifetime after the end of the hit ABC soap in 2012.
Jenny Is A Weapon comes from Fox Entertainment and Cherry is writing and exec producing the one-hour drama with Why Women Kill writer Joshua Michael Stern. The story comes from Cherry, Stern, Ryan McPartlin and Travis Lively with the latter pair also exec producing alongside Mindy Schultheis and Michael Hanel.
Fox’s Thorn added that the Cherry deal is part of its strategy to continue signing direct talent deals with creators. The list has previously included Dan Harmon, Mara Brock Akil, Jeff Davis, Sarah Watson, Scott Rosenbaum and Kyle Killen.
He said that he remains “selectively aggressive” when it comes to getting greater acces to talent. “We have such a good creator list on our air. Some of those people have homes at other studios obviously, so we’re really always trying to grow our own list. We’ve been chasing Marc for a while.”
He said that competition is tough given the number of overall deals and first-look deals offered by rival studios but that there are still creators to target. “What we’ve found is that there’s always a few good people out there. There’s usually a few people who’ve been in or in overall deals for a while, where for whatever reason, timing, bad luck, just the way it works, that they feel like they weren’t prioritized in whatever kind of closed system they were in and we track those people. We wait for them to become available. Then we try to convince them that our direct deals with no layers full transparency of process might be a better creative environment for them to play in. Companies are spending $10M, $20M or $30M on deals and instead [we’re] looking for emerging voices or established voices who maybe have a moment free.”
Cherry is repped by A3 Artists Agency, Debbee Klein Management and Del Shaw Moonves Finkelstein Tanaka Lezcano/Jon Moonves & Jean Tanaka Attorneys and Stern is repped by A3 Artists Agency, Ken Stovitz and Sloan Offer Weber & Dern/AJ Brandenstein.
The “A Night to Remember” gala concert is set for Monday, October 3 at The Rooftop at Pier 17 in Manhattan. Hosted by James Monroe Iglehart, the evening also will feature special performing guests Josh Groban, Joaquina Kalukango, Chuck Cooper, Lilli Cooper, Eddie Cooper, with special appearances by Sara Bareilles and Gavin Creel. Jerry Dixon directs, with musical direction by Michael Mitchell.
The opening act for the evening is R&B duo Lion Babe. The event is supported by philanthropic organization Business for Good.
Throughout the evening, BTU will honor trailblazing leaders in Black theater. Honorees will be announced at a later date.
Williams, a BTU Co-Founder, said in a statement, “Black Theatre United is thrilled to have Business for Good be our lead sponsor for our first annual concert and gala. BFG invests in people to build better businesses, stronger communities, and a more equitable world. A perfect alignment for BTU’s vision and commitment. Diversity is a fact but inclusion is a choice “
Doors to the gala will open at 5:30 pm ET, with Lion Babe kicking off the event at 6:15 pm and the “A Night to Remember” concert starting at 7 pm.
GUEST CAST includes: Clayton James (Chuck), Thomas Cadrot (Chet), Mark Moses (Harry).
Glamorous, which originally had been ordered to pilot at The CW in 2019, tells the story of Marco Mejia, played by previously announced Miss Benny, a gender-nonconforming queer young man whose life seems to be stuck in place until he lands a job working for legendary makeup mogul Madolyn Addison (Cattrall). It’s Marco’s first chance to figure out what he wants out of life, who he actually is and what it really means for him to be queer.
Chavira plays Teddy. The handsome personal full-time driver for makeup mogul Madolyn Addison (Cattrall), as well as maybe her closest confidant. Professional but unpolished, Teddy is not wow’d by Madolyn’s celebrity or beauty and enjoys calling her out on her bullshit and telling it to her like it is. Their friendly sparring and frank relationship betray a chemistry that could lead to more, if either of them was willing to admit it.
Nardino writes and exec produces the 10-part drama series, which is also exec produced by Wayans Jr. and Kameron Tarlow of Two Shakes Entertainment. CBS Studios is the studio.
Chavira most recently appeared in the Netflix series Selena as a series regular and can next be seen in the upcoming third season of Apple’s Truth Be Told. He is best known for his portrayal of Carlos Solis in the hit ABC series Desperate Housewives. Other credits include Kevin Can Wait, Jane the Virgin, The Santa Clarita Diet, and Scandal. Chavira is repped by Gilbertson Entertainment, Innovative Artists and Mark Johnson at Behr, Abramson, Levy & Johnson.
Exploring the explosive era of the mid-1960s where social upheaval paved the way for a new order in college football, Jones’ first feature tells the story of the first fully integrated college football team. The film is inspired by the Michigan State Spartans team, coached by Duffy Daugherty, which forever changed the face of the sport.
Jones, McDonough, Cott, David Brown, Rochelle Claerbaut, Ruve McDonough, Justin Oates-Marable and Jimmy V are producing, with Cory Wharton serving as exec producer.
McDonough is an award-winning actor whose film credits include Sonic the Hedgehog, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, RED 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, Flags of Our Fathers and more. On the TV side, he has appeared on The Flash, American Horror Story, Yellowstone, Van Helsing, The 100, Project Blue Book, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Altered Carbon, Suits, Arrow, Justified and Desperate Housewives, among other series. McDonough also recently appeared in Derek Presley’s hitman pic Red Stone and reprised his role as the mercenary Boon for a sequel of the same name, which he exec produced.
Cott plays Kevin Keller in The CW’s popular YA series Riverdale, based on characters from the Archie Comics universe, which will return for its seventh and final season next year. The actor recently was seen alongside Vanessa Hudgens and Kiersey Clemons in Paramount and Saban Films’ thriller Asking for It, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Additional credits include the indie All the Little Things We Kill, guest starring roles on Instinct and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and the title role in a Kennedy Center production of The Who’s Tommy, directed by Josh Rhodes.
Jones is best known for co-producing HBO’s acclaimed Issae Rae series Insecure and co-creating the BET series Boomerang with Lena Waithe. Other writing credits include Games People Play and Underground.
McDonough is repped by Luber Roklin Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Cott by Paradigm, Industry Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; and Jones by Cultivate Entertainment Partners, Kaplan-Stahler Agency and Ginsburg Daniels Kallis.
Created and written by Ramón Campos (Gran Hotel, Velvet) and Gema R. Neira (Now and Then, Velvet), Land of Women tells the story of Gala (Longoria), a New York empty nester forced to flee her home after her husband implicates the family in financial improprieties. Joining her on the journey are her aging mother Julia (Maura) and her college-age daughter.
The three women escape the criminals her now-vanished husband is indebted to by moving to the same charming wine town in Northern Spain that Gala’s mother fled 50 years ago, vowing never to return. Starting over with new identities proves complicated while living in a small town where secrets tend to unravel quite easily.
Land of Women will be directed by Carlos Sedes (Now and Then, Fariña). The series is produced for Apple TV+ by Bambu Studios and will be shot in both English and Spanish and made available to watch in each language. Pre-production is currently underway in Spain.
Showrunner Campos will executive produce alongside Teresa Fernández-Valdés (Now and Then, Velvet), Ben Spector (Grand Hotel, La Guerra Civil), and Longoria via her production company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment.
Longoria is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Watkins' latest role finds him playing one-half of a newly uncoupled couple on Uncoupled, a Netflix comedy co-created by Darren Star (Sex and the City, Emily in Paris) and Jeffrey Richman (Frasier, Modern Family). His character, Colin, an even-keeled New Yorker facing existential doubts as he turns 50, suddenly announces he is leaving his real-estate-agent partner (Neil Patrick Harris) after 17 year together. The first season's eight episodes revolve primarily around Harris, but Watkins gives the plot its texture. Colin may have broken the likable protagonist's heart, but he is no mere villain.
Ahead of Uncoupled's debut, Thrillist talked to Watkins, who is dating his former co-star Andrew Rannells, about being one of his generation's go-to gay TV actors, coming out on The Marie Osmond Show of all places, and why tripping on a staircase changed his career.
Thrillist: You're the rare gay character actor who has consistently played a wealth of gay roles. Does it feel that way to you?
Tuc Watkins: It's funny you mentioned that, because I am a gay actor who's been playing gay characters since the '90s. When I did roles like I Think I Do and Beggars and Choosers, people said, "You can't be a gay actor and play gay roles if you want to play a wider range of roles." But they were great roles, and I didn't care. What has happened is, there have been more and more roles in the LGBTQ spectrum to play. There was a time not so long ago that the gay characters were the gay clown or the troubled person or the psychopath. There's so many more roles available, and there's so many more actors who are willing to play those roles.
Was there ever a moment when you felt like doing so became a limitation? When you couldn't break into a certain territory because of it?
I feel like I was caught in a catch-22. I was a gay actor who shouldn't play gay roles if I wanted to play straight roles. But I was also a gay actor who they weren't hiring to play the straight roles because they knew I was gay. It's amazing that I got any work. Just recently, I worked on a TV series, and I was hired to play a straight role by a queer television maker specifically because I'm part of the LGBT community. He wanted someone from our community to play a straight role as a political statement, and I'm here for that. It's called Unconventional. It was created by Kit Williamson, who created Eastsiders. That's on Netflix, and it's yet to drop.
When straight actors play gay roles, we talk about what they chose to do with their mannerisms. How did they adopt the physicality of that character, and do we approve of those choices? You had the opposite experience. Were you conscious of your mannerisms as a straight character?
Did I try to butch it up? Is that what you're saying?
Basically.
What I've learned, especially in television, is we tend to play ourselves. Sometimes we play one click left, one click right, but we're usually in a pretty narrow window of playing ourselves. Movie stars and A-list TV stars get to play a wider range, but I think most of the stuff that I've played, whether it's straight or gay, I'm really just playing myself, for the most part. How would I personally act in that given situation? I've never really thought of myself as a Method actor. I'm more of a behaviorist. I don't try to put my mind into the mind of a serial killer if I'm playing a serial killer. I play it more like if I were a serial killer, and that's usually a little closer to home. The current climate of television is more about authenticity.
You've not only gotten to play gay roles, but characters who are fairly well-adjusted, with maybe the exception of The Boys in the Band. I'm not sure I'd describe any of those characters as well-adjusted.
Yeah, and that was set in 1968. It was a different era.
Not to say that a well-adjusted gay person looks like any one thing, but in Desperate Housewives and Uncoupled, these are people who are comfortable in their own skin, who have careers and are going about their lives in relatively productive ways. Even The Other Two, which is a more of a subversive version of that.
In real life, I wasn't always as well-adjusted as I may appear to be in the characters that I play. I grew up with a fear of being gay, what being gay meant, feeling like it was not an option. It took me a long time to reconcile that I was okay being myself. To be able to play characters that are okay with themselves—maybe I've been able to do that because I'm standing on the shoulder of giants, of people who came before me, who paved a path towards equality that made it easier for me to do so.
When you came out, so to speak, on Marie Osmond—
Can you believe I came out on The Marie Osmond Show of all places? The Marie Osmond Show! I told an Osmond!
I know! Was that a premeditated thing?
I was actually hoping that it would come up. I went on the show [in 2013] to talk about Desperate Housewives and the fact that I was a new father. I had become a father to twins through surrogacy, and in telling the story of how I became a father, intrinsic to that was that I was a gay guy who wanted to have kids but couldn't go through the traditional way of having children. What kind of person does that on his own? There's a backstory to it, and I was appreciative that I got to share that backstory, and in doing so, it included the fact that I'm gay.
In that context, it can't not come up.
For a long time, I dodged questions about my sexuality and who I was seeing. Even on Desperate Housewives, for a long time, I was not publicly out. Everyone I worked with knew I was gay, and that's just about a decade ago. I was still concerned that, if I put a rubber stamp on myself, I will only be labeled as one thing. I was still playing that silly game not that long ago. I think what happened was, when I became a dad, I thought, "I don't want my kids to see me dodging. I want them to see me being okay with who I am." For the most part, I was. I just didn't want to talk about it publicly. My kids actually helped me become a little more comfortable publicly with who I am.
There's another strategy that somebody in your shoes could have employed along the way, which was to resist the types of roles that you took.
But those are great roles whether you're gay or straight. I became an actor because I wanted to become a movie star. Becoming a movie star wasn't really working out, and great roles came along. I was never really interested in sidestepping a great role because I was concerned about how I would be perceived. If you don't get to be a movie star, you take great parts.
When you were thinking about your idea of movie stardom, who were you thinking about?
I have made a career out of stealing from Kevin Kline. Part of the reason I went to Indiana University is because I knew that he had gone there. I'm still aiming to be Kevin Kline, and I suspect that he might be trying to be John Cleese. I feel like I've got a father figure and a grandfather figure to look up to.
A comedic movie star, then. That's how I think of Kevin Kline.
Yes. He's really both. He's fantastic in the comedy that he does. I don't know how many times I've seen Soapdish and A Fish Called Wanda. I've also seen him do Chekhov on Broadway. He's in Sophie's Choice, which is one of the best dramatic films of all time. That guy really does it all, but he does it with a sense of humor, which I really appreciate.
By your own admission, your career wasn't going in the direction of movie stardom. What did your quest to achieve Kevin Kline-dom look like, and how did it evolve?
It wasn't so much that I was really trying to become Kevin Kline. It's just that, when I play a role, I tend to think, "What would Kevin Kline do?" He would always do something unexpected and funny when it wasn't necessarily supposed to be funny. I wasn't trying to have his career, because he sings, he dances. I'm barely a single threat. I'm just an actor.
It's interesting that you and Neil Patrick Harris are paired together for Uncoupled. If you were able to play gay roles over the years, Neil Patrick Harris occupied the opposite space. Despite being a very visible gay celebrity, outside of his theater work, his most famous roles were these macho, funny, bro-type characters.
He and I didn't really talk so much about process, but I think you make a good point. Neil is one of those actors who can do it all. He did Barney on How I Met Your Mother for a number of years and won awards for it, believably. I think we're making progress. I had never met Neil. When we started working together, I think I, like a lot of people in our country, had this preconceived notion of who Neil Patrick Harris was going to be. He was going to be this cute, silly, funny, likable guy. He showed up, and he's so good at what he does. He's kind of like a surgeon. He's precise, he knows exactly what needs to be done, he knows where the joke is.
I know he's a magician. He just got this tattoo recently of a magic trick on his shoulder. One of the magic tricks that he can do that I noticed: He and I had to do some pretty emotional scenes in this series. He had to cry a number of times. When he was in a profile shot, he was crying from his eye that the camera could see, but the eye that the camera could not see was dry.
No!
He was reserving the tears in that eye for future coverage, in case he needed to do waterworks from another eye. Now that's a magic trick. He's a very facile, practical, magical actor.
That is wild, to have that control over your body. Could you do that?
The only other people who I know can do that are the women on soap operas. I've witnessed that in daytime. Neil has a real facility for it.
I'm sure you've witnessed a lot of acting tricks on soap operas in particular because of the pace of it and the intensity of emotion.
What's so great about Uncoupled is that there are a lot of men, because it's a gay breakup comedy, and the writing is specific and layered so that all of the different men on the show have a unique stripe to the tapestry. When I was on a soap opera, which is populated by a lot of men, all the guys were competing for the same lane. Everyone was trying to out-mysterious or out-smolder each other.
On One Life to Live, did you feel like you were also in that competition?
Yes, for the first year that I was on One Life to Live, I was trying to be a cool, mysterious con man, and I was fairly unremarkable at it. After about a year, I accidentally fell up the stairs in a scene, and everyone laughed at me. I was humiliated, but that's when a toggle switch went off and I channeled Kevin Kline, like I was saying. I thought, "David Vickers"—the character that I played—"is not a cool, mysterious con man. He thinks he's a cool, mysterious con man." That gave birth to the character that went on for a number of years who was decidedly different, because he was not trying to be cool anymore. He was a buffoon who was trying to fit in.
That's clever. What do you remember about your first day on the set of Desperate Housewives?
I remember Kevin Rahm—he and I played husbands—were doing a scene with Marcia Cross, and she approached our house with a basket of muffins. I said to the director between takes, "My character's standing up here on the porch. Wouldn't I walk down the steps and go greet her?" He said, "Tuc, let me stop you. What's the name of the show?" I said, "Desperate Housewives." He said, "Do you have any more questions?" Doug Savant, who was off-camera, came to me, and he said, "Now you know what it's like to be a guy on Desperate Housewives." I learned my lane on that show pretty quickly. That was a great show to be on. It was so much fun.
Panelists for the conversation with TV Guide magazine’s Damian Holbrook included The Rookie‘s Nathan Fillion; The Rookie: Feds’ Niecy Nash-Betts; and the executive producers of both series, Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter. While all of the above initially were believed to be stopping by San Diego for an in-person appearance, they wound up joining the talk virtually from set, to the audible dismay of fans in the room and only after some technical issues with the livestream. “Oh my God,” said Holbrook, “they haven’t figured this out yet.”
Hawley and Winter shared that they’re currently three episodes into filming on both the fifth season of The Rookie and its offshoot’s first. The former said that the latest year of The Rookie will feel like “a real transitional” one, with “a lot of movement” — noting that the show will continue to tell “some harder stories,” with familiar villains returning.
Fillion noted that the upcoming season of the “mothership” series will see his rookie cop “elevated to another level of his job and starting at rock bottom again” — becoming the rookie once more, even as he rises in the ranks. He also shared that Nolan will be serving as a training officer to a “brand new” female rookie who makes “all the same mistakes” his character has. “[It’s] kind of brilliant, the way we take a look at life and say, what keeps you a rookie?” he said. “What in your life are you still a rookie at?”
Hawley said that there will be a “fun storyline” ahead pertaining to the pregnancy of Nyla Harper (Mekia Cox), who will continue to enjoy a Cagney & Lacey type dynamic with Angela Lopez (Alyssa Diaz), as she returns to full-time work as a detective. Also enjoying an exciting upcoming storyline coming up, per Hawley, is attorney Wesley Evers (Shawn Ashmore), who winds up “crossing over from the defense side” into the arena of policing “in a more solid way.”
A final plot tease from The Rookie on Hawley’s part had to do with the burgeoning romance between Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) and Tim Bradford (Eric Winter). “Obviously, we left quite the cliffhanger last season with the kiss which we’ve been building up to,” said The Rookie‘s creator. “There will definitely be some repercussions and fallout from that.”
Elsewhere in the panel, Nash-Betts broke down what we can expect from The Rookie: Feds, calling the new show “a perfect marriage of comedy and drama” centered on a character with which she identifies greatly. “She’s going to do it her way. She doesn’t take no for an answer,” said the actress. “She’s a lover, she’s a flirt. We’ve got a lot in common.”
Winter said that unlike The Rookie, which is anchored in LA, The Rookie: Feds will be more geographically expansive in its storytelling, given its examination of a federal organization. “Los Angeles isn’t the only place we do our work,” he said. “We have a jet plane and we’ll often fly, and it opens up the show in a really exciting way.” The writer-EP specified that the spinoff travels not only “all over Los Angeles,” but also “all over the nation” — maybe even going overseas.
Winter noted that while we’ve already met the father of Nash-Betts’ Simone in the two-part backdoor pilot that set up the spinoff, we’ll meet more of her family members in the new series, including her twins, who have already been alluded to — also digging into the character’s love life. “There’s a very interesting love interest that launches in Episode 3 and I can’t wait for everybody to see it,” he said. “The chemistry is popping. It’s amazing.”
Like The Rookie, Feds will have plenty of comedic moments. Winter said, though, that like the mothership series, the spinoff won’t be afraid to tell real stories “about systemic issues” in an organic way.
Hawley said that multiple crossover events have been planned for the upcoming seasons of The Rookie and The Rookie: Feds, with Winter expressing the hope that ABC will ultimately be “lousy” with these kinds of episodes. “[The shows] do live in the same universe so we want you to feel like you can bounce between [them],” Hawley added. “They stand on their own but they’re super fun to watch together.”
Later, Fillion was asked what the expansion of the Rookie universe has meant to him, noting that it’s been remarkable to be experiencing this kind of first with a TV series, after over 25 years in the industry. “This is an incredible experience,” he said, “and I am everyday really excited about where I am in life right now.”
Debuting on ABC in 2018, The Rookie centers on John Nolan (Fillion) who, after a life-altering incident, switches gears in his life and career to pursue his dream of joining the LAPD. As their oldest rookie, he’s met with skepticism from those who see him as just a walking midlife crisis. Introduced via a two-part backdoor pilot planted in The Rookie‘s fourth season, The Rookie: Feds centers on Special Agent Simone Clark (Nash-Betts), who is a force of nature, the living embodiment of a dream deferred – and the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy.
The Rookie returns for its fifth season on Sunday, September 25 at 10 p.m. ET. Hawley and Winter exec produce the series with Mark Gordon, Fillion, Michelle Chapman, Jon Steinberg and Bill Norcross. eOne is the lead studio and international distributor of the show, which is a co-production with ABC Signature — a part of Disney Television Studios.
Hawley and Winter co-created and write on The Rookie: Feds, which will also star Felix Jones, Frankie Faison, Britt Robertson, Kevin Zegers and James Lesure. The spinoff debuts on ABC on September 27.
The film from writer-director Josh Stolberg (Spiral) is billed as a dark satire of social media and influencer culture, and what those new to the sphere are willing to do to attain fame. Conceived as the first in a franchise, it’s currently in production in Los Angeles at the TikTok “collab house” known as Sway House. Additional producers on the pic financed by Proxima Media include Alex Baskin and Lifeboat Productions’ Amy Kim and Jaime Burke. Daniel Herther, who oversees production and creative development at Proxima, is exec producing alongside Jason Barhydt and Bobby Sarnevesht. The film is slated for release early next year.
“This film is bursting with mavericks of entertainment, many of them spanning multiple genres and platforms,” said Kavanaugh. “From a global rap and hip-hop music icon to a businessman, actor, writer, and producer – if anyone knows a thing or two about breaking the boundaries, it’s 50 Cent. I’m honored to work alongside him as we watch Bryce do the same with his career.”
Jackson is an actor, producer, rapper and entrepreneur who founded G-Unit Film & Television in 2005. He exec produced, directed and co-starred in Starz’s hit series Power, and closed a deal with Starz and Lionsgate in October 2018 that has seen him expand its universe as an exec producer on the spinoffs Power Book II: Ghost, Power Book III: Raising Kanan and Power Book IV: Force. Jackson’s company also has produced ABC’s For Life and Starz’s BMF, which was renewed last fall for a second season.
Jackson has also previously appeared on series like For Life and such films as Southpaw, Last Vegas and Escape Plan. He will next be seen in The Expendables 4 and the action pic Den of Thieves 2: Pantera with Gerard Butler.
Jackson is represented by APA and attorney Stephen J. Savva; Pipes by Innovative Artists and Untitled Entertainment; McCausland by Bold Talent Agency in Georgia, CESD and KD Talent; Leung by DGRW, Minc Talent, STW Talent Agency and Gregg Edwards Management; McDonough by Luber Roklin Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; DeLuca by Bold Management & Production and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Carmichael by Paradigm, Vault Entertainment and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern; Oliveros by Buchwald and Brave Artists Management; Mei by CAA, manager Briana Frapart and Jason Newman at Untitled Entertainment; and Skidmore by AEFH, Ryan Artists in Oregon, and Zero Gravity Management.
The actors join an ensemble that also includes Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum and Simon Rex, as previously announced.
The MGM genre pic written by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum follows Frida (Ackie), a young and clever Los Angeles cocktail waitress who has her eyes set on the prize: philanthropist and tech mogul Slater King (Tatum). When she skillfully maneuvers her way into King’s inner circle and ultimately an intimate gathering on his private island, she is ready for a journey of a lifetime. Despite the epic setting, beautiful people, ever-flowing champagne and late-night dance parties, Frida can sense that there’s more to this island than meets the eye. Something she can’t quite put her finger on. Something terrifying.
Pussy Island is currently in production in Mexico. Bruce Cohen, Kravitz’s This Is Important and Tiffany Persons are producing the film, alongside Garret Levitz for Tatum’s Free Association. Jordan Harkins is executive producing along with RedRum’s Stacy Perskie.
Slater received Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards for his role in USA Network’s hacker drama Mr. Robot, more recently starring in Peacock’s limited series, Dr. Death. His upcoming projects include Jerry Seinfeld’s feature directorial debut Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story for Netflix, the FX on Hulu miniseries Fleishman Is in Trouble and Pierre Morel’s action-comedy Freelance.
Shawkat starred for five seasons in the hit comedy series Search Party, which originally aired on TBS before moving to HBO Max for its final two seasons. She recently appeared in Aaron Sorkin’s film Being the Ricardos for Amazon Studios, and can currently be seen in the FX series The Old Man, opposite Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow.
Davis won her first Oscar in 1989 for her turn in The Accidental Tourist, landing her second nom in 1992 for her performance opposite Susan Sarandon as Thelma & Louise‘s Thelma. The actress most recently appeared in the action-thriller Ava with Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell. Other notable credits include Tootsie, A League of Their Own, Cutthroat Island, The Long Kiss Goodnight and In a World….
Arjona most recently starred as the female lead in Sony’s Marvel pic Morbius, opposite Jared Leto. She can currently be seen in HBO’s Irma Vep opposite Alicia Vikander and in HBO Max’s Father of the Bride remake, and will make her Disney+ debut in the Star Wars series Andor on August 31st.
Osment is an Oscar nominee who most recently wrapped a role in Alexi Pappas and Jeremy Teicher’s film, Not an Artist. He will next be seen opposite Alison Brie and Jay Ellis in Dave Franco’s Amazon feature Somebody I Used to Know, which is slated for release later this year. Osment recently starred on the TV side in the final two seasons of Netflix’s The Kominsky Method, in addition to the final season of David E. Kelley’s Goliath.
Sierra recently wrapped on Ellen, a miniseries from Automatik and New Regency in which she stars opposite Lin Shaye. Up next, she stars as Regina in the feature God’s Time, written and directed by Daniel Antebi, which made its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.
Hawke is a 20-year-old actor and musician currently studying Philosophy at Brown University, who with Pussy Island makes his feature film debut. Also coming up for the actor is the Apple TV+ series The Crowded Room, which marks his debut on the TV side.
Mullen is best known for her lead role in Blumhouse and Eli Roth’s Crypt TV series Sunny Family Cult. She has also starred in music videos opposite the likes of Charlie Puth, Nick Jonas, Bazzi and Ross Lynch.
Williams was a series regular on The CW’s Girlfriends and has appeared in such films as K-PAX, Lackawanna Blues, New York, I Love You, and the French-Senegalese Aujourd’hui. He also starred in the 2021 film Akilla’s Escape and made his directorial debut with the Afrofuturist Cannes 2021 film Neptune Frost, which was released in theaters last month.
Costa is an executive protection consultant who, like Hawke, is making his feature film acting debut.
MacLachlan is best known for his iconic collaborations with David Lynch on Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Dune. Among his other credits are Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives and Portlandia. He recently starred opposite Kate McKinnon in the Peacock limited series Joe vs. Carole and will next be seen opposite Jon Hamm in the film Confess, Fletch.
Slater is represented by UTA; Shawkat by UTA and Mgmt Entertainment; Davis by CAA and Untitled Entertainment; Arjona by CAA, Anonymous Content and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Osment by Mgmt Entertainment, Griffin Talent, and Edelstein, Laird & Sobel; Sierra by Grandview; Hawke by CAA; Mullen by Luber Roklin Entertainment; Williams by CAA and Knitting Factory Management; and MacLachlan by UTA, Entertainment 360, and attorney Alan Wertheimer at Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
“Paramount+ has made the difficult decision not to move forward with Season 3 of Why Women Kill,” a spokesperson for the streamer said in a statement to Deadline. “We would like to thank our partners at CBS Studios and Imagine Television Studios; the amazing creator and showrunner Marc Cherry; and the incredible writers, cast and crew for two memorable seasons.”
The abrupt decision on the eve of production is surprising as Nicole Clemens, President of Paramount+ Original Scripted Series, touted the series’ strong Season 2 performance in the Season 3 renewal announcement, revealing that it ranked “within the top 10 series on Paramount+ in terms of both overall engagement and new subscriber acquisition.”
Set in 1949, Season 2 explored what it means to be beautiful, the hidden truth behind the facades people present to the world, the effects of being ignored and overlooked by society and the lengths one woman will go in order to finally belong. It starred Allison Tolman, Lana Parrilla, B.K. Cannon, Jordane Christie, Matthew Daddario, Veronica Falcón and Nick Frost.
Each season of the series featured a different set of characters. The first installment starred Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin and Kirby Howell-Baptiste.
Why Women Kill is produced by CBS Studios and Imagine Television Studios. Season 2 was executive produced by creator Cherry alongside Imagine’s Brian Grazer, Acme Productions’ Michael Hanel and Mindy Schultheis, Marc Webb, Samie Kim Falvey, Francie Calfo and David Warren.
American Housewife has been sold to stations from broadcast groups including the CBS Television Stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Weigel Broadcasting, Nexstar Media Group, E.W. Scripps Company, Hubbard Broadcasting, Hearst Communications, Gray Television, Bahakel Communications, Tegna Media, Lockwood Broadcast Group, Mission Broadcasting, Cox Media Group, Allen Media, Standard Media Group, NPG Broadcasting and American Spirit Media.
The series, starring Katy Mixon, aired on ABC for five seasons. It was created by Sarah Dunn and was produced by ABC Signature, a part of Disney Television Studios, and Kapital Entertainment. Rick Wiener and Kenny Schwartz served as showrunners of and the series was executive produced by Sarah Dunn, Aaron Kaplan, Rick Wiener and Kenny Schwartz.
9-1-1 will launch weekends on stations from broadcast groups including the ABC Owned Television Stations, Nexstar Media Group, Gray Television, Cox Media Group, Hearst Communications, E.W. Scripps Company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Tegna Media and Weigel Broadcasting.
9-1-1 is produced by 20th Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television and Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision. Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Tim Minear are creators, executive producers and writers on the series, which will debut its sixth season on Fox this fall.
The Rookie has been licensed for weekend runs to stations from broadcast groups including the ABC Owned Television Stations, CBS Television Stations, Nexstar Media Group, Gray Television, Cox Media Group, Hearst Communications, E.W. Scripps Company, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tegna Media.
Alexi Hawley is creator and executive producer of The Rookie. Mark Gordon, Nathan Fillion, Michelle Chapman, Bill Norcross and Terence Paul Winter are executive producers on the series. Entertainment One is the lead studio and international distributor of The Rookie, a co-production with ABC Signature, a part of Disney Television Studios. The series, starring Nathan Fillion, enters its fifth season on ABC this fall.
Delany will play Margaret, an affluent and influential equestrian and owner of a sprawling horse farm and animal preserve. She is a formidable presence and a trustee of the Annie Oakley Society.
Tulsa King follows New York mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi (Stallone), after he is released from prison after 25 years and is unceremoniously exiled by his boss to set up shop in Tulsa, Okla. Realizing that his mob family may not have his best interests in mind, Dwight slowly builds a crew from a group of unlikely characters to help him establish a new criminal empire in a place that to him might as well be another planet.
The series also stars Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Max Casella, Domenick Lombardozzi, Vincent Piazza, Jay Will, A.C. Peterson and Garrett Hedlund.
Delany won a pair of Lead Actress Emmys and earned two other nominations for China Beach and more recently starred in The Code, The Comedians and Hand of God.
Taylor Sheridan serves as executive producer Terence Winter (The Sopranos), who also will be at the helm as showrunner and writer. Produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios, Tulsa King will premiere with two episodes on Sunday, November 13, on Paramount+, behind the Season 5 premiere of Yellowstone.
“We have to do the work,” Longoria said at a keynote talk for the Produced By conference. “Every time I produce something, I bring my crew list.”
Longoria and King said they share the list amongst each other, and with other filmmakers like Ava DuVernay. DuVernay has gone a step further, creating the Array Crew database, accessible by studios.
Even with a list of resumes, Longoria said producers must advocate for talent to get a chance. Longoria is directing the movie Flamin’ Hot for Searchlight Pictures. She was met with resistance against hiring cinematographer Federico Cantini for his first feature film.
“They kept saying he never has done a movie of this size,” Longoria said. “I said, ‘I haven’t done a movie this size.’ You haven’t done it until you’ve done it. It’s like the chicken or the egg.”
King agreed with Longoria that their role as producers involves fighting to elevate other diverse talent.
“A lot of times we’re taking a leap and you have to fill the gaps,” King said. “You just have to keep calling all your friends and everybody but they’re out there. There’s enough people with some level of experience to take the leap to the next level.”
King also recommended Flamin’ Hot writer Linda Yvette Chavez to Longoria. King allowed Longoria to read a script Chavez wrote for him, but could not share that writing sample with another studio. In fact, Longoria credited producer DeVon Franklin and fellow actor Kerry Washington with recommending her for the directing gig.
“I’m me,” Longoria said. “You would think I could get in the door. It still took an advocate for me to get in the door. These things help. You have to use this opportunity, meet people, nurture those relationships in this industry.”
Longoria said her own agents sometimes get annoyed when she advocates for other actors for roles she herself is auditioning for. Longoria said she once recommended Roselyn Sanchez and Diana Maria Riva for a role she didn’t think she was right for.
“My agent would call me [and say,] ‘If you pitch one more other actress in your audition we’re not sending you anymore,’” Longoria said.
The film will tell the true story of Trish Weir (Breslin), who in 1963 was kidnapped and brutally raped by Ernesto Miranda. Committed to putting her assailant in prison, Trish’s life is destroyed by America’s legal system as she triggers a law that transforms the nation. Her case notably results in the establishment of the Miranda rights afforded to criminal suspects taken in police custody, to ensure the admissibility of statements made during interrogation, as part of subsequent criminal proceedings.
Phillippe will play the ACLU lawyer Flynn, who successfully argues in front of the Supreme Court to get the landmark ruling for the Miranda Rights, with MacLachlan as Chief Justice Warren, who announces the ruling. Enos will portray Trish’s mother Zeola, who struggles to support her daughter while processing her own trauma, with Manning as Miranda’s wife Twila, whose testimony is pivotal in the case.
The film written by George Kolber and J. Craig Stiles is currently in production in New Jersey, with Danner and Kolber producing alongside Valerie Debler, Brian Drillinger and Alexandra Guarnieri. The production company involved is Navesink River Productions.
Phillippe plays Lt. Dixon Piper on Peacock’s comedy series MacGruber, having originated the role in Jorma Taccone’s 2010 film of the same name. The actor has also appeared on series including Big Sky, Shooter, Secrets and Lies and Damages, among others. Notable film credits include The Lincoln Lawyer, Stop-Loss, Flags of Our Fathers, Crash, Igby Goes Down, Gosford Park, Cruel Intentions, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Crimson Tide. Phillippe will also soon be seen in Matthew Gentile’s crime drama American Murderer, Uta Briesewitz’s CBS TV movie Alive, Nicholas Harvard’s thriller The Locksmith, Julian Gilbey’s drama Summit Fever and Mukunda Michael Dewil’s thriller, Collide.
Enos is an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee best known for her turn as Detective Sarah Linden on AMC’s The Killing. She’s also been sen on series including Hanna, Good Omens, The Catch and Big Love, among others. Her film credits include HBO’s TV movie My Dinner with Hervé, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, If I Stay, World War Z and Gangster Squad.
MacLachlan is a Golden Globe winner and two-time Emmy nominee known for his work on such series as Portlandia and Twin Peaks, as well as films including David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Dune. The actor recently played Howard Baskin on Peacock’s Joe vs. Carole, also reprising his How I Met Your Mother role as The Captain on Hulu’s How I Met Your Father. He’ll also soon appear in Greg Mottola’s comedy Confess, Fletch, alongside Jon Hamm, Marcia Gay Harden and more.
Manning is best known for her turn as Litchfield inmate Tiffany ‘Pennsatucky’ Doggett on Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black. She’s also been seen on series including Hawaii Five-0 and Sons of Anarchy, among others. Her film credits include Experimenter, Love Ranch, Redemption Road, Jack and Jill vs. the World, A Lot Like Love, Hustle & Flow, Cold Mountain, 8 Mile, White Oleander and Crazy/Beautiful. Other upcoming films featuring the actress include Jay Giannone’s It Snows All the Time, Rob Margolies’ Bobcat Moretti, Annete Novakovic’s Sanctioning Evil, Thomas Mignone’s The Latin from Manhattan and Court Crandall’s Bromates.
Phillippe is represented by Gersh, Mgmt Entertainment and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern; Enos by CAA, Howard Green Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; MacLachlan by UTA, Entertainment 360 and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; and Manning by Realm Talent, Zero Gravity Management and Felker Toczek Suddleson.
AmPav opens its doors Tuesday and kicks off its lineup of panels and presentations Wednesday. Each morning will begin with film screenings as part of the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase, followed by a day of talks and panels, with additional screenings, parties and receptions taking place in the evenings during the run of the festival.
The AmPav venue includes a coffee bar, free WiFi and charging stations, a media terrace with a panoramic view of the Riviera, the 25th anniversary of the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase, the Culinary Program featuring chefs from across the U.S. and Canada, and public and private rental for parties and receptions. Its latest Worldwide Student Program will feature a record 243 students in attendance.
Panel topics at the forefront this year include international sales, global filmmaking, indie financing models, distribution strategies, DEI initiatives, creative producing, documentary filmmaking and more. Execs and moderators have been lined up from companies including Cinetic Media, Millennium Media, Bleecker Street, Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, Live Nation, Submarine Entertainment, Participant Media, 30West, SXSW and Village Roadshow Entertainment Group among others.
Also among the panels, Project Indie Hope will lead a discussion focused on filmmaking strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. A pair of panels will be presented by the Golden Globes, AmPav’s presenting sponsor this year. The Globes will also sponsor the American Pavilion’s Queer Night, a celebration of the LBGTQ+ community, on May 24 at 10 p.m., accessible to festival badge holders.
The full program is open to all AmPav members and will take place in the Roger Ebert Conference Center, with festival badge-holders to be admitted after 6 p.m. most days. Check out the schedule below.
“We are thrilled to be back in Cannes for AmPav 2022 and to continue supporting the next generation of students and emerging filmmakers,” said Julie Sisk, president and founder of the American Pavilion, which is part of Penske Media Corporation, Deadline’s parent company. “This year’s American Pavilion, including the popular Industry in Focus panels and our In Conversations series, feels like our best iteration yet. As a home away from home for the hundreds of AmPav members, the 33rd American Pavilion will continue to provide food, drink, and fun in a venue with arguably the best view in town.”
The actors, who previously reunited in 2021 for Hallmark’s A Kiss Before Christmas, will play a pair of empty nesters figuring out how to spend their next chapter.
Fantasy Island returns for its second season on May 31 at 9/8c, with Hatcher and Denton appearing in Episode 3.
The Spectrum Originals and Roku series has also added series regulars including Clue’s Lesley Ann Warren, Hacks and Women is Losers actor Lorenza Izzo, Black Lightning’s Wallace Smith, 24’s Glenn Morshower.
They star alongside Luke Kirby, who plays Bell Prescott, and Tiana Okoye, who stars as Cammie Lorde.
Separately, Melanie Minichino, who featured in the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, joins in a recurring role.
Panhandle follows an eccentric, agoraphobic arm-chair detective with a reluctant traffic cop in a series that showcases community, connection, and only-in-Florida characters. Together, Prescott and Lorde wrestle with personal demons, shocking twists and a few Florida gators on their journey to heal themselves and their town.
Goodluck plays Checotah, the local delivery guy and consummate stoner, who remembers everything that everybody orders. Checotah has formed a friendship with the agoraphobic Bell after delivering many packages to his property, and on one such delivery he gets inadvertently sucked into the investigation of the murdered man on Bell’s property.
He previously starred in The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Cherry, The Liberator and The Revenant as well as nabbing the lead in the upcoming Pet Sematary prequel for Paramount+.
Izzo plays Vida, Bell’s beautiful and complicated Cuban-American wife, whose family runs a rum company and who’s carrying a secret of her own.
Smith plays Dr. Otis, the local doctor working in Boggsville, Florida – at least until he can pay off his student loans and open a Botox clinic in Atlanta. Otis is concerned that Bell, ignoring his agoraphobia to go out in the world, is going to work himself into a heart attack.
Morshower plays Sheriff Grant, the Okaloosa County Sheriff and Cammie’s boss. Grant and Cammie get off on the wrong foot, especially when Grant learns that she’s working with Bell – with whom the Sheriff has a lot of beef.
Warren plays Millicent Prescott, Bell’s Florida grande dame of a mother. After losing her husband, Bell’s father, six years ago, Millicent has devoted herself to taking care of her traumatized and agoraphobic son – holing herself up with him in their massive Florida estate. Millicent is fairly fearless and knows her way around a shotgun, which she’ll point at either a gator or an irritating police officer.
Minichino plays Darby Hix, an ex-stripper and the town’s certified pest exterminator. Darby takes her new business very seriously. She’s smart and witty, and an old friend of Bell’s from high school.
Goodluck is represented by Artists First and Gersh. Izzo is represented by ICM Partners, M88, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Smith is repped by Piper Kaniecki Marks and TalentWorks. Morshower is repped by Talentworks. Lesley is repped by Innovative Artists, Management Production Entertainment and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein. Minichino is repped by STW Talent Agency and managed by Dan Cotoia Talent.
Descending into the world of true-crime podcasts, Truth Be Told stars Octavia Spencer as podcaster Poppy Scoville, who risks everything—including her life—to pursue truth and justice. Based on the novel by Kathleen Barber, the series provides a unique glimpse into America’s obsession with true crime podcasts and challenges its viewers to consider the consequences when the pursuit of justice is placed on a public stage.
The upcoming season will see Poppy focus on a new case with newly added Gabrielle Union starring as Eva, an outspoken high school principal who becomes embroiled in a problematic incident.
With Spencer’s Poppy as the thread through the anthology series and a core cast around Spencer also staying on, each season tells a different story and features new stars opposite her.
NAACP Image Award-winning Truth Be Told is created and executive produced by Nichelle Tramble Spellman. Season 3 is helmed by showrunner Maisha Closson, who also serves as executive producer. In addition to starring, Spencer serves as executive producer alongside producing partner Brian Clisham via her company, Orit Entertainment. The series is produced for Apple TV+ by Hello Sunshine, Chernin Entertainment, and Endeavor Content. Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter executive produce for Hello Sunshine, and Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping executive produce for Chernin Entertainment. Mikkel Nørgaard also serves as executive producer.
Chavira most recently appeared in the Netflix series Selena as a series regular. He is most notably known for his portrayal of Carlos Solis in the hit ABC series Desperate Housewives.
Other credits include Kevin Can Wait, Jane the Virgin, The Santa Clarita Diet, and Scandal.
He is repped by Gilbertson Entertainment and Innovative Artists.
Among the three new projects are a mix of scripted and unscripted projects that furthers My Cultura’s dedication to celebrating and elevating Latinx voices and stories from content creators like Longoria.
Launching on March 31 is the scripted series Connections With Eva Longoria, which promises to take listeners back to what makes us uniquely human—our desire to authentically connect with others. Longoria and her guests will tackle complex topics including spirituality, money, romance, food, politics, and parenting. Jay Shetty, Huda Kattan, Dr. Shefali Tsabary, Elsas. Marie Collins, are among the confirmed guests with more to be announced in the future.
The scripted project Sisters of the Underground—slated for Summer 2022—follows the true story of Las Hermanas Mirabal, the Mirabal Sisters. Executive produced by Longoria and Dominican actress Dania Ramirez, the 8-episode audio drama highlights the sisters’ lifelong activism in the Dominican Republic and whose state-orchestrated assassination ignited outrage that led to the downfall of dictator, Rafael Trujillo.
Hungry for History is an unscripted podcast set to be released in October featuring Longoria and Maite Gomez-Rejón exploring some of the most delicious dishes and ingredients from Mexico. They’ll share personal memories and family stories about the topic, decode culinary customs, and even provide a recipe or two for listeners to try at home.
“We’re incredibly excited about this partnership, and the growth of our network, as we continue to tell our stories and celebrate our Latinidad,” Gisselle Bances, SVP, Head of Production and Development for iHeartMedia’s My Cultura shared with Deadline. “We’re thrilled to partner with Eva as we continue to increase the representation and visibility of our community and cultura in the podcast industry and beyond.”
Added Longoria, “I’m excited to be partnering with iHeartMedia to bring you a new slate of podcasts, which touches on everything I love while also celebrating our culture and uplifting the stories of our community. As a longtime podcast listener, these are three shows that I personally would want to listen to and can’t wait to bring listeners along on this journey.”
Longoria is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.
The network revealed the renewal on Wednesday. Season 4 of The Rookie opened with a 0.3 rating in the 18-49 demo and 2.8 million viewers and has remained fairly steady in demo throughout the season. Per ABC, The Rookie season 4 averages 10 million total viewers after 35 days of viewing across ABC’s linear and digital platforms, growing six times over its initial Live+Same Day rating among Adults 18-49 with a lift of +500% after 35 days of multiplatform viewing.
The Rookie renewal comes less than two months after Deadline learned exclusively that ABC will expand on the drama’s world with an FBI-focused spinoff starring Niecy Nash. Joining Nash for the spinoff will be Kat Foster, Felix Jones and Frankie Faison. The currently untitled spinoff, from Hawley and The Rookie executive producer Terence Paul Winter, will exist in the same universe to frequent crossovers for a programing block similar to Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19.
Fillion stars as John Nolan, Cox as Nyla Harper, Diaz as Angela and Jones as Sgt. Wade Grey. The Rookie also features Melissa O’Neil as Lucy Chen, Eric Winter as Tim Bradford, Jenna Dewan as Bailey Nune and Shawn Ashmore as Wesley Evers.
Here’s the logline for the upcoming episode to air on Sunday: “Officer John Nolan and the team feel they must negotiate with a distraught man who is holding a hospital hostage to ensure his wife receives a lifesaving surgery.”
Hawley executive produces with Winter, Fillion, Mark Gordon, Michelle Chapman and Bill Norcross. Entertainment One (eOne) is the lead studio and international distributor of The Rookie, a co-production with ABC Signature. ABC Signature is a part of Disney Television Studios.
The original film, which is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime, sees Breaker and his son reunite to arrest Union Army friend “The Saint”—now a fierce gang leader, whose raids threaten to bring the country back into conflict.
In the new film set in the 1870s, Breaker is now a Federal Marshal, setting out with his loyal best friend, Deputy Marshall Bugle Bearclaw, on a mission to deliver a warrant for Henry Bronson, aka Dead-Eye. After capturing the life-long criminal, delivering him to the local Marshal in Absolem’s Hill should be pretty straightforward. But Dead-Eye just happens to be the one-eyed estranged twin brother of the notorious murdering and thieving outlaw Yule Bronson.
Yule runs a gang of bandits who currently threaten the very existence of Absolem’s Hill, and they are now the obstacle standing in the way of John completing his mission. Upon arrival to Absolem’s Hill, John, Bugle, and Dead-Eye arrive to discover the town torn apart, the cemetery unusually full, white crosses as far as you can see. Through twists and turns John discovers this whole mess is actually a family affair. Not just for Dead-Eye, but for John himself.
Brent Christy is returning as director of the sequel, with Shea Sizemore returning as screenwriter. Gary Wheeler and INSP will finance and serve as producers on the sequel, with The McDonough Company, Big Indie Pictures and Beta Productions co-producing.
Boasting a career spanning more than three decades, McDonough’s film credits include Sonic the Hedgehog, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, RED 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, Flags of Our Fathers and more. On the TV side, he has appeared in American Horror Story, Yellowstone, Van Helsing, The 100, Project Blue Book, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Altered Carbon, Suits, Arrow, Justified and Desperate Housewives, among other series. McDonough also recently appeared in Derek Presley’s hitman pic Red Stone and reprised his mercenary role as Boon for a sequel of the same name, which he also exec produced.
He is repped by Buchwald, Luber Roklin and attorney Stuart Rosenthal.
Cast: Rob Lowe as Owen Strand; Gina Torres as Tommy Vega; Ronen Rubinstein as T.K. Strand; Sierra McClain as Grace Ryder; Jim Parrack as Judd Ryder; Natacha Karam as Marjan Marwani; Brian Michael Smith as Paul Strickland; Rafael Silva as Carlos Reyes; Julian Works as Mateo Chavez; Brianna Baker as Nancy Gillian
Guest Cast: Neal McDonough as Sgt. Ty O’ Brien; Dominic Burgess as Dave; Andy Favreau as Pearce Risher
“What a dream to host a series celebrating our community leaders like John Leguizamo, Eva Longoria and Edward James Olmos by giving them the recognition they deserve. Not only for trailblazing with their careers, but also for using their platforms to be a voice for our community. I look forward to sharing their journeys, their passions, and their legacy with the world,” Barili tells Deadline.
“This is a step in the right direction to address the lack of representation in Hollywood, but we still have a lot of work to do,” he added.
In the series premiere above, Barili has a one-on-one conversation with Leguizamo about how he navigated the industry over his decades-long career and how he’s confronted stereotypical casting. They also dive into the underrepresentation of the Latino community both in front of and behind the camera, tokenism, colorism, and what’s left for Leguizamo to accomplish.
“The conversation with John resonated with me at my core,” Barili said. “Not only is his show Freak the first time I truly felt seen, but also, he’s broken down walls for our community every step of his career. When Hollywood would only typecast him in stereotypical, one-dimensional roles, he took it upon himself to create, write and perform his own one-man shows that gave Latinos like me a chance to see themselves as three-dimensional characters that we didn’t get to see when we turned on the TV. They were complex, funny, courageous, vulnerable, and made me feel proud to be Latino.”
The second episode will feature an interview with Olmos, airing on January 31. Barili and Olmos pay a visit to the students from the Youth Cinema Project program at Los Angeles County’s Bell Gardens Intermediate School.
On February 7, Barili and Longoria tour her alma mater, California State University, Northridge, where she received a master’s degree in Chicano Studies in 2013 while filming Desperate Housewives.
Barili co-founded the Latinx in Media & Arts Coalition, which focuses on promoting Latinx creatives, increasing access to traditional and new-media platforms, providing resources and opportunities to youth, and cultivating the next generation of Latinx entertainment and creative professionals.
In the action-thriller from returning director Derek Presley, McDonough reprises his role as Nick Boon, the mercenary trying to atone for his life as an enforcer for a merciless syndicate. Running from his past, Boon moves to a remote area in the Pacific Northwest where he meets a struggling widow (Seidel) and her son. He finds the pair living in fear of a criminal kingpin (Flanagan) who has taken up residence on their land. Knowing that their lives are in danger, Boon has no choice but to act as the pair race to defend everything they hold dear.
McDonough and Derek Presley co-wrote the film, which also stars Jason Scott Lee (Mulan, Hawaii Five-0), Demetrius Grosse (Rampage, Fear the Walking Dead), Christina Ochoa (Animal Kingdom, A Million Little Things), Gabrielle Carteris (Code Black, Beverly Hills, 90210), Jake Melrose (Disney’s Secret of Sulphur Springs), McDonough’s Band of Brothers co-star James Madio and singer-songwriter Pat Monahan of Train. McDonough also produced the pic alongside Jason Starne, Stephen Endelman and Ruve McDonough.
“It’s rare you have the opportunity to bring back an actor/director partnership like Neal (McDonough) and Derek (Presley),” said Cinedigm’s Chief Content Officer, Yolanda Macias. “There is exceptional chemistry on screen as well as behind the camera, and you can see there is a great deal of trust between them. The conflict and complexity of the characters give the film an added layer of depth, which separates this filmmaker duo within the genre.”
“Working with Neal, to bring this story to life, allowed us to create a deeper, more complex character in Nick Boon. Even as the character is trying to reform, he finds the line between right and wrong is not easily defined,” added Presley. “As Boon once protected the guilty, he now must punish them. This natural conflict keeps the tension high. It was also great to lean on Neal for unique casting ideas, such as Pat Monahan, the lead singer of Train, who has been a good friend of his for more than a decade.”
Melody Fowler negotiated the Boon acquisition deal on behalf of Cinedigm with Starne and Endelman of Boon Film LLP.
“Being a sex symbol is very much about the roles that you play and my roles put me up on a pedestal,” he told Vice’s i-D magazine. “But my appearance was also criticized and picked apart by a lot of people in the media. Having your shirt off in every episode of Housewives brought a lot of pressure.”
“You have to stay in the best shape you can and then between projects, everyone expects you to stay in that shape 24/7, 365,” the 43-year-old actor continued. “That’s not realistic. That’s why paparazzi catch actors between projects looking ‘out of shape’ — they’re taking time off and that includes the gym.”
Metcalfe also admitted that he felt “definitely caged” by his casting in “Desperate Housewives,” in which his character carried on a torrid affair Eva Longoria’s character Gabrielle Solis.
“The industry tends to think if you look a certain way that’s all you have to offer,” he said. “The best thing I could’ve done at that time was be patient, which I was not, “he explained. “I did a string of indie films that didn’t work and should’ve kept my nose clean, so to speak. Between jobs, I just didn’t know what to do with myself.”
In 2007, the “John Tucker Must Die” star entered rehab for alcoholism. The following year he hosted the World Music Awards in Monaco and at an afterparty fell thirty feet to the ground from a second-story balcony. Luckily he avoided serious injury.
A new iteration of CNN’s popular Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy., the six-part series will follow Longoria as she travels across Mexico exploring the country’s cuisine. The streamer’s announcement teases that the multihyphenate’s journey will take her to various regions including Oaxaca, where she’ll slow cook traditional mole sauce, to harvesting blue agave for tequila as the Aztecs once did.
“Partnering with CNN on a culinary-driven expedition throughout Mexico is a dream come true. I am so proud of my Mexican American roots and can’t wait to bring the hidden gems of Mexico to the world through Searching for Mexico,” said Longoria in a statement. “I am a huge fan of Stanley’s journey throughout Italy; he set the bar high, and I can’t wait for everyone to fall in love with the magic of Mexico.”
Searching for Mexico will be produced by RAW, the film and TV company behind Searching for Italy.
Putting Eva Longoria: Searching For Mexico on CNN+ vs. the linear network which carries the mothership series illustrates the big push CNN’s leadership has been making to build up its streaming platform
Executive producers include Longoria, Ben Spector, and Tucci with RAW’s Tom Barry, Eve Kay, and Jess Orr; Kate Leonard-Morgan is Head of Production, US. Amy Entelis and Lyle Gamm are the Executive Producers for CNN Original Series. Jon Adler is Supervising Producer for CNN Original Series.
Longoria is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.
“Why Women Kill explores the intricate lives of its female characters with a style, charm and dark humor only Marc Cherry can provide,” said Nicole Clemens, President, Paramount+ Original Scripted Series.
The renewal follows strong viewership numbers for Season 2.
“We’re so excited that the audience for the series continues to grow, with the second season of Why Women Kill ranking within the top 10 series on Paramount+ in terms of both overall engagement and new subscriber acquisition,” added Clemens. “We can’t wait to share the new cast of riveting, scandalous characters Marc Cherry has created when the series returns for its third season.”
Set in 1949, season two explored what it means to be beautiful, the hidden truth behind the facades people present to the world, the effects of being ignored and overlooked by society, and the lengths one woman will go in order to finally belong.
Allison Tolman, Lana Parrilla, B.K. Cannon, Jordane Christie, Matthew Daddario, Veronica Falcón and Nick Frost starred in the second season.
Like Season 2, the third season will feature a different set of characters.
Why Women Kill is produced by CBS Studios and Imagine Television Studios. Season two was executive produced by creator Cherry alongside Imagine’s Brian Grazer, Acme Productions’ Michael Hanel and Mindy Schultheis, Marc Webb, Samie Kim Falvey, Francie Calfo and David Warren. The series is distributed internationally by ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group.
Lowndes and Metcalfe are the latest Hallmark Channel alums who have joined GAC Family projects. GAC Family CEO and President Bill Abbott has been bringing in established Hallmark Channel talent he worked with while running Crown Media Family Networks, parent of Hallmark Channel. Former Hallmark Channel stars Danica McKellar and Trevor Donovan have both signed multi-picture deals with GAC Family. Additionally, When Calls the Heart alums Lori Loughlin and Daniel Lissing have reunited for the return of spinoff When Hope Calls on GAC Family.
In Harmony From The Heart, Violet (Lowndes) has a shot at her dream job of music therapist at a local hospital. There is one obstacle: Violet’s department chair Professor Carver threatens to prevent her from graduating unless she successfully rehabilitates a patient to speak again by Valentine’s Day – just two weeks away. The patient is the professor’s beloved brother, Charles. Another hurdle is strong, stubborn skepticism about music therapy held by the man’s doctor, Blake Williams (Metcalfe), a local heart surgeon and, more importantly, Charles’ grandson. Feeling the pressure to create a near miracle, Violet uses music to traverse the mile markers of Charles’ life, and he begins to progress. Violet and Blake realize each of them loves helping people and their own hearts begin to open again.
Lowndes executive produces with Brad Krevoy, Amanda Phillips, Eric Jarboe, Lorenzo Nardini, Jimmy Townsend, Susie Belzberg Krevoy, and Doran S. Chandler. Producer is Donald Munro. Supervising Producers are Anthony Epps and Bradley M. Goodman. Associate Producer is Marlisa Fruehauf. Michael Robison directs.
Lowndes’ additional credits include a starring role in Angel Falls Christmas, which premiered last month on GAC Family. She appeared on the reboot of 90210 on the CW from 2008 to 2013 and most recently on Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
Metcalfe is known for his role as John Rowland on ABC’s Desperate Housewives. He most recently starred in Hallmark Channel’s Chesapeake Shores. On the film side, he’ll next be seen starring alongside Chad Michael Murray in Emmett/Furla Films’ Fortress trilogy.
Harmony From The Heart premieres at 8 pm ET, Saturday, February 12 on GAC Family.
In the feature directorial debut of veteran film editor Debra Neil-Fisher (Coming 2 America, The Hangover franchise), husband and wife Dan (Walsh) and Jeanine (Longoria) plan a weekend getaway of “digital detox” without kids, phones, or social media. They need—or think they need—only clean fresh air and alone time together to rekindle their romance. But once they forego GPS to guide them and disconnect from the internet, can they reconnect their own internal servers to spark their marriage?
Johnny Pemberton (Superstore), Al Madrigal (Morbius), Joel Kim Booster (Sunnyside), and Nancy Friedrich (Pen15) round out the cast of the film, scripted by Walsh and Brad Morris. Debbie Liebling, Traveling Picture Show Company’s Carissa Buffel and Kevin Matusow produced it with Morris, Walsh and William G. Santor’s Productivity Media, which served as the film’s financier. Longoria exec produced with Andrew Chang-Sang, John Hills, Ali Jazayeri, Jeremy M. Rosen, John Swab and Viviana Zarragoitia.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better time in the director’s chair than with this marvelous cast captained by Eva and Matt, and our dedicated crew,” said Neil-Fisher. “Vertical is the perfect partner to bring Unplugging to audiences next spring.”
“Unplugging unites great talents in front of and behind the camera,” said Vertical Entertainment Partner Rich Goldberg, “and Debra’s storied skills as editor translate to a keen directorial eye for comedy.”
“Having previously partnered on many successful releases (Four Good Days, Buckley’s Chance) we know our friends at Vertical are the perfect distributor to bring the hilarious Unplugging to US audiences,” added Santor, who serves as Productivity Media’s CEO. “Eva and Matt are at the top of their game in this whip-smart, comedic look at relationships in the digital age, and we’re sure audiences will love it just as much as we loved making it.”
Neil-Fisher is an ACE Eddie Award winner and Emmy nominee who most recently cut Craig Brewer’s Amazon sequel, Coming 2 America. Over the course of her 30-plus years as an editor, she’s also lent her talents to Warner Bros. Pictures’ Hangover trilogy, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Fried Green Tomatoes, two Austin Powers films and more.
Vertical Entertainment is a global independent distributor, which was founded in 2012. Current and upcoming releases from the company include John Pollono’s directorial debut, Small Engine Repair, starring Jon Bernthal, Shea Whigham, Jordana Spiro and Ciara Bravo; Castille Landon’s After We Fell, the third installment of the After series starring Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin; and romantic comedy The Hating Game starring Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell. Vertical also recently released Joe Bell, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s drama starring Mark Wahlberg, Reid Miller and Connie Britton, with Roadside Attractions.
Longoria is represented by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen; Walsh by UTA; Thompson by Innovative Artists and Gilbertson Entertainment; Madrigal by CAA; David by Silver J Management and Artists & Representatives; Byer by Artists First Management; Pemberton by ICM Partners and Artists First Management; Booster by WME and Omnipop Talent Group; and Friedrich by Omnipop Talent Group.
Vertical’s acquisition of Unplugging was negotiated by Gersh and Mimi Steinbauer’s Radiant Films International, which is handling foreign sales on the title.
IATAS also revealed presenters for the ceremony including Vanessa Williams, Aidan Quinn, Brian d’Arcy James, Method Man, Piper Perabo, Emeraude Toubia, Wilson Cruz and Felipe Santa. Former NBA star and future Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki will present the International Emmy Directorate Award to Thomas Bellut, Director General of German pubcaster ZDF.
Actress and comic Orji earned an Emmy nom last year for her role as Molly opposite Issa Rae in Insecure, which is airing its fifth and final season on HBO. She also did a stand-up special in 2020 and will be part of Amazon Prime Video’s second year-end special Yearly Departed.
David Tennant, the French comedy Call My Agent and Israeli drama Tehran are among those vying for prizes at the International Emmys this year. Nominations for the awards this year saw 44 nominees across 11 categories and a record number of 24 countries.
The International Emmys ceremony, which will follow Covid safety protocols, will be livestreamed at iemmys.tv, starting at 7 p.m. ET. Attendees will need to show proof of vaccination and a negative test to access the event.
Airing Wednesday, Nov. 24 at 10/9c, the program marks Hatcher’s debut comedy special, and she can be glimpsed at the mic in the below promo. The actress is joined by comedy vets Carole Montgomery, Wendy Liebman, Monique Marvez, Leighann Lord and Marsha Warfield discussing “sex, dating and how they hilariously made it through the pandemic,” per the official synopsis. (Video)
The ViacomCBS network is launching its Naughty or Nice strand at the end of November through December with five made-for-television movies – Adventures in Christmasing, The Bitch Who Stole Christmas, Hip Hop Family Christmas, Let’s Get Merried and Miracles Across 125th Street.
Adventures in Christmasing centers around Parker Baldwin, a highly successful and meticulous talk show host who plans everything to a T, finds her Christmas plans upended when her network persuades her to spend three days in the wild with superstar adventurer & television survivalist Finn Holt for a holiday television event. The two butt heads until they find themselves stranded together in the wild with no food, unreliable shelter and no form of communication. Unexpectedly impacting each other, they come to realize life is the greatest adventure.
A story by Kim Fields and Rhonda Baraka, written by Baraka and directed by Troy A. Scott, it stars Fields, Adrian Holmes, Kel Mitchell, Eva Marcille and Jonathan Silverman.
MTV Entertainment Studios, Johnson Production Group, K-Lab Studios produce with Fields, Art Rutter and Timothy Johnson; Meghan Hooper, Josh Van Houdt and Janee Dabney exec producing. It launches November 29.
The Bitch Who Stole Christmas, which launches December 2, is “the draggiest Christmas movie ever made”. It follows a workaholic big-city fashion journalist is sent to a Christmas-obsessed small town to dig up a story when she finds herself in the middle of cut-throat housewives, a high-stakes “Winter Ball” competition, and a sinister plot that could destroy Christmas.
Written by Connor Wright and Christina Friel and directed by Don Scardino, it stars RuPaul, Krysta Rodriguez, Andy Ridings, Michelle Visage, Ginger Minj, Brooke Lynn Hytes, Peppermint, Jan Sport, Jaymes Mansfield, Latrice Royale, Gottmik, Morgan McMichaels, Porkchop, Carson Kressley, Ross Mathews, Chad Michaels, Heidi N Closet, Kelly Mantle, Kimora Blac, Laganja Estranja, Manila Luzon, Mayhem Miller, Pandora Boxx, Raven, Rock M. Sakura, Kylie Sonique Love, Kim Petras, Charo and Anna Maria Horsford.
Produced by World of Wonder and MTV Entertainment Studios, it is exec produced by Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey, Tom Campbell, Don Scardino, Nina L. Diaz, Meghan Hooper, Josh Van Houdt, Samantha Schles, Marcia Lansdown and Janee Dabney.
Hip Hop Family Christmas, which launches on December 6, follows hop hop’s most famous family, who agree to participate in a live Christmas television special to address negative press and soften their image.
Directed by Greg Carter, who writes with Aydrea Walden, Saeed Crumpler and Datari Turner, it stars Keri Hilson, Ne-Yo, Terrence J, Serayah, MC Lyte, Redman, Valarie Pettiford, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, Demetrius Shipp Jr, Billy Sorrells, Jonathan Kite, B. Simone, Jess Hilarious, Niatia ‘Lil Mama’ Kirkland, Vena E., Vanessa Simmons and Tank
Jamie Foxx exec produces alongside Datari Turner, Greg Carter; Meghan Hooper, Josh Van Houdt, Mychael Chinn, Trevor Rose and Janee Dabney. It is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios, Foxxhole and Nexus Films.
Let’s Get Merried, which launches on December 13, centers around a bachelorette weekend at a Christmas-themed adventure park that gets all kinds of holly jolly when a hard-partying, down-on-her-luck, holiday-hater decides to get married. That day. To a man she has yet to meet.
Written by Sasha Perl-Raver and directed by Veronica Rodriguez, it stars Mishel Prada, Xosha Roquemore, Tahj Mowry, Nicolette Pearse, Nicole Power, Savannah Basley.
It is exec produced by Eva Longoria, Adriana Martinez Barron and Ben Spector; Lance Samuels, Meghan Hooper, Josh Van Houdt, Andrew Lutin, Trevor Rose and Marcia Lansdown and produced by MTV Entertainment Studios, UnbeliEVAble Ent, and Blue Ice Pictures.
Finally, Miracles Across 125th Street, which launches on December 20, follows a Harlem rapper who returns to his family’s church after battling drug addiction, to confront his past on Christmas Eve.
Written and directed by Nick Cannon, it stars Cannon, Lil Kim, Chrisette Michele, Kierra Sheard-Kelly, Tommy Davidson, Bruce Church aka “Bruce Bruce,” Luenell Campbell aka “Luenell,” Fred Hammond, Karen Clark Sheard, Akon, Cameron J. Wright, Vena “Pretty Vee” Excell, Marsha Warfield, Ashley Adair, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Santwon McCray, Airean Josiah aka AJ Boogie, Jarun Jones aka YM, Connor Finnerty, Golden Cannon, AJ Bernard, Destiny Renee Boyd, Cosme Flores, Rahja Fuller, Todrick Hall, DC Young Fly, Jim Jones, Rickey Smiley and Teyana Taylor.
Cannon exec produces alongside Michael Goldman; Benjamin Sumpter, Mike Elliott, Joe Genier; Nina L. Diaz, Donny Hugo Herran, Dara Cook, Trevor Rose and Janee Dabney. It is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios, Ncredible Entertainment, and Capital Arts.
“With our Naughty or Nice film slate, VH1 is reimagining the holidays with modern, fresh takes,” says Nina L. Diaz, CCO/President of Content for MTV Entertainment Group. “Working together with Eva, Jamie, Kim, Nick as well as our long-standing partners Randy and Fenton has truly been a gift that keeps on giving.”
Vanessa Williams, Leona Lewis, Trixie Mattel and Michelle Visage have been selected to judge the new Paramount+ singing competition series, which will “follow the world’s most talented drag queens as they battle it out for global domination, and countries go head to head spotlighting their top talent.” Graham Norton will serve as host.
In addition to guest-judging both Drag Race and All Stars, Williams also won her episode of RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race; Mattel placed sixth on Drag Race Season 7, then returned to win All Stars Season 3; Visage has been Ru’s right-hand woman since Drag Race Season 3; and Norton has judged all three seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. In other words, most of them go way back.
According to the official release, “each episode will feature the world’s fiercest queens as they debut a new musical performance in front of a live audience and the ‘Pop Diva Panel’ of judges in the hopes of being crowned the Queen of the Universe.”
Contestants have yet to be announced, but we know that they will represent 10 different countries: USA, Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Australia, Canada, England, France, China and India.
Produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and World of Wonder, Queen of the Universe premieres Thursday, Dec. 2 on Paramount+, with new episodes hitting the streaming service each week.
The “John Tucker Must Die” star dropped $933,000 for a one-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the Lower East Side before parting ways with it a mere eight months later.
Metcalfe’s new Miami residence has two stories with 22-foot-high ceilings and unobstructed wide views of the ocean, bay and city, according to the listing.
Boasting two bedrooms and three bathrooms, the condo comes with a custom stainless-steel and mahogany circular staircase that connects both floors. On the second floor is the primary marble suite that overlooks the bay and offers a soaking tub and rain shower with water views.
Known as Brickell Place, amenities of the luxury building include a pool and cabanas, jacuzzi spa, tennis, racket and basketball courts, fitness room and a BBQ area.
The move also comes less than a year after Metcalfe, 42, and his former fiancée of 12 years, actor Cara Santana, sold their shared home above LA’s Sunset Strip for almost $3.7 million last November, according to property records.
The “Desperate Housewives” star purchased a three-bedroom, four-bathroom Hollywood Hills home for $2.2 million after their split, records show.
Taren Cassidy of Douglas Elliman represented Metcalf, and Silvia Nieto-Torres of Horizon Homes Realty represented the sellers. Both agents did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Metcalfe is starring in two upcoming films, “The Fortress 2,” alongside Bruce Willis and Chad Michael Murray, and “On a Wing and a Prayer,” alongside Dennis Quaid and Heather Graham.
The recently announced half-hour comedy is centered on NPH’s Michael Lawson, who thinks his life is perfect until his husband blindsides him by walking out the door after 17 years. “Overnight, Michael has to confront two nightmares: losing what he thought was his soulmate and suddenly finding himself a single gay man in his mid-forties,” per the official logline.
Watkins — whose myriad credits include ABC’s One Life to Live and Desperate Housewives, as well as Netflix’s The Boys in the Band — will recur as hedge-fund manager Colin, Michael’s soon-to-be ex-husband.
Netflix on Monday also announced the following cast additions:
* Tisha Campbell (Martin) in the series-regular role of Suzanne, “an expensively put-together, high-powered real estate agent who is Michael Lawson’s business partner and loyal friend. She is a confident and quick-witted single mom with a son in his early 20s.”
* Emerson Brooks (The Last Ship) in the series-regular role of Billy, “one of Michael’s close friends and a celebrity TV weatherman. He’s good-looking and charming, likes to have a good time, and frequently dates much younger men.”
* Brooks Ashmanskas (The Good Lord Bird) in the series-regular role of Stanley, “another of Michael’s close friends who is witty, quick and a bit of a snob. He is a very successful art dealer who is not as successful in the romance department.”
* Marcia Gay Harden (The Morning Show) in the recurring role of Claire, “an Upper East Side socialite in the midst of a bitter divorce from her husband.”
The eight-episode comedy hails from Star (Sex and the City, Emily In Paris) and Jeffrey Richman (Modern Family), who will executive-produce alongside Tony Hernandez (Younger) and Lilly Burns (Emily in Paris, Younger). A premiere date has not yet been announced.
PREMIERE DATE: Sunday, Nov. 21 at 8/7c (Hallmark Channel)
The House of the Spirits is a family saga that follows the extraordinary lives of three generations of women in the Trueba family. Set in a remote South American country, this timeless drama, with tints of Magical Realism, takes us on an epic journey of fortune, intrigue, love, and fate throughout the 20th century.
Francisca Alegría and Fernanda Urrejola are writing the adaptation, the former will direct. “It’s truly an honor to bring one of Isabel Allende’s iconic works to the screen for audiences worldwide alongside FilmNation, Francisca, and Fernanda,” Longoria said in a statement. “This is a story rich in themes of family, love, and magic. I am excited to show the world the beauty, creativity, and masterclass talent that our community continues to produce.”
Added Alegría, “It’s an honor to be adapting Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits. I am a devout admirer of her work and her as an artist, and this novel is such a fundamental piece of Latin American culture. Isabel was ahead of her time, just like the female protagonists of the story, and I feel that today, 40 years later, we can actually understand and integrate the deeply complex threads of their powerful lineage. Fernanda and I are beyond excited to be developing this series with our wonderful producers at FilmNation and to have the exceptional Eva Longoria starring as Blanca.”
Allende, who hails from Chile, is credited as the most widely read Spanish-language author with more than 20 books released throughout her career.
Longoria is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Jackoway Austen. Alegría is repped by Grandview and McKuin Frankel Whitehead. Urrejola is repped by APA and Vision Entertainment. Allende is repped by Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells, Writers House, and WME.
Kicking off Season 8 of The CW’s The Flash on Nov. 16 at 8/7c, the team-up event — airing across five consecutive Tuesdays — finds Grant Gustin’s Barry recruiting a cavalcade of superfriends, including Brandon Routh’s The Atom, Cress Williams’ Black Lightning, Katherine McNamara’s Mia Smoak (from Arrow), Javicia Leslie’s Batwoman, Chyler Leigh’s Sentinel (from Supergirl) and Osric Chau’s Ryan Choi (from the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event).
Said assembly of heroes will face an extraterrestrial threat led by Defiance alum Tony Curran’s Despero, while Arrowverse vets Tom Cavanagh and Neal McDonough will reprise their respective villainous roles of Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash and Damien Darhk.
It is the first time the pair has worked together since Desperate Housewives ended in 2012. Their characters had an on-again, off-again relationship in that series.
Marilu Henner co-stars, and Denton also executive produces.
In A Kiss Before Christmas, real estate development executive Ethan Holt (Denton) is a married father with two teens. On Christmas Eve, he is disappointed to learn he’s losing out on a promotion and laments that his “nice guy” way of doing business has held him back in his career. Thanks to some Christmas magic, Ethan’s casual wish that his life had taken a different course becomes reality. He wakes up the next morning and is shocked to find everything is different – he isn’t married to Joyce (Hatcher), he doesn’t have two teenaged kids, and he’s CEO of his company. Joyce is the key to Ethan being able to reclaim his original life and the family he loves; he must convince her that their happily-ever-after is waiting for them — and he only has until Christmas Day.
Jeff Beesley directs from a script by Mark Amato and Tracy Andreen.
“From the very beginning I wanted the first Hallmark Christmas movie I produced to be unique,” Denton said. “I had no idea that we’d be lucky enough to get Teri. We’ve always wanted to work together again, and we found the perfect vehicle for what I think is the first Desperate Housewives reunion.
“And since we’re on Hallmark, I don’t have to worry about getting shot at the end,” he quipped.
“Since that famous scene where he found me in the bushes, I knew James and I would be friends for life,” Hatcher said. “The chemistry and friendship we had on Desperate Housewives is alive and well all these years later, and the loving, warm spirit of the holidays is the perfect backdrop for reuniting. It’s amazing to be back together. It’s just like old times. You won’t want to miss it.”
On Desperate Housewives, Denton played Mike Delfino, the love interest and eventual husband — and ex-husband — of Hatcher’s Susan Mayer, for eight seasons 2004-12.
A Kiss Before Christmas is from Crown Media Productions. Stan Spry, Eric Woods, Denton, Jonathan Eskenas and Kimberley Bradley are executive producers. Devan Towers serves as co-producer.
The series starring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic — which previously aired reruns on TNT — is moving to Lifetime, where it will air Tuesdays, beginning Oct. 5 at 2 pm ET/PT. Episodes will air through November, after which the show will take a brief hiatus until January 2022 to accommodate the network’s “It’s a Wonderful Lifetime” holiday movie event.
FX dropped a brief teaser on Thursday revealing the the next arc of Double Feature. Following the seaside-set episodes of Red Tide, the four episodes consisting Death Valley see Neil McDonough’s character heading to the California desert to appease extraterrestrial invaders.
“Whoever you are, wherever you come from, stop what you’re doing. I’m sure you can we can reach an understanding,” McDonough pleads.
Like previous clips, the latest glimpse at Death Valley features both black-and-white footage, which seem to denote a past decade, and those in color representing present-day. Bloody experiments, bug-eyed aliens and more take center stage in the teaser. Also set to appear in Death Valley are Sarah Paulson, Rachel Hilson, Lily Rabe, Rebecca Dayan, Angelica ross, Leslie Grossman and Cody Fern.
American Horror Story is executive produced by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Alexis Martin Woodall, John J. Gray and Manny Coto. American Horror Story is produced by 20th Television.
Death Valley lands at FX on September 29. Watch the teaser above.
The letter, which mentioned the United Nations General Assembly Session specifically, was posted on the website of CARE, an organization dedicated to ending poverty worldwide. It was signed by a raft of boldfaced names including Eva Longoria, Debra Messing, Alyssa Milano, Anne Hathaway, Malin Akerman, Debbie Allen, Jordana Brewster, Connie Britton, Ciara, Peter Dinklage, Richard Gere, Dolores Huerta, Joel McHale, Iman, Edward James Olmos, Laura Linney, Julianna Margulies, Joel McHale, Idina Menzel, Ana Ortiz, Adam Shankman, Michael Sheen, Adam Shulman and Sarah Silverman. For a full list of signatories, see below.
Specifically, the letter calls Covid “a manmade pandemic of apathy.” It states that “Only 2% of people in low-income countries have received a single dose.” The signatories call on “global leaders to make 7 billion vaccine doses available before the end of 2021, and an additional 7 billion doses by mid-2022 to fully vaccinate 70% of the world by next summer.”
Those are audacious goals given the world’s most highly vaccinated countries, like the U.S., remain well under 70%.
It also asks leaders to “invest in last-mile delivery systems, public education, and frontline healthcare workers to get vaccines from tarmacs into arms.”
Here is the full letter:
An open letter to world leaders on ending the COVID-19 pandemic now.
None of us are safe until all of us are safe.
We call on leaders gathering at the United Nations General Assembly Session to boldly act together to end COVID-19 everywhere.
COVID-19 is now a manmade pandemic of apathy. Only 2% of people in low-income countries have received a single dose, leaving the world’s most vulnerable to face COVID with no protection. This situation also lets new variants, like Delta, emerge and ravage the lives of millions.
We are joining with CARE to call on global leaders to make 7 billion vaccine doses available before the end of 2021, and an additional 7 billion doses by mid-2022 to fully vaccinate 70% of the world by next summer.
To get this done the world community must also invest in last-mile delivery systems, public education, and frontline healthcare workers to get vaccines from tarmacs into arms. Millions of doses could go to waste because low-income countries don’t have the support they need to get vaccines to vulnerable people.
We can save millions of lives — and trillions in further economic damage — by meeting this moment with the resources and political will needed to end COVID-19 for everyone, everywhere. Because none of us are safe until all of us are safe.
Malin Akerman
Debbie Allen
Dorothy Amuah
Morena Baccarin
Adriana Barraza
Troian Bellisario
Bobby Berk
Jordana Brewster
Connie Britton
Karamo Brown
Gloria Calderón Kellett
Ciara
Tena Clark
Kim Coates
Madison Cowan
Alexandra Daddario
Peter Dinklage
Melinda Doolittle
Tan France
Richard Gere
Duff Goldman
Tony Goldwyn
Fiona Gubelmann
Anne Hathaway
Ingrid Hoffmann
Anders Holm
Dolores Huerta
Osas Ighodaro
Joel McHale
Iman
Edward James Olmos
Sonam Kapoor Ahuja
Ellie Krieger
Iskra Lawrence
Annie Lennox
Lola Lennox
Esther Lewis
Laura Linney
Kimberly Locke
Eva Longoria
Anja Manuel
Julianna Margulies
Catherine McCord
Joel McHale
Spike Mendelsohn
Idina Menzel
Debra Messing
Alyssa Milano
Sepideh Moafi
Tamera Mowry-Housley
Yvette Nicole Brown
Christina Ochoa
Ana Ortiz
Helen Pankhurst
Jessica Pimentel
Julie Plec
Adina Porter
Zac Posen
Leven Rambin
April Reign
Holland Roden
Sheila Shah
Adam Shankman
Omar Sharif Jr.
Michael Sheen
Adam Shulman
Sarah Silverman
Hannah Skvarla
Todd Snyder
Kimberly Steward
Curtis Stone
Christy Turlington Burns
Laura Vandervoort
Gabby Williams
Michelle Williams
Kimberly Williams-Paisley
Russell Wilson
Scott Wolf
Kelley Wolf
Bellamy Young
Rachel Zoe.
The sci-fi story revolves around Sal Vidón, a teen who discovers he has the ability to reach into time and space to retrieve things from other universes as a result of his meddling with his father’s scientific experiments. He enlists the help of his friend Gabi to set off on a quest to find and bring back his deceased mother, only to learn that tampering in alternate universes could ultimately put their entire universe at risk. “It’s exciting to work with Eva and Ben on such an imaginative story full of heart and adventure that truly feels authentic in its storytelling and representation of characters,” said Ayo Davis, EVP, Creative Development and Strategy, Disney Branded Television. “Carlos Hernandez’s heartwarming and humorous book is the perfect addition to our slate of development and is in expert hands with Eva and Ben’s production team.”
UnbeliEVAble Entertainment has a separate and ongoing first-look deal at Disney’s 20th Television which is separate from this deal with Disney Branded Television.
UnbeliEVAble is represented by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.
The guest-starring voice cast for the series set to launch on Disney+ in 2022 will feature A-listers from the worlds of music, film, TV and sports including Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Chance the Rapper, Normani, Leslie Odom Jr., Tiffany Haddish, Lena Waithe, Anthony Anderson, Gabrielle Union, Debbie Allen, James Pickens Jr., Courtney B. Vance, Jane Lynch, Marsai Martin, Jaden Smith, Glynn Turman, Lamorne Morris, Brenda Song, Tina Knowles, Eva Longoria, Holly Robinson Peete, Al Roker, Bretman Rock, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez and Dominique Dawes, among others.
New recurring stars announced today include Asante Blackk (This Is Us) as Penny’s boyfriend, Kareem; rapper Artist “A Boogie” Dubose as Maya’s gamer brother, Francis “KG” Leibowitz-Jenkins; Raquel Lee Bolleau (Real Husbands of Hollywood), who will reprise her role as Nubia Gross; and Marcus T. Paulk (Red Tails), who reprises his role as Penny’s classmate, Myron.
Airing on Disney Channel between 2001 and 2005, The Proud Family followed the misadventures of teenager Penny Proud (Kyla Pratt) and her numerous eccentric family members. Louder and Prouder is currently in production at Disney Television Animation and will of course pick up the story of its central character, as it catches up with her parents Oscar (Tommy Davidson) and Trudy (Paula Jai Parker), her twin siblings BeBe and CeCe, her grandmother Suga Mama (JoMarie Payton) and dog Puff, and members of her loyal crew including Dijonay Jones (Karen Malina White), LaCienega Boulevardez (Alisa Reyes) and Zoey Howzer (Soleil Moon Frye), among others.
Other original cast members reprising their roles, as previously announced, are Cedric the Entertainer, Carlos Mencia, Maria Canals-Barrera and Alvaro Gutierrez. Additional recurring cast members new to the world of The Proud Family include Keke Palmer, Billy Porter, Zachary Quinto, and EJ Johnson.
The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder is executive produced by Bruce W. Smith and Ralph Farquhar, who served in the same capacity on the original series. Jan Hirota is producing, with Calvin Brown, Jr. serving as co-executive producer and story editor, and Eastwood Wong as art director.
All seasons of The Proud Family are currently available for streaming on Disney+. For a look at a 20th anniversary featurette unveiled by the streamer today, in which Louder and Prouder stars reflect on their draw to the original series, click above.
Bart had already performed several shows for critics, so at least some of the reviews expected later tonight and tomorrow will reference Bart’s starring performance. For opening night tonight, at least, Bart will be replaced by understudy Mark Oxtoby, making his debut in the role.
The musical, with a book by Bob Gale and new music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, is based on the director Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 sci-fi comedy starring Michael J. Fox and, in the Doc Brown role, Christopher Lloyd. In the musical, Fox’s Marty McFly role is played by Olly Dobson. Bart is one of the busiest stage performances on both Broadway and the West End, with credits including The Producers, Young Frankenstein, Disaster! and Hercules, among many others.
“Time’s Up is ready for new leadership, and we want to move forcefully toward its new iteration,” said exiting board members Shonda Rhimes, Eva Longoria, Jurnee Smollett, Christy Haubegger, Hilary Rosen, Michelle Kydd, Katie McGrath and interim board chair and super lawyer Nina Shaw in a statement posted online today.
“We have strong faith in the talent and dedication of our interim CEO Monifa Bandele as a leader,” they added. See full statement from exiting Time’s Up board members below. The exiting board members are all resigning their positions by their own choice, we hear. However, it can’t go without notice that this latest move comes as Time’s Up is trying to regain traction amidst a series of scandals and missteps
Board members Ashley Judd, Gabrielle Sulzberger, Colleen DeCourcy, and Raffi Freedman-Gurspan are going to remain on the board for the foreseeable future to “help insure a smooth transition.”
The full statement:
TIME’S UP was created to support the goal of safe, fair, dignified work for all women.
“It is crucial to us as a board that the organization remain in service to this seismic, global work to demand equity and disrupt systems that foster discrimination, harassment and abuse. We see the current crisis within TIME’S UP as an important opportunity for growth and change.
TIME’S UP is ready for new leadership, and we want to move forcefully toward its new iteration. We have strong faith in the talent and dedication of our interim CEO Monifa Bandele as a leader. As has been announced, Monifa will be overseeing a comprehensive assessment of the organization, in collaboration with an outside consultant, and the input of our stakeholders: survivors and those who work for survivor justice and gender equity in the workplace and beyond.
To mark the establishment of a new TIME’S UP, the organization will have a new and reconstituted board. To that end, the members of the existing board will be stepping aside over the next 30 days, giving our CEO the ability to refocus the organization’s leadership to suit its mission and needs. As we do so, we commit to making sure TIME’S UP has sufficient financial resources to do its important work. And we have asked four existing board members— Colleen DeCourcy, Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, Ashley Judd and Gabrielle Sulzberger—to remain during this period to help ensure a smooth transition.
“TIME’S UP belongs to all women. Its mission must continue – until we live in a world in which no woman ever needs to say #timesup again.
Tchen quit last month as the president and CEO of Time’s Up.
“Now is the time for Time’s Up to evolve and move forward as there is so much more work to do for women,” said Tchen, a former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, in a statement on social media. “It is clear that I am not the leader who can accomplish that in this moment.”
Her resignation came after nearly two years overseeing the Hollywood-heavy organization.
Her leave can be traced to her involvement with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who stepped down in the aftermath of a sexual harassment scandal that former Time’s Up board chair Roberta Kaplan and Tchen had become embroiled in. Kaplan left Time’s Up on August 9, and Cuomo announced August 10 he would resign.
Deadline reported that a number of members of Time’s Up’s leadership believed Tchen needed to exit or at least step back during an independent probe after the gender equity group was hit by a series of systemic scandals. Still, the next day, following those virtual meetings with Time’s Up global leadership and founding signatories, Tchen insisted to Deadline “it’s not my intention to resign as President and CEO of Time’s Up.”
She’ll play Dr. Cody, who in the novel is a guy, Dr. Jimmy Cody. Cody assists Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman in the film), Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh) and Matt Burke (Bill Camp) in fighting the spread of vampires. Spencer Treat Clark also stars as Mike Ryerson, as Deadline first reported. In King’s first New York Times No. 1 bestseller, author Ben Mears returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book, only to discover his hometown is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire.
Woodard recently starred in the critically acclaimed feature Clemency, for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination and a Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. On the small screen, she stars opposite Jason Momoa in the Apple TV+ series See, created by Steven Knight. She also stars in the Netflix film Fatherhood alongside Kevin Hart. Upcoming projects includes her role in the Joe & Anthony Russo-directed film The Gray Man with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, as well as the psychological thriller Viral\, which reunites Woodard with her Juanita co-star Blair Underwood.
Other recent film appearances include the blockbusters Captain America: Civil War for Marvel, Jon Favreau’s live-action The Lion King and New Line’s Annabelle. Other Marvel projects she has starred in include Netflix’s Luke Cage, as the fierce Mariah Dillard, and as the title character in the Netflix film Juanita, which she also developed and produced.
Acclaimed dramatic performances include her roles in Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, John Sayles’ Passion Fish, Maya Angelou’s Down in the Delta, Peter Bratt’s Follow Me Home, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Love and Basketball for New Line, Spike Lee’s Crooklyn, Lawrence Kasdan’s Grand Canyon and Mumford, Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, Billie Woodruff’s Beauty Shop with Queen Latifah, Richard Donner’s Scrooged opposite Bill Murray, as well as HBO’s Mandela and Miss Evers’ Boys.
Woodard has been nominated for 17 Emmy Awards (winning four), seven SAG Awards (winning three), three Golden Globe Awards (winning one), 21 NAACP Image Awards (wining nine) and two Independent Spirit Awards (winning one). Her Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress was for her performance in Martin Ritt’s Cross Creek. She is repped by ICM Partners, Circle of Confusion and Gochman Law Group.
For Salem’s Lot, New Line is reuniting with the producing teams behind their record-breaking horror franchises The Conjuring Universe (highest-grossing horror franchise of all time with $2B+ worldwide) and the feature take on King’s It (combined through two films, $1.17B at global box). Producers are James Wan and Michael Clear for Atomic Monster and Roy Lee for Vertigo alongside Mark Wolper.
New Line frequent collaborator Gary Dauberman wrote the screenplay and is directing. Dauberman has written six films for New Line, including the global blockbuster two-film adaptation of Stephen King’s It and four installments in The Conjuring franchise, altogether amounting to over $2.4B worldwide. Dauberman made his directorial debut in 2019 with New Line’s critical and box office hit Annabelle Comes Home. Michael Bederman, Gary Dauberman, Atomic Monster’s Judson Scott, and Vertigo’s Andrew Childs are EPs on Salem’s Lot. New Line is also adapting King’s The Long Walk for the big screen.
Notable TV vets on the roster include Seinfeld‘s Jason Alexander, black-ish‘s Anthony Anderson, Orange Is the New Black‘s Laverne Cox, Grey’s Anatomy‘s James Pickens Jr., Beverly Hills, 90210‘s Tori Spelling, Desperate Housewives‘ Marcia Cross, Glee‘s Amber Riley and Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Michelle Trachtenberg.
Hosted once again by Wheel icons Pat Sajak and Vanna White, Celebrity Wheel of Fortune returns Sunday, Sept. 26 at 8 pm.
Scroll down to check out the complete Season 2 lineup…
Jason Alexander
Tatyana Ali
Anthony Anderson
Tituss Burgess
Cheryl Burke
Brooke Burns
Mario Cantone
Lacey Chabert
Laverne Cox
Marcia Cross
Joey Fatone
Vivica A. Fox
Jeff Garlin
Anthony Michael Hall
Melissa Joan Hart
John Michael Higgins
Vanilla Ice
Tara Lipinski
Loni Love
Von Miller
Michael Mizanin
Wanya Morris
Jason Mraz
Haley Joel Osment
Donny Osmond
James Pickens Jr.
Caroline Rhea
Andy Richter
Amber Riley
Tori Spelling
Shawn Stockman
Curtis Stone
Jodie Sweetin
Raven-Symoné
Karl-Anthony Towns
Michelle Trachtenberg
Nia Vardalos
Johnny Weir
Ali Wentworth.
Set to begin November 16 at 8 p.m. ET, “Armageddon” will feature numerous guest appearances from some of the CW’s most notable heroes and villains. Set to join The Flash team are Javicia Leslie as Batwoman, Brandon Routh as The Atom, Cress Williams as Black Lightning, Chyler Leigh as Sentinel, Kat McNamara as Mia Queen and Osric Chau as Ryan Choi. Tom Cavanagh and Neal McDonough will return as enemies Eobard Thawne/Reverse Flash and Damien Darhk, respectively.
In “Armageddon,” a powerful alien threat arrives on Earth under mysterious circumstances and Barry (Grant Gustin), Iris (Candice Patton) and the rest of Team Flash are pushed to their limits in a desperate battle to save the world. But with time running out, and the fate of humanity at stake, Flash and his companions will also need to enlist the help of some old friends if the forces of good are to prevail.
All the information about “Armageddon” checks out with what CW chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz previously teased about the series’ kick off. During a press call about the fall 2021 schedule, Pedowitz noted that the first five episodes of The Flash Season 8 “will feature different heroes from the CW-verse.”
“The idea for The Flash is, [showrunner] Eric Wallace and [executive producer] Greg [Berlanti] have come together and are talking about other superheroes from the CW-verse who will come together in each individual episode,” he said. “It will not be quite be a crossover but will have a crossover-type feel and the introduction of all these characters.”
On Wednesday, The Flash executive producer Eric Wallace added the following:
“Simply put, these are going to be some of the most emotional Flash episodes ever. Plus, there are some truly epic moments and huge surprises that await our fans. And we’re doing them on a scale that’s bigger and bolder than our traditional Flash episodes. So yes, “Armageddon” is a lot more than just another graphic novel storyline. It’s going to be a true event for Flash and Arrowverse fans, old and new. Honestly, I can’t wait for audiences to see what we’ve got planned.”
After a 2019 petition launched by Lauren Hunter and SONiC 102.9 FM garnered renewed attention this week ahead of the James Gunn-directed film's premiere today, the municipal government building will — at least temporarily — adopt the new name.
As of press time, the original petition has reached over 26,000 signatures of its 35,000-signature goal after receiving a boost from Margot Robbie, John Cena, Idris Elba and more in a promotional video.
"I 100 percent support this completely, and I really, really hope you succeed in this mission, Edmonton. I believe in it," Robbie said in the video released earlier this week.
Best Actor – Television (Drama)
Manolo Cardona, Quién Mató a Sara? / Who Killed Sara?
Netflix; Perro Azul
Ricardo Chavira, Selena: The Series
Netflix; A Campanario Entertainment Production for Netflix
Jay Hernandez, Magnum P.I.
CBS; CBS Television Studios, Universal Television (a division of Universal Studio Group), Perfect Storm Entertainment, Davis Entertainment, 101st Street Productions
Enrique Murciano, Tell Me Your Secrets
Prime Video; Endeavor Content, LLC and Amazon Studios
JD Pardo, Mayans M.C.
FX Networks; 20th Television and FX Productions.
The pair have teamed with Eva Longoria and her UnbeliEVAble Entertainment production company to develop a half-hour series for the Disney-owned broadcast network. 20th Television, where Longoria and her producing partner Ben Spector have a first-look deal, is the studio.
The multi-generational comedy is about an upper-middle-class family handling grief, identity and a reevaluation of their roles following the death of the family’s patriarch.
Parra Janney and Bycel are both writer-producers on Hulu’s animated comedy Solar Opposites. Parra Janney, whose writing credits also include Star Trek: Lower Decks and Broke, has also appeared on Superstore and as a contributor to The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.
Bycel has been an exec producer on shows including Happy Endings and Netflix’s The Big Show Show as well as co-showrunner of the final season of Scrubs. He also worked with Desperate Housewives star Longoria on her NBC comedy Telenovela.
Parra Janney will write and exec produce the new project, while Bycel will exec produce alongside Longoria and Spector.
Longoria said: “I’ve been a huge fan of Josh’s work since our time together on Telenovela and Grace and I share similar ‘Texican’ backgrounds. At UnbeliEVAble we are always pushing to tell real and authentic stories so I’m particularly proud to share one that is not unlike my own family’s experience.”
Parra Janney is repped by UTA and Ziffren, Bycel is repped by UTA and Morris Yorn and Longoria by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen.
We’re told the 46-year-old “Desperate Housewives” star — who is of Mexican descent — is partnering up to launch a new brand in August that “has spoken proudly of her heritage” and has “authentic Mexican roots, straight from the heart of Jalisco.”
The move comes on the heels of endless celebs, from George Clooney to Bryan Cranston, getting into the spirit.
As Page Six reported last week, Kendall Jenner’s new 818 Tequila has sold out. She launched the brand in May with a star-studded bash in Los Angeles with Kim Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Hailey Baldwin, Kate Hudson and Katy Perry in attendance. She then continued her promotional tour in Las Vegas.
A source told us they “could barely meet the consumer demand” with many stores reporting shortages within 818’s first 24 hours on shelves. The brand also sold out online just hours after the launch.
Other stars and their tequila brands: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Teremana; Nick Jonas’ Villa One; LeBron James’ Lobos 1707; Justin Timberlake’s 901 Tequila; Diddy’s DeLeon; Adam Levine’s Santo Mezquila; and last but of course not least, rockers AC/DC’s Thunderstruck Tequila.
Over the summer, “Breaking Bad” stars Cranston and Aaron Paul went on a never-ending tour of bars, doing shots of their mezcal brand Dos Hombres with fans.
Page Six spotted the duo showing off the super-human party powers at Miami Food Week and at numerous bars in the Hamptons. “I don’t know how they left standing because they had a drink with every single person at the place,” a source told us.
Created by Arnold Pinnock (Altered Carbon, Travelers) and Bruce Ramsay (19-2, Cardinal) with Annmarie Morais (Killjoys, Ransom), Marsha Greene (Private Eyes, Ten Days In The Valley) and Aubrey Nealon (Snowpiercer, Cardinal), The Porter tells the story of the people who fought to ignite the civil rights movement in North America.
Set in the early 1920s, The Porter offers a dramatic and compelling look at the Black community in St. Antoine, Montreal — known, at the time, as the “Harlem of the North”. The story is told through the eyes of two Black train porters taking very different paths to liberation. One pushes to create the first Black union in existence, the other chases power on the wrong side of the law, but both have the same goal: to free themselves and their families from oppression. They’re young, gifted and Black, from Canada, the Caribbean, and the U.S., and over the course of the series they find themselves thrown together north and south of the color line. In an era that boasts anything is possible, if change isn’t coming for them, they will come for it.
Woodard will play Fay, who runs the local brothel in St. Antoine – she’s sexy, direct and takes great pride in living life on her own terms. She joins previously cast Aml Ameen, Ronnie Rowe Jr., Mouna Traoré, Oluniké Adeliyi and Loren Lott.
Morais and Greene are showrunners and executive producers. Charles Officer (Akilla’s Escape) and R.T. Thorne (Blindspot) direct and are executive producers. Pinnock and Ramsay are co-executive producers. Pinnock also serves as an executive producer, and Ramsay a co-executive producer. Jennifer Kawaja serves as Executive Producer for Sienna Films and Ian Dimerman as Executive Producer for Inferno Pictures. The series is written by Morais, Greene, Andrew Burrows-Trotman, Priscilla White, Pinnock and Ramsay, with Thorne participating in the writers’ room.
The series is funded with the support of the Canada Media Fund and Manitoba Film & Music. It is distributed internationally by Abacus Media Rights and Sphere Distribution.
Woodard recently starred in the feature film Clemency. On the small screen, she most recently starred as Mariah Dillard in Marvel’s Luke Cage and as the title character in the Netflix Original film Juanita, which she also developed and produced. She can currently be seen Netflix Original film Fatherhood alongside Kevin Hart, and she also stars opposite Jason Mamoa in the Apple TV+ series See, created by Steven Knight. Woodard recently wrapped on the Joe and Anthony Russo directed film The Gray Man with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.
“Good Witch has enchanted viewers for over a decade with eight original movies, in addition to the seven-season series,” said Randy Pope, SVP, programming & development. “We thank our leads whose chemistry and talent made Good Witch such a beloved and uniquely special viewing experience: Catherine Bell, who has brought the inimitable Cassie Nightingale to life for 13 years, and James Denton, who as Dr. Sam Radford has added so much charm and humor to the series. We also extend our gratitude and thanks to the entire cast and crew for their dedication and hard work.”
In “The Wedding” series finale, the Merriwick cousins get ready to face the mysterious force putting their family legacy at risk while changes are in store for others. The final episode airs Sunday, July 25 at 9 PM ET/PT on Hallmark Channel.
In addition to Bell and Denton, Good Witch stars Sarah Power, Catherine Disher, Kylee Evans, Katherine Barrell, Marc Bendavid and Scott Cavalheiro.
Bell has starred as the lead character Cassie Nightingale for 13 years since her character was introduced in the 2008 original movie The Good Witch. The popularity of Cassie and her adventures in the bucolic town of Middleton led to seven more movies. In 2015, the franchise was adapted as a primetime series.
Good Witch is a Whizbang Films Production in association with ITV Studios America. Darin Goldberg, Orly Adelson, Jonathan Eskenas, Craig Pryce and Frank Siracusa are executive producers. Bell is co-executive producer. Janina Barrett serves as supervising producer. Colin Brunton is producer. Julie Lawrence and Angie Cassiram are associate producers. Good Witch is distributed internationally by ITV Studios.
MacLachlan will play Howard Baskin, Carole’s (McKinnon) even-keeled husband who supports her throughout the endeavor with Joe (Mitchell).
Joe Exotic (wt) centers on Carole Baskin (McKinnon), a big cat enthusiast, who learns that fellow exotic animal lover Joe “Exotic” Schreibvogel (Mitchell) is breeding and using his big cats for profit. She sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry. But Carole has a checkered past of her own and when the claws come out, Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy. The results prove dangerous.
In addition to McKinnon and Mitchell, MacLachlanjoins previously announced Brian Van Holt as John Reinke, Nat Wolff as Travis Maldonado, Sam Keeley as John Finlay, Lex Mayson as Saff, Dean Winters as Jeff Lowe, Joel Marsh Garland as James Garretson and William Fichtner as Rick Kirkham.
Etan Frankel writes and executive produces under his overall deal with UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group. McKinnon also executive produces along with Alex Katsnelson and Wondery’s Hernan Lopez, Marshall Lewy, and Aaron Hart.
MacLachlan received two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe Award in 1990 for his role as FBI Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks, and he earned a Golden Globe nomination in 2018 for his reprisal of the role in Twin Peaks: The Return. Most recently, MacLachlan portrayed FDR in the PBS limited series Atlantic Crossing, and he will soon be seen opposite Jon Hamm in the upcoming feature Confess, Fletch for director Greg Mottola. MacLachlan is repped by UTA, Management 360, and Jackoway Austen.
The film, penned by Kay during quarantine, examines the deep connection between a blind boy named Lion (Kay) and an Australian girl with hemophilia named Eloise, watching as the pair live vicariously through each other’s perspectives.
In the “romantic psychological fantasy,” which is said to blur the lines between reality and imagination, McDonough will play Dia, the king of a world known as Tara. The actor will also produce the pic alongside his wife, Ruvé McDonough.
McDonough and Kay previously worked together as actors on Steven Spielberg’s 2002 feature Minority Report, as well as Red Stone, one of the the first SAG movies to enter production following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Knowing Dominic for as long as we have, we could not be more excited or blessed to partake on this journey together,” said Ruvé and McDonough in a joint statement. “We are so proud to be producing a script like this and are really looking forward to watching these words come to life on screen. It is going to be a magical journey for all of us!”
Boasting a career spanning more than three decades, McDonough’s film credits include Sonic the Hedgehog, RED 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, Flags of Our Fathers and more. On the TV side, he has appeared in American Horror Story, Van Helsing, The 100, Project Blue Book, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Altered Carbon, Suits, Yellowstone, Arrow, Justified and Desperate Housewives, among other series.
McDonough is represented by Matt Luber at Luber Roklin Entertainment and Buchwald; Kay is repped by DSK Motion Picture Studios and WME.
The film is based on the original Gregory Mcdonald’s 1970s mystery novel series, and will stay true to the second novel Confess, Fletch. The story will follow Fletch, who finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation, one in which he is pinned as the prime suspect. While on a quest to prove his innocence, Fletch is tasked with finding his fiancée’s stolen art collection, the only inheritance she’s acquired after her father goes missing and is presumed dead.
“The insouciant and sophisticated cocktail of Jon Hamm and Greg Mottola will be delivered to global audiences next year and promises to be very tasty,” said Miramax CEO, Bill Block.
“We look forward to bringing Fletch’s iconic character back to the big screen with a modern-day twist. While the original film has been hailed a cult classic with a strong fan base, we are showcasing Fletch through a new comedic and sophisticated lens, highlighting the nuances of his character and the intricacies of his career as an investigative journalist,” said producer Connie Tavel.
Block, Tavel, and Hamm serve as producers on the film, while Mottola, Mark Kamine and David List will executive produce. Zev Borow and Mottola penned the screenplay. Block produced the $315M-worldwide grossing Bad Moms franchise.
Wood Jr. will play the role of Detective Monroe. He suspects Fletch of being the murderer, and remains resistant to Fletch’s tips on the case. Harden and MacLachlan’s roles remain under wraps. Wood Jr. recently announced his stand up tour Imperfect Messenger and he’s prepping for his Comedy Central special which will air later this year. He is repped by MainstayEntertainment and WME.
Harden is a 2x Oscar nominee in the Best Supporting Actress category for Mystic River and Pollock, winning for the later in 2001. Her feature credits include Miller’s Crossing, the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, Space Cowboys, The First Wives Club, Mona Lisa Smile among many others. She has starred on such TV series as NatGeo’s Barkskins, AppleTV’s The Morning Show, and CBS’ Code Black. She is repped by ICM, Framework Entertainment and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham.
MacLachlan was nominated for Best Actor in a TV drama twice for Twin Peaks, and won a Golden Globe for the role in 1991. His recent feature credits include Capone, Tesla, The House With a Clock in its Walls, and he revived his legendary role of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper for David Lynch’s continuation of Twins Peaks on Showtime. His TV credits include Desperate Housewives, Agents of SHIELD, Believe, Atlantic Crossing and Carol’s Second Act. He is repped by UTA, Management 360, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.
The city has lifted almost all Covid-19 restrictions, and President Joe Biden is planning an event at the White House that day, his goal for having at least 70% of the country with at least one Covid-19 shot.
But producers have been planning the show for months, with Covid-19 forcing them to set aside the traditional live concert on the west lawn of the Capitol.
Among those who will perform at the event are Jimmy Buffett, Cynthia Erivo, Alan Jackson, Pentatonix, Jennifer Nettles, Auli’i Cravalho, Train, Gladys Knight, Mickey Guyton, Ali Stroker, Jimmie Allen and Laura Osnes. The National Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Jack Everly, will perform John Williams’ Olympic Fanfare, honoring U.S. participation in the upcoming Summer Games. The orchestra and the Joint Armed Forces Chorus will accompany the fireworks with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.
Renee Fleming will open the show with the National Anthem. The concert will honor men and women of the military, with other participants including the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets, The Joint Armed Forces Chorus and The Armed Forces Color Guard provided by the Military District of Washington, D.C.
The concert, a co-production of Michael Colbert of Capital Concerts and WETA-TV, will air on July 4 from 8 PM to 9:30 PM ET on PBS, and it also will be broadcast to the American Forces Network. NPR stations also will air the event, and it will be streamed on Facebook, YouTube and PBS.org through July 18.
We’re hearing that it’s not the 34th U.S. President that McDonough is playing, but rather a character with the same name.
McDonough joins an ensemble of fresh and also familiar faces in Season 10 including Macaulay Culkin, Frances Conroy, Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Adina Porter, Lily Rabe, Angelica Ross and Finn Wittrock. AHS: Double Feature will consist of two stories: one by the sea, one by the sand. The series premieres Wednesday, August 25 on FX and will be available to stream the next day on FX on Hulu.
Back in March, Murphy shared a photo of cast members Culkin and Grossman on the set in Provincetown, MA, which continues to be the location for his AHS teasers.
McDonough recently wrapped filming and executive producing Boon, in which he also stars. He also recently shot the Screen Gems reboot Resident Evil: Raccoon City. His feature credits include Monsters of Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Warrant, Captain America, Minority Report and Game Over, Man! His TV credits include Robert Zemeckis’ Project Blue Book and Netflix’s Altered Carbon.
McDonough is repped by Buchwald, Luber/Roklin and Stuart Rosenthal of Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.
The Fortress was developed by EFF co-CEO Randall Emmett and Emile Hirsch and the scripts were written by Alan Horsnail. The story revolves around a top secret resort for retired US intelligence officers. A group of criminals led by Balzary (Murray) breach the compound, hellbent on revenge on Robert (Willis) forcing the retired officer and his son (Metcalfe) to save the day.
The Fortress and The Fortress 2 are produced by Emmett and George Furla, Luillo Ruiz, and Chad A. Verdi. Tim Sullivan Nick D’Angelo, Caesar Richbow, and Danny Chan are exec producers. Highland Film Group is handling international sales.
Bressack recently directed Killing Field for Emmett/Furla, and he will helm both films. EFF just wrapped Wash Me In The River, which Emmett directed with Robert De Niro, John Malkovich and Jack Huston starring, and is in pre-production on the Jamie Marshall-directed Hair of the Dog starring Gerard Butler.
“A new season of Hallmark Channel’s highly popular scripted series Chesapeake Shores is returning this summer. Jesse Metcalfe, who plays Trace Riley, has decided to leave the show,” a rep for the cabler told our sister site Deadline, who broke the news. “His character’s storyline will wrap up early in Season 5. Jesse is a valued member of the Crown Media family; we look forward to continuing to work with him on projects, including original movies on Hallmark Channel, as well as his Hallmark Movies & Mysteries movie series, Martha’s Vineyard Mysteries, the next installment of which premieres on May 16. In addition, we are currently in development on another movie in the series.” Metcalfe has starred on Chesapeake Shores since its debut in 2016, playing the former flame of Meghan Ory’s Abby O’Brien. Per Deadline, he is currently in Canada to film his final scenes; the show resumes production in early April and is tentatively slated for an August return, according to Sherryl Woods, who penned the novels on which the series is based. Season 5 will consist of 10 episodes.
Chesapeake Shores marked Metcalfe’s first series-regular role since TNT’s Dallas revival. He’s also appeared in Desperate Housewives and Passions, among other series, and recently competed on Season 29 of Dancing With the Stars, where he and pro partner Sharna Burgess were eliminated fourth.
The show premieres May 21 on Hulu. Today at WonderCon, Jordan Blum (cocreator) and Patton Oswalt (cocreator and voice of M.O.D.O.K.) answered fan-submitted questions alongside cast members Melissa Fumero, Aimee Garcia, Ben Schwartz and Jon Daly.
The big news included reveals of guest stars Jon Hamm doing the voice of Iron Man, Nathan Fillion voicing Wonder Man, Whoopi Goldberg talking for Poundcakes, and Bill Hader speaking as Angar the Screamer and the Leader. The full Zoom session and a trailer for the show can be seen here.
In Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., the megalomaniacal supervillain M.O.D.O.K. has long pursued his dream of one day conquering the world. But after years of setbacks and failures fighting the Earth’s mightiest heroes, M.O.D.O.K. has run his evil organization A.I.M. into the ground.
Ousted as A.I.M.’s leader, while also dealing with his crumbling marriage and family life, the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing is set to confront his greatest challenge yet. The series stars Patton Oswalt (M.O.D.O.K.), Melissa Fumero (Melissa), Aimee Garcia (Jodie), Ben Schwartz (Lou), Wendi McLendon-Covey (Monica), Beck Bennett (Austin Van Der Sleet), Jon Daly (Super-Adaptoid) and Sam Richardson (Gary).
Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K. is created and written by executive producers Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt. Brett Crawley, Robert Maitia, Grant Gish, Joe Quesada, Karim Zreik and Jeph Loeb also serve as executive producers.
The Ben Tishler directed feature, which he co-wrote with Rob Stone, tells the story of Sonny Bell (Freeman), an aging Chicago Blues musician, who refuses to retire and defiantly hits the road with his band for one last long-shot to keep doing the only thing that makes them all feel truly alive––play Blues. The story is inspired by Stone’s experiences touring and playing harmonica with many of blues music’s most revered artists.
Freeman will produce with his longtime Revelations Entertainment partner Lori McCreary and Gary Lucchesi of Revelations along with Shelby Stone and Derek Dudley of ID8 Multimedia and Jon Levin of Sustainable Imagination. Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa of Bona Fide Entertainment have also joined forces to executive produce.
Tishler is a Sports Emmy Award-winning doc director of 2008’s Calzaghe/Jones 24/7 and he’ll be making his feature directorial debut here. He is repped by manager Jon Levin.
Freeman won an Oscar for his Supporting Actor turn in Clint Eastwood’s 2004 movie Million Dollar Baby. He counts five Oscar nominations overall, a Golden Globe Best actor drama win for Driving Miss Daisy, as well as the 2012 Cecil B. DeMille Award and is two-time Primetime Emmy nominee. Freeman is repped by CAA and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern.
Woodard, who is repped by ICM, Circle of Confusion, and Gochman Law, received a Supporting Actress nomination for 1983’s Cross Creek. She’s a three-time Golden Globe nominee who won for 1997’s Miss Evers’ Boys in the Best Actress TV Miniseries/Movie category, and a 17 Emmy nominated and four-time winner. Recent feature credits include Clemency, Disney’s $1.65 billion-grossing The Lion King, Captain America: Civil War, Annabelle, 12 Years a Slave, Sony/Netflix’s upcoming Fatherhood and on the TV side Marvel’s Luke Cage and Fox’s Empire.
Trevor Jackson plays Aaron Jackson on the comedy series Grown-ish and Black-ish. He starred in such movies as Burning Sands, Superfly, and Juveniles. He is repped by CAA, Management 360, and Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger & Light.
Common won an Oscar for his song “Glory”, which he shared with John Legend, from the 2014 movie Selma. His recent feature credits include Ocean’s Eight, Girls Trip, Suicide Squad, John Wick: Chapter 2, The Informer, and he’ll star in the upcoming movies El Tonto, Alice, and Nine Lives. He is repped by UTA, Grandview, and Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger & Light. Stand-up comedian, podcaster and actor Bill Burr created and stars in the Netflix animated comedy series F Is For Family, played Patrick Kuby in AMC’s Breaking Bad and bounty hunter Migs Mayfeld in Disney+ hit series Star Wars: The Mandalorian. He starred in Judd Apatow’s King of Staten Island last summer and can be seen next in Antoine Fuqua’s The Guilty.
Freeman and McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment produced the hit CBS Sunday night series Madam Secretary, starring Tea Leoni and Tim Daly.? Revelations’ film credits include the Award-winning Invictus, 5 Flights Up and the groundbreaking documentary film about cancer, The C Word.? Recent accolades include an Emmy nomination for?The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, three Emmy award nominations for Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, a Peabody Award for the ESPN 30 for 30 episode The 16th Man and two Oscar nominations for Invictus.
The foundation’s programs include an annual internship program, a media faculty conference and the College Television Awards in addition to its extensive archive of oral histories of TV legends, The Interviews. Longoria and Kirkbride will work alongside foundation chair Cris Abrego and the board to further the group’s work promoting inclusion in the TV industry and providing educational and professional development programs for students with diverse backgrounds.
“We are thrilled to welcome two exceedingly accomplished, inspiring and engaged trailblazers to the foundation’s board,” Abrego said in a release announcing the appointments. “As leaders in their respective fields, their expertise and thought leadership will help drive the Foundation’s initiatives and champion the advancement of aspiring professionals from underrepresented communities to ensure a more inclusive, next-generation television talent pool.”
Longoria has been has been leading the charge of diverse and female representation in the industry since her role on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, both in front of the camera and via her production company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, which recenlty pacted with ViacomCBS’ Entertainment & Youth Group for their First Time Directors program highlighting BIPOC and women filmmakers to produce 50 films across the group’s portfolio of networks and streaming services.
Kirkbride is the Global Director of Content Strategy and Programming at Facebook and its apps including Facebook Watch, Instagram Video and Messenger Watch Together. She previously served as general manager for OTT Entertainment at Verizon Media and was chief content officer for Verizon’s video platform go90, which hosted Kobe Bryant’s Oscar-winning short film Dear Basketball. She also served as Head of Content for Vessel and held several executive roles at YouTube and has authored several articles on the Asian American experience, including an op-ed on the recent events surrounding violence against Asian American communities.
GUEST CAST: Rachel Boston (Hannah Oliver), Natasha Hall (LT. CMDR Williams), Steven Culp (Judge Bixby).
LEADING ACTRESS
BUKKY BAKRAY Rocks
RADHA BLANK The Forty-Year-Old Version
VANESSA KIRBY Pieces of a Woman
FRANCES McDORMAND Nomadland
WUNMI MOSAKU His House
ALFRE WOODARD Clemency.
Written by Claudia Forestier, In The Gordita Chronicles, a willful, chubby, 12-year-old Dominican struggles to fit into hedonistic 1980s Miami as her family pursues the American dream.
Brigitte Munoz Liebowitz serves as executive producer and showrunner. Berman, Chris King and Jennifer Robinson executive produce for Osprey Productions. Longoria executive produces via her UnbeliEVAble Entertainment. Zoe Saldana, Mariel Saldana and Cisely Saldana executive produce for Cinestar Pictures. Forestieri is co-executive producer. Sony Pictures TV is the studio.
Longoria is gearing up to make her film directorial debut with Searchlight’s Flamin’ Hot, an inspiring biopic about the janitor turned executive who created the flaming hot cheetos snack. She will also direct the workplace comedy 24/7 and star alongside Kerry Washington for Universal and direct the action comedy Spa Day for Sony. For Longoria, the three feature directing jobs and The Gordita Chronicles come amid advances for female directors, who landed historic three nominations at the Golden Globes. But, as DGA’s recent TV Inclusion report revealed, Latinos and women of color are still “severely underrepresented.”
The former Desperate Housewives star made her TV directing debut on Devious Maids in 2014. Her television producing/directing credits also include ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Versus, and episodes of Black-ish, The Mick and Telenovela. Longoria made her pilot directing debut with the CW’s Glorious. She is repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Joe and Anthony Russo have been developing the project for some time at Sony, and when the package went back on the market over the summer, Netflix was quick to acquire it and set Gosling and Evans to star. The Gray Man will be the biggest-budget feature film in Netflix’s history.
The production is starting in two weeks in Los Angeles. The film is a piece of the strong partnership Netflix and AGBO have garnered in the past year starting with Extraction, which premiered last April to some of the biggest viewing numbers in streamer history. They also worked on the critically acclaimed Mosul, which bowed in November on Netflix.
The Russos penned the script, with a recent polish by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. The Russos and Mike Larocca will produce on behalf of AGBO along with Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum and Chris Castaldi through their Roth Kirschenbaum banner.
Joe & Anthony Russo Reveal Why They Were So Sweet On ‘Cherry’ As First Adult Turn For Tom Holland – Contenders Film
The Gray Man is based on the debut novel by Mark Greaney, published in 2009 by Jove Books. It also is the first novel to feature the Gray Man, freelance assassin and former CIA operative Court Gentry. The action thriller will follow Gentry (Gosling) as he’s hunted across the globe by Lloyd Hansen (Evans), a former cohort at the CIA. The film is based on the first installment of the book series.
Thornton recently wrapped production on the fourth season of his Amazon series Goliath.was He also recently seen in the Sam Taylor-Johnson drama A Million Little Pieces. He is repped by WME, Media Talent Group and Myman Greenspan.
Page is best known for his breakout role in the Netflix series Bridgerton, which earned him a SAG and an NAACP Image Award noms for his individual performance, and recently signed on to star in the Paramount’s untitled Dungeons & Dragons pic. He also appeared in the Amazon pic Sylvie’s Love. He is repped by CAA, Mosaic, The Artists Partnership and Ziffren Brittenham.
Woodard recently received rave reviews for the drama Clemency. She can be seen next in Sony’s Fatherhood opposite Kevin Hart. She is repped by ICM Partners, Circle of Confusion and Gochman Law.
The Russos and AGBO’s next film Cherry stars Tom Holland and bows March 12 on Apple TV+. They are repped by CAA.
Burgi will play Ashland Locke, an uber successful tycoon with a reputation for being a shrewd businessman. His character arrives in Genoa City to oversee a bidding war with the Y&R’s high powered Newman and Abbott families and will also expose some secrets during his visit. He’ll be introduced in the episode on Thursday, March 11.
Created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell, The Young and the Restless, the No. 1 daytime drama for 31 consecutive years, revolves around the loves, enmities, hopes and fears of the residents of the fictional Midwestern town of Genoa City.
The series is produced by Bell Dramatic Serial Company in association with Sony Pictures Television. Anthony Morina is executive producer. Josh Griffith is co-executive producer and head writer. John Fisher and Lisa DeCazotte are supervising producers. Matthew J. Olsen and Jonathan Fishman serve as producers.
Burgi is known for his recurring role as Karl Mayer on ABC’s Desperate Housewives. He also portrayed Paul Hornsby on General Hospital from 2014-2016. His other recent television credits include The Oath and Grand Hotel. Burgi is repped by Innovative Artists and Leslie Allan-Rice Management.
The cable network has announced that Good Witch Season 7 will premiere on Sunday, May 16, at 9/8c. In addition, Hallmark has provided the following tease:
The velvet pouches of soil discovered by Cassie, Abigail and Joy at the end of last season mark the start of a new Merriwick mystery for the cousins to unravel that leads them reflecting on their pasts and how learning how certain life events have impacted who they are now. Alongside the usual Middleton fun viewers have come to love, new relationships, personal challenges and romance are in store, making Season 7 one fans will never forget.
For the uninitiated: The Good Witch franchise began 12 years ago as a series of seasonal films. Seven made-for-TV movies were produced before Hallmark commissioned a full-fledged series, which bowed in 2015. The cast includes Catherine Bell (JAG), James Denton (Desperate Housewives), Sarah Power (Killjoys), Catherine Disher (Abby Hatcher), Kylee Evans (The Strain), Katherine Barrell (Wynona Earp), Marc Bendavid (Murdoch Mysteries) and Scott Cavalheiro (Carter).
“More than a decade after first meeting Cassie and the colorful characters of Middleton, viewers continue to be enchanted by their stories,” Michelle Vicary, EVP of Programming at Crown Media Family Networks, said in a statement. “The new season has more magic, love and adventure in store for viewers than ever before and we’re excited to share it with fans.”
Prior to Good Witch‘s return, Hallmark enthusiasts can look forward to Season 8 of When Calls the Heart (premiering Sunday, Feb. 21). Meanwhile, over on sister station Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Candace Cameron Bure returns with Aurora Teagarden Mysteries: How to Con a Con (on Sunday, March 14), and Jill Wagner headlines Mystery 101: Killer Timing (airing Sunday, March 21).
Leading Actress
Amy Adams Hillbilly Elegy
Bukky Bakray Rocks
Radha Blank The Forty-Year-Old Version
Jessie Buckley I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Morfydd Clark Saint Maud
Viola Davis Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Julia Garner The Assistant
Vanessa Kirby Pieces of a Woman
Sophia Loren The Life Ahead
Frances McDormand Nomadland
Carey Mulligan Promising Young Woman
Wunmi Mosaku His House
Kate Winslet Ammonite
Alfre Woodard Clemency
Zendaya Malcolm & Marie.
The film will be comprised of six segments directed by female directors from different parts of the world, shot in Italy, India and the U.S. They will range in genre from drama to comedy, docu-drama to animation. Cast will be all female.
The first four segments have been mapped out: Unspoken will be directed by Maria Sole Tognazzi (Me, Myself & Her) and star decorated Italian actress Margherita Buy (My Mother), the seven-time David di Donatello award-winner; Lagonegro will be directed by Lucia Puenzo (La Jauria) and star Desperate Housewives and Overboard actress Longoria; Elbows Deep will be directed by Twilight filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke and star model and actress Delevingne (Suicide Squad), Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock) and Jasmine Luv (Starter Pack); and Sharing A Ride will be directed by Leena Yadav (Three Cards) and feature Bollywood star Jacqueline Fernandez and transgender model Anjali Lama.
Producing are Iervolino Entertainment (Waiting For The Barbarians) and non-profit production company We Do It Together, which campaigns for gender equality. Producers will be Chiara Tilesi, Andrea Iervolino, Lucas Akoskin and Monika Bacardi. Executive producer is Carol Polakoff.
Chiara Tilesi, founder and President of We Do It Together, said of the project: “At We Do It Together, our mission is to enhance and change the image of women in films and media, from object to subject. We are dedicated to telling stories of women, both in front of and behind the camera. That’s why Women Stories is so important to us – we have brought together female directors, from all over the world, who collaborate and share personal stories from their own point of view. We are telling the stories of these heroines and their aspirations: from health workers to mothers, artists and business women, to name a few. We also want to be inclusive and have as many different perspectives as possible, which is why connecting globally is so important to us. Now more than ever, especially after the latest UN policy brief The Impact of Covid-19 On Women, it has emerged that gender inequality is still a very present reality and, unfortunately, we remain far from a solution. Some of the achievements that were made, are at risk of being erased once again. This is why it is so important for us to continue to tell stories about women, by women, but for everyone. Only together can men and women finally change these paradigms.”
Andrea Iervolino, President and founder of Iervolino Entertainment, added: “It gives me tremendous pride to collaborate with such an astounding ensemble, and to help deliver a message larger than the film itself. It’s important for us that this be done on a global scale, which is why we’re shooting, very carefully and safely, in Italy, India and the US.”
The project was initially announced five years ago in different form as Together Now.
Eva Longoria and Kerry Washington will introduce segments throughout the night, ranging from stories of young people making a difference in their communities to musical performances. Foo Fighters, John Legend and Bruce Springsteen will perform from iconic locations across the country, joining Demi Lovato, Justin Timberlake, Ant Clemons and Jon Bon Jovi, with additional performances to be announced ahead of January 20.
CELEBRATING AMERICA will be hosted by Tom Hanks on January 20 from 8:30-10:00 pm. ET/PT and will showcase the American people’s resilience, heroism and unified commitment to coming together as a nation to heal and rebuild. The program will feature remarks from President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris and include remarks, performances that represent the rich diversity and extensive talent America offers, and the American heroes who are helping their fellow Americans through this crisis.
The program will be carried live by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC and PBS. It will be streamed live on PIC social media channels: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Twitch. The PIC’s streaming partners, including Amazon Prime Video, Microsoft Bing, NewsNOW from Fox, and AT&T DIRECTV and U-verse, will also be carrying the program live.
Over the course of five days of programming, “America United” activities will honor our traditions while safely allowing more Americans than ever before to participate from their own homes. These activities include, “United We Serve,” a National Day of Service on January 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day; a nationwide COVID-19 Memorial to Lives Lost on January 19; and the official Inaugural Ceremonies, a wreath laying on Arlington National Cemetery, and a “Parade Across America” on January 20. The events will culminate with the “Celebrating America” program. The PIC will also install an extensive public art display — a “Field of Flags,” which will cover the National Mall up to 13th Street — to represent the American people who are unable to travel to Washington, DC.
The Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) 2021 is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization and separate entity from the Biden-Harris Transition charged with planning and executing activities surrounding the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
In Red Stone, McDonough plays Boon, a henchman for Southern crime lord Jed Haywood (Michael Cudlitz). Boon is assigned to track Motley (Dash Melrose), who is on the run from Jed. However, Boon has just lost his brother, and only has 10 hours to bring Motley in and get to the cemetery. Over the course of one day, both Motley and Boon go on a spiritual journey as their fate brings them together for a climatic showdown.
Red Stone director Derek Presley is returning to helm Boon and will co-write with McDonough. Red Stone producer Jason Starne is also returning for Boon.
McDonough is shooting Resident Evil for Sony/Screen Gems. His features include Monsters of Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Warrant, Captain America, Minority Report and Game Over, Man! His TV credits include Robert Zemeckis’ Project Blue Book and Netflix’s Altered Carbon.
McDonough is repped by Buchwald and Stuart Rosenthal of Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.
ABC on Monday unveiled the contestant list for the starry Wheel offshoot — which premieres Thursday, Jan. 7 at 8/7c — and in addition to Grey’s Anatomy‘s Chandra Wilson, This Is Us‘ Chrissy Metz, Community alums Joel McHale and Yvette Nicole Brown, and actor-entertainer Paul Reubens, the lineup includes Saturday Night Live vets Kevin Nealon, Leslie Jones and Rob Riggle, Desperate Housewives‘ Teri Hatcher, Beverly Hills, 90210‘s Jennie Garth and Bachelor host Chris Harrison.
The roster of celebs also includes Karamo Brown (Queer Eye), Nicole Byer (Nailed It!), Drew Carey (The Price is Right), Rachael Leigh Cook (Perception), professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, Robert Herjavec (Shark Tank), Jeannie Mai (The Real), E! News vet Maria Menounos, Patton Oswalt (A.P. Bio), Alfonso Ribeiro (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, America’s Funniest Home Videos), Sherri Shepherd (Trial & Error), ESPN’s Joe Tessitore and Constance Zimmer (Unreal).
Iconic Wheel of Fortune duo Pat Sajak and Vanna White are on board to headline the spinoff, which will find the above celebs competing for the chance to win $1 million for the charity of their choice.
“I won [Miss Syracuse], Miss New York State and Miss America all within six months, so I went from my junior year [at Syracuse University] to all of a sudden, I was the first Black Miss America in 1983. And I had death threats because we’re talking 37 years ago,” she said on “The Fat Joe Show.”
“A lot of people don’t like to be confronted with diversity, and I was the symbol of that, so I had to prove that I was smart enough. I was talented enough,” she said.
Williams gave up her crown near the end of her reign, after Penthouse infamously published nude photos of her that had been shot in 1982.
“After being Miss America, there was an issue with some pictures I had done, which did not have a release and they were sold behind my back. Six weeks before I was finishing my year [as Miss America], I resigned,” she said.
Williams would eventually launch a pop career and act in movies, TV and on Broadway.
“I never wanted to be a beauty queen — and, of course, I never wanted to be a scandalized beauty queen. So, I had so much judgment from a very early age against me,” she said. “I heard a lot of noes, and all the people thought I would just disappear. And I thought, ‘Once the dust settles, you’ll get to know who I really am.’ And, that’s how I live my life,” she said.
Written by Becky Hartman Edwards, the untitled comedy is inspired by Susan Savage, the real-life owner of the Triple-A baseball team the Sacramento River Cats. It marks the first project Huffman has taken on since the 2019 college admission scandal.
The Emmy-winning actress has been heavily courted for TV series and pilots since she completed her short prison sentence after pleading guilty to fraud more than a year ago. Kaplan approached Huffman with the idea about a series inspired by Savage, which she responded to. He brought on Hartman Edwards as a writer, and Gottsagen, who has a talent deal with Kapital, came on board to co-star opposite Huffman. The project was taken out, attracting multiple offers and ultimately landing at ABC. It was then laid off at ABC Signature.
A funny, surprising and occasionally heartbreaking half-hour about love, loss, family and Triple-A baseball, the project stars Huffman as the unlikely owner of a minor-league baseball team. After suddenly losing her husband and inheriting his beloved team, she is forced to navigate her new normal with the help of her dysfunctional family, including her oldest son (Gottsagen), a baseball devotee with Down syndrome, her work family and the Sacramento community at large. This is the story of a woman navigating grief, local politics and the business of sports and learning not just to adjust, but to thrive.
Hartman Edwards, Huffman and Savage executive produce alongside Kapital’s Kaplan and Dana Honor and Artists First’s Joel Zadak. Gottsagen is a producer. ABC Signature is the studio.
Huffman and Kaplan both have long history at ABC.
All three TV series Huffman has been a lead of have been on ABC and all have garnered critical acclaim: comedy Sports Night, dramedy Desperate Housewives and drama anthology American Crime. All three roles earned Huffman major award nominations; she won an Emmy for Desperate Housewives.
Kaplan’s first pilot as a producer, comedy Funny In Farsi, was at ABC. He currently has three series on the network: drama A Million Little Things, comedy American Housewife and the upcoming limited series Women of the Movement.
In TV, Huffman most recently co-starred on Ava DuVernay’s award-winning Netflix limited series When They See Us. On the feature side, the Oscar-nominated Huffman’s most recent credits include Netflix’s The Otherhood and indie Tammy’s Always Dying. She is repped by ICM Partners.
Peanut Butter Falcon marked the feature acting debut for Gottsagen. His role as aspiring wrestler Zak in the buddy comedy-drama earned him accolades, including the Rising Star Award at the 2020 Palm Springs Film Festival and the 2020 Newcomer Award from the Hollywood Critics Association. He is repped by KMR’s Gail Williamson, Zadak and attorney Priya Verma at Morris Yorn.
Hartman Edwards recently served as executive producer on ABC’s The Baker and the Beauty and Freeform’s The Bold Type. She is repped by UTA, Literate and Del Shaw Moonves.
In 1999, the Pacific Coast League’s Triple-A Vancouver Canadians were purchased by a group led by Art Savage who moved the team to West Sacramento, renaming it the River Cats. Savage was the majority owner of the team until his death in November 2009 at age 58. His widow, Susan, became majority owner upon her husband’s death, leading the franchise to success. In 2016, the River Cats were named minor-league baseball’s most valuable franchise with a value of $49 million. The team is the reigning Triple-A national champion having won the championship game last year.
The rapper/game show host’s “19 Crimes” red was among the wines sampled and evaluated in a virtual competition held yesterday. Wine expert Mark Oldman staged the competition, called the “Celebrity War of the Red Wines.”
Staged via Zoom, Oldman instructed the assembled audience on how to evaluate red wine, and then presented the six contenders to be sampled. Participants voted through Zoom’s online polling system.
Ex-NFL defensive back Charles Woodson won the title with 32 percent of voters supporting his 2017 “Intercept” Pinot Noir.
Twin Peaks and Dune star Kyle McLachlan’s “Bear Cub” Red Blend 2016 was second with 21% of the votes. Snoop’s “19 Crimes” Cali Red 2018 won support from 16%, with former Denver quarterback John Elway’s 7 Cellars “The Farm” Cabernet Sauvignon Paso Robles 2018 winning 11% of the votes.
Tied for sixth was former Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade, whose Wade Cellars Three By Wade Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 had 10%. That was matched by Vanderpump Cabernet Sauvignon 2017, the wine of Lisa Vanderpump of Vanderpump Rules.
Oldman praised the celebrity grapes. “The quality and likability of this particular cohort of celebrity wines were impressive. Even the lower-ranked wines would make for an excellent holiday gift.”
The next celebrity wine competition, “Celebrity War of the Luxury Red Wines,” happens December 9, with luxury-level bottles from Ayesha Curry, Kurt Russell, Josh Groban, Sting, John Legend, and Yao Ming.
Registration for these tastings is free, but seats are limited.
The “Desperate Housewives” star said she was “so sorry for the confusion and lack of context on my part!” after getting flak for telling MSNBC, “The women of color showed up in big ways. Of course, you saw in Georgia, what Black women have done, but Latina women were the real heroines here, beating men in turnout, in every state, and voting for Biden-Harris at an average rate close to three-to-one.”
People on social media criticized Longoria, 45, for “downplaying” the black women’s vote with her remarks, citing exit poll statistics that reported roughly 90 percent of black women voted for President-elect Joe Biden versus about 69 percent of Latina women. According to the Associated Press, many black women were motivated by President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for vice president, Kamala Harris, who is half black.
After receiving backlash, Longoria responded in an Instagram post, “Black women have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party, something we have seen played out in this election as well as previous ones. Black women absolutely should be applauded and lifted up! They brought this victory home in a BIG way!”
She also said that her comments were misconstrued, adding, “I was comparing Latinas to Latino men. Not black women. I meant Latinas were the ones who showed up for our LatinX community. Finally, Black women don’t have to do it alone. Latina women and other women of color are standing with them and growing their voice and power. Together we are Unstoppable!!!”
Actress Kerry Washington, who is black, then spoke out in Longoria’s defense, tweeting, “I know Eva like a sister. We have been in many trenches together. She is a fighter for all women. Read below. This is what she meant. This is how she truly feels.”
Walsh and Brad Morris co-wrote the film, which is currently shooting in Oklahoma. The plot: After the death of a friend, Dan (Walsh) is inspired to whisk his wife Jeanine (Longoria) away to a remote town for a “digital detox.” Their romantic weekend quickly turns disastrous with unearthly encounters, strong edibles and bizarre locals. With no cell or Internet service, they’re lost, but end up reconnecting with each other along the way home.
Producers are Debbie Liebling, Kevin Matusow and Carissa Buffel for The Traveling Picture Show Company, with Morris and Walsh. William G. Santor’s Productivity Media Inc. is financing, with Three Point Capital providing tax-credit financing. Radiant Films International is handling foreign sales.
Longoria will next be seen in Amazon’s Sylvie’s Love opposite Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha, and soon she begins production on Universal’s untitled sci-fi film opposite Ice Cube. Repped by WME, Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen, Longoria is set to make her feature directorial debut with the biopic Flamin’ Hot for Searchlight.
Thompson, best known for her roles in the Back to the Future trilogy and ABC’s Switched at Birth, is repped by Innovative Artists and Gilbertson Entertainment. Byer, the Emmy-nominated host of the Netflix competition show Nailed It!, is repped by WME and Artists First. Artists & Representatives and Silver J Management rep David, who is the star of OWN’s hit megachurch drama Greenleaf. Madrigal, whose credits include The Daily Show and Warner Bros’ The Way Back with Ben Affleck, is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
The 'Desperate Housewives' actress' legal team filed new docs, asking a judge to order the return of her passport -- which her lawyers say is currently in the possession of the probation department.
She had to give it up as part of her punishment, but now that she'll be wrapping up her supervised release in the next few days ... she's looking to get that puppy back in her hands.
Felicity's attorneys say she's completed all other aspects of her sentence -- including 250 hours of community service and her 2-week prison stint in the Bay Area.
The docs say federal prosecutors do not object to Felicity getting her passport ---- so, it's just a matter of time before she gets it. Once she does, though, she'll be just like most of us ... wondering where the hell she can realistically travel during the pandemic!
Felicity's finishing her sentence right before Lori Loughlin's is set to begin. She has to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons by Nov. 19, but she's expected to turn herself in and begin her 2-month sentence behind bars sometime before then.
Plot details are vague other then it being described as a grounded sci-fi film in the vein of District 9already that touches on themes of privacy versus surveillance. Universal has greenlighted the film and has fast tracked it by having it go into production this month.
Universal landed the package last month and what really sealed the deal was the technology that Bekmambetov has been fine-tuning ever since signing his five-picture deal with the studio. The idea behind this format that was part of the presentation is a production that had the look of commercial event film but at the budget of a contained thriller. This new technology will allow for a fully remote production with all actors and crew working from their individual separate locations. So basically if Cube or Longoria wanted his part of the shoot to be done from his home, it could be done without a problem and with crew working from somewhere else.
The shoot would be a first of its kind at this scope and is not only done at a lower budget but also provides the safe working environment every studio is trying to achieve during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Longoria, who recently signed with WME, was most recently seen Dora And the Lost City Of The Gold and Slyvie’s Love. She also has Flamin’ Hot for Searchlight, 24/7 for Universal, and the recently announced Spa Day for Sony
She is also repped by Brillstein Entertainment Partners andJ ackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.
Producer Jeffrey Richards announced the new line-up of the weekly Spotlight On Plays, a web series at the recently launched Broadway’s Best Shows website. Proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to The Actor’s Fund, with the livestreamed events available for a strictly limited amount of time.
Productions are all-new and performed remotely, with directors including Mamet, Phylicia Rashad and Daniel Sullivan given leeway in how to present their shows.
The series, which follows last May’s production of Love Letters with Bryan Cranston and Sally Field, will run from Oct 14 – December 10, with a new show premiering weekly. Tickets are sold at a “Pay What You Can” rate starting at $5.
First up is Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, directed by Michael Wilson and featuring an all-star ensemble headed by Freeman, Broderick, Malkovich, Quinto, and Phylicia Rashad.
Next is Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth, starring Hedges, Normal People‘s Mescal and The Meyerowitz Stories’ Grace Van Patten. Lila Neugebauer directs.
Week #3 brings David Mamet’s Race, with David Alan Grier and Richard Thomas returning from the original Broadway 2009 cast. Also starring will be Ed O’Neill and Alicia Stith, with Phylicia Rashad directing.
Mamet’s Boston Marriage follows the next week, with the playwright directing Patti LuPone, Rebecca Pidgeon and Sophia Macy.
Next up is Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, adapted by Neil LaBute, headed up by Alan Cumming, Constance Wu and Ellen Burstyn. Directed by Danya Taymor.
The series continues with Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still, with Daniel Sullivan directing a reunion of the original 2010 Broadway cast: Eric Bogosian, Brian d’Arcy James, Laura Linney, Alicia Silverstone.
The final show in the series is Robert O’Hara’s Barbecue, headed up by Metcalf, David Morse, S. Epatha Merkerson, Carrie Coon and Colman Domingo, with Robert O’Hara directing.
The Spotlight on Plays series is created and Executive Produced by Jeffrey Richards and Produced by Patty Baker/Good Productions, Rebecca Gold, Jayne Baron Sherman, Iris Smith with Jim Glaub and Jacob Soroken Porter. Select productions in the series are also produced by Ken Greiner, Louise L. Gund, Terry Schnuck, Ted Snowdon and The Shubert Organization.
Here’s the complete line-up. All performances begin at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT.
Gore Vidal’s THE BEST MAN
October 14, 2020
Starring in Alphabetical Order Elizabeth Ashley, Reed Birney, Matthew Broderick, Katie Finneran, Morgan Freeman, Julie Halston, Stacy Keach, Robert Krulwich, John Malkovich, Zachary Quinto, Phylicia Rashad, Robert Sella, Lee Wilkof, Vanessa Williams, Whitney Winfield with Sean Close, Travoye Joyner, Jered McLenigan, TJ Wagner. Directed by Michael Wilson.
Kenneth Lonergan’s THIS IS OUR YOUTH
October 20, 2020
Starring Lucas Hedges, Paul Mescal, Grace Van Patten. Directed by Lila Neugebauer.
David Mamet’s RACE
October 29, 2020
Starring David Alan Grier, Ed O’Neill, Alicia Stith, and Richard Thomas. Directed by Phylicia Rashad.
David Mamet’s BOSTON MARRIAGE
November 12, 2020
Starring Patti LuPone, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sophia Macy. Directed by David Mamet.
Anton Chekhov’s UNCLE VANYA
November 19, 2020
Starring Alan Cumming, Samira Wiley, Constance Wu, Ellen Burstyn, Manik Choksi, K. Todd Freeman, Mia Katigbak, Anson Mount. Narrated by Gabriel Ebert. Directed by Danya Taymor. Adapted by Neil LaBute.
Donald Margulies’ TIME STANDS STILL
December 3, 2020
Starring the Original Broadway Cast: Eric Bogosian, Brian d’Arcy James, Laura Linney, Alicia Silverstone. Directed by Daniel Sullivan
Robert O’Hara’s BARBECUE
December 10, 2020
Starring Carrie Coon, Colman Domingo, Kimberly Hébert Gregory, Annie McNamara, S. Epatha Merkerson, Laurie Metcalf, David Morse, Kristine Nielsen, Tamberla Perry, Heather Simms. Directed by Robert O’Hara.
Starring in the roles of the iconic game characters will be Maze Runner‘s Kaya Scodelario as Claire Redfield alongside Hannah John-Kamen (Ant-Man and the Wasp) as Jill Valentine, Robbie Amell (Upload) as Chris Redfield, Tom Hopper (The Umbrella Academy) as Albert Wesker, Avan Jogia (Zombieland: Double Tap) as Leon S. Kennedy, and Neal McDonough (Yellowstone) as William Birkin.
“With this movie, I really wanted to go back to the original first two games and re-create the terrifying visceral experience I had when I first played them whilst at the same time telling a grounded human story about a small dying American town that feels both relatable and relevant to today’s audiences, said Roberts, the filmmaker behind shark thriller 47 Meters Down and its sequel.
Franchise producer Robert Kulzer will produce again on behalf of Constantin with James Harris from Tea Shop Productions and Hartley Gorenstein.
Said Kulzer, “After a dozen games, six live-action movies and hundreds of pages of fan fiction, we felt compelled to return to the year 1998, to explore the secrets hidden in the walls of the Spenser Mansion and Raccoon City.
Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems will once distribute the film domestically, with Constantin handling German-speaking territories, Elevation distributing in Canada, Metropolitan in France, and Sony Pictures Releasing International handling much of the remaining territories.
Constantin Film’s CEO Martin Moszkowicz and Victor Hadida of Davis Film will serve as executive producers. Alex Westmore and Colin Scully of Constantin Film are overseeing the project.
Paul W.S. Anderson wrote and directed the previous six films, which were led by Milla Jovovich and made a combined $1.2 billion at the worldwide box office. It’s among the highest-grossing film series ever based on a video game. Deadline recently broke the news of a Resident Evil series adaptation, which is set up at Netflix.
Scodelario is repped by CAA, Curtis Brown, and Ziffren Brittenham; John-Kamen by Paradigm, Luber RoklinEntertainment and Scott Marshall Partners; Amell by WME, Protégé Entertainment, Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson; Hopper by The Gersh Agency, Management 360, Waring and McKenna, Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer; Jogia by ICM, The Characters Agency and LINK Entertainment.
Longoria has a number of projects in the works via her UnbeliEVAble Entertainment banner including the Searchlight biopic Flamin’ Hot, which will serve as her feature directorial debut, Tias, a female-driven Latina ensemble drama, as well as workplace comedy 24/7, which she’ll direct and star in opposite Kerry Washington. UnbeliEVABle, which recently renewed a three-year first-look deal with 20th Television, is developing Before I Forget at Amazon, with Marc Webb directing as a potential starring vehicle for Longoria, as well as Chicano, a multi-generational drama centering on a Mexican-American family that immigrates to Los Angeles in pursuit of the American Dream, with ABC, and the HBO film A Class Apart, about a group of Mexican Americans fighting for their civil rights during a landmark case that leads all the way to the Supreme Court.
In addition, it was recently announced that Longoria was part of a group of the biggest names in Hollywood and women’s soccer to bring a National Women’s Soccer League team to Los Angeles in spring 2022.
Longoria continues to be repped by Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Tom McGrath, who directed the 2017 installment, which earned more than $500 million worldwide and was nominated for an Oscar, is back to direct the sequel with producer Jeff Hermann.
The new chapter sees the Templeton brothers — Tim (Marsden) and his Boss Baby little bro Ted (Baldwin) — as adults now who have drifted away from each other. Tim is now a married dad and Ted is a hedge fund CEO. But a new boss baby with a cutting-edge approach and a can-do attitude is about to bring them together again and inspire a new family business.
Longoria plays Tim’s wife and mother to super-smart 7-year-old daughter Tabitha (Greenblatt), and super-cute new infant Tina (Sedaris). Tabitha, top of her class at the prestigious Acorn Center for Advanced Childhood, wants to become like her Uncle Ted but Tim worries that she’s working too hard and is missing out on a normal childhood.
Baby Tina reveals to be a top-secret agent for BabyCorp on a mission to uncover the dark secrets behind Tabitha’s school and its mysterious founder, Dr. Armstrong (Goldblum). This reunites the Templeton brothers in unexpected ways, leading them to re-evaluate the meaning of family and discover what truly matters.
Universal will release The Boss Baby: Family Business on March 26, 2021.
“We are so fortunate to work with such a talented ensemble of actors, all of whom possess tremendous imaginations,” said director Tom McGrath. “The everyday joy for me is not only watching our actors make a line hilarious or heartfelt through subtle adjustments but the process they all share of improvisation and character creation. They are the heart and soul of the characters they bring to life.”
“We are so thrilled to welcome these new additions to our Boss Baby family,” said producer Jeff Hermann. “James, Amy, Ariana, Eva, and Jeff each bring so much depth, wit, and charm to combine with Alec, Lisa, and Jimmy to form an incredibly rich ensemble, one which expands upon the world of the first movie in unexpected and exciting ways.”
Goldblum is repped by ICM, Industry Entertainment and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman; Marsden by CAA, Authentic Talent and Literary Management and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Longoria by Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Greenblatt by Paradigm, Mosaic and Schreck Rose Dapello; Sedaris by UTA and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham LLP..
With a co-writing credit given to Ned Martel, Boys includes some brief scenes you wouldn’t have seen in the 2018 Broadway production nor William Friedkin’s 1970 film version. No spoilers here, but you can catch glimpses of the new material in the trailer, above. The logline: A group of gay men gather for a birthday party in 1968 New York City, only to find the drinks and laughs interrupted when a visitor from the host’s past turns the evening upside down.
In addition to Parsons, Quinto, Bomer and Rannells, Boys also stars Charlie Carver, Robin de Jesús, Brian Hutchison, Michael Benjamin Washington and Tuc Watkins.
Producing are Murphy, David Stone, Joe Mantello, Ned Martel and Alexis Martin Woodall.
The Boys in the Band launches Sept. 30 on Netflix.
Heche, 51, is best known for films include Donnie Brasco, Seven Days, Seven Nights and a recent role on Chicago P.D. Metcalfe, 41, for his part, has starred on Desperate Housewives and in the film John Tucker Must Die among others. Former NFL player Davis, 36, played with the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos, with whom he won the Super Bowl in 2015. He finished his pro career in Washington, D.C.
The celebrities join Backstreet Boys member AJ McLean who first teased the news via Instagram when he alluded to his strict eating regimen. “I’m on a very strict diet, grain-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, no sodas of any kind, and completely sober for almost nine months,” he said wrote. “This amazing, but rigorous, workout is all due to my amazing trainer, Mr. Bobby Strong. He’s been a huge asset in my transformation, trying to get myself prepared and ready for what’s to come in the next few weeks. A lot of surprises coming from me.”
Days later, the “I Want It That Way” crooner, 42, confirmed the news via Twitter: “We’re going for the mirrorball, baby!! I am so grateful to @dancingabc and @abcnetwork for the opportunity to be joining this season’s cast of #DWTS,” he captioned a selfie from a dance studio on August 27. “I also want to thank my wife and my two girls for letting Daddy go on this new adventure. I’m doing it ALL for you!”
Former Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe is also confirmed to compete. Months before announcing any other celebrities, Chris Harrison asked Bristowe — who has voiced her hopes to do the show — during an episode of The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever in June. Bristowe previously claimed that Bachelor creator Mike Fleiss didn’t allow her to dance on the show.
Tyra Banks is set to host after Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews were axed. Dancing With the Stars premieres on ABC Monday, September 14 at 8 p.m. ET.
Produced by Ryan Murphy and directed by Joe Mantello (Hollywood), The Boys in the Band is based on the 1968 play by late writer Mart Crowley, who passed away in March. The film is set in New York City, where a group of gay men gather for a friend’s birthday party and are faced with uncomfortable truths throughout the course of the evening.
The play ran for a limited engagement on Broadway in 2018, and many of the actors from that revival — which was also directed by Mantello — will reprise their roles for Netflix’s adaptation. The cast includes Matt Bomer (White Collar), Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory), Zachary Quinto (Heroes), Andrew Rannells (Black Monday), Charlie Carver (Teen Wolf), Brian Hutchison (Madam Secretary), Michael Benjamin Washington (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Robin de Jesús (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and Tuc Watkins (Desperate Housewives).
This will be the second time The Boys in the Band has been turned into a movie. It was previously adapted into a film in 1970, which starred the same cast from the play’s initial off-Broadway run in 1968.
Longoria will appear on Monday, Ross on Tuesday, Washington on Wednesday and Louis-Dreyfus on Thursday.
Monday’s lineup includes Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The convention will run from 9-11 p.m. ET each night.
Louis-Dreyfus will appear on the same night that Joe Biden accepts the Democratic nomination. She already has headlined a fundraiser for the former vice president, having appeared with him in a parody video during the run of Veep. Longoria spoke at the 2012 Democratic convention in Charlotte, NC.
The convention also will feature performances from Leon Bridges, The Chicks, Common, Billie Eilish, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Billy Porter, Maggie Rogers, Prince Royce and Stephen Stills. Other speakers and celebrities will be announced in the coming days.
In addition to the lineup of speakers, Democrats plan to feature testimonials from everyday Americans who will appear from locations across the country. Convention organizers also announced that the keynote address, traditionally delivered by one up-and-coming party figure, will instead feature 17 different speakers.
Cherry was one of Patman’s longtime clients at Paradigm who is now following him to the new agency. Patman has been guiding Cherry’s career for about two decades and sold Cherry’s breakout series, Desperate Housewives, to ABC.
Cherry executive produced and ran Desperate Housewives for its eight-season run, which earned 7 Emmys, 3 Golden Globes, as well as 33 additional awards. Cherry also was the creator, exec producer and showrunner of Lifetime’s Devious Maids, inspired by the telenovela Ellas son la Alegri´a del Hogar.
Cherry is currently executive producing and running his latest series, CBS All Access’ anthology Why Women Kill, which has been renewed for a second season and is awaiting a go-ahead to start production. His writer/producer credits also include The Golden Girls and the sequel The Golden Palace.
Cherry continues to be repped by attorney Jon Moonves at Del Shaw Moonves.
A3 signed an agreement with the WGA in November 2019, which allows it to represent writers. Two other longtime clients of Patman at Paradigm, Michelle and Robert King, recently signed with UTA.
As one of the last panels of the first virtual iteration of the fanboy/fangirl confab came, “A Conversation with Nathan Fillion” was a retrospective on Fillion as he reflected on his career — with a lot of talk about Firefly, Castle, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and, of course, The Rookie.
From the comfort of his own kitchen and with his cute doggie, Hawley kicked things off with one of Fillion’s most popular movies: Waitress. After doing a deep dive on the quirky comedy, the two waxed poetic on The Rookie.
“Firefly has been my favorite job I’ve ever had until The Rookie,” Fillion admits before guests from his past started being introduced into the pre-recorded panel.
Firefly’s Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk and Joss Whedon “Zoom’d” into the conversation to talk about the fandom behind the series while Jon Huertas, Seamus Dever and Molly Quinn phoned in to talk about Castle. The Rookie‘s Mekia Cox also joined him to talk about the ABC show. Fillion and Whedon also discussed working on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.
Torres and Tudyk agreed with Fillion about the lasting legacy of Firefly. “Once a ‘browncoat’, you’re locked in,” said Fillion.
Tudyk “Firefly is such a staple,” said Tudyk, adding that if you’re into fandom, it’s a requirement. Torres points out that Firefly is like any great book that touched had an impact on you when you first read it but when you revisit it later, it speaks to you different place to your heart and psyche. She continues to say that she is excited to see the series continue to grow with existing and new fans.
It is clear that Fillion loves his Firefly and Castle fam — so much so that many of them have appeared on his other shows. Tudyk, Huertas and Dever enjoyed guest-starring with him on The Rookie while Torres popped up in Castle. Fillion wants to continue this tradition with hopes of getting Torres on The Rookie. Torres agreed to be on The Rookie with one important stipulation.
“You have to promise you’ll actually be there!” Torres exclaimed. “When I came on to Castle you bailed!”
Fillion turned to Hawley who said, “There’s no way I would put you on the show and not write you into Nathan’s story — I promise you that!”
20th Century Fox Television is the studio on the project, which is being produced in association with Longoria and Ben Spector’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment and Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi’s Significant Productions. Doug Pray, who exec produced Apple doc Home and HBO’s The Defiant Ones, is also an exec producer.
Written by Chaidez, who has also worked on 12 Monkeys, Hunters and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the drama is a multi-generational saga of the Sandovals, a Mexican-American family that immigrates to Los Angeles in pursuit of the American Dream. It will follow the struggles and triumphs of the Sandovals from 1920 through present and explores the question of what it means to be American
ABC has handed the project a script and additional development material plus penalty commitment. Chaidez, Longoria, Spector, Whitaker, Yang Bongiovi and Pray exec produce.
It is the latest ABC project for UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, which is currently under a deal at 20th Century Fox Studios Television. The company previously produced Grand Hotel. Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi, who run Significant Productions, which has a first-look deal at Amazon, currently serve as exec producers on Epix drama Godfather of Harlem.
Development of the project began with Pray working with Sylvia Vasquez, daughter of Chicano author Richard Vasquez, while Chaidez is a third generation Mexican-American whose own family’s immigration journey closely parallels the story told in Chicano.
“Chicano is just the first of many projects that we expect from Eva and Ben as we look to ramp up our slate of Latinx programming. As part of our studio family, they are valuable partners in helping us expand our commitment to compelling stories for underrepresented communities,” said Karey Burke, president, ABC Entertainment. “With Forest, Nina, Natalie and Doug also at the helm of this project, we know we have the perfect powerhouse team to bring this Mexican-American family’s story to life and cultivate the next generation of Latinx storytelling.”e
In an open letter alongside a link to a petition in support of the show finding a new home, The Baker and the Beauty star Nathalie Kelley spoke of the cancelation of the rare series with a Latinx cast, its legacy of representation and its timeliness as the type of show that is “necessary during these times.”
Now more than ever, the world is waking up to the importance of diversity and representation on our televisions. We want networks to commit wholeheartedly to ensuring that BIPOC, LATINX and LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized groups, get a chance to tell our stories. Baker and The Beauty was a show that embodied the themes of unity, empathy, and compassion, all of which are so needed in our national discourse right now.
For years, Latinx stories were limited to drug cartels, maids and the ‘spicy latina’ sex object. I credit ABC for letting us tell the story of a loving, wholesome and hilarious Cuban-American family on network TV. I praise them for allowing the youngest daughter Natalie’s LGBTQ storyline be central to our show. I am also forever grateful to them for casting me, an Indigenous woman, as the lead female role. Noa Hamilton was not written for a woman of color, but they cast me anyway. And I could not be prouder of what we all did and the show we created.
These stories create empathy, and there is nothing that we need more in these times than unity, empathy and compassion. That is why it was especially sad to not see them follow through on their support for our beloved series. Nevertheless I remain hopeful that there is a platform out there that will jump on the opportunity to give this show a new home. A chance to send a meaningful message to our communities that they hear our passion, our voices coming from our streets, demanding visibility and justice. The Baker and the Beauty is a beautiful show, one that means so much to so many people. It’s full of love, laughter, inspiration, and comfort. And I cannot think of anything more necessary during these times.
Kelley’s co-star Lisa Vidal also has been vocal on social media about the void in Latnx representation that the cancellation of The Baker and the Beauty leaves, rallying fans to sign the petition, while also posting encouraging updates about ongoing outreach to streamers to pick up the series.
Among those landing their support to The Baker and the Beauty has been Eva Longoria, who executive produced last year’s ABC drama series Grand Hotel, which also had a Latnx cast. Like The Baker and the Beauty, it had a late spring/early summer launch and was canceled after one short season.
“Well I’m sure you heard that @abcnetwork cancelled @bakerandthebeauty yet another show with an entire Latino cast!,” Longoria wrote on Instagram. “This is bad news for the Latino community! Why doesn’t @abcnetwork give it more of a chance for our gente to find the show?! And ‘gente’ where are you guys? Show up and get loud. Representation matters on television! This was a sweet show about a good family! And one of the only Latino shows out there! We need this show to find another home!”
One Day at a Time co-creator Gloria Calderon Kellet knows very well what it takes for a show with a Latinx cast to find a new home after getting her comedy picked up Pop TV after it was canceled by Netflix.
“Disappointed to hear that the very charming @BakerBeautyABC was cancelled,” she wrote, linking to The Baker and the Beauty petition. “One of the few positive portrayals of a Latinx family on network tv @thelisavidal is the Latina mom America deserves on their networks! Networks DO BETTER!”
Others in the industry, including Zoe Saldana and Gabrielle Union also have voiced criticism of The Baker and the Beauty‘s cancelation their support for the efforts to find a new home.
The Baker and the Beauty petition has amassed more than 100K signatures. The series’ producers at Keshet Studios and Universal Television have been reaching out to potential buyers, which, per the show’s team, have included NBCU’s Peacock, Netflix and Amazon.
In an interview with Deadline, ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke said that the show’s soft ratings performance “unfortunately and primarily” led to its cancellation.
“The Baker and the Beauty is a show I was personally very fond of, it’s a very sweet and hopeful and inspired and optimistic show that I wish we had been able to find a bigger audience for,” she said.
Starring Victor Rasuk and Kelley in the title roles, the Notting Hill-esque Baker and the Beauty, from creator Dean Georgaris, Keshet Studios, Universal TV and ABC Studios, centers on Daniel Garcia (Rasuk), who is working in the family bakery and doing everything that his loving Cuban parents and siblings expect him to do. But on a wild Miami night he meets Noa Hamilton (Kelley), an international superstar and fashion mogul, and his life moves into the spotlight. Will this unlikely couple upend their lives to be together and pull their families into a culture clash?
Cast also includes Carlos Gomez, Dan Bucatinsky, Vidal, Belissa Escobedo, Michelle Veintimilla and David Del Rio.
Filming is currently underway in Texas. The story follows Motley (Melrose), whose life spirals out of control as he’s forced to go on the run from southern crime lord, Jed Haywood (Cudlitz). Boon, Haywood’s best henchman and close friend, is tracking Motley and over the course of one day, both Motley and Boon go on a spiritual journey as their fate brings them together for a showdown.
Robert Johnson, Jason Starne, and Austin Williams are producing the pic with McDonough and Alex Blackmon as EPs.
McDonough, who presently can be seen in The Warrant on Amazon and appeared in Paramount’s hit feature Sonic the Hedgehog, is repped by Buchwald and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson, and Christopher.
Working with a streamer is bliss for Cherry, free from the fences erected by a network’s standard and practices department. The freedom allowed Cherry to swing for the fences in regard to how bawdy he could be in this limited anthology series about three generations of housewives –portrayed by Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, who’ve lived in the same big house in Pasadena over three different eras, only to see their lives impacted by murder.
Goodwin plays a housewife during the 1960s who after learning that her husband (Sam Jaeger) is cheating, befriends his mistress (Sadie Calvano). Lucy Liu portrays an upscale gallery owner during the 1980s, who learns that her husband is cheating…with another man. And Baptiste plays an attorney, who along with her screenwriter husband (Reid Scott) decide to embrace an open relationship lifestyle with another a woman (Alexandra Daddario) much to their own peril.
We also speak with Cherry about how he’d gladly work with his former award-winning Desperate Housewives alum Felicity Huffman following the “Varsity Blues” scandal.
Per a post on Gleason’s official Facebook page, she passed away after a long illness from cancer.
Though you may not have known Gleason’s name, it’s likely that her face is familiar: Her acting resume contains more than 100 television credits, usually for one-off-but-memorable roles on popular broadcast series in the past 40 years. She was Madame Oeuf, Saved By the Bell‘s French teacher. She was Lucille, the stern yet kindly dressing-room attendant who hugged a grieving Miranda in Sex and the City. She was Mrs. Butters, the no-nonsense elementary school teacher who dealt with Lynette and Susan’s kids in Desperate Housewives. She was Sally, the homeless woman who may or may not have known the president on NBC on Will & Grace.
Her list of TV appearances also includes roles on Quantum Leap, Highway to Heaven, Night Court, Blossom, ER, NCIS, Bones, Grey’s Anatomy, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, How to Get Away With Murder, NCIS and The Blacklist.
In 2014, she started the recurring role of Mary, an Alcoholics Anonymous member, on CBS’ Mom. Gleason appeared on the comedy a number of times over the years, and her character was killed off in Season 7 when Mary died of a brain aneurysm during an AA meeting.
Hosted by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, the Stars in the House YouTube series has been hosting special reunion episodes for weeks, welcoming casts from Frasier, Glee, Desperate Housewives, SCTV and Taxi, as well as original Broadway casts from Spring Awakening and Les Misérables, among others.
The Tuesday, April 28 episode, airing at 8 p.m. ET, will featuring the Melrose cast reminiscing about their years in West Hollywood’s most iconic apartment complex. The reunion supports The Actors Fund, with viewers able to donate while they watch. Viewers also can ask questions and interact with with the cast in real time during the show.
“Seth and I believe that in this time of social distancing and isolation, much happiness can be found by seeing familiar faces from shows beloved by the whole world,” said Wesley. “We call these shows comfort TV. And we plan on having even more every week, along with our beloved theatre pals – all for The Actors Fund.”
The livestream Stars in the House series raises money for The Actors Fund’s COVID-19 efforts. The series’ episodes are available at the Stars in the House website and on YouTube.
But Sophia Macy — who had no idea about Huffman’s scheme — has triumphantly proven that she could do it all by herself.
A source told Page Six that Sophia, 19, retook her SAT — and that she’s been accepted to prestigious Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. On Sunday, the young actress posted the school’s logo and two smiley heart emojis to Instagram Stories. She also added “CMU Drama ’24” to her bio.
In a letter to the judge for her part in the notorious cheating scandal, Huffman wrote, “When my daughter looked at me and asked with tears streaming down her face, ‘Why didn’t you believe in me? Why didn’t you think I could do it on my own?’ I had no adequate answer for her. I could only say, ‘I am sorry.’?”
Sophia — whose father is William H. Macy — has appeared in Jordan Peele’s “The Twilight Zone.” The couple’s younger daughter, Georgia, 18, is going to Vassar in the fall.
The series, hosted by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, has been featuring TV reunions in recent weeks, with cast members from SCTV, Glee, Desperate Housewives and Taxi and more joining in the remote free-for-alls.
Next week will see the likes of Dallas‘ Patrick Duffy and Charlene Tilton (and others – see the complete line-up below) together again, China Beach‘s Marg Helgenberger and Dana Delany coming ashore, Difficult People‘s Julie Klausner, Andrea Martin and Billy Eichner making nice and Rita Moreno and Norman Lear heading up the One Day at a Time virtual get-together.
The episodes are available at the Stars in the House website and on YouTube.
Since the first Stars in the House episode on March 16, the series has raised approximately $209,600 to benefit The Actors Fund.
The schedule and guest line-up for next week’s Stars in the House are:
Monday, April 20, 8 pm ET: Difficult People cast members confirmed to show are Julie Klausner, Andrea Martin, Billy Eichner, James Urbaniak, Gabourey Sidibe, Derrick Baskin, Shakina Nayfack and Cole Escola.
Tuesday, April 21, 8 pm ET: One Day at a Time confirmed guests cast members Rita Moreno, Justina Machado, Todd Grinnell, Isabella Gomez, Marcel Ruiz and Stephen Tobolowsky, along with executive producers Norman Lear, Brent Miller, Mike Royce and Gloria Calderón Kellett.
Thursday, April 23, 8 pm ET: China Beach reunion episode will welcome Marg Helgenberger, Dana Delany, Robert Picardo, Jeff Kober, Nancy Giles, Concetta Tomei and Michael Boatman.
Friday, April 24, 8 pm ET: Dallas – and it’s not a dream. Patrick Duffy is confirmed, as are Linda Gray, Charlene Tilton and Steve Kanaly.
Among the stars taking part are, among others, Henry Winkler, Iain Armitage, Annie Potts and Peyton List. From Desperate Housewives: Marcia Cross, Vanessa Williams, Brenda Strong, Dana Delaney and Eva Longoria (it’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll talk about you-know-who).
The episodes follow this past week’s cast reunions of Taxi, This is Us and Frasier, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt the week prior.
The popular Stars in the House series itself already has a spin-off of sorts: Earlier this week, Rudetsky and Wesley announced they’d be adding Plays in the House to their line-up, matching performers and plays for one-time-only livestream readings.
Since the first Stars in the House episode on March 16, the series has raised in excess of $130,000 to benefit The Actors Fund.
The schedule and guest line-up for next week’s Stars in the House are:
Tuesday, April 7, 8 pm/ET
BARRY with Emmy Award winner Henry Winkler and other cast members from the show to be announced
Wednesday, April 8, 8 pm/ET
YOUNG SHELDON with Iain Armitage, Zoe Perry, Annie Potts, Montana Jordan, Raegan Revord and Lance Barber
Friday, April 10, 2 pm/ET matinee
Disney’s JESSIE with Peyton List, Skai Jackson, Karan Brar, and Kevin Chamberlin
Sunday, April 12, 8 pm/ET
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES with Marcia Cross, Vanessa Williams, Brenda Strong, Dana Delaney, Eva Longoria
Currently, McDonough stars in Robert Zemeckis’ UFO drama series Project Blue Book for History and had a major arc on season 2 of Yellowstone for Paramount. Additionally, he’s recently recurred on Netflix’s Altered Carbon, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow as uber villain Damien Darhk, along with Syfy’s Van Helsing, and USA’s Suits.
On the film side, McDonough is presently starring in The Warrant which is streaming on Amazon and most recently appeared in Paramount’s hit feature Sonic the Hedgehog and in Game Over, Man! for Netflix.
McDonough continues to be repped by attorney Stuart Rosenthal at Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson, and Christopher.
The pic, which shot in 2018 and had its world premiere at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, is set to roll out on digital platforms May 1. Additional co-stars include Anastasia Phillips, Clark Johnson, Lauren Holly, Aaron Ashmore, and Kristian Bruun.
Joanne Sarazen penned the screenplay. It revolves around Tammy, a charismatic, yet self-destructive mother to 35-year-old Catherine (Phillips), whose role as a caregiver changes when Tammy is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Catherine eventually recruits a talk show agent to help profit from her mother’s miserable life story. But as Tammy’s death becomes her daughter’s only way out, one problem stands in her way: Tammy just won’t die.
Jessica Adams and Harry Cherniak produced the project.
“We are thrilled to be releasing Tammy’s Always Dying as it contains a stellar performance from Felicity Huffman that was lauded by audiences at TIFF” said Berry Meyerowitz, co-president of Quiver.
Maverick is written by Merigan Mulhern, and directed by Larry Tang. In a present day America that finds itself under authoritarian rule, the President’s daughter, Kit (Hardesty) –- raised to believe her father is moral and benevolent -– has her worldview rocked on her first day at Georgetown. Challenged by her fellow students, and under the watchful eye of Secret Service agents, she’ll have to decide if her loyalties lie with her family or with a growing resistance as she navigates her freshman year.
Moses plays Charles Price, Kit’s father and the President of the United States who has a devoted following and a soft spot for his daughter. He commands the country with dignity and charm, but his plans for keeping his citizens safe are more nefarious than they seem.
Ploszek plays Sebastian, Kit’s easygoing and intelligent older half-brother. He is Kit’s rock after the death of her mom and her most trusted confidante. As a member of his father’s administration, he may know more about his father’s dark goals than he lets on.
In addition to Hardesty, Moses and Ploszek join previously cast Nandy Martin and Zainne Saleh.
Schwartz, Savage and Lis Rowinski executive produce via Fake Empire. Warren Hsu Leonard also executive produces. Mulhern co-executive produces with Teng.
This would mark the second series Moses has played the U.S. President on; he portrayed President Jeff Mitchener on TNT’s The Last Ship. Moses was recently seen in Bombshell and played Jerry London on the Fox series Deputy. He is repped by Innovative Artists.
Ploszek was recently seen in Terminator: Dark Fate and Captain Marvel. He also played the role of Leonardo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films and was a series regular on the Go90 comedy Liberty Crossing. Ploszek is repped by Principal Entertainment LA.
GUEST CAST includes: Doug Savant (Mark), Sterling Beaumon (J.P.).
Bean was struck by a car and killed while crossing Venice Boulevard in Venice at 7:35 PM. A “car coming westbound did not see him and clipped him,” Los Angeles Police Department Captain Brian Wendling told ABC7.
A second driver, who “was distracted by people trying to slow him down” then struck Bean, Wendling said.
Bean was crossing the busy street to get to the Venice Resident Theatre. His wife of 27 years, actress Alley Mills, was reportedly already at the location.
Both drivers remained at the scene and cooperated with police. Investigators have initially said they believe the crash was an accident.
Many remember Bean from his appearances on game and talk shows, making frequent appearances on The Tonight Show and other networks as a storyteller par excellence. He was also a game show staple (he was a frequent guest on To Tell The Truth and others).
But Bean was more than a glib guest. He also starred on and off Broadway, was part of many drama anthology shows, and once hosted his own CBS variety show, The Blue Angel.
There was also a politically active side to him. He was briefly blacklisted as a suspected Communist, and was a not-infrequent sight at political and environmental protests. He also founded the progressive 15th Street School in the 1960s, and once gave away his possessions to wander America in hippie-style fashion, exploring the turbulent times in a personal way.
For a time, he dropped out, moving to Australia and exploring the concepts of Austiran psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, writing a book about the experience. He returned to the US in 1971, but didn’t immediately return to show business. Instead, he followed a nomadic, hippie lifestyle, admitting in a memoir it was filled with psychedelic drugs, communal sex and other indulgences in a quest for self-discovery. He supported the family with commercial work and voice-overs in animated films.
By 1980, he decided to ramp up his show business activity. He again took to television movies, soap operas, game shows and film work. In his later career, he took recurring roles in such shows Murder, She Wrote, Normal, Ohio and Desperate Housewives. One highlight of his career was appearing in Being John Malkovich, a cult classic in which Bean was the owner of a mysterious company.
Bean was born Dallas Frederick Burrows on July 22, 1928, in Burlington, Vt.. After graduating from high school in 1946, he was drafted and served with Japan occupation forces.
Upon his discharge, he changed his name to Orson Bean and became a stage magician, working Boston-area nightclubs. Eventually, he evolved into comedy, and he began working bigger rooms in New York in a comedy era that saw such giants as Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl and Woody Allen working.
From there, he evolved into television, becoming such a ubiquitous presence on The Tonight Show that he was often a vacation host for Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. In between episodic TV stints, he also appeared on Broadway in the 1955 comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and in the 1967 musical Illya Darling.
Bean lived in Venice for many years and married three times, the last to actress Alley Mills. Survivors include his wife and his four children. No memorial plans have been announced.
An Army vet who was stationed in postwar Japan in the mid-1940s, Bean (born Dallas Frederick Burrows) began his entertainment career as a magician, before segueing into stand-up comedy. Starting in the 1950s, he was a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth. He also appeared on other game shows as well as Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show (on which he would be a guest more than 200 times).
Bean’s TV acting credits include (but are by no means limited to) Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and its spin-off Fernwood 2Nite, The Facts of Life, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Normal Ohio, 7th Heaven and Desperate Housewives. Most recently, he appeared in a November 2018 episode of Superstore and the latest season of Grace and Frankie (which dropped Jan. 15).
Among his many stage credits, he earned a Tony Award nomination in 1961 for the musical Subways Are for Sleeping and enjoyed a long run in the comedy Never Too Late. His film roles included Being John Malkovich and The Equalizer 2.
Bean’s survivors include his third wife/Dr. Quinn co-star Alley Mills, whom he wed in 1993.
GUEST CAST includes: Joe Williamson (Kevin Harris), Ben Browder (Ephraim Bowles), Brenda Strong (Jean Rubenstone-Frost).
Will Packer and James Lopez will produce under Packer’s eponymous production company, Will Packer Productions. Eva Longoria and Ben Spector will also produce under their UnbeliEVAble Entertainment banner.
Sudduth is a Texan native who cut his teeth in acting with parts on such series as Felicity, Alias, The Young and The Restless, Veronica Mars and Desperate Housewives to name a few. He segued to writing and was accepted into the National Hispanic Media Coalition TV Writers Program, his first feature being Going to Gunn, which won Best Comedy in the Page International Screenwriting Awards. His TV writing career took off as a producer on ABC’s The Real O’Neals, Netflix’s On My Block, a supervising producer on Lifetime’s American Princess, and as a writer on NBC’s Telenovela, the latter which Longoria served as EP, starred in and also directed an episode.
Sylvie’s Love, which Longoria stars in opposite Tessa Thompson, is here at Sundance, making its world premiere on Monday. Upcoming for her is the Jamie Foxx-directed comedy All Star Weekend starring Robert Downey, Jr. Gerard Butler, Benicio Del Toro and Foxx. Longoria is also in pre-production on her feature directorial debut, 24-7, which she’ll star in opposite Kerry Washington. The comedy follows a group of accountants who band together against their firm’s male colleagues to solve a fraud case that will save their jobs.
Packer’s next feature for Uni is the romantic drama The Photograph opening on Feb. 14. The movie, directed and written by Stella Meghie, and starring Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield, is a series of intertwining love series set in the past and the present.
Universal Production SVP Sara Scott and Creative Executive Christine Sun will oversee the project on behalf of Uni. Sudduth is repped by MetaMorphic Entertainment and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc. Longoria is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
The “John Tucker Must Die” star, 41, and Santana, 35, went their separate ways three weeks ago, a source confirmed to People.
News of their breakup comes after photos surfaced of Metcalfe looking cozy with a blonde woman at a bar in California over the weekend. The woman appeared to be actress Jade Albany, according to the Daily Mail.
He was also seen holding hands with Hungarian model Livia Pillmann, the site reported.
Metcalfe and Santana were together for more than 10 years.
Page Six previously reported they got engaged aboard a 50-foot sailboat in the Hudson River in New York in August 2016.
“It’s been a long time coming, but we couldn’t be happier,” the actor told Us Weekly at the time.
Metcalfe’s rep did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
“I never used women for money” the way his character in the movie does, he told us at the premiere at Metrograph. “But I used women for sex. In your 20s, you don’t know any better, and I was wrong. At 23 years old, you don’t know s?-?-?t. It’s like, ‘Let me get that!’ You trying to get everything.”
Sophia Macy, whose father is Shameless star William H. Macy, has been cast in the second season of Jordan Peele’s online reboot, joining the likes of Morena Baccarin, Billy Porter, Tony Hale, Joel McHale, Chris Meloni, and Jimmi Simpson.
The 19-year-old, who graduated high school over the summer, will appear in an episode titled Among the Untrodden, co-starring with actress Abbie Hern.
“Been wanting to talk about this for a MINUTE!” Sophia shared on Instagram. “I’m so so grateful @abbiehern_ I love you and I love acting with you.”
The news of Sophia’s first big acting gig emerges months after her mother served 11 days of a 14 day jail sentence for paying to fix her eldest daughter’s college admission exam scores in an effort to secure her a spot at a top university.
“Her experience is that these women are left behind,” a source close to the family told us. “They’re abandoned. There’s no support for them either in the institution or when they leave the institution, and that broke her heart.”
Scott Taylor, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, told Page Six in response, “Although it is the BOP’s philosophy that release preparation begins the first day of incarceration, focus on release preparation intensifies at least 18 months prior to release.”
Taylor noted the facility provides programs like the Release Preparation Program, which include classes in “résumé writing, job search, and job retention.” He also said certain inmates are placed in halfway houses prior to release to “help them adjust to life in the community and find employment.”
The FCI Dublin’s orientation handbook also notes that inmates who are nearing release “may be referred for placement at a Residential Reentry Center” for help finding a new job or home.
The insider also slammed multiple reports that categorized the facility as “Club Fed.” In 2009, Forbes ranked it at No. 7 on its “America’s 10 Cushiest Prisons in America” list.
Our source said any claims the prison is “kind of easy” are “totally wrong,” claiming, “It’s a very dysfunctional environment.”
A Bureau of Prisons official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to The New York Times said last month that yoga and Zumba classes are permitted and that inmates sometimes sunbathe even though Dublin’s online handbook states “sunbathing is prohibited in all areas.”
Inmates are expected to be at their work assignments for five to six hours a day.
According to The New York Times, Dublin FCI has a low-security facility that houses more than 1,000 inmates, and a separate minimum-security satellite camp that houses around 175 inmates. Huffman spent her time in the camp.
A 2018 New York Times investigation into federal prisons discovered a memo written by a warden at Dublin in 2017 that detailed a staffing shortage, which can reportedly lead to safety issues.
Huffman, who is married to fellow actor William H. Macy, pleaded guilty in May to paying a $15,000 bribe to William “Rick” Singer, who was the mastermind behind the college admission scandal.
In a statement to the court, the “Desperate Housewives” star, 56, tearfully opened up about her 19-year-old daughter Sophia Grace’s learning disability, which is why she says she helped rig her daughter’s SAT scores.
“She knew she had done something really wrong,” our source said. “She felt bad about it immediately.”
In September, a judge sentenced Huffman to 14 days in prison starting Oct. 25, and ordered her to pay a $30,000 fine and complete 250 hours of community service. She only served 11 days because her release date fell on a weekend.
Huffman did not begin her community service program until last month, but on Sept. 16, Huffman and her younger daughter, Georgia, were photographed visiting nonprofit The Teen Project.
Our source told us Huffman and Georgia were volunteering that day because they had been already been working for two years with the organization, which helps young women who were homeless and sex-trafficking victims receive services such as therapy, counseling and medical attention.
“Her younger daughter wants to work in public policy and wants to go to law school one day, so she was very interested in the issue,” the close family source said. “I don’t know how they came upon the organization, but it’s something that she and her daughter wanted to do together.”
The young women at the facility have reportedly not treated the convicted star differently since her sentencing.
“She’s gotten very close to the young women there,” the source said. “The organization is about second chances, and the board and the organization were very supportive about continuing to do the work with Felicity. They had seen her in action for so long there, so they knew this was very authentic.”
Huffman’s community service hours should be completed in early 2020, but the actress reportedly wants to continue to work with The Teen Project and women’s incarceration reentry organizations long after that.
“She really wanted to double up on her community service work anyway, and this is an opportunity for her to continue to do some of that,” the source said. “This case really affected her in a big way.”
David O’Leary created the series and serves as writer and executive producer alongside writer-showrunner Sean Jablonski, Zemeckis, Jackie Levine and Barry Jossen.
Produced by A+E Studios and Compari Entertainment, Project Blue Book is inspired by the personal experiences of Dr. J. Allen Hynek (Aidan Gillen), a brilliant college professor recruited by the U.S. Air Force to spearhead this clandestine operation — Project Blue Book — that researched thousands of cases, more than 700 of which remain unsolved to this day. The 10-episode sophomore season will find Dr. Hynek and Capt. Michael Quinn (Michael Malarkey) on a dangerous quest for the truth and delve deeper into themes of global conspiracy, touch on how UFOs have impacted the evolution of our nation’s military practices and technology and lean into the nostalgia of the 1950s.
Season 2 will also kick off with a deep dive into two of the most well-known UFO cases in US history: Roswell, New Mexico, where a rancher claimed to have found mysterious wreckage on his property thought to be a UFO, and Area 51, a government-run location in Nevada historically rumored to be a magnet for paranormal events and UFO-related activity.
Neal McDonough, Michael Harney, Laura Mennell and Ksenia Solo also star, with Keir O’Donnell and Jerod Haynes joining this season in recurring roles.
Here are some of this year's Hallmark Christmas movies that we think are the must-sees of the season (all times are Eastern).
1. Write Before Christmas
Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 8 p.m.
Not only will Jessica (Torrey DeVitto) inspire you to finally send out some holiday cards this year, but she'll also connect with a special someone (Chad Michael Murray) in the process. Their rendezvous may or may not (read: definitely will) interrupt those no-dating-over-the-holidays plans she has in this pic.
2. Christmas Under the Stars
Thursday, Nov. 21 at 8 p.m.
Sure, you might have a hard time believing that an ambitious investment banker (Jesse Metcalfe) would pick up at a gig at a Christmas tree lot after being let go from his day job, but hey, at least it'll give him an opportunity to meet a lovely astronomy teacher (Autumn Reeser) who can teach him a thing or two about star-gazing.
3. Christmas at Graceland
Saturday, Nov. 23 at 8 p.m.
What could possibly bring two pretty people together better than an Elvis-themed Christmas shindig? In this film, Harper (Kaitlin Doubleday) spends her holiday in between jobs working as a nanny for handsome widower Owen (Adrian Grenier), and they work together on a holiday exhibit that's bound to get them all shook up.
4. Merry & Bright
Sunday, Nov. 24 at 10:03 p.m.
Ah yes, that feeling when you think that new hunk in your life has been sent as a set-up from your mom, but he turns out to be a corporate drone! In this film, Cate (Jodie Sweetin) is the CEO of a candy company who meets Gabe (Andrew Walker) and thinks he's someone her mother wants her to date. As it happens, though, he's actually around on business to ensure the company's profitability. Surrounded by all those holiday treats, though, these two are bound to get sweet on each other before it's all said and done.
5. A Christmas Duet
Monday, Nov. 25 at 8 p.m.
When it comes to Christmas movies, there's no place like Vermont for an estranged couple to come back together. In this film, former singing duo Averie (Chaley Rose) and Jesse (Rome Flynn) have grown apart since the release of their hit holiday song, but they'll reunite at her cozy little lodge just in time for the Yuletide Festival to bring the spirit of the season back into their lives. Chances are, they'll be making some very beautiful music together again.
6. Christmas in Rome
Saturday, Nov. 30 at 8 p.m.
Getting fired right before the holiday is a massive bummer, but for Angela (Lacey Chabert), opportunity will knock pretty quickly when a handsome executive named Oliver (Sam Page) hires her to be his tour guide around Italy's capital. Will sparks fly in the Eternal City? Count on it.
7. Christmas Town
Sunday, Dec. 1 at 8 p.m.
OK, OK, so the place isn't actually called Christmas Town, but this movie is about a charming little hideaway that helps to rekindle the spirit of the season for Lauren (Candace Cameron Bure).
8. A Christmas Love Story
Saturday, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m.
What could be better for a youth choir director (Kristin Chenoweth) than finding a boy with a golden voice just in time for the Christmas Eve show? Why, meeting his swoony — and available! — father (Scott Wolf), of course!
9. Double Holiday
Sunday, Dec. 22 at 8 p.m.
When Rebecca (Carly Pope) has to table her Hanukkah plans to co-prepare a holiday party with her office nemesis (Kristoffer Polaha), their shared sense of competition might just give way to something worth celebrating.
Penned by Sudduth, the untitled Where I Come From project centers on divorced chef Zoila Sanchez, who has always told stories through her food. And that food’s got some explaining to do: she uprooted her fraternal twin sons Alex and Rafael from El Paso to New York so she can fulfill her dream of opening a restaurant. As they all struggle to make sense of their odd new world, they must lean on each other like never before and use the family business to forge a new community — one meal at a time.
The story is inspired by Sánchez’s memoir Where I Come From: Life Lessons From a Latino Chef, which was published last month. The characters Zoila Sanchez and her fraternal twin sons, Alex and Rafael, were inspired by Aaron’s mother, Zarela Martinez, who was also a famous chef, and Aaron and his fraternal twin brother, Rodrigo.
Sudduth, who was born and raised by a Latino family in Texas, executive produces alongside Longoria and Spector through UnbeliEVAable and Sanchez.
The Food Network staple and James Beard winner Sánchez also co-stars on Fox’s MasterChef and MasterChef Jr, and in 2016 founded a scholarship fund for aspiring chefs from the Latin community, providing mentorship opportunities and scholarships to the International Culinary Center in New York.
UnbeliEVAble is coming off the soapy summer drama Grand Hotel, which ran on ABC for one season. It featured a strong Latinx presence in front of and behind the camera. The company also produced the Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary Reversing Roe which premiered this fall at Telluride.
Sudduth’s writing credits include the upcoming Netflix comedy series Slutty Teenage Bounty Hunters, Lifetime’s American Princess, and Netflix’s On My Block.
UnbeliEVAable is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Sánchez is repped by CAA.
Hosted by Daphne Oz (MasterChef Junior), Vanessa Williams, Gail Simmons (Top Chef) and Jamika Pessoa (The Next Food Star), The Good Dish spinoff grew out of weekly cooking segments featured on The Dr. Oz Show. It will provide simple shortcuts, everyday recipes and trends that will make life easier, bring families together, save money and most importantly…figure out what’s for dinner, according to producers. The series hails from five-time Daytime Emmy-winning executive producers, Amy Chiaro and Stacy Rader, the team that oversees The Dr. Oz Show and ZoCo productions, Dr. Mehmet Oz’s production company. This is the third new syndicated program announced for fall 2020, joining a Drew Barrymore talk show, from CBS TV Distribution, and a Nick Cannon talker from Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury. Of the three, only the Drew Barrymore show has officially secured station clearances yet.
“We have experienced overwhelming feedback from our audiences on “The Dish on Oz” cooking segments, which have been recently featured on The Dr. Oz Show,” said John Weiser, President First Run Television, SPT. “When Daphne Oz and this all-star ensemble were available, we recognized the opportunity for viewers, advertisers, and local broadcast stations. We have on-air tested this format and talent for two years perfecting this show we are now bringing to market. Spinoffs have the highest success rate of converting into multi-year franchises. In fact, spinoffs gave us the great Dr. Oz straight from Oprah!”
The Good Dish is produced by ZoCo Productions and distributed by Sony Pictures Television.
Huffman was released early Friday morning. She began her 14-day sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin on Oct. 15, but was released early as is normal prison policy for inmates who are set to be released on weekends.
The Desperate Housewives actor also is ordered to serve a year’s probation, perform 250 hours of community service and pay a $30,000 fine.
Having plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud back in May, Huffman was the first to be sentenced among the more than 30 parents indicted in the nationwide effort of wealthy families to get their children into top schools using underhanded methods.
Backed by letters of character reference and support from Desperate Housewives co-star Eva Longoria and creator Marc Cherry among others, Huffman threw herself at the court’s mercy at her sentencing last month in Boston in front of Judge Indira Talwani.
“In my desperation to be a good mother I talked myself into believing that all I was doing was giving my daughter a fair shot,” the When They See Us co-star stated of her entanglement with ex-call center manager William Singer and his phony Key Worldwide Foundation used to get Huffman’s eldest daughter into a top college with faked test scores.
“I honestly didn’t and don’t care about my daughter going to a prestigious college,” Huffman noted in the letter delivered to the court September 6. “I just wanted to give her a shot at being considered for a program where her acting talent would be the deciding factor.”
Unlike Huffman, Full House star Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli rejected a plea deal from the U.S. Attorney and are fighting their case with strident not-guilty declarations. As a result of the “Operation Varsity Blues” sting operations, the couple faces 40 years behind bars, with a trial likely next year.
“Felicity Huffman reported today for sentencing to the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, CA,” a representative for the American Crime actor said in a statement Tuesday.”
“Ms. Huffman is prepared to serve the term of imprisonment Judge Talwani ordered as one part of the punishment she imposed for Ms. Huffman’s actions,’ the rep added of the 14-day sentence handed down to Huffman on September 13 in Boston after her guilty plea in the nationwide Operation Varsity Blues operation. “She will begin serving the remainder of the sentence Judge Talwani imposed—one year of supervised release, with conditions including 250 hours of community service—when she is released.”
Based on good behavior and other circumstances, Huffman could actually be out in less than two weeks, under standard protocol. As well as the probation and community service, the Desperate Housewives actor has been ordered to pay Huffman was given a year’s probation, 250 hours of community service and told to pay a fine of $30,000 – which is double what she paid out to juice her daughter’s college test scores.
Having plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud back in May, the high-profile Huffman was the first to be sentenced among the more than 30 parents indicted in the nationwide effort of wealthy families to get their children into top schools using underhanded methods. Unlike Huffman, Full House star Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli rejected a plea deal from the U.S. Attorney and are fighting their case stemming from the “Operation Varsity Blues” sting operations with strident not-guilty declarations. Facing 40 yers behind bars, the duo look to be headed for trial next year.
Once looking at 20 years incarceration for having “made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000 to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter,” according to the lengthy March 6 indictment, Huffman saw prosecutors last month trim their recommended jail time to a month. As Huffman’s lawyers sought probation, the feds also tacked on “12 months of supervised release and a fine of $20,000” to their wish list.
Backed by letters of character reference and support from Desperate Housewives co-star Eva Longoria and creator Marc Cherry among others, Huffman threw herself at the court’s mercy in a correspondence of her own leading up to the hearing in front of Judge Talwani.
“In my desperation to be a good mother I talked myself into believing that all I was doing was giving my daughter a fair shot,” the When They See Us co-star stated of her entanglement with ex-call center manager William Singer and his phony Key Worldwide Foundation to get her eldest daughter into a top college using faked test scores.
Praised by as “classy” and taking responsibility “almost immediately,” by U.S Attorney for of Massachusetts Andrew Lelling earlier this month, Huffman was heavily criticized online as a prime example of white privilege by ex-Housewives co-star Ricardo Chavira following her admittedly light sentence.
Having received a very fair shot from the courts, Huffman will be home well in time for Halloween the way things stand now – trick or treat.
Chavira, who played Carlos Solis for eight seasons on the ABC drama, suggested race was a factor in the short sentence the actress received last month from a federal judge in Boston.
“White Privilege. And I saw Eight years worth of it, so I know what I’m talking about. Accountability and Responsibility don’t mean shit to these people,” Chavira tweeted, along with a link to a news article about the case.
He followed it up with a second tweet, claiming he witnessed “privilege” and experienced “bias” during his run on the series.
“I saw eight years worth of it working on Housewives. I’ve seen a lifetime of it being a halfbreed, and I’ve struggled with the intricacies of it on a daily basis with all the cultural bias I’ve received on both ends. But whatever. Slap on the wrist. Sorry, but this shit,” he wrote.
Chavira posted the tweets on September 13, the day U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ordered Huffman to spend 14 days in federal prison, pay a $30,000 fine, perform 250 hours of community service, and spend a year on supervised release. Yet, his comments went seemingly unnoticed until they began to go viral today.
The actor’s on-screen wife, Eva Longoria, was one of 27 people to write letters of support asking the judge to show Huffman leniency. In her remarks, Longoria described Huffman as a “good friend” who welcomed her to the ABC series in 2004, when she was still an up-and-coming actress. She noted that Huffman stood up for her when she was “bullied” at work.
Huffman is scheduled to report to prison on October 25.
Executive-produced by Eva Longoria, Grand Hotel starred Demian Bichir and Roselyn Sanchez as Santiago and Gigi Mendoza, owners of Miami’s famed Riviera Grand hotel. The cast also included Denyse Tontz and Bryan Craig as Alicia and Javi, Santiago’s children; Lincoln Younes as Danny, a waiter working undercover to find his missing sister; Wendy Raquel Robinson as Helen, the hotel’s head of staff; Feliz Ramirez and Justin Adorno as Caroline and Yoli, Gigi’s daughters; and Anne Winters as Ingrid, one of the hotel’s scheming housekeepers.
Grand Hotel wrapped its first season on Sept. 9 with a finale full of soap-tastic reveals: Danny discovered that his sister was killed by Helen’s husband, who died of cancer shortly thereafter; Javi made a hot new friend with benefits, who turned out to be none other than Ingrid’s mother; and Santiago learned the truth about Jason’s paternity, shortly before being shot in the basement of the Riviera Grand by a masked assailant.
Grand Hotel averaged just under 2.8 million total weekly viewers and a 0.5 demo rating, ranking ninth among all ABC summertime programs (but besting Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., What Would You Do?, something called Family Food Fight and Reef Break).
Written by David Caspe and Jordan Cahan, the series takes viewers back to October 19, 1987, aka Black Monday. No one knows who “caused it” — until now. It’s the fictional story of how a group of outsiders took on the blueblood, old-boys club of Wall Street and ended up crashing the world’s largest financial system, a Lamborghini limousine, and the glass ceiling. Andrew Rannells, Regina Hall and Paul Scheer also star.
Watkins will play Congressman Harris, a Republican and leader of the Moral Majority.
It’s a return to Showtime for Watkins, who played Malcolm Laffley on Beggars and Choosers. He also starred or recurred on such TV series as Desperate Housewives, Major Crimes, Awkward, Parks and Recreation, Sisters, C16: FBI and One Life to Live. Repped by Artists & Representatives and Karen Forman Management, his recent guest-star work includes Ballers, Castle, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Maron.
Black Monday is created by executive producer/showrunner David Caspe (Happy Endings), and Jordan Cahan (My Best Friend’s Girl). Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg also are EPs. The 10-episode sophomore season of the series — a co-production of Showtime and Sony Pictures TV Studios — will premiere next year on the premium cabler.
Huffman also will pay a $30,000 fine and spend one year on supervised release, per BuzzFeed News reporter Julia Reinstein.
Huffman’s sentence differs from an earlier recommendation made by federal prosecutors, who suggested the actress serve one month in jail and pay a $20,000 fine. Huffman’s attorneys had asked that she instead be sentenced to a year of community service, and 27 individuals — including Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry and co-star Eva Longoria — wrote the judge letters of support on Huffman’s behalf.
In March, Huffman was one of more than 30 people to be indicted for allegedly taking part in a nationwide scheme through which parents paid hefty bribes to get their kids accepted to elite universities. The actress later pleaded guilty to committing mail fraud and honest services fraud in connection with paying $15,000 to have someone take the SAT in place of her older daughter, which ultimately resulted in a 1420 score for her.
In other cases, college entrance-exam administrators were allegedly bribed to allow cheating on the tests, and university athletic coaches were paid to designate school applicants as athletic recruits, regardless of the student’s athletic ability or experience playing a sport. The money for the payments was allegedly funneled through a charity to disguise the wrongdoing.
“I am in full acceptance of my guilt, and with deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions,” Huffman said in April when she entered her plea. “I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues and the educational community. I want to apologize to them and, especially, I want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly.”
Fuller House actress Lori Loughlin, who also was indicted for her alleged involvement in the scheme, pleaded not guilty back in April. She and husband Mossimo Giannulli are currently facing charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Prosecutors want the mother of two to spend a month in jail and pay a $20,000 fine, while her attorneys are begging a judge to sentence her to probation, a $20,000 fine and 250 hours of community service.
She’ll be the first parent sentenced as part of what the feds have said is the largest admissions scam ever prosecuted — ensnaring some 50 parents, coaches and testing administrators across the nation.
Huffman admitted earlier this year to paying admissions fixer William “Rick” Singer $15,000 in order to inflate her elder daughter’s SAT scores. She pleaded guilty in May to charges of mail fraud and honest services fraud.
Her husband, actor William H. Macy, was not charged. He and former cast member Eva Longoria wrote letters in support of Huffman.
In a letter submitted to the judge last week, the 56-year-old actress herself said she found motherhood “bewildering,” and was “haunted” by her decision to enlist Singer.
“In my desperation to be a good mother I talked myself into believing that all I was doing was giving my daughter a fair shot,” she wrote.
Yet prosecutors want her to do at least some time, saying her conduct was “deliberate and manifestly criminal.”
Her sentencing is scheduled for 2:30 p.m.
This may be the most important sentence, especially for defendants like Lori Loughlin -- "There was no actual or intended loss." The word "intended" is significant, because presumably Felicity wanted to get her daughter into a university -- something that could displace another applicant -- yet the Probation Dept. didn't feel that was an INTENDED loss. This could help Lori argue there was no loss in her case as well.
Announced last December, Selena: The Series is dubbed as “the official story of Tejano music legend, Selena Quintanilla.” It is a coming-of-age story following Selena (Serratos) as her dreams come true and all the heart-wrenching and life-changing choices she and her family have to make as they navigate success, family, and music.
Chavira will play Abraham, Selena’s father, a savvy businessman determined to achieve the American dream. Chavarria will portray A.B. Quintanilla, Selena’s brother aka the mastermind behind the music; playing bass guitar, producing and writing songs for Selena, we hear.
Netflix would not comment on any Selena castings. Deadline had previously reported that The Walking Dead actress Serratos was in talks to play the title role.
Moisés Zamora is the writer/executive producer. Jaime Dávila, Rico Martinez, Suzette Quintanilla, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., and Simran A. Singh executive produce; Campanario Entertainment is the production company.
Selena Quintanilla was one of the biggest Latino crossover artists. The singer-songwriter, model, actress and fashion designer was tragically killed in 1995 at age 23 by her former fan club president. Her posthumous crossover album Dreaming of You debuted atop the Billboard 200 later that year, a first for a Latin artist.
Selena’s story was previously brought to the screen in the 1997 feature biopic starring Jennifer Lopez.
Chavira is best known for his role as Carlos Solis on all eight seasons of Desperate Housewives. His other recent credits include the role of Francisco Vargas on Scandal and guest/recurring roles on Rise, Kevin Can Wait and Jane the Virgin among others. He’s repped by Innovative Artists and Gilbertson Entertainment.
Chavarria was most recently seen as the lead in USA Network/SyFy’s The Purge based on the popular film franchise, and was the lead in the Emmy nominated Hulu series East Los High. He has also appeared in the feature films War For the Planet of the Apes, Lowriders, and Freedom Writers. Chavarria is repped by Paradigm and Momentum.
Cherry recently penned a letter of support for Housewives actress Felicity Huffman, who is currently awaiting sentencing for her role in the college admissions scandal. In his letter, which was obtained by Us Weekly, the EP recalled Huffman’s unfailingly polite interactions with a “big star” who displayed “big behavioral problems” on set.
“Everyone tried their darndest to get along with this woman over the course of the show. It was impossible,” he wrote without naming the actress in question. “And things went from bad to worse. Felicity still insisted on saying, ‘Good morning’ to this actress, even though she knew she wouldn’t get a response. I found out about this and asked Felicity about it. She smiled and said, ‘Just because that woman’s determined to be rude, doesn’t mean she can keep me from being polite.'”
Cherry also described Huffman’s patience with an older actress who appeared on Housewives in a guest role and repeatedly had trouble remembering her lines.
“It moved me to tears — this formerly great performer was struggling with practically every word,” he went on. “But Felicity Huffman was right next to her, treating her with so much kindness… Felicity remained patient, supportive and helped this old woman through the day, turning what could have been a very tense situation into a master class on human compassion.”
Cherry was one of 27 individuals who wrote a letter to the judge in Huffman’s case, as was Longoria, who recalled how Huffman put a stop to the bullying that Longoria was experiencing on set. Longoria wrote that she “dreaded” working with the unnamed colleague, “until one day, Felicity told the bully ‘enough’ and it all stopped. Felicity could feel that I was riddled with anxiety even though I never complained or mentioned the abuse to anyone.”
Huffman pleaded guilty earlier this year to committing mail fraud and honest services fraud in connection with paying $15,000 to have someone take the SAT in place of her and husband William H. Macy’s older daughter, which ultimately resulted in a 1420 score for her. Federal prosecutors have recommended the judge sentence Huffman to a month in jail and fine her for $20,000. Huffman’s attorneys are asking Huffman instead be sentenced to a year of community service.
Longoria was one of 27 individuals who penned a letter of support to a judge on behalf of Huffman as she awaits sentencing for her role in the college admissions scandal.
“There was a time I was being bullied at work by a co-worker,” Longoria wrote to the judge, without naming the alleged perpetrator. “I dreaded the days I had to work with that person because it was pure torture. Until one day, Felicity told the bully ‘enough’ and it all stopped. Felicity could feel that I was riddled with anxiety even though I never complained or mentioned the abuse to anyone.”
Longoria also recalled how Huffman consoled her after she was the only Housewives leading lady not nominated for a Golden Globe in Season 1. “I wasn’t devastated but the press made it a bigger deal than it was between the four of us actors and that did affect me a bit,” she wrote. “Felicity came to my trailer and said, ‘It’s just a piece of metal, that and $1.50 will get you a bus ticket.’ She then proceeded to tell me how talented I was and how I never needed an award to know that. I know I would not have survived those 10 years if it wasn’t for the friendship of Felicity.”
The actress’ full letter, obtained by NBC News, can be read here.
Huffman pleaded guilty earlier this year to committing mail fraud and honest services fraud in connection with paying $15,000 to have someone take the SAT in place of her and husband William H. Macy’s older daughter, which ultimately resulted in a 1420 score for her. Federal prosecutors have recommended the judge sentence Huffman to a month in jail and fine her for $20,000. Huffman’s attorneys are asking Huffman instead be sentenced to a year of community service.
Felicity Huffman had twenty-seven people writing letters to the judge as character witnesses as she faces prison time in her college admission cheating scandal, including her A-list Hollywood friend Eva Longoria and her husband William H. Macy.
In the letters obtained by RadarOnline.com, Huffman’s Desperate Housewives co-star and her husband shared personal anecdotes about her for the case.
Macy’s letter described what a wonderful mother Huffman was to their two daughters, Olivia and Sophia, and explained the traumatic affect her arrest has had on them.
“It’s been about six months since the FBI came in the early hours to arrest Felicity,” Macy wrote in the letter filed in the United States District Court of Massachusetts.
“Our oldest daughter Sophia has certainly paid the dearest price,” he said, detailing that her college interviews were cancelled as the story became public.
Macy wrote about Sophia, saying: “She still doesn’t like to sleep alone and has nightmares from the FBI agents waking her that morning with guns drawn.”
He wrote lovingly about Felicity rearing their daughters but said that the family has been in therapy and “some of the hurt and anger will take years to work through it but we are making progress.”
Longoria wrote glowingly of Huffman in her letter, detailing how the veteran actress welcomed her on Desperate Housewives.
“There was a time I was being bullied at work by a co-worker,” Longoria wrote.
“I dreaded the days I had to work with that person because it was pure torture. Until one day, Felicity told the bully ‘enough’ and it all stopped. Felicity could feel that I was riddled with anxiety even though I never complained or mentioned the abuse to anyone.”
Longoria also said Huffman was a key reason she was able to negotiate a higher salary as she was the lowest paid main actress on the show. Huffman wanted all of the main women to negotiate a raise together.
“Well needless to say, that did not go over too well with the others,” Longoria wrote.
“But Felicity stood up for me, saying it was fair because the success of the show depended on all of us, not one of us. This fight lasted weeks, but Felicity held strong and convinced everyone this was the right thing to do.”
Longoria gushed about Huffman, writing: “To a young, naive, Mexican girl who felt like I didn’t belong, those gestures meant the world to me.”
Huffman wrote her own letter to the judge, where she revealed her oldest daughter had a sensory issue that was determined at a young age.
She wrote that she was guilty of the crime she committed, and knew she could have said “no,” to the process but in her “desperation to be a good mother, I talked myself into believing that all I was doing was giving my daughter a fair shot.”
“I see the irony in that statement now because what I have done is the opposite of fair,” Huffman wrote to the judge. “I have a deep and abiding shame over what I have done.”
The government recommended that Huffman receive one month in prison, a $20,000 fine and 12-months probation in the case.
She will be sentenced on Friday, Sept. 13.
Huffman pleaded guilty in April to paying US$15,000 to consultant Rick Singer in order to boost her daughter’s SAT result, as part of a much broader federal probe into corruption in college admissions. She is due to be sentenced next Friday in Boston.
Federal prosecutors had initially sought a term of at least four months in prison. But in a submission to the court on Friday, they lowered that request to one month in custody. Huffman’s defense is asking that she be sentenced to probation and community service.
The prosecution argued in a sentencing memo that a one-month sentence is warranted because Huffman clearly knew she was committing a crime.
“Her efforts weren’t driven by need or desperation, but by a sense of entitlement, or at least moral cluelessness, facilitated by wealth and insularity,” the prosecution wrote. “Millions of parents send their kids to college every year. All of them care as much as she does about their children’s fortunes. But they don’t buy fake SAT scores and joke about it… along the way.”
In a letter to Judge Indira Talwani, Huffman explained the reasons for her actions, saying they were motivated by her insecurity as a mother and her concern that her daughter’s learning disabilities would prevent her from attending college to study acting.
“I honestly didn’t and don’t care about my daughter going to a prestigious college,” she wrote. “I just wanted to give her a shot at being considered for a program where her acting talent would be the deciding factor.”
Huffman said Singer told her that her daughter’s scores would be too low to get into college, and suggested that she allow him to have a proctor correct the girl’s answers. She said she was initially shocked that such an arrangement existed, and thought about it for six weeks.
“I felt an urgency which built to a sense of panic that there was this huge obstacle in the way that needed to be fixed for my daughter’s sake,” she wrote. “As warped as this sounds now, I honestly began to feel that maybe I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do what Mr. Singer was suggesting.”
Huffman also said she had always found motherhood “bewildering.”
“I so desperately wanted to do it right and was so deathly afraid of doing it wrong,” she said. “I was always searching for the right book or the right piece of advice that would help me help my daughters or keep me from making the mistakes that might damage their lives.”
She said she ultimately talked herself into the idea that all she was doing by cheating was giving her daughter a fair shot.
“I see the irony in that statement now because what I have done is the opposite of fair,” she wrote. “I have broken the law, deceived the educational community, betrayed my daughter, and failed my family.”
She said when her daughter found out about the cheating, she looked at Huffman with tears streaming down her face and asked, “Why didn’t you believe in me? Why didn’t you think I could do it on my own?”
“In my blind panic, I have done the exact thing that I was desperate to avoid,” she wrote. “I have compromised my daughter’s future, the wholeness of my family and my own integrity… I have deep and abiding shame over what I have done.”
The defence has asked that Huffman be allowed to serve her community service at the Teen Project and the Community Coalition, two Los Angeles non-profits that work with at-risk youth.
“If approved, Ms. Huffman would tutor young people, assist with financial aid applications, answer phone calls at the front desk, and help with the organization’s outreach efforts,” the defence wrote.
“The government recommends a sentence of one month of incarceration for Huffman, who agreed to pay $15,000 for the exam cheating scheme for her older daughter, and considered doing it again for her younger daughter, but ultimately chose not to do so,” reads a sentencing memorandum from U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Andrew Lelling ahead of the September 13 sentencing hearing in Boston.
In what is ultimately a great deal for Huffman if the judge agrees, the feds also want to see the actor’s “term of one month of incarceration” to be “followed by 12 months of supervised release and a fine of $20,000” for the now single count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud to which she pleaded guilty.
As the Lelling noted in a supplemental memo (read it here), “under the Sentencing Guidelines, Huffman’s advisory Guidelines range is zero to six months of incarceration, in addition to supervised release and a fine.” Under those terms, its means Huffman is getting the minimum in jail time the feds think they can achieve.
Huffman was arrested in Los Angeles on March 12 for dropping dough to ex-call center manager William Singer and his phony Key Worldwide Foundation to get her eldest daughter into a top college surreptitiously using faked test scores.
“Some period of incarceration is the only meaningful sanction for these crimes,” Lelling’s office said of the need for jail time, in a more persuasive mode than the usual stern recommendation. “Not because the defendants’ relative wealth has generated public resentment, but because jail is a particularly meaningful response to this kind of offense,” added the “Operation Varsity Blues” prosecutors about the widespread conspiracy that saw more than 30 parents indicted in March, including former Fuller House star Lori Loughlin and other Hollywood parents.
“For wrongdoing that is predicated on wealth and rationalized by a sense of privilege, incarceration is the only leveler: in prison everyone is treated the same, dressed the same, and intermingle regardless of affluence, position or fame,” the government asserted before adding the written equivalent of a jailhouse shiv. “Millions of parents send their kids to college every year. But they don’t buy fake SAT scores and joke about it (“Ruh Ro!”) along the way.”
Compared to a number of the indicted wealthy parents and the $500,000 that Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli paid out to get their two non-rowing daughters into USC as recruits to the university’s crew team, Huffman’s payout was on the low end of the spectrum – and hence the relatively easy recommendation by the feds today.
Also informing that relatively light punishment is the fact Huffman made a deal with the government back in April to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. Initially, the feds seemed to be pushing for something like a year of prison time.
Hoping for greater credit for their cooperation, Huffman and her legal team have been angling for a sentence of zero months plus that year of probation, 250 hours of community service and a $20,000 fine.
In their own filed paperwork, the defense say that the When They See Us actor has suffered enough as she now can’t get roles and her children are “deeply angry” at the underhanded tactics she used.
“I honestly didn’t and don’t care about my daughter going to a prestigious college,” Huffman wrote in a letter sent to the court Friday. “I just wanted to give her a shot at being considered for a program where her acting talent would be the deciding factor.”
According to the dense March 6 indictment that followed the nearly year-long investigation by the U.S. Attorney and the FBI, Huffman “made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000 to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter.”
The CAA-represented Huffman additionally paid an undisclosed sum to an individual who “controlled” a Los Angeles SAT testing center to fix her daughter’s incorrect exam answers. That effort led to what should have been a red-flag-waving 400-point increase in the daughter’s test score and consequently admission to a top college.
At the time of her arrest and before entering a plea, Huffman was looking at up to 20 years of possible jail time from the charges.
With un-indicted husband and Shameless star William H Macy sitting in a downtown L.A. courtroom on March 12, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alexander F. MacKinnon released Huffman on $250,000 bail bond and restricted her travel. As part of coming to those specifics, a detailed list of the couple’s personal financial information was openly discussed and revealed in the courtroom.
Unlike Huffman and clearly with bigger fish to fry, Loughlin and Giannulli rebuffed the government’s offer of a plea deal and pleaded not guilty on April 15 in court. Looking at as much as more than 40 years each in prison if found guilty on charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, honest services fraud and money laundering, the couple were in court in Boston last month in a successful bid to share lawyers in their defense.
Loughlin and Giannulli have an October 2 status conference in their case, which should find Huffman halfway through her incarceration if the actor heads off to jail directly after next week’s sentencing.
The CBS All Access drama, which marks the return to television of the Desperate Housewives creator and exec producer, will launch on French commercial broadcaster M6. The series, which stars Lucy Liu, Ginnifer Goodwin and Kirby Howell-Baptiste, tells three stories, across three different time periods, about married women who are driven to kill by the infidelity of their husbands.
Produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Television Studios, creator Marc Cherry serves as executive producer alongside Imagine’s Brian Grazer and Francie Calfo and Acme Productions’ Michael Hanel and Mindy Schultheis. Marc Webb also serves as executive producer and directed the series premiere as well as one additional episode.
As part of the deal, M6 will also license the second window rights for The Good Fight and Dynasty. This comes on top of deals for some of CBS’ biggest hits including NCIS, Bull and Hawaii Five-0.
It comes after the international sales division of the Hollywood studio closed a package deal with M6 rival TF1 last week that includes BH90210, the Beverly Hills 90210 reboot, FBI: Most Wanted and Evil.
“This agreement showcases the depth and versatility of CBS programming; Why Women Kill is a series produced for our own streaming platform and is equally at home on a traditional linear broadcast channel,” said Barry Chamberlain, President of Sales for CBS Studios International. “It also expands on our longstanding relationship with M6 as we work together to bring Marc Cherry’s razor sharp dialogue and captivating characters to audiences across France.”
Written by Mallory and Jones, Flipped centers around chronically underemployed couple Jann (Forte) and Cricket Melfi (Olson), self-proclaimed home renovation “experts” who are more than confident they are television’s next great home design celebrity duo. Flipped follows the clueless pair as their dreams of basic cable fame and glory are derailed when they get themselves kidnapped by members of a drug cartel, (Garcia, Longoria, and Castro) and are forced to renovate their sprawling homes.
Mallory and Jones executive produce with Ryan Case, who also directs, Joe Farrell and Jim Ziegler. Steve Burgess co-executive produce. Adrien Finkel and Whitney Hodack serve as producers. Funny or Die is the studio.
Forte created and starred in The Last Man On Earth, which ran for four seasons on Fox. He was most recently seen on the big screen in Booksmart and Extra Ordinary.
Olson can currently be seen as Dee Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. She previously starred and executive produced The Mick, which aired for two seasons on Fox.
Longoria co-stars in the live-action feature film Dora and the Lost City of Gold and will next be seen in the feature film Sylvie opposite Tessa Thompson. She is an executive producer on ABC’s summer drama Grand Hotel.
Castro is the creator, writer, executive producer, and star of Comedy Central’s Alternatino. He’s known for his breakout role as Jaimé on Broad City, which aired for five seasons on Comedy Central and will soon be seen in the live action version of Lady and the Tramp which will be released on Disney+.
Garcia recently filmed Brian Petsos’ upcoming feature Big Gold Brick, Words on Bathroom Walls, directed by Thor Freudenthal and Redemption Day, a feature film directed by Hicham Hajji. On the television side, Garcia will next be seen in Amazon’s Modern Love based off NPR’s popular podcast.
Case recently directed half of the last season of Divorce for HBO as well as the premiere of the upcoming season of Atypical for Netflix.
Mallory’s spec script Super Intelligence sold to New Line and is being released this December starring Melissa McCarthy and James Corden. He is currently writing a Lebron James-starring body swapping movie for Paramount Players.
Forte is repped by UTA and Rise Management. Olson is represented by UTA. Longoria and Garcia are repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Ryan is with CAA, Mosaic, and Ziffren Brittenham. Mallory is represented by MGMT Entertainment and Lichter Grossman.
Longoria reportedly beat out multiple directors for the job after impressing Franklin and Fox with her authentic approach to portraying Richard and Judy Montanez inspiring story. Richard rose from humble beginnings to achieve the American Dream. The son of a Mexican immigrant, Richard was a Janitor at Frito Lay when he came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. His creation, inspired by the flavors of his community, revitalized Frito-Lay and disrupted the food industry, creating a pop culture phenomenon that continues today.
Charlie St. Cloud and October Sky scribe Lewis Colick penned the script. Zahra Phillips is overseeing the project for Franklin Entertainment, while Taylor Friedman will represent the studio. Samuel Rodriguez is the executive producer.
Longoria is also attached to direct and produce Universal’s 24/7, which she stars in with Kerry Washington, and is producing My Daughter’s Quinceañera also at Universal. She has several projects in development under her production banner Unbelievable Entertainment, including A Class Apart at HBO and Lucky Boy, which has Nisha Ganatra attached to direct.
She can currently be seen on the big screen starring in Paramount’s live-action Dora the Explorer.
Franklin Entertainment’s forthcoming slate includes a Kirk Franklin biopic, which is set up at Sony, and a remake of the 1975 coming-of-age drama, Cooley High.
Longoria is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners; Franklin by WME and Hansen Jacobsen. Montanez by Paradigm; Colick by Paradigm and Industry Entertainment.
“Grand Hotel” stars Demián Bichir as Santiago Mendoza, Roselyn Sánchez as Gigi Mendoza, Denyse Tontz as Alicia Mendoza, Bryan Craig as Javi Mendoza, Wendy Raquel Robinson as Mrs. P, Lincoln Younes as Danny, Shalim Ortiz as Mateo, Anne Winters as Ingrid, Chris Warren as Jason, Feliz Ramirez as Carolina and Justina Adorno as Yoli.
Guest stars include Eva Longoria as Beatriz.
“Dear Santiago” was written by Curtis Kheel and directed by Barbara Brown.
The Superstore star and the Desperate Housewives star were among 200 actors, musicians, artists, activists, and labor and civil rights leaders that have signed the letter, which has been published in newspapers including The New York Times, El Nuevo Herald, La Opinión, and El Diario.
Other top names include Diane Guerrero, Alex Martinez Kondracke, Mónica Ramírez, and Olga Segura, along With Jennifer Lopez, Gina Rodriguez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Carmen Perez, Anthony D. Romero, Wilmer Valderrama, Zoe Saldana, Salma Hayek Pinault, Ricky Martin, Rosario Dawson, Diego Luna, Dolores Huerta and Sandra Cisneros.
This comes amid a raft of incidents including the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas that killed 22 individuals and injured 24 others, the sweeping ICE raids that took 680 individuals into custody in Mississippi, the continued separation of families, and the inhumane living conditions of those detained.
“As a Latina, my heart breaks with every attack on our dignity, humanity and lives. And as an American, I fear for the future of my country when our culture and policies lack a basic decency and respect for human life,” said Ferrera. “We all have a responsibility to show up in this moment and demand decency for one another and for our country.”
“We’re facing a moral crisis in our country, and we chose to use this moment to raise our voices, and speak up,” said Longoria. “Integrity starts with looking in the mirror and this letter calls on everyone, not just our community, to choose humanity and decency over hate and violence.”
“This piece is to remind us of our shared humanity,” added Orange Is The New Black star Diane Guerrero. “We don’t have to look far to see what family separation and hateful rhetoric is doing to the people in our country. If we do not act, we will be complicit in one of history’s greatest tragedies.”
The new mother spoke with Fox News about the possibility of fronting a reboot of the hit comedy-drama, which ran from 2004-2012. And when asked what it would take for her to reprise her famous role, Longoria claimed she’d return in a heartbeat.
“It would take nothing,” she shared. “I love Gabby Solis, I miss Gabby Solis. I miss Wisteria Lane. … I always said I’d be the first to sign onto a reboot.”
The 44-year-old actress welcomed her son Santiago with husband Jose Baston last June, and while she admitted she’s loving the experience, the star insisted she’s doing it on her terms.
“I don’t read comments, so I usually avoid all that negativity and mom-shaming if there has been any,” she confessed. “That’s probably my biggest pet peeve about motherhood, is other mothers who judge other mothers.”
Despite having her hands full, the star swiftly returned to work after giving birth and is currently starring in the live-action Dora the Explorer movie, Dora and the Lost City of Gold.
“I didn’t realize she was globally famous until it was announced I was doing this movie, and my friends from all over the world were calling,” she admitted. “(Then) I realized how important she was in so many people’s childhoods!”
Dora and the Lost City of Gold is in cinemas now.
“Grand Hotel” stars Demián Bichir as Santiago Mendoza, Roselyn Sánchez as Gigi Mendoza, Denyse Tontz as Alicia Mendoza, Bryan Craig as Javi Mendoza, Wendy Raquel Robinson as Mrs. P, Lincoln Younes as Danny, Shalim Ortiz as Mateo, Anne Winters as Ingrid, Chris Warren as Jason, Feliz Ramirez as Carolina and Justina Adorno as Yoli.
Guest stars include Eva Longoria as Beatriz, Adrian Pasdar as Felix and Katey Sagal as Teresa.
“Art of Darkness” was written by Bob Daily and directed by Nicole Rubio.
ABC’s President of Entertainment Karey Burke revealed that the network hadn’t made a renewal decision on the Eva Longoria-exec produced show.
Burke did, however, point to the show’s soft ratings, which may not be a great sign for its future.
“We’re going to wait until the end of its run. It’s a show we like a lot. It’s a show that I wish the ratings were a bit stronger but we’ll make that decision after its run,” she said.
Written by Brian Tanen based on a Spanish format, Grand Hotel is a soapy drama set against the backdrop of a Miami Beach hotel, centering on the family who owns the business, the staff who run it and the explosive secrets they hide under the perfect exterior.
The Demian Bichir and Roselyn Sanchez-fronted series is a contemporary adaptation of a “period piece” format from Spain with an Upstairs/Downstairs tone. Katey Sagal is among the celebrity guests who show up to visit the family-owned hotel.
We asked series creator Marc Cherry today at TCA whether he’d even consider one, and he said: “I did 180 episodes of Desperate Housewives, unlike a Sex and the City, which was on cable and didn’t do as many. I feel like I’ve done that, and in a weird way, I found a new way to do it because so many of themes that I get to deal with are on this show.” And by show, we mean Cherry’s new 10-episode CBS All Access series Why Women Kill. It’s about three different women in three different decades — a housewife in the ’60s (Ginnifer Goodwin), a socialite in the ’80s (Lucy Liu) and a lawyer in 2018 (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) — who deal with infidelity in their marriages. And, of course, this being Cherry’s world, there’s murder involved.
Also, if he were to revive Desperate Housewives, he’d have to contend with another challenge.
“[With Why Women Kill] it’s streaming and I do 10 episodes and it’s over,” he said. “The thing I went through [with Desperate Housewives] that was so difficult was cliffhangers. ‘OK, I got to do a cliffhanger every year and their lives have to change completely’ — and, oh, God, that’s so hard.”
Creating a streaming series also gives Cherry independence — not just with foul language (“I have so much fun using the word F*ck!”) but also not to be shackled from executing certain storylines. During his days on Desperate Housewives, Cherry was forbidden from writing certain dicey plots and themes, ones that are OK in the current network-verse.
Specifying one of the Desperate Housewives plots that ABC killed, Cherry says, “I was not allowed to do an abortion storyline, and I’ve seen many people do it — and on ABC, interestingly enough.”
Cherry added more detail on which character it would have impacted. “It was going to be a new character, and it was going to be a new thing,” he said,. “That was swatted away so quickly.”
“We are proud to have offered fans a third season of Designated Survivor, and will continue to carry all three seasons for years to come,” reads a statement from Netflix. “We’re especially thankful to star and executive producer Kiefer Sutherland, who brought passion, dedication and an unforgettable performance as President Kirkman. We’re also grateful to showrunner/executive producer Neal Bear for his guiding vision and steady hand, creator/executive producer David Guggenheim and EPs Mark Gordon, Suzan Bymel, Simon Kinberg, Aditya Sood and Peter Noah along with the cast and crew who crafted a compelling and satisfying final season.”
The Sutherland-led political drama was cancelled by ABC in May 2018, after its sophomore run (averaging 3.9 million total viewers and a 0.7 demo rating) dropped 30 and 40 percent from its freshman season. Then-ABC chief Channing Dungey explained at the time, “We were less confident with the creative path forward than the other shows we brought back.”
Designated Survivor underwent three backstage shake-ups during its first two seasons. Amy B. Harris (Wicked City) originally served as showrunner on the series (which was created by David Guggenheim), only to be replaced in May 2016 upon its official pickup, with Jon Harmon Feldman (Blood & Oil). Feldman left in December 2016, and was succeeded by Jeff Melvoin (Army Wives). And then The Good Wife grad Keith Eisner stepped in to run Season 2.
Four months after ABC gave the series the hook, Netflix stepped in to “save” Season 3, with ER vet Neal Baer at the helm.
Star Dana Delany shared the news via Twitter on Tuesday, writing, “Thank you to all you wonderful people who watched @TheCodeCBS. Last night was our finale and sadly, no more. I’ll never make General. But I loved this cast of stellar actors & know we’ll meet again. Semper Fidelis.”
“While I’m disappointed that I don’t get to continue this particular adventure with these stellar humans, I feel very grateful for, and proud of, the show we made,” co-star Luke Mitchell added. “Thank you so much to everyone who watched!!”
The Code explored the toughest legal challenges facing the U.S. Marine Corps. At the center of the show were Marines who work together as prosecutors, defense lawyers and investigators to serve their country with integrity while often putting aside their personal ideals for the sake of justice.
In addition to Delany and Mitchell, the stacked ensemble included Anna Wood (Falling Water), Phillipa Soo (Broadway’s Hamilton), Raffi Barsoumian (The Vampire Diaries) and Ato Essandoh (Chicago Med).
The Code premiered in April to 8.1 million total viewers and a 0.7 demo rating, in a special post-NCIS outing, but its ratings declined in its regular Monday time slot. Last night’s series finale hit and held onto series lows with 2.9 million total viewers and a 0.3 demo rating.
“Grand Hotel” stars Demián Bichir as Santiago Mendoza, Roselyn Sánchez as Gigi Mendoza, Denyse Tontz as Alicia Mendoza, Bryan Craig as Javi Mendoza, Wendy Raquel Robinson as Mrs. P, Lincoln Younes as Danny, Shalim Ortiz as Mateo, Anne Winters as Ingrid, Chris Warren as Jason, Feliz Ramirez as Carolina and Justina Adorno as Yoli.
Guest stars include Eva Longoria Baston as Beatriz.
Brian Tanen is the writer and executive producer. Eva Longoria and Ben Spector (UnbeliEVAble) are executive producers, in addition to Bob Daily. Bill D’Elia is a director and an executive producer. Ramón Campos and Teresa Fernández-Valdés are executive producers of the series, as well as executive producers of the original Spanish version. The series is produced by ABC Studios.
“Curveball” was written by Bob Daily and directed by Eva Longoria Baston.
Celebrity panelists for June 26 include the following:
Joel McHale (“Card Sharks”)
Rachael Ray (Cooking and television personality, and best-selling author)
Jason Biggs (“Outmatched,” “American Pie” films; “Orange Is the New Black”)
Caroline Rhea (“Caroline & Friends,” “Sydney to the Max”)
Donald Faison (“Emergence,” “Ray Donovan,” “Scrubs”)
Vanessa Williams (“T.O.T.S.”)
Joining the celebrity panelists are contestants Rutger McKenna (hometown: Brooklyn, New York), Alex Shumway (hometown: Dedham, Massachusetts), Khary Hobbs (hometown: Harper Woods, Michigan) and Rochelle Hall (hometown: Carson, California).
Cross, 57, is now in remission, and speaking out about the dangers of the STD. The former Desperate Housewives star appeared on CBS This Morning to promote early prevention against HPV and encourage people to get the HPV vaccine.
“I know there are people who are ashamed. You have cancer! You have to then also feel ashamed? Like you did something bad, you know, because it took up residence in your anus? I mean, come on, really. There’s enough on your plate.” Cross said.
“Even for me, it took a while. Anus, anus, anus. Ha. You just have to get used to it.”
According to the CDC, HPV causes more than 90% of anal cancers, and can spread from one person to another through sex or just by skin-to-skin contact. Back in 2009 her husband, Tom Mahoney, was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent treatment. Little did the couple know the cancers would end up being related.
In September 2018, after a grueling battle of her own, including six weeks of radiation then two weeks of chemo, Cross finally revealed she was cancer-free.
“I am POST cancer. All good now. Hard journey, but I am HEALTHY, happy, and more present and grateful than ever,” she shared on Instagram. Thank you from the bottom of my ever expanding heart for all of your LOVE.”
Now well-educated on the disease and its dangers, Cross highly recommends early immunization. She said her daughters are up for their first shot at the end of the school year.
As for her own recovery, Cross told CBS she’s doing great.
“I’m feeling back to normal though it’s a new normal,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever take it for granted. I’m the girl who goes to the bathroom now and I go ‘Yes! It’s great what my body can do! I’m so grateful.’”
“Grand Hotel” stars Demián Bichir as Santiago Mendoza, Roselyn Sánchez as Gigi Mendoza, Denyse Tontz as Alicia Mendoza, Bryan Craig as Javi Mendoza, Wendy Raquel Robinson as Mrs. P, Lincoln Younes as Danny, Shalim Ortiz as Mateo, Anne Winters as Ingrid, Chris Warren as Jason, Feliz Ramirez as Carolina and Justina Adorno as Yoli.
Brian Tanen is the writer and executive producer. Eva Longoria and Ben Spector (UnbeliEVAble) are executive producers, in addition to Bob Daily. Bill D’Elia is a director and an executive producer. Ramón Campos and Teresa Fernández-Valdés are executive producers of the series, as well as executive producers of the original Spanish version. The series is produced by ABC Studios. ABC Studios is a part of Disney Television Studios, a collection of studios comprised of 20th Century Fox Television, ABC Studios and Fox 21 Television Studios.
“Pilot” was written by Brian Tanen and directed by Ken Olin.
New episodes will drop on a weekly basis, with installments getting released every Thursday. The show’s first season spans 10 episodes.
Created by Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives, Devious Maids), Why Women Kill follows the lives of three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the ’60s, a socialite in the ’80s and a lawyer in 2019, each dealing with infidelity in their marriages. Per the project’s logline, the show “will examine how the roles of women have changed, but how their reaction to betrayal… has not.”
Once Upon a Time‘s Ginnifer Goodwin, Elementary‘s Lucy Liu and The Good Place‘s Kirby Howell-Baptiste will star as the central trio. Goodwin plays Beth Ann, a seemingly cheerful housewife in 1963; Liu plays elegant socialite Simone; and Howell-Baptiste plays the fiercely intelligent attorney Taylor.
“Oh my gosh, I’m doing [Why Women Kill] now and it is kicking my ass in the best way,” Goodwin recently teased to TVLine. “It’s brain-hurting fun. A creative playground, for sure… [Cherry] is a master of words. Everything is a bit more theatrical and heightened and stylized and poetic and juicy.”
The cast also includes Jack Davenport (Smash), Sam Jaeger (Parenthood), Reid Scott (Veep), Alexandra Daddario (True Detective), Sadie Calvano (Mom), Leo Howard (Kickin’ It), Alicia Coppola (The Young and the Restless) and Katie Finneran (Bloodline).
Logelin’s novel details his life after his high school sweetheart, Liz, passed away after giving birth to their daughter Madeline. There was little time to grieve a life-shattering loss for Logelin: his wife bore the brunt of their impending jump into parenting and suddenly he was the sole caretaker for a newborn daughter, his link to his beloved wife.
Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen, David Beaubaire, Free Association’s Peter Kiernan and HartBeat’s Hart are producing the project
Woodard, an Oscar nominee and four-time Emmy winner, was last seen in Clemency, the Sundance film that picked up the Grand Jury Prize, making director Chinonye Chukwu the first black woman to win the award. Neon picked up the film and will release it in December. Furthermore, she stars opposite Jason Momoa in Apple’s original drama series See, and lends her voice to Jon Favreau’s highly anticipated The Lion King revamp, which Disney will release in July.
Woodard is repped by ICM, Circle of Confusion, and Gochman Law Group.
The Emmy-winning actress, 56, could face prison time after she admitted to participating in the nationwide scam, in which authorities say parents bribed coaches, rigged entrance exams or both to game the admissions system.
Huffman pleaded guilty in federal court to paying an admissions consultant $15,000 to have a proctor correct her older daughter’s answers on the SAT. She also considered going through with the plan for her younger daughter before ultimately deciding not to, authorities say.
The consultant, Rick Singer, arranged for the cheating by having students obtain permission for extra time on the exams through diagnoses for things like learning disabilities, and then taking the exams at his testing centre, prosecutors say.
In court, Huffman explained her daughter had been seeing a neuropsychologist for years and getting extra time on tests since she was 11 — an apparent attempt to explain that her daughter’s doctor had no part in the scheme.
“I just didn’t want to create the impression that neuropsychologists have any part in this,” a tearful Huffman said before stopping to collect herself.
Sentencing was set for Sept. 13. Because she agreed to plead guilty, prosecutors said they would recommend four months in prison, but the judge could also choose not to put her behind bars at all.
She arrived at court holding the hand of her brother Moore Huffman Jr. and did not say anything to journalists. In court, she wore a grey dress and a sweater and sat flanked by her attorneys while her brother watched from the front row. Her husband, actor William H. Macy, didn’t attend.
Huffman had apologized in a statement last month and said she will accept the consequences. She said she “betrayed” her 18-year-old daughter, who was not aware of her plan.
“This transgression toward her and the public I will carry for the rest of my life. My desire to help my daughter is no excuse to break the law or engage in dishonesty,” Huffman said.
Investigators have said Macy, 69, was with her when admissions consultant Rick Singer explained how he could arrange for the cheating because he “controlled” a test centre. Both Huffman and Macy agreed to the plan, authorities say, but Macy has not been charged. Prosecutors have not explained why.
California businessman Devin Sloane also pleaded guilty Monday to paying $250,000 in bribes to get his son into the University of Southern California as a fake water polo recruit. Officials say he bought athletic gear online and worked with a designer to create a bogus photo of his son playing the sport for the application.
Huffman and Sloane are among 14 parents who agreed to plead guilty in the biggest admissions scandal ever prosecuted in the U.S., known as “Operation Varsity Blues.” The scandal involving prestigious schools across the country has also embroiled prominent college coaches.
The parents are accused of paying Singer to bribe coaches in exchange for helping their children get into schools as fake athletic recruits. Singer also paid off entrance exam administrators to allow someone else to take tests for students or fix their answers, authorities say.
Some parents and coaches who have agreed to plead guilty are co-operating with prosecutors against current or future co-defendants, but Huffman is not known to be among them.
Singer has pleaded guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy. He began working with authorities last year and secretly recorded his conversations with actress Lori Loughlin, Huffman and other parents in the hopes of getting a lenient sentence.
Some parents have decided to fight the charges, including Loughlin and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, who have pleaded not guilty to paying $500,000 in bribes to get their daughters into the University of Southern California as crew recruits even though neither of them is a rower.
Loughlin and Giannulli, who are also charged with money laundering conspiracy, have not publicly commented on the allegations.
Huffman was a star of the popular ABC series “Desperate Housewives,” which won her an Emmy Award in 2005. She was nominated for an Oscar for playing a transgender woman in the movie “Transamerica.”
Experts differ on whether Huffman’s swift acceptance of responsibility will leave her with an acting career.
After she agreed to plead guilty, Netflix officials said a film starring her, “Otherhood,” would not be released as planned in April and a new date would be determined. A limited series featuring Huffman on the Central Park Five case is expected to debut this month.
ABC announced on Friday that the Nathan Fillion-led series has been renewed for Season 2, following a run of steady ratings in the network’s infamously vexing Tuesday “death slot.”
Across its 20-episode freshman run, the “light procedural” (tell that to Zoe!) averaged a 0.73 demo rating and about 4.2 million total weekly viewers, ranking fifth out of ABC’s nine dramas in both measures. When DVR playback is factored in, it has been one of ABC’s strongest gainers, trailing only The Good Doctor and A Million Little Things.
The Rookie‘s Season 1 finale saw the rookie exam interrupted by a bio-terrorism threat. Along the way, Nolan witnessed Russo engage in a bad shooting, while Bradford collapsed after being cooped up with a man who had been exposed to and died brutally from the weaponized virus.
Here’s the breakdown of each new project:
Hailing from EP Chuck Lorre, Bob ?? Abishola (or Bob Hearts Abishola, for the emoji-averse) stars Mike & Molly‘s Billy Gardell as a middle-aged sock businessman from Detroit who suffers a heart attack. When he unexpectedly falls for his cardiac nurse, a Nigerian immigrant (played by Folake Olowofoyeku), he sets his sights on getting her to give him a chance. Lorre also penned the pilot, along with EPs Eddie Gorodetsky and Al Higgins.
Broke centers on an outrageously wealthy trust fund baby who is cut off by his father, prompting him and his wife to move into her estranged sister’s Reseda home — and the two siblings are forced to reconnect. Jane the Virgin‘s Jaime Camil and NCIS vet Pauley Perrette lead the cast, while Jane showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman serves as an executive producer.
Sitcom veteran Patricia Heaton stars in Carol’s Second Act, which follows Carol Chambers as she embarks on a unique path after raising two children and retiring from teaching: pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor. Kyle MacLachlan, Ito Aghayere, Jean-Luc Bilodeau and Sabrina Jalees round out the cast. Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins (Good Girls, black-ish) wrote the pilot script, and Pamela Fryman (How I Met Your Mother) directed the episode.
Last but not least, The Unicorn — the lone single-cam project in this batch of comedies — follows a recent widower (played by Walton Goggins) as he navigates the most difficult year of his life. A tight-knit group of friends and family helps him move on as he raises two daughters and takes the major step of dating — only to find, to his shock, that he’s a hot commodity. The cast also includes Rob Corddry and Michaela Watkins.
Aimed at ages 2-7, the comedy follows the adventures of best friends Pip and Freddy, a tenacious penguin and a kind-hearted flamingo who are the only non-stork delivery birds in-training at Tiny Ones Transport Service, or T.O.T.S. Produced by Titmouse in association with Disney Junior, its stories suggest themes of positively interacting with and nurturing others while celebrating one another’s differences. Every half-hour episode has an original song and the recurring delivery anthem “Bringing This Baby Home.” Watch a video of the song below.
Premiering on June 14, T.O.T.S. features two 11-minute stories that highlight the use of creative thinking, teamwork and problem solving to model for young viewers that there is more than one way to achieve a goal.
Jet Jurgensmeyer (Last Man Standing) voices Pip the Penguin, and Christian Simon (Sydney to the Max) as Freddy the Flamingo. Williams will play Captain Beakman, and Hilty voices K.C. the Koala.
Travis Braun (Vampirina) created T.O.T.S. and serves as co-executive producer along with Chris Gilligan, who also is supervising director. Vic Cook executive produces.
A May 21 plea hearing has been set for the Desperate Housewives actor in the wide spread and ongoing probe into wealthy parents paying to get their kids into top colleges under false athletic pretense or false exam scores.
Having declared that she is guilty of the conspiracy charge that federal prosecutors hit the Emmy winner with last month, Huffman expressed “shame” and “deep regret” earlier this week. Now, the actor will stand in front of U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani next month in Boston in clear hopes of avoiding the maximum sentence of 20 years she’s facing.
As Deadline reported last week, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts are pretty stuck on seeing Huffman and other parents snared in the Operation Varsity Blues investigation serve some time behind bars.
The timing of Huffman’s upcoming hearing has been set in part because the actor’s top lawyer Martin Murphy couldn’t make it on the originally considered date of May 24.
When we reached for comment, Netflix did not provide any, with no specific future streaming date mentioned for Otherhood. Otherhood which also stars Angela Bassett and Patricia Arquette, will stream in August Deadline hears. The pic follows three mothers (Huffman, Bassett, Arquette) who are empty nesters and decide to drive to New York City to reconnect with their adult sons. In the process, they realize their sons are not the only ones whose lives need to change.
That said, Ava DuVernay’s Central Park Five Netflix miniseries When They See Us which stars Huffman as Linda Fairstein, the former sex crimes chief in the Manhattan D.A.’s office, will still stream on May 31. Fairstein prosecuted five teenagers who were wrongfully convicted in the rape of a young woman who was jogging through Central Park when she was attacked on April 19, 1989.
It is also reported that Lori Loughlin, who was also charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud, won’t be returning to her guest-starring role on Netflix’s Fuller House. Loughlin is out on $1 million bail and has surrendered her passport. She has not entered a plea, yet.
During the fall of 2017, Netflix had to contend with the fallout from the multiple sexual assault allegations made against House of Cards star Kevin Spacey. He was fired from the streaming giant’s flagship series and the studio shelved the Gore Vidal biopic he had finished at the time.
After pleading guilty yesterday, Huffman apologized saying “I am in full acceptance of my guilt, and with deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions.”
Law enforcement plans to push for some prison time for the American Crime actor, sources tell Deadline, as we exclusively reported last week.
While Full House star Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband have not yet entered at plea, the the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts also unveiled on Monday that Beverly Hill-based marketing boss Jane Buckingham put a guilty plea in the federal docket too.
In total, 14 of the 33 parents indicted in the nationwide conspiracy on March 12 entered pleas today, say the feds. Like Loughlin and spouse Mossimo Giannulli, Huffman was last in court on April 4 in Boston for a preliminary hearing. Neither entered a plea then nor were expected too. Unlike the initial arraignment in L.A. on March 12, which saw the arrested Desperate Housewives star released on bail of $250,000 and stringent travel restrictions, Huffman’s husband William H. Macy did not attend the Beantown hearing.
The indictments, made public on March 12, saw 50 people charged in the nationwide $25 million scam by William Singer and his phony Key Worldwide Foundation. They promised to fast-track the kids of the wealthy like Huffman and Loughlin to top schools with fake athletic credentials or phony SAT scores.
Among the well-heeled parents arrested, Huffman and Loughlin are being charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud, according to the unsealed indictment.
Huffman “made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000 to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter,” according to the lengthy March 6 indictment. The CAA-repped Huffman also paid an undisclosed sum to an individual who “controlled” a Los Angeles SAT testing center to fix her daughter’s incorrect exam answers. That effort led to a massive increase in the daughter’s test score and consequently admission to a top college.
Singer and several coaches from top schools entered guilty pleas last. The former call center manager is said to be cooperating fully with authorities in a on-going probe that is expected to see more high-profile indictments and perhaps even charges from the IRS.
GUEST CAST inlcudes: Aaron Tveit (Matt Dobbins), Mark Moses (Col. Wesley Riggle)
“Each cast member earns a fat royalty every time ‘Housewives’ airs anywhere around the world. Eva and Marcia planned on cashing those checks for years, and now Felicity has messed that up,” a spy dished to Straight Shuter.
“We’re talking millions of dollars lost. They’re steaming mad and nothing Felicity can say or do will help.”
As RadarOnline.com readers know, Huffman and Fuller House star Lori Loughlin were the most famous names in the landmark college admissions scam case that led to 50 people being charged in the criminal investigation involving wealthy parents, coaches and college prep executives who have been accused of carrying out a nationwide fraud to get students into prestigious universities, according to a federal indictment.
Huffman, 56, who’s an Academy Award nominee, has been charged with felony conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, according to court paperwork filed Monday, March 11 in federal court in Massachusetts. The star allegedly paid a proctor $15,000 to take the SAT for her older daughter, Sofia.
Loughlin, 54, and her husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli, were also charged after allegedly agreeing to pay $500,000 in bribes to have their two daughters accepted to the University of Southern California as a recruited crew athletes, even though they didn’t row competitively.
She was arrested and released from jail on $1 million bond.
Since appearing in a federal court in Los Angeles March 12 and released on $250,000 bond, Huffman has been “inconsolable” and “distraught,” the source said.
The "Desperate Housewives" actress appeared in a federal courthouse in Boston Wednesday where she -- along with other parents including Lori Loughlin -- will reportedly know more about the conditions of their release.
11:03 AM PT -- Lori Loughlin just showed up to the Boston courthouse, and was quick to get inside. She avoided answering any questions from reporters, but was also met by some fans cheering, waving, and carrying Lori cutouts with them.
Lori gave a quick wave before marching into court.
12:01 PM -- Lori and Mossimo have just appeared before a judge and both have surrendered their passports. The actress reportedly said hi to the prosecuting team, smiled and shook their hands. Lori and Mossimo are now done with their part of Wednesday's hearing.
12:11 PM -- Felicity's also gone up before a judge and said she understood the seriousness of the charges. She had already surrendered her passport. So with that, she's also done. That was fast.
Federal law enforcement sources tell TMZ, any plea would come with a recommendation by prosecutors that the actresses serve some time behind bars. The official told us, "You can't have people being treated differently because they have money. That's how we got to this place. Every defendant will be treated the same."
Prosecutors will not have the final word if the cases are plea bargained. The U.S. Attorney would make a recommendation to the judge, but the judge has the final word.
Lori and Felicity each face a maximum of 5 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.
Our sources say it is "likely" plea bargain discussions will begin, but we're told no plea deal has been made.
Lori and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, have been accused of paying ringleader Rick Singer $500,000 to get their daughters into USC by falsely claiming they would participate in the crew team.
Felicity is accused of paying Singer $15,000 to rig her daughter's SAT test.
50 people have been charged in the alleged scams, and we're told more indictments are expected.
When doctors told the Desperate Housewives alum, 57, that she had anal cancer in November 2017, the actress prepared for the fight of her life. “You have moments of terror but it’s beyond tears,” the actress tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s issue. “You’re in fight mode.”
Knowing her six-week treatment would be “gnarly,” Cross was comforted when she was told the type of chemotherapy she was given did not usually result in hair loss. She also relied on humor to help her through the process. “In the beginning, I just sort of lay down for the parting of the cheeks and I would float away,” she says, laughing. “Because what are you going to do?”
Several months after completing treatment, Cross noticed her hair starting to fall out. “It was disconcerting,” says the actress, whose doctor suspected the loss was a result of a condition called telogen effluvium brought on by stress rather than her chemo. “I was really trying to be okay about it shedding, but it didn’t stop.”
Truthfully, “I’m really glad it fell out,” she insists. “It was totally humbling and heart-opening. I am shocked at how many people struggle with hair issues. It widened and opened my compassion for the whole ride.”
The actress first revealed her diagnosis last September when she posted a photo on Instagram bemoaning her hair loss and asking her followers if they could relate. The deluge of support she received prompted her to share her story to help others who are dealing with the disease.
“I want to help put a dent in the stigma around anal cancer,” Cross says. “I’ve read a lot of cancer-survivor stories, and many people, women especially, were too embarrassed to say what kind of cancer they had. There is a lot of shame about it. I want that to stop.”
Now cancer-free for almost a year (her doctor says the probability of recurrence is very low), Cross — who has been busy shooting the pilot for a spin-off of Jane the Virgin for the CW — is also “much kinder and a million times more loving to herself” after her diagnosis.
“I got a clear scan, and then I heard my critical voice start to attack myself, which it has done my whole life,” she adds. “I thought, ‘So you’re going to get to live and then you’re going to do that?’ And for the first time I thought, ‘No. That critical voice is no longer acceptable. It is no longer allowed. That is the real cancer.’ “
GUEST CAST includes: Garrett M. Brown (Retired Marine General James Wallace), Doug Savant (Marine Brigadier General Daniel Kent), Erin Cummings (Marine Major Ellen Wallace)
The former Desperate Housewives star is out on $250,000 bail for her alleged involvement in a college admissions cheating scandal. Huffman used the social media accounts mostly for inspirational posts, and had almost 600,000 Instagram followers; her Twitter count isn’t known.
Professional comedians had a field day with Huffman’s dilemma, and regular posters were just as vicious toward her.
Huffman is one of 50 people, including actress Lori Loughlin, accused of bribes to various officials to get their children into select colleges. Huffman has been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud.
That’s “no less than $500,000,000.00” angry to be specific
“Joshua applied to some of the colleges where the cheating took place and did not get in,” says award winning former Oakland school teacher Jennifer Kay Toy of her 4.2 graduating son. “Joshua and I beleived that he’d had a fair chance just like all other applicants but did not make the cut for some undisclosed reason,” Toy adds in the multi-claim fraud class action filed in a San Francisco court (read it here), with a hard tone that not even the filing can hide.
Filed yesterday, the class action doesn’t just go after the American Crime star, the Fuller House actor and the managing partner of TPG Growth but all the 30 other parents and more indicted and arrested this week in the “Operation Varsity Blues” bust. Like the other parents, Huffman, Loughlin, the Garage Sale Mysteries actor’s fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli and now ex-STX board member McGlashan are being charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud, according to the unsealed indictment.
The Desperate Housewives and Fuller House actors were named among a well-heeled group who paid millions in bribes to to a William Singer-topped Key Worldwide Foundation fake non-profit and coaches at top schools like UCLA, USC, Yale Georgetown and Stanford, so their children could gain admission as recruited athletes – even if they weren’t actually athletes.
Posing as “donations” from the parents, the money allegedly funded illegal activity at the nonprofit included hiring other individuals to write admission exams for the potential students and bribing officials to alter SAT and ACT test scores. Revealing everything to prosecutors, Singer pleaded guilty on March 12 to racketeering and other charges in the RICO Act fueled investigation. A number of top college coaches also entered guilty pleas.
Huffman, Giannulli and McGlashan were among the LA-locals arrested and arraigned on March 12 too. Though he appears in the indictment, Huffman’s Shameless star husband William H. Macy was not named as a defendant in the matter.
Out of town filming a now-defunct Hallmark Channel project on the day of the initial arrests and court appearances, Loughlin was before a federal judge yesterday. Like her husband, the actor was granted $1 million bail bond and set to appear in a Boston federal court on March 29. As Macy looked on from the public gallery, Huffman was released on a $250,000 bail on March 12.
The other schools mentioned in the fed’s March 6 indictment are the University of San Diego, the University of Texas at Austin and Wake Forest University. In announcing the indictments, Andrew Lelling, U.S. District Attorney of Massachusetts, noted that, “The schools are not considered co-conspirators.” But some college coaches and one administrator — USC senior associate athletic director Dr. Donna Heinel — have been indicted.
“I’m now aware of the massive cheating scandal wherein wealthy people conspired with people in positions of power and authority at colleges in order to allow their children to gain access to the very colleges that Joshua was rejected from,” Toy says in language that is much kinder than many parents have been using since the the FBI and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts made the indictments of 33 parents, college coaches and administrators public on March 12.
“I’m not a wealthy person, but even if l were wealthy l would not have engaged in the heainous and dispicable actions of defendants, the ex-public school teacher declares in the paperwork placed in the court docket by LA lawyer Daniel King. “I’m outraged and hurt because I feel that my son, my only child, was denied access to a college not because he failed to work and study hard enough but because wealthy individuals felt that it was ok to lie, cheat, steal and bribe their children’s way into a good college.”
Unlikely to be the last such lawsuit to be filed in the coming week and months out of this sprawling conspiracy, Jennifer Kay Toy’s action is in parallel with one kicked off by others too.
Claiming the top college admission’s system is”warped and rigged by fraud,” a group of parents and students have launched a class action suit (read it here) against Singer himself, USC, UCLA and other schools named in “Operation Varsity Blues.” Stanford student Kalea Woods, community college student Tyler Bendis and his mother, Julia, Erica Olsen, Rutgers student Nicholas James Johnson and his father, James, Lauren Fidelak and her mother Keri want “compensatory damages in an amount which is fair and reasonable to compensate the Plaintiffs and the Class Members.”
Get ready for more.
“He knew she was up to something, but he disagreed with it from day one,” said a source of the Shameless star, who has not been charged with a crime.
Huffman and Fuller House star Lori Loughlin are the most famous names in the landmark case that led to 50 people being charged in the criminal investigation involving wealthy parents, coaches and college prep executives who have been accused of carrying out a nationwide fraud to get students into prestigious universities, according to a federal indictment.
Huffman, 56, who’s an Academy Award nominee, has been charged with felony conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, according to court paperwork filed Monday in federal court in Massachusetts. The star allegedly paid a proctor $15,000 to take the SAT for her older daughter, Sofia.
Prior to the December 2017 SAT, a cooperative witness allegedly met with the American Crime actress and William in their home and explained how the scheme works. Macy was not named in the complaint, but referred to as a “spouse.”
“He advised Huffman and her spouse that he ‘controlled’ a testing center, and could arrange for a third party to proctor their daughter’s SAT and secretly correct her answers afterwards,” the court papers alleged. “(The cooperative witness) has advised investigators that Huffman and her spouse agreed to the plan.”
But according to the source, the 69-year-old actor was not on board with the scam, which his famous wife also tried to use for their younger daughter, but didn’t follow through with it.
“He (Macy) didn’t know the details, but he knew she (Huffman) was trying to do something,” added the source. “He wasn’t fully aware of what she was planning.”
The complaint claims that Macy was on a Dec. 12, 2018, call with Huffman and the cooperating witness to discuss their younger daughter possibly taking the SAT over a two-day period.
“Do we want two days?” Macy allegedly asked the witness, later saying, “She’ll score higher. Just her base score will be higher if we did it over two days.”
“He was against it and all the pressure. Instead, he wanted his daughter to take some time off and enjoy life for a bit to figure out what she wanted to do.”
“But Felicity was manic about it. She was insistent, but he didn’t want any pressure for his daughter to go to school.”
Loughlin, 54, and her husband, designer Mossimo Giannulli, were also charged after allegedly agreeing to pay $500,000 in bribes to have their two daughters accepted to the University of Southern California as a recruited crew athletes, even though they didn’t row competitively.
Since appearing in a federal court in Los Angeles March 12 and released on $250,000 bond, Huffman has been “inconsolable” and “distraught,” the source said.
But she isn’t getting any shoulders to cry on.
“Friends don’t feel sorry for her. They think she deserves it,” continued the source.
“She knew about the investigation, so it shouldn’t have been shocking. People close to Felicity and William don’t think she deserves sympathy.”
“Her children didn’t know what was going on, and now it’s breaking up the family.”
On Saturday, the 56-year-old “Desperate Housewives” actress had posted a photo of a notebook and a “Good mom” coffee mug, according to Us Weekly.
“To all the moms out there, you’re all superheroes and you’re all good enough,” she reportedly captioned the photo, adding: “Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Treat yourself today…”
The post was no longer on her account following her arrest on Tuesday, the magazine reported.
The star is one of at least 13 people, including actress Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli, who have been arrested as part of the alleged scam thus far. In total, 50 people – including more than 30 parents and nine coaches – have been charged in the scheme, which involved bribing insiders to get clients’ children into top schools, authorities said.
The nearly decade-long scam was allegedly commanded by William Rick Singer, founder of for-profit college prep business Edge College & Career Network, also known as “The Key.” The 58-year-old California man purportedly helped parents get their children’s college admission through bribes, according to court documents.
Officials had been investigating the case, referred to by its code name “Operation Varsity Blues,” for more than a year.
Huffman was arrested Tuesday after FBI agents showed up at her Los Angeles home around 6 a.m. She posted a $250,000 bond after an appearance in an L.A. federal court. Her husband, actor William H. Macy, has not been charged, though an FBI agent stated in an affidavit that he was in the room when Huffman first heard the pitch from a scam insider.
In an open letter, the Oscar-nominated writer of Wag the Dog and The Verdict wrote that he’s known Huffman for 35 years and is “crazy” about the former Desperate Housewives star and her husband, with whom he started the off-Broadway Atlantic Theatre Company.
Huffman and Full House actress Lori Loughlin and 48 other high-profile individuals were indicted in connection with a federal college admissions cheating investigation. They allegedly participated in a nationwide conspiracy to get students admitted to top colleges including Georgetown, Stanford, USC and Yale, according to a federal indictment.
Mamet blamed Huffman’s alleged role in the admissions scheme on “a parent’s zeal for her children’s future” and called the situation “unfortunate.” He added that he’s worked “in and around our Elite Universities” for many years and their admissions policies are a “corrupt joke.”
Here’s Mamet’s full letter:
I worked for very many years in and around our Elite Universities. I am able to report that their admissions policies are an unfortunate and corrupt joke.
Harvard was once sued for restricting the admission of qualified Jews; a contest currently being waged by Asians.
The unqualified may be accepted for many reasons, among them, as Legacies, and on account of large donations made by their parents. I do not see the difference between getting a kid into school by bribing the Building Committee, and by bribing someone else. But, apparently, the second is against the Law. So be it.
I’ve known and worked with Bill Macy for nearly fifty years. We started two theatre companies together, one of which, THE ATLANTIC is still in operation in New York, after 35 years. I’ve known Felicity Huffman for those 35 years, she was my student, my colleague, worked in many of my films, and created roles on stage in three of my plays.
I’m crazy about them both.
That a parent’s zeal for her children’s future may have overcome her better judgment for a moment is not only unfortunate, it is, I know we parents would agree, a universal phenomenon.
If ever there were a use for the Texas Verdict, this is it. For the uninitiated, the Texas Verdict is: “Not Guilty, but Don’t do it Again.”
David Mamet.
Felicity Huffman knew she was a target of the federal investigation into bribery in the college admissions process ... but she had no idea 7 feds would show up at her door Tuesday morning with guns drawn.
Sources familiar with the arrest tell TMZ, 7 FBI agents showed up at Felicity's Hollywood Hills home at 6 AM and drew their weapons as they ordered Felicity to come out and surrender.
We're told Felicity, her husband William H. Macy and their 2 daughters were asleep when the agents ordered her out. Our sources say she knew the arrest was looming and would have gladly surrendered on her own, but the feds saw it differently.
An FBI source familiar with the arrest tells TMZ guns were drawn as a precaution. It's always left to the agents' discretion whether to draw a firearm during an arrest.
The agents took Huffman to a federal building where she was processed by federal marshals.
As we reported, Huffman was indicted for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. The indictment claims Huffman made a charitable contribution of $15,000 to participate in a college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter. The indictment claims the daughter was given twice the amount of time to take the SAT as other students and the paid proctor agreed to secretly correct her answers afterward.
The docs claim the girl got a 1420 score ... approximately 400 points over her PSAT.
Huffman is next expected in appear in Boston court March 29 for a preliminary hearing.
Standing before the judge and with a cracked voice, the noticeably drawn and casually dressed Huffman responded with a “yes” several times during today’s hearing when asked whether she understood the charges before her.
With guards by their sides, Huffman and the other 10 or so Los Angeles locals arrested in the sting this morning stood in a glassed-off area at the far end of the courtroom. Also in the room was Huffman’s husband and Shameless star William H. Macy, who sat among the families of other defendants with his head down staring at the floor or reading documents. He only really looked up to raise his hand when asked by the judge whether he was in the courtroom, and to hand over his driver’s license and other ID for verification as part of the bail co-signing.
Huffman, the Emmy-winning former Desperate Housewives star, and 45 others were indicted in a multimillion-dollar scheme by wealthy parents to get their children into top schools with the aides of bribes and false athletic qualifications.
Her appearance in federal court this afternoon comes hours after the American Crime actor was arrested. Fuller House star Lori Loughlin also faces the same charges but was not taken into custody this morning; she was out of town and flew into LAX this afternoon. Her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, was arrested and was also in court Tuesday.
Although today’s multi-defendant hearing started two hours after it was scheduled, Huffman’s time in front of the judge was relatively quick, starting at 4:18 PM PT and ending around 4:30. Besides the actor’s short answers, the bulk of that time was spent with Huffman’s attorney and federal prosecutors bickering over her bail and what other conditions should be imposed.
Huffman’s lawyer promised that her client would not become “an international fugitive” and argued she should be released on her own recognizance. Saying Huffman had real estate assets in excess of $20 million and other investments of up to $4 million, the government strongly argued for a bail that would at least be 1% of Huffman’s resources.
While the judge agreed with the feds on the bail amount, he did not agree that Huffman couldn’t discuss the case with Macy, rejecting the government assertion it considered him “a witness to her conduct.”
As a result of today’s hearing, Huffman’s travel is restricted to the continental U.S. However, as is often the case with high-profile defendants, the judge said international travel would be allowed if the court grants permission.
Discovered through taped conversations and more in a year-long investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office, Huffman specifically “made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000 to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter,” according to the indictment read this morning in Boston by Andrew Lelling, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. The CAA-repped Huffman also paid an undisclosed sum to an individual who “controlled” a Los Angeles SAT testing center to fix her daughter’s incorrect exam answers. That effort led to a massive increase in the daughter’s test score and consequently admission to a top college.
Tipped off in the pursuit of another case, the feds found a $25 million scam run by the William Singer-topped Key Worldwide Foundation. The money, collected by the nonprofit as “donations” from parents, allegedly funded illegal activity including hiring other individuals to write admission exams for potential students, paying officials to alter test scores, and bribing coaches so their children could gain admission as recruited athletes even if they had never played the sport. Singer and several coaches from top schools entered guilty pleas earlier Tuesday.
Among those charged in the March 6 indictment, Huffman could be looking at up to five years behind bars if found guilty.
Although mentioned in the grand jury indictment, Macy was not charged in the nationwide case. Lelling, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, called the case “the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.”
When Calls the Heart star and Fuller House actress Lori Loughlin and her spouse, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, also are charged in the nationwide indictment.
Andrew Lelling, U.S. District Attorney of Massachusetts, called the case “the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.”
American Crime and Desperate Housewives actor Huffman and Giannulli were taken into custody with 11 other Los Angeles locals today, I’ve learned, as a scathing indictment was unsealed in federal court in Boston. Huffman and the others are expected to appear in downtown L.A. court this afternoon on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud.
Despite earlier indications, Loughlin — who also was a regular on such TV series as 90210, Summerland, Hudson Street and Full House — was not arrested this morning.
Among 33 parents and 17 others under indictment, the charges could see Huffman and Loughlin behind bars for up to five years.
Maenwhile, at least two other people with ties to the entertainment industry also were caught up in today’s FBI indictments: Jane Buckingham, founder and CEO of the Beverly Hills-based boutique marketing firm Trendera, and Elisabeth Kimmel, owner and president of Midwest Television, which sold the CBS-affiliated San Diego radio and TV outlets KFMB to Tenga last year. Kimmel also worked as a litigation associate at Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp, the law firm whose specialties include movie, TV and music deals.
PREVIOUSLY, 8:37 AM: (UPDATED with information from law enforcement press conference): Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin knowingly broke the law trying to get their kids into top-tier colleges, according to the FBI and the U.S Attorney’s office for the district of Massachusetts.
The Desperate Housewives and Fuller House actors were named among a group of 33 parents who paid millions in bribes to coaches at top schools like UCLA, USC, Yale Georgetown and Stanford, so their children could gain admission as recruited athletes – even if they weren’t actually athletes.
The other schools mentioned in the indictment are the University of San Diego, the University of Texas at Austin and Wake Forest University. In announcing the indictments, Andrew Lelling, U.S. District Attorney of Massachusetts, noted that, “The schools are not considered co-conspirators.” But some college coaches and one administrator — USC senior associate athletic director Dr. Donna Heinel — have been indicted.
The just-unsealed March 6 indictment (read it here) notes that with the exception of a single USC administrator, the schools themselves were not part of the $25 million scam run by the William Singer-topped Key Worldwide Foundation. Posing as “donations” from the parents, the money allegedly funded illegal activity at the nonprofit included hiring other individuals to write admission exams for the potential students and bribing officials to alter SAT and ACT test scores.
Singer and a number of school coaches are scheduled to plead guilty today to racketeering and other charges in the year-long elite “Operation Varsity Blues” bust.
“Today we have charged 33 parents nationwide,” Lelling said. “These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege. They include, for example, CEOs of private and public companies, successful securities and real estate investors, two well-known actresses, a famous fashion designer and the co-chairman of a global law firm.”
Officially, Huffman and Loughlin are being charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud, according to the unsealed indictment. It is unclear at this juncture whether the actors have officially been arrested, though warrants have been issued.
The charges hold as much as five years jail time. However, based on their past records or lack thereof, and what their lawyers will try to get in a plea deal, how much actual time behind bars Huffman and Loughlin could see in sentencing is unclear.
The 200-page indictment unsealed Tuesday said Huffman and William H. Macy, her husband and Shameless star, “made a purported charitable contribution of $15,000 to participate in the college entrance exam cheating scheme on behalf of her eldest daughter.” That fraud included paying an individual who “controlled” a Los Angeles SAT testing center to fix her daughter’s incorrect exam answers. That effort led to a massive increase in the daughter’s SAT score.
Noting that there are RICO Act obtained tape recordings of the actor participating in the scheme, the filing damningly goes on to note that “Huffman later made arrangements to pursue the scheme a second time, for her younger daughter, before deciding not to do so.”
Macy has not been charged by the feds.
“This should be a warning to others, you can’t pay to play, you can’t lie and cheat to get ahead because you will get caught,” said the Boston FBI Special Agent Joseph Bonavolonta in a press conference this morning. U.S, Attorney Andrew Lelling called the matter a “conspiracy nationwide in scope” during the same media appearance.
“These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” the federal prosecutor added. “They include, for example, CEOs of private and public companies, successful securities and real estate investors, two well-known actresses, a famous fashion designer and the co-chairman of a global law firm.”
“There are more than that, but I’m not prepared to give you a total,” Lelling said too of the ongoing investigation, noting “it remains to be seen whether we charge any of the students.”
Loughlin and her spouse Mossimo Giannulli “agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the USC crew team — despite the fact that they did not participate in crew — thereby facilitating their admission to USC,” asserts the grand jury indictment.
Giannulli has been charged.
Reps for Huffman and Loughlin did not return request for comment. Huffman is next expected to be seen on screen in Netflix’s When They See Us. The four-part series formerly known as Central Park Five will be going global on the streamer May 31.
Netflix had no comment on the matter. Deadline also has reached to out When Calls the Heart network Hallmark Channel.
USC released this statement on the probe today:
We are aware of the ongoing wide-ranging criminal investigation involving universities nationwide, including USC. USC has not been accused of any wrongdoing and will continue to cooperate fully with the government’s investigation.
We understand that the government believes that illegal activity was carried out by individuals who went to great lengths to conceal their actions from the university. USC is conducting an internal investigation and will take employment actions as appropriate.
USC is in the process of identifying any funds received by the university in connection with this alleged scheme. Additionally, the university is reviewing its admissions processes broadly to ensure that such actions do not occur going forward.
The indictment — filed by the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and obtained by TVLine — alleges that Huffman, Loughlin, Giuannulli and 29 other people were involved in the scheme, which bribed college entrance-exam administrators to allow cheating on the tests and university athletic coaches to designate school applicants as athletic recruits, regardless of athletic ability or experience playing a sport. The money for the payments allegedly was funneled through a charity to disguise the wrongdoing.
Per the indictment, Huffman and husband William H. Macy (who is not referenced by name) paid $15,000 to have someone take the SAT in place of their older daughter, which ultimately resulted in a 1420 SAT score for her. They also allegedly pursued doing the same for their younger daughter, but eventually decided against repeating their involvement in the scheme.
Loughlin and Giannulli allegedly paid a total of $500,000 so that their two daughters would be designated as recruits to the USC crew team. Neither girl participated in the sport. Athletic recruits have a much better chance of admission than students who are not recruited.
Other schools involved include Stanford and Georgetown.
Huffman most recently appeared in Season 2 of Epix’s Get Shorty, and she’ll next be seen in Ava DuVernay’s Netflix miniseries When They See Us, which drops May 31. Loughlin currently stars in Hallmark Channel’s When Calls the Heart, which is airing its sixth season on Sundays at 8 pm. She also recurs on Fuller House.
TVLine has reached out to reps for Huffman and Loughlin for comment.
Written by Jane scribe Valentina Garza and directed by Silberling, Jane the Novela is envisioned as a soapy, telenovela-inspired anthology series in the tradition of Jane the Virgin, where each season is based on a different fictional novel “written by” Jane Villanueva and narrated by the author herself.
The first installment takes place at a Napa Valley vineyard, where family secrets (and family members) don’t stay buried for long. It centers on Estela (Lopez), an up-and-coming art curator who has spent years playing it safe and coloring within the lines. But a shocking secret changes everything and forces her to live a double life.
Being “in the tradition of Jane the Virgin,” Jane the Novela mirrors the setup of the original series. It too follows a driven, imaginative twentysomething Latina woman (Lopez) who is torn between her boyfriend, Luen, and Felix, a handsome, rich guy. Felix co-owns a winery with his manipulative and glamorous mother Renata (Cross), who will stop at nothing to secure her son’s legacy, even if it means standing in the way of his happiness.
Cross starred as conservative housewife Bree Van de Kamp on ABC’s hit soapy dramedy series Desperate Housewives, which earned her an Emmy nomination. She previously starred on Melrose Place and several daytime dramas, giving her strong credentials to tackle a series in the tradition of telenovelas, the Latin American version of American soaps. Most recently, Cross recurred on ABC’s thriller series Quantico as well as on YouTube Red series Youth & Consequences.
She is repped by Gersh and John Carrabino Management.
The pilot stars Heaton as a woman who, after raising two kids and retiring as a teacher, decides to pursue a new career as a doctor. MacLachlan will play Dr. Frost, a senior attending physician who takes an immediate liking to Carol. In addition to returning to star in Showtime’s Twin Peaks revival, MacLachlan has recently appeared on Portlandia, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Good Wife.
TVLine has learned exclusively that Nicollette Sheridan is exiting Dynasty after a little over a year of playing Alexis Carrington. In a statement to TVLine, The CW and CBS Television Studios said, “Nicollette Sheridan will be leaving Dynasty in order to focus on some personal family responsibilities. She was a valuable asset to the show and we wish her continued success in the future.”
Sheridan will make her final appearance as Alexis in March and, per an insider, the role may be recast.
Sheridan’s departure represents the third major cast shake-up to rock the reboot in less than a year, following the exits of series regulars Nathalie Kelley (as the original Cristal) and James Mackay (as Steven).
Sheridan joined Dynasty midway through Season 1 as the mother of all troublemakers, succeeding Joan Collins, who popularized the iconic role in the original ABC series. It marked Sheridan’s first major TV gig since her stormy exit from Desperate Housewives in 2009. Prior to her five-season stint on the ABC drama, Sheridan was a series regular on the primetime soap Knots Landing.
Despite modest-at-best ratings, Dynasty has already been renewed for a third season at The CW.
Penned by Jordon Nardino (Desperate Housewives, Quantico), Glamorous follows a yet-to-be-cast gender non-conforming high school graduate who lands the gig of a lifetime — interning at a cosmetics company whose products he panned on YouTube.
Shields will play Madolyn, a former supermodel (natch) who is no stranger to the covers of Vogue and now is the founder and CEO of one of the industry’s most respected cosmetics companies. A canny businesswoman, Madolyn is described as being at the top of the game and will stop at nothing to stay there, including making a strategic hire to be her eyes and ears within the company.
In turn, iZombie‘s Jade Payton has been cast as Venetia, an ambitious young clotheshorse who serves as Madolyn’s trusted personal assistant. Cool, smart and savvy, she is deeply connected with Chicago’s queer community and nightlife, with her finger on the pulse of who and what is happening in the underground scene.
Shields’ previous TV credits include Suddenly Susan, Lipstick Jungle, The Middle, SVU and, most recently, episodes of Jane the Virgin and Murphy Brown. Former Desperate Housewife Longoria’s previous directing turns include black-ish, Jane the Virgin and The Mick.
The potential series centers on two Pittsburgh families: a father with three adult daughters and a hotel lounge singer with her med student son, who are forced together after a decades-old secret is revealed.
Williams will co-star as Sheri, the aforementioned lounge singer. She joins a cast that also includes Veep‘s Matt Walsh as central dad Bud and JoAnna Garcia Swisher (Once Upon a Time) as his eldest daughter, Eleanor. The single-camera comedy hails from Modern Family executive producers Abraham Higginbotham and Jon Pollack.
Though she is best known for her work as Ugly Betty‘s Wilhelmina Slater, Williams’ TV credits also include Daytime Divas, The Good Wife and Desperate Housewives.
One day after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY will host a National Day of Racial Healing event to examine efforts to end discrimination and injustice.
Centered at the Filipinotown campus the A Wrinkle in Time director opened for her collective last spring, the gathering will feature DuVernay, Judd Apatow and Eva Longoria among the participants. Livestreamed starting at 1 PM PT, the conversations and performances also will see Emmy winner Laverne Cox, Wrinkle star Storm Reid, Melissa Etheridge and ex-Georgia House Minority Leader and almost Peach State governor Stacey Abrams participating in the event, on which ARRAY is partnering with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “There’s a lot of talking and tweeting these days,” DuVernay said to Deadline today. “A lot of pontification about where we are as a country and how we arrived here. When Kellogg approached ARRAY about working together on furthering and deepening those conversations, I was all in.
“The responsibility of fighting inequality and injustice is all of ours,” the Oscar-nominated Selma helmer added. “But it’s particularly important that those of us with certain visibility and influence use our platforms to urge bold conversations. We can never give up on pushing this nation to live up to its promise.”
Founded in 1930 by breakfast mogul William Keith Kellogg, the foundation focuses on providing tools for children nationwide to grow and learn. With events all over America next week, the Kellogg Foundation started its Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation initiative, of which the National Day of Racial Healing is but one component.
“Band of Brothers’’ and “Desperate Housewives’’ actor Neal McDonough says his religious beliefs — and undying devotion to his ex-model wife, Ruve Robertson — keep him from getting up close and personal with co-stars on screen, even if it costs him jobs and the hefty paychecks that go with them.
“I won’t kiss any other woman because these lips are meant for one woman,” the Catholic actor recently told Closer Weekly.
McDonough admitted that his no-lip-service stance has lost him work in the past — including an estimated $1 million gig on the set of ABC TV’s “Scoundrels’’ in 2010.
At the time, the father of five refused to participate in sexy scenes with actress Virginia Madsen.
“I was [surprised], and it was a horrible situation for me,” the actor said about getting the boot after just three days of shooting. “After that, I couldn’t get a job because everybody thought I was this religious zealot. I am very religious. I put God and family first, and me second. That’s what I live by. It was hard for a few years.
“But I was not going to lose the fight. And it worked. My career has been phenomenal.”
The actor played the husband of Nicollette Sheridan’s character on “Desperate Housewives.’’
“When [creator] Marc Cherry signed me, I said, ‘I’m sure you know, but I won’t kiss anybody,’?” McDonough said. “He was like, ‘But this is ‘Desperate Housewives!’ I said, ‘I know.’ He paused for about 5 seconds and said, ‘All right, I’m just going to have to write better.’ And we had a great time.”
The 6-foot actor has been married to Robertson, a 6-foot-3 former bikini model from South Africa, since 2003.
The pair met on the street in London in 2001 and it was love at first sight, he shared.
“It was St. Patrick’s Day and we literally bumped into each other on the street, locked eyes, and that was it,” the actor said. “The next morning, I called the woman I was dating at the time and said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s not going to work out with us anymore — I just met the woman I’m going to marry.’?”
McDonough is starring in the History Channel’s “Project Blue Book” about the US military and UFO sightings.
GUEST CAST includes: Gale Harold (Dr. Daryl Wright), Katie Amanda Keane (Mary Wright).
This season’s guest judges are: Jenifer Lewis (black-ish), R&B singer Ciara, country singer Kacey Musgraves, Olympic athlete Gus Kenworthy, Keiynan Lonsdale (The Flash), Zoë Kravitz (Big Little Lies), Yvette Nicole Brown (Community), Cecily Strong (Saturday Night Live), British singer Rita Ora, event producer Susanne Bartsch, Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy), musician Frances Bean Cobain, Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives), designer Jason Wu and Erica Ash (Survivor’s Remorse).
As previously reported, the queens returning for All Stars 4 include: Monét X Change, Latrice Royale, Trinity Taylor, Farrah Moan, Valentina, Monique Heart, Jasmine Masters, Naomi Smalls, Gia Gunn and Manila Luzon. They’ll reunite for one last shot at drag glory when the season premieres Friday, Dec. 14 at 8/7c on VH1. (A special holiday competition, RuPaul’s Drag Race Holi-slay Spectacular, also airs on Friday, Dec. 7 at 8/7c.)
Hatcher, 53, finished in 5 hours, 51 minutes and 21 seconds, while her 20-year-old daughter, Emerson Tenney, clocked in 5 seconds behind Mom.
The pair ran to raise money for the international charity Save the Children.
“I love the mother-daughter journey of it,” Hatcher told The Post after the race. “It really allowed us to have a lot of conversations about being there for each other.”
The actress added, “I have to say, the random kindness that you get offered from the fans that line the race is just, it could bring you to tears, it’s so amazing.”
False Profits was among ABC’s buzzy hourlong pilots last season. It narrowly missed the cut for a series order but remained in priority development for midseason consideration. The network in May authorized the opening of a writers room to generate three additional scripts, and ABC Studios also extending the cast of the pilot.
“I just received a new script on False Profits, we’ll see where we go on that,” ABC’s President of Entertainment Channing Dungey told Deadline in August.
Written by former Code Black writer-producer Kayla Alpert, False Profits is described as Desperate Housewives meets Glengarry Glen Ross. It follows a team of down-and-out women in suburban Arizona as they fight their way to the top of the cutthroat world of a multi-level marketing cosmetics business.
Alpert executive produces with Jason Reed and former Desperate Housewives exec producer Sabrina Wind via Jason T. Reed Productions. ABC Studios, where Jason T. Reed Prods is under an overall deal, is the studio.
ABC Studios has been able to find homes for pilots that did not go to series at ABC, including Devious Maids, which had a successful run on Lifetime, and All About the Washingtons, which aired on Netflix for one season.
Penned by Friedman, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is described as an addictive character drama about a gifted therapist, accustomed to helping other people navigate their messy lives, who finds herself facing a crisis in her own life. We follow her, her family and her diverse slate of clients as they confront the often poignant and at times hilarious ups and downs of family, friendship, romance, work, parenting, growing up, growing old, and what it means to be human.
Friedman executive produces with Longoria and Ben Spector via UnbeliEVAble. Gottlieb serves as producer.
This is UnbeliEVAble ‘s second sale at ABC this season via 20th TV. In a major bidding situation, ABC landed the company’s hourlong drama The Ambassador, written by former Empire showrunner Ilene Chaiken, with a big put pilot commitment. At ABC, UnbeliEVAble also has upcoming midseason drama series Grand Hotel, from ABC Studios, which stars Roselyn Sanchez and Demián Bichir. The company and Longoria are repped by CAA and Brillstein.
Friedman recently served as executive producer on the CW’s No Tomorrow. She previously created and executive produced Eastwick and Witches of East End. She is with CAA, Ensemble Entertainment, and attorney Joel McKuin.
Gottlieb’s memoir will be released in April 2019 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She also is repped by CAA.]
Wilmer Valderrama will host the celebration of Latino achievements in American entertainment and media.
Activists Samantha Fuentes and Jamie Margolin also will be honored. Fuentes survived the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, and Margolin founded the Zero Hour movement to address climate change.
Rodriguez, star of TV’s “Jane the Virgin,” will share the awards spotlight with the show’s cast.
The Nov. 4 ALMA ceremony is airing live at 8 p.m. Eastern on sibling TV channels Fuse and FM. Performances by Ally Brooke and Amara La Negra will be featured.
In a statement Friday, host Valderrama said Latino achievements and contributions need to be spotlighted more than ever at what he called a “critical” time.
The ALMAs — American Latino Media Arts Awards — are back after a three-year hiatus in time for the 50th anniversary of UnidosUS, previously known as National Council of La Raza.
UnidosUS is the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. In 1995 it created the ALMAs as a way to promote fair, accurate and balanced portrayals of Latinos in the entertainment industry.
Fuse Media made a multi-year agreement to become the exclusive multiplatform media home of the ALMAs.
ABC's new series, "The Rookie," follows small-town guy John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) who, after a life-altering incident, is pursuing his dream of being an LAPD officer. As the force’s oldest rookie, he’s met with skepticism from some higher-ups who see him as just a walking midlife crisis. If he can’t keep up with the young cops and the criminals, he’ll be risking lives including his own. But if he can use his life experience, determination and sense of humor to give him an edge, he may just become a success in this new chapter of his life.
“Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, I’d like to take this opportunity to weigh in on the process of recalling a sexual assault. #metoo #believe #survivor,” she wrote, after Trump mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony at a rally earlier this week.
Hatcher, 53, went on to detail what she could remember and what she couldn’t from the horrifying assault.
“Here’s what I remember: His erect penis, that he was stroking as he sat behind the wheel of the car,” she wrote. “‘Do you want to touch it?’ he asked. I said, ‘No.’ He took my hand to touch it anyway. It was pink. There were tissues. I didn’t know what they were for, but then I did.”
She continued, “I was face down on the seat looking at the floor as he violated me. He said, ‘Do you like how this feels?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Someday you will.'”
She went on to write that she didn’t remember the address of where it happened, how she got there, how she got home, what day or month it was or if anyone was drinking beer.
“Sadly, myself and then decades later, teenager Sarah Van Cleemput, were abused by the same man. She committed suicide. I battled demons,” Hatcher wrote.
According to People, after 14-year-old Van Cleemput passed away in 2002, Hatcher came forward with her story, helping put Richard Hayes Stone behind bars.
She finished her note, directly addressing the President.
“I am a survivor, who stands available to help you understand the way the memories of a trauma like that work. It might be hard for you to understand,” she wrote. “I can readily explain in detail that ‘I don’t remember’ is often the most honest response surrounding questions of an assault. It does NOT mean it didn’t happen. Please do not add ‘Mocked by President’ to the injury list of a sexual survivor. It’s just plain wrong.”
The 56-year-old actress posted a selfie on Instagram on Sept. 15 and gave fans a health update.
“So grateful and happy to be alive but sad that my hair fell out and is about 1 inch long now and looks cra cra,” she wrote. “Anyone else have #hairloss due to #cancer? Talk to me. I feel you.”
She added, “I am POST cancer. All good now. Hard journey, but I am HEALTHY, happy, and more present and grateful than ever. Thank you from the bottom of my ever expanding heart for all of your LOVE.”
Marcia returned to social media a day later and explained the previous post had really empowered her.
“After posting a picture of myself here and uttering the words #cancer and #hairloss, I felt liberated, deliriously free and completely me,” she wrote. “How or why this simple act gave me such a powerful lift I did not question, but I thanked God or whatever gave me the internal push to move forward and expose myself.
“I certainly wasn’t expecting the response of love and kindness that flowed to me. My capacity to receive requires a massive expansion! I am ecstatically alive and what interests me post-cancer is #AUTHENTICITY. #VULNERABILITY. #TRANSPARENCY. And of course #LOVE.”
It’s not the first time Cross has faced and beaten cancer – her husband, Tom Mahoney, was diagnosed in 2009, and, like his wife, is now healthy.
The Desperate Housewives creator is behind Why Women Kill, a darkly comedic drama ordered to series at CBS All Access.
The series will follow three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the 1960s, a socialite in the ’80s and a lawyer in 2018, each one dealing with infidelity in their marriages. According to the official logline, Why Women Kill will “examine how the roles of women have changed, but how their reaction to betrayal… has not.”
“As much as we like to think that the institution of marriage has evolved over the past few decades, infidelity still has the ability to rock us to our core,” Cherry said in a statement. “Why Women Kill will explore what happens when women’s primal instincts are unleashed with unexpected and twisted consequences. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with two exceptional companies to bring this series to life. Both Imagine [Television Studios] and CBS All Access are wonderful partners, and I’m looking forward to an amazing collaboration.”
Cherry, who also created the Lifetime sudser Devious Maids, will executive-produce with Brian Grazer (Arrested Development) and Francie Calfo (Empire), among others.
A timetable for Why Women Kill‘s premiere has not been announced.
Julianne Moore, Gabrielle Union, Eva Longoria, Marisa Tomei, America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, and women from all walks of life are featured in a video reading the same letter supporting Professor Ford and protesting Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
“You are strong and you are not alone,” they say in a supportive chorus. “You are a survivor. Millions of us have your back. You and your testimony are credible.”
They end by saying, “We believe you.”
Ford, a 51-year-old research psychologist living in northern California, came forward publicly saying that Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her back in their 1980s high school days. She said, “I thought he might inadvertently kill me.” Kavanaugh has since denied the claims.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has rejected Democrats calls to delay the hearing in which the Supreme Court nominee was scheduled to debate Ford. Grassley said he will not ask the FBI to investigate the allegations, as Ford has requested. Kavanaugh’s confirmation was originally set for Thursday but has been postponed due to the debate.
Ford has been getting death threats due to the accusations and has moved to an undisclosed location. Kavanaugh, who accepted the committee’s invitation to testify, has been spending time with White House experts, prepping for Monday.
Longoria is already on board the new drama as both an executive producer and a director, but EW can exclusively reveal that the former Desperate Housewives star will also act in the upcoming show. Grand Hotel, which is based on the Spanish series Gran Hotel, tells the story of a family-owned hotel in Miami, the people who run it, and all of the secrets they keep from one another.
As for Longoria, she will guest-star as Beatriz, the former owner of the hotel and the first wife of Santiago (Demian Bichir). Beatriz is described as a shrewd businesswoman, a devoted mother, and a loyal friend. But secrets from her past continue to haunt her family.
Grand Hotel doesn’t yet have a premiere date but is slotted as a midseason show for ABC.
Despite raising the monster known as Bryce Walker, Strong’s character actually has a refreshingly strong moral compass. She was disgusted by the man her son had become, even giving him a well-deserved slap when he finally admitted — with pride — to raping Hannah in the hot tub.
As for Granaderos, his character’s storyline isn’t solely tied to Bryce. He stepped out of his friend’s shadow and took on a dark persona all his own in Season 2, culminating in the series’ most disturbing moment to date: Tyler being assaulted and raped with a broken mop handle, a heinous act carried out by Montgomery and several other jocks.
13 Reasons Why‘s third season — which will not include Katherine Langford (aka Hannah) — will pick up where its sophomore outing left off, with Clay holding the gun Tyler intended to use on his bullies at the spring fling. With police sirens blaring in the background, Jessica and Justin stand helplessly beside him and ask, “What do we do now?”
Best Actress – Feature Film: Eva Longoria, Overboard (3Pas Studios and Pantelion, Lionsgate MGM)
Delany’s character, Colonel Eisa Turnbull, is the Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps’ Judge Advocate Division. Elsa has high expectations, both for herself and her staff, inspiring those under her command to remain fiercely loyal. In addition to being one of the Corps’ highest-ranking female officers, Elsa has also has two sons serving overseas.
This marks the second time The Code has undergone a significant recast ahead of its 2019 premiere. Luke Mitchell (Blindspot, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) was recently cast in the role of Capt. John “Abe” Abraham, a prosecutor for whom becoming a Marine is a longstanding family tradition. Mitchell replaced Dave Annable (Brothers & Sisters, Red Band Society) in the role.
The CBS legal drama’s cast also includes Anna Wood (Falling Water), Ato Essandoh (Elementary, Chicago Med), Phillipa Soo (Smash, Broadway’s Hamilton) and Raffi Barsoumian (The Vampire Diaries).
According to new legal docs obtained by TMZ ... the 'Desperate Housewife' and actor Aaron Phypers are going on their merry ways after a judge signed off on their divorce settlement. It wasn't a messy divorce ... she gets to keep the Hidden Hills crib and a horse named Leo.
Nicollette also won't have to pay any spousal support, and same goes for Aaron. He gets to keep his personal belongings and any bank accounts and cars under his name. While the divorce just became final, Aaron moved on from his 6-month marriage a long time ago.
Aaron and Denise Richards started dating back in September 2017. No word if he'll make an appearance on 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' but chances seem pretty good. As for Denise's ex, Charlie Sheen, Kyle Richards hints it could happen.
TMZ broke the story ... Nicollette filed for divorce in July 2016, much to our surprise.
As we reported ... there were rumors swirling Nicollette and Aaron were mulling over marriage but there was ZERO clue they had actually tied the knot. We found out, but by then they had already been well on the outs.
The James Bobin-directed movie hits theaters on Aug. 2, 2019 and is already in production over in Australia with castmembers Isabela Moner (as Dora), Eugenio Derbez, Micke Moreno, Nicholas Coombe, Madeleine Madden, Adriana Barraza, and Temuera Morrison.
In the movie, the young explorer takes on high school, and with her new pack of friends as well as her sidekick the monkey Boots and her cousin Diego, leads them on a Goonies-esque quest to save her parents and solve the impossible mystery behind a lost Inca civilization.
Longoria recently starred in LD Entertainment’s Dog Days and Pantelion/MGM’s Overboard. The former Desperate Housewives star via her production company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, is executive producing the ABC drama series Grand Hotel scheduled for a midseason release as well as the recently announced series Ambassador which received a big put pilot commitment from ABC. She was also the EP on Lifetime’s Devious Maids and NBC comedy Telenovela in which she also starred. Shonda Rhimes Sued Over Sidewalk Slip and Fall (8/18/18) Shonda Rhimes hasn't had a misstep in her career, which is more than can be said about a world-renowned physician who tripped and fell in front of her house, and now the good doc is suing her.
Dr. Kuo Chao claims in a new lawsuit, he was jogging past Shonda's Hancock Park mansion in L.A. back in June 2017, when he tripped over a buckling sidewalk in front of the 8,400 square foot home.
He says he broke his wrist, damaged cartilage and lost range of motion and function in his wrist and arm, which has caused limited mobility and loss of strength and stamina. He also says he has lost "fine motor skills." He says he was unable to work for a long time and it still affects his ability to work.
Dr. Chao says he is a prestigious interventional neuroradiologist -- he treats stroke and aneurysm patients. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale.
As for why Dr. Chao says Shonda's responsible, he says she had an obligation to fix the sidewalk, which buckled due to pipes, tree roots and botched repairs. He's also suing the City of L.A.
Dr. Chao is asking for unspecified damages.
We reached out to Shonda's rep .. so far, no word back.
The Ambassador, which was pursued by multiple networks, is based on the Spanish series The Embassy (La embajada). In the adaptation, written by Chaiken, when the thrice married, very rich and politically connected US Ambassador to France is killed in a freak speedboat accident, his much younger and arguably unqualified third wife is appointed to replace him. Ambassador Roxanne Eagleton takes on the challenges of her new position as she also navigates the drama and intrigue of her late husband’s family while beginning to suspect that his death was not an accident. The Ambassador takes us behind the curtain of the US Embassy in France – the glamorous but treacherous “upstairs” of the Ambassador’s life in Paris, and the “downstairs” lives of the career diplomats that are there to serve their Ambassador and their country.
Chaiken executive produces with Longoria and Spector via their UnbeliEVAble Entertainment and 3 Arts’ Oly Obst. 20th Century Fox TV, where Chaiken is under an overall deal and UnbeliEVAble is under a pod deal, is the studio.
The original series The Embassy was created by Ramon Campos and his company Bambu Productions, where Campos is partnered with Teresa Fernandez-Valdez. Bambu is behind a number of series, including Grand Hotel, which UnbeliEVAble optioned two years ago for a U.S. adaptation, which made it to series at ABC for midseason.
The Embassy format was the first idea UnbeliEVAble brought to 20th TV under the company’s deal there, with Longoria and Spector taking their time to get the right writer for it.
“When I first saw The Embassy, I binge watched the entire season in one sitting. I told Ramon and Theresa we MUST do this together,” Longoria said. “Ilene Chaiken is the gold standard for character driven dramas. After getting to know her on Empire there was no one else we could envision adapting this. Ilene took the original and reinvented it with such brilliance and panache. I can’t wait to produce this show alongside her.”
The setting of The Ambassador is somewhat similar to a London-based comedy starring Salma Hayek, which is in development at Amazon from Paul Feig and Imagine.
Grand Hotel, from UnbeliEVAble and ABC Studios, stars Roselyn Sanchez and Demián Bichir. UnbeliEVAble previously produced Lifetime’s Devious Maids, which also starred Sanchez. Longoria is with CAA and Brillstein.
Chaiken, who created and executive produced the Showtime series The L Word, was executive producer/showrunner on the first 3.5 seasons of Empire. She also is an executive producer on the Emmy-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale. Chaiken is repped by WME and 3Arts.
Less than two months after welcoming her first child into the world, the Hollywood actress and activist decided to introduce her son on the cover of HOLA! USA's latest issue.
"Here he is! Santiago Enrique Bastón is waving hello at the whole world! Couldn't wait to share this picture with y'all!" the proud mom shared on Instagram. "Thanks to @usahola and @bernardodoral for capturing these beautiful moments with my newborn son! #BabyBaston #HOLAUSA."
In the cover image, Eva smiles from ear to ear as she cradles her son. As for her glam look, the actress was happy to give credit where credit is due for those who helped make the shoot so beautiful.
Ken Paves helped with hair, Elan Bongiorno assisted with makeup and Charlene Roxborough handled all things fashion.
"So beautiful!!! X So many kisses from us all! XXXX," close friend Victoria Beckham shared in the comments section. Holly Robinson Peete added, "Omgggggg Santiago."
Additional photos from the September 2018 issue are expected to be released early next week.
Since welcoming her first child with husband Jose Bastón on June 19, Eva has tried to enjoy the first weeks of motherhood in private. At the same time, the Telenovela star has hinted that a special reveal was in the works.
"The gang is back together! I'm technically still on maternity leave and this is the only work I had scheduled during this time," she previously wrote on Instagram. "But so happy to see my crew again!! Ken and Elan you make it all so fun and easy! #WorkingMama #3WeeksPostPregnancy."
And in between asking Chrissy Teigen for some mommy advice on social media, Eva found some time to enjoy the summer sun at an undisclosed location.
"It's magical. I feel like I've known him my whole life," Eva shared about her son in HOLA! USA's upcoming issue.
Congratulations again Eva on your exciting family news.
Based on a true story that gripped the nation, Central Park Five will chronicle the notorious case of five teenagers of color who were convicted of a rape they did not commit. The four episode limited series will focus on the five teenagers from Harlem — Antron McCray (Adepo), Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise (Jerome). The series will span from the spring of 1989, when each were first questioned about the incident, to 2014 when they were exonerated and a settlement was reached with the city of New York. The series will premiere on Netflix in 2019.
Huffman will play Linda Fairstein, the prosecutor who headed the Manhattan district attorney’s sex crimes office during the case. Jerome’s Korey Wise is one of the wrongfully convicted five who was charged as an adult in the case and served 12 years in prison before being exonerated. Adepo’s Antron McCray, another member of the wrongfully convicted five, was later exonerated and released after serving six years in a New York State prison.
They join previously announced Michael K. Williams, Vera Farmiga, and John Leguizamo. DuVernay will write and direct all four episodes of the narrative series. Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King from Participant Media, Oprah Winfrey/Harpo Films, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh from Tribeca Productions and DuVernay will executive produce.
Desperate Housewives alum Huffman recently starred in ABC’s limited series American Crime, receiving three consecutive Emmy nominations for her performance. She also is partnering with ABC on House of Moore, a dark hour-long comedy, which is currently in development at the network and which Huffman is executive producing.
Jerome made his feature film debut in Barry Jenkins’ Oscar-winning film Moonlight. His other film credits include Anthony Mandler’s Monster and First Match, currently streaming on Netflix and can next be seen in Tyarisha Poe’s independent film Selah and the Spades. On the TV side, he is a series regular on AT&T Audience Network’s drama series Mr. Mercedes. He’s repped by Kipperman Management and Sloane, Offer, Weber and Dern.
Adepo is next set to star opposite Wyatt Russell in Bad Robot/Paramount’s Overlord set for release in October. He also will be seen this fall starring opposite Elizabeth Olsen and Kelly Marie Tran in Facebook Watch’s original series Sorry For Your Loss.
The Luke Cage star has signed on to Apple’s upcoming drama See, our sister site Deadline reports.
The forthcoming show is described as a “world-building drama” set in a future where humans have lost the sense of sight; the new, sightless world order is thrown into chaos, then, when a set of sighted twins are born. Earlier this year, the drama got a 10-episode, straight-to-series order from Apple.
Woodard will play Paris, a priestess and advisor. She’ll star opposite Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones), who’ll play warrior/leader/guardian Baba Voss.
The series hails from Peaky Blinders executive producer Steven Knight; Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games) will direct the premiere and serve as an EP, as well.
In addition to her most recent gig as Luke Cage‘s ruthless crime boss Mariah, Woodard’s other TV work includes Empire, A Series of Unfortunate Events, State of Affairs, True Blood and Desperate Housewives.
Best Actress – Feature Film
Eva Longoria, Overboard (3Pas Studios and Pantelion, Lionsgate MGM)
Yvette Monreal, Monsoon (Create Entertainment/Desert Monsoon Media)
Natalie Morales, Battle of the Sexes (Decibel Films, Cloud Eight Films and Fox Searchlight Pictures).
This week’s hour-long episode features two separate celebrity couples. First up, Kathy Najimy competes against Yvette Nicole Brown. Next, actress Vanessa Williams and actor Gary Cole compete with hopes of making it to the winner’s circle and the ultimate prize of $100,000.00.
Huffman, who most recently appeared in the ABC anthology series American Crime, earning Emmy nominations for each of its three seasons, is coming aboard the comedy about three Moms who leave their suburban life to reconnect with their estranged sons in NYC. The script is from Chupack and Mark Andrus (Oscar nominee for As Good As It Gets with James Brooks) and based on the William Sutcliffe novel Whatever Makes You Happy.
Jake Lacy (Carol, Girls (TV)) and Jake Hoffman (The Irishman, The Wolf of Wall Street) also join the Mandalay and Welle Entertainment production.
Huffman, who recently acquired rights to The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats, the 2009 novel by Hesh Kestin, is repped by CAA; Lacy by UTA and Beth Rosner Management; Hoffman by WME.
The Desperate Housewives actress and her husband Jose ‘Pepe’ Baston confirmed in late December that they were expecting a baby after several months of speculation.
And on Wednesday, Longoria announced in a statement to HOLA! USA that she had given birth to a baby boy on Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Eva and Pepe shared that their son weighed 6 lbs and 13 oz and that they have decided to name him Santiago Enrique Baston.
“We are so grateful for this beautiful blessing,” they said.
The couple also shared a photograph of Longoria holding the tiny infant on her chest and another one of her sporting a necklace featuring his name.
Longoria celebrated the impending arrival of her son at a star-studded baby shower in May, with the likes of Elizabeth Banks, Sophia Bush, Melanie Griffith, and her former Desperate Housewives co-star Marcia Cross, in attendance.
She also recently revealed how excited she was to welcome her first child but added she’s more intrigued to see how much hair her baby boy would have.
“I can’t wait to meet him. I just can’t wait to see what his personality is like, what he looks like, how much hair he’s going to have,” the 43-year-old told E! News. “There’s so much to look forward to, and it’s becoming more real every day.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s going to have to come out eventually, right? It’s not just like, ‘Oh, pregnancy is so great’… He’s eventually gonna be here.”
Eva and Jose, 50, met on a blind date arranged by a mutual friend and married in Mexico in May 2016. Jose has three adult children from a previous marriage.
Martinez, who played Ghoulie gang leader Malachi in three episodes of Riverdale last season, will be a series regular as Gael, a socially conscious graphic designer who lives in Callie and Mariana’s apartment complex. (The spinoff sees the two sisters living together in L.A. as they take their first steps towards adult independence.) Also moving in as series regulars: Zuri Adele (Under the Dome), who’ll play former foster kid Malika, and Sherry Cola (I Love Dick), who’ll play apartment complex manager Alice.
Roger Bart (Revenge, Desperate Housewives) will be a series regular as well, playing Judge Wilson, the conservative judge who Callie is clerking for. Two more new cast members will appear on a recurring basis: Emma Hunton (Sonny With a Chance), as Davia, a teacher who lives in the apartment complex; and Ken Kirby (Famous in Love), as Benjamin, a fellow clerk who works with Callie.
Production on the 13-episode freshman season of Good Trouble gets underway this week; no premiere date has been set. The Fosters just wrapped up its five-season run last week with a three-part series finale.
“We are elated to partner with Franklin Leonard of the Black List, Lena, and Eva to further our mission of bolstering fresh voices of color. They are all leaders of the current shift towards equitable representation and we are thrilled to join forces as MACRO continues to produce and champion work that is rooted in authenticity, creativity, and excellence,” said King and Aaliyah Williams, Chief Content Officer of MACRO Digital Studio.
The organization is currently accepting applications through August 6. Ideas will be reviewed by MACRO and the Black List team and semi-finalists will have the opportunity to pitch their projects to a group of reps from MACRO, The Black List, Waithe, and Longoria. Up to three winners will receive development support and a pilot presentation or sizzle at a budget of up to $30K each.
“I am a longtime fan of everyone involved in this process, from Charles D. King and Aaliyah Williams at MACRO to Lena Waithe and Eva Longoria, whose commitment to replicating their success for others speaks for itself at this point. It is a true joy to partner with them in a process that will identify the next generation of Lenas, Evas, Charles, and Aaliyahs. I look forward to sitting back on my couch in the not too distant future and enjoying the episodic fruits of their labor,” said Leonard.
“I’m super excited to find some fresh new voices. By working with MACRO and The Black List it’s a great way for me to find scripts that otherwise wouldn’t reach my desk,” said Waithe.
“UnbeliEVAable’s mandate and mission has always been to nurture and foster diverse voices so, when MACRO and The Black List presented us with the opportunity to participate in the episodic lab, we knew this was the perfect partnership. Discovering emerging voices is one of the most thrilling parts of producing and we can’t wait to bring these stories to screen alongside Lena and the team,” said Longoria.
The winners will be announced in December 2018.
The stars and celebration leaders including Special Olympics’ Global Ambassadors’ John C.McGinley, Brooklyn Decker, Apollo Anton Ohno, Nancy O’Dell, and Vanessa Williams plan to actively promote the organization’s Inclusion Revolution campaign. The movement touts the idea that everyone can be engaged, involved, and inspired by sports for people with intellectual disabilities.
Also adding their congratulations and support to the Special Olympics are Ellen Degeneres, Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Cookie Johnson, Ed Asner, Rachael Ray, Rita Wilson, Joe Mantegna, Toni Braxton, Gary Cole, Holly Robinson Peete, Gabrielle Carteris, Jenny McCarthy, Max and Charlie Carver, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Alfie Allen, Jack Huston, Gunnar Peterson, Tim Gunn, and Greg Grunberg. “Through sports, health, school and youth engagement, the Special Olympics Movement has dramatically transformed lives by unifying and empowering people with and without intellectual disabilities to end discrimination and create inclusion,” said Timothy Shriver, Special Olympics chairman. “We are reaching out to everyone to join us as we shape a more accepting and inclusive future and I am proud to announce that the Hollywood community is galvanizing for this critically important mission and milestone.”
Among the organizational supporters are The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, SAG-AFTRA, The Los Angeles Film Commission, Film Independent, Penske Media Corporation, GLADD, Levity Live, The Hollywood Improv, John Varvatos, Barry’s Boot Camp, Variety and the Hollywood Teamsters.
Now she’s taking on a new role: “girl boss.”
Huffman acquired rights to The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats, the 2009 novel by Hesh Kestin in which 20-year-old Russell Newhouse, a quick-witted scholar and womanizer, is thrust into New York’s organized crime scene by a man called Shushan “Shoeshine” Cats.
“My brother called me and said, ‘I found this book, you have to make it.’ I read it and I thought, ‘I have to make it,’ ” Huffman told Deadline. Huffman, in turn, recruited Aaron Kaplan to join her in the project, which she is developing as a series through Warner Bros Television.
The Emmy-winning actress announced the project from the stage today at the Women in Television Summit, where she talked about all of the amazing writers she’s worked with over the course of her acting career: David Mamet, Aaron Sorkin, Marc Cherry and John Ridley.
She also issued a challenge to the women in the room.
“Create your own work. Write it. Direct it. I need more girl bosses,” Huffman said. “That’s how we’re going to change it.”
Nicollette Sheridan, who made her debut as Dynasty‘s mom-ster midway through the CW drama’s first season, has been promoted to series-regular status for Season 2, TVLine has learned exclusively.
“She is a force to be reckoned with,” Sheridan told TVLine of her character when she first showed up in March. “Dear God, nobody’s safe! She annihilates common boundaries of decency to obtain what she needs. She’s this matriarch of a family that’s cutthroat, crippling and riddled with dirty politics. It’s great television.”
Time will tell what fresh hell Alexis will raise in Season 2, but at least we know one thing for now: She survives the fire!
The actress and producer, who starred in the hit series “Desperate Housewives,” is now asking $3.3 million for the three-story Mediterranean-style home with a pool, according to the listing.
Longoria, 43, listed the gray stucco house in March but is apparently pricing it to sell as soon as possible. The star is reportedly in her third trimester.
The hillside home spans more than 8,500 square feet and has six bedrooms. The main living spaces, including an open kitchen and great room, sit on the second level, with French doors out to a wraparound balcony, according to images of the home, which is listed with Loren Judd and Michael Fitzgerald of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. The listing agents did not immediately return a request for comment.
The ground level has a full wet bar and a home theater that Longoria has lined in posters from her biggest TV and movie roles, including “Desperate Housewives” and the series “Telenovela,” which she produced.
She bought it in 2006 for $3.6 million, according to property records.
The actress has been rearranging her real estate portfolio. This is the third home she’s looked to offload in the past 18 months.
She sold a quirky pink hacienda in Hollywood Hills for $1.37 million last year. And in November, she listed a $14 million compound — also in Hollywood Hills — that she bought from Tom Cruise in 2015, Mansion Global previously reported.
Amid the selling spree, Longoria picked up a contemporary Beverly Crest mansion, which she reportedly bought for $13.5 million.
A publicist for Longoria declined to comment.
I hear that the comedic soap, from ABC Studios, is very much alive and remains in priority development. I hear the project is opening a writers room to generate three additional scripts and the cast of the pilot — led by Bellamy Young and Vanessa Williams, who I hear both tested very well — are being extended. False Profits would be in consideration for a midseason pickup.
Meanwhile, all other ABC drama — as well as comedy — pilots that did not get orders yesterday and today are dead.
Written by former Code Black writer-producer Kayla Alpert, False Profits is described as Desperate Housewives meets Glengarry Glen Ross. It follows a team of down-and-out women in suburban Arizona as they fight their way to the top of the cutthroat world of a multi-level marketing cosmetics business.
Alpert executive produces with Jason Reed and former Desperate Housewives exec producer Sabrina Wind via Jason T. Reed Productions. ABC Studios, where Jason T. Reed Prods is under an overall deal, is the studio.
The network also released the following, slightly-tweaked logline for the show:
Starting over isn’t easy, especially for small town guy John Nolan who, after a life-altering incident, is pursuing his dream of being an LAPD officer. As the force’s oldest rookie, he’s met with skepticism from some higher-ups who see him as just a walking midlife crisis. If he can’t keep up with the young cops and the criminals, he’ll be risking lives including his own. But if he can use his life experience, determination and sense of humor to give him an edge, he may just become a success in this new chapter of his life.
Fillion’s former Castle boss Alexi Hawley serves as Rookie‘s showrunner. The cast also includes Alyssa Diaz, Richard T. Jones, Titus Makin, Mercedes Mason, Melissa O’Neil, Afton Williamson and Eric Winter.
Appearing on the CBS show The Talk, Sheridan – who now is a part of the Dynasty series on the CW – talked about her years of legal entanglements in her wrongful dismissal suit. Sheridan has contended that her character was suddenly killed off in early 2009 because of complaints she made over an alleged head-hitting incident on the Desperate Housewives set involving executive producer and series creator Marc Cherry.
The original case ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked. The various appeals and motions for retrials have since wound their way through the legal system on various matters. The most recent ruling in 2017 tossed the suit, claiming there was ample evidence Sheridan’s dismissal was a creative decision.
On today’s The Talk, Sheridan said the case was still difficult to talk about. “I was a victim of assault and battery by my boss on the set,” she claimed, “and I reported him and was retaliated against and fired off the show. All of which is illegal. There was nobody to stand up for me. I felt like I needed to stand up for myself.”
Sheridan praised the #metoo movement and its participants for their courage. “It’s a wonderful time for women, I feel. People are speaking out…and I would like to say that it takes a lot of courage because it is very scary. And my biggest regret was I didn’t speak out earlier and I just relied on the legal system because when I heard people coming out about the sexual abuse, it was such a relief for me to feel that others were speaking up for themselves and they’re being heard and they’re not be vilified because I was definitely being vilified… it took a long time to heal, but I’m back.”
“Modern Family” stars Ed O’Neill as Jay Pritchett, Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, Sofia Vergara as Gloria Pritchett, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron Tucker, Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy, Nolan Gould as Luke Dunphy, Ariel Winter as Alex Dunphy, Rico Rodriguez as Manny Delgado, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as Lily Tucker-Pritchett and Jeremy Maguire as Joe Pritchett.
Guest starring are Chris Geere as Arvin, Mira Sorvino as Nicole Rosemary Page, Kate Burton as Iris Fennerman, Adam Devine as Andy, Reid Ewing as Dylan, Nathan Fillion as Rainer Shine, Mary Louise Wilson as Aunt Becky, Ashleigh Hairston as Nurse Cami, Jessica McKenna as Nurse Tami, Jim Piddick as Malcolm Fennerman and Michael Churven as Jarvis.
“The Escape” was written by Jack Burditt & Danny Zucker. Steve Levitan directed.
“American Housewife” stars Katy Mixon as Katie Otto, Diedrich Bader as Greg Otto, Meg Donnelly as Taylor Otto, Daniel DiMaggio as Oliver Otto, Julia Butters as Anna-Kat Otto, Carly Hughes as Angela and Ali Wong as Doris.
Nathan Fillion guest stars as himself.
“American Housewife” is written by Sarah Dunn (“Spin City,” “Bunheads”) and produced by Kapital Entertainment and ABC Studios. Sarah Dunn, Aaron Kaplan, Rick Wiener and Kenny Schwartz are executive producers.
“Finding Fillion” was written by Bill Callahan, Rick Wiener and Kenny Schwartz, and directed by David Bertman.
In the middle of preparing for the birth of her first child, the actress and activist celebrated a special career milestone Monday morning.
As it turns out, it was time for Eva to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"What a dream come true today! Receiving my star on the Walk of Fame is an honor I can't even believe I'm going to experience!" she wrote on Instagram. "Can't wait to join all the legends and even more so, can't wait for all of y'all to go and visit it!"
A few famous friends were able to see the star up close and personal already when they attended the revealing today.
Ricky Martin, Anna Faris and Victoria Beckham were in attendance to support their close pal. And yes, fans were treated to a mini Desperate Housewives reunion when Felicity Huffman showed her support with husband William H. Macy.
"Hemming my pants with boob tape," Felicity shared on Instagram Stories before the event. "Almost ready for @EvaLongoria's ceremony."
And while many of Eva's friends were unable to make it, that didn't stop them from sending their best wishes on social media.
"I wish I could be there cheering you on!!! There in spirit! So so so proud," Gina Rodriguez shared in the Instagram comments section. Eiza González added, "Get it girl. You are a pioneer and you deserve the world." Maluma, Holly Robinson Peete, LaLa and others also showed their support.
Later in the day, Eva also enjoyed a luncheon with more friends including Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon.
"Congrats @EvaLongoria for your star on the Hollywood #WalkofFame," Reese shared on Twitter. "This woman is a superstar actress, producer, and director (not to mention soon-to-be-mama!), who is changing Hollywood w/everything she touches! Making pure gold, baby!"
The event, co-sponsored by Variety and the Hollywood Museum in the Historic Max Factor Building, honored Williams and unveiled her portrait to mark the occasion. Leron Gubler, president and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, explained that the luncheon was created in 2000 to “recognize celebrities who’ve made a difference in Hollywood.” Steve Allen, the original host of “The Tonight Show,” was the first to be honored at the event.
“I ended up doing musical theater in high school and some theater in college and Broadway was the tangible goal for me,” Williams said as she accepted her award. “Hollywood was never on the radar because it was one of those things that was unattainable.”
She said how she went on to exceed her expectations by singing at the Oscars in 1996 and getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and much more throughout her career spanning over 30 years. Williams said, “Even though I feel like an outsider because this is all a dream, the fact that I can look at my life and see my achievements and know that Hollywood was such an integral part of what made me, me and what’s helped my career, I thank you.”
Prior to Williams’s acceptance speech, Steven Gaydos, vice president and executive editor at Variety, introduced a video highlighting the success Williams has had in film, television, music, and theater. The montage included scenes from “The Pick-Up Artist,” “Ugly Betty,” “Desperate Housewives,” and her singing the Oscar-winning song “Colors of the Wind” and from Disney’s “Pocahontas.”
In addition to giving Williams her award and portrait, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce also ushered in its new 2018-2019 chair, Donelle Dadigan, and swore in new directors and officers.
Pregnant actress Eva Longoria appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” this week and revealed that she remains close with co-stars Felicity Huffman and Marcia Cross, who will attend her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony next week.
“We’re very good friends,” Longoria told host Jimmy Kimmel, who then asked, “All of you?”
“No,” Longoria said with a laugh. “But 99 percent of us are.”
The 43-year-old notably failed to name Teri Hatcher, whom she previously described as a “loner.”
The ABC series ran from 2004 to 2012.
First, for Miss Virginia: Niles Fitch, Nadji Jeter, Amirah Vann and Michael Beasley also round out the cast in the film which is being directed by R.J. Daniel Hanna (Shelter) and produced by Erin O’Connor, Rob Pfaltzgraff, and Maurice Black of the Moving Picture Institute, Stacey Parks of Media Sparks Films and M. Elizabeth Hughes. Miss Virginia is set to commence production later this month in Los Angeles.
Inspired by a true story, Miss Virginia follows a struggling inner-city single mother who moves her at-risk son from his dangerous neighborhood school to a safe — but expensive — one. Sacrificing everything but still unable to make the tuition payment, she launches a movement that could save her son’s future and that of many other children in the community.
Ellis is known for her roles in feature films The Help, Ray as well as Men of Honor and Undercover Brother. She will next be seen in If Beale Street Could Talk from Annapurna Pictures, directed by Barry Jenkins. Williams is best known for her roles in the ABC TV hit Ugly Betty, and feature films Erasure and Shaft. She will next be seen in the TV film False Profits with Shelley Hennig and Bellamy Young from ABC Studios.
Now for Brokers: Australian actor Christopher Egan, known for his work in Letters to Juliet and Resident Evil, has joined Hanna Griffiths (Macbeth, Underbelly Rush) in the new Warren Zide and James Wallace-produced romantic drama Brookers.
Set in 1994 Sydney, Australia and New York, the film is based on a true story, written by Wallace, about the rise and fall of Kingsley Walker (Christopher Egan), the currency trading prodigy from Sydney. Walker, who was determined to prove himself in the big leagues, accepts an opportunity to move to Manhattan to run the largest currency trade ever for a reclusive American billionaire nicknamed “The Whale”.
With constant temptation from his extravagant brokers, a love triangle which takes him well out of his comfort zone and a fierce battle of wits with his arch nemesis, Kingsley has everything on the line: his job, his relationship, his values and his sanity.
Other cast members attached to the project include AFI Award Winner Gyton Grantley (The Dressmaker). Principal photography begins August 2018, with distribution into China, India and Australia already secured.
Egan is repped by Anonymous Content and UTA. Griffiths is repped by Bohemia Group and Maverick Artists Agency.
Those seven words, spoken in the final moments of last week’s Dynasty, introduced viewers to the new Alexis Carrington, now played by Nicollette Sheridan. And she’s only begun to steal the show.
“She is a force to be reckoned with,” Sheridan tells TVLine of the iconic character, played by Joan Collins during Dynasty‘s original run (1981–1989). “Dear God, nobody’s safe! She annihilates common boundaries of decency to obtain what she needs. She’s this matriarch of a family that’s cutthroat, crippling and riddled with dirty politics. It’s great television.”
Ironically, Sheridan says she never saw Collins’ portrayal of Alexis back in the day, as she was busy starring on Knots Landing, a spinoff of Dynasty‘s rival drama Dallas. “I’m actually kind of glad,” she admits, “because I get to give my own fresh take on who she is.”
And it “didn’t take long” for Sheridan to accept the role, following an “incredible” meeting with CW boss Mark Pedowitz and the Dynasty producers.
“We decided Alexis needed a big splashy comeback,” Sheridan says, though she had no idea how literal that concept would become. Speaking of her big pool fight with Fallon in tonight’s episode, she says, “It was good fun — but it was freezing outside. And I wanted to do my own stunts, so that really is me going upside into the water with my legs in the air. Luckily we got it in one take.”
On the topic of Alexis vs. Fallon, Sheridan says, “To me, there’s no more complicated relationship than the one between a mother and a daughter. That’s what really attracted me to the role. Fallon is a powerhouse, and you’ll finally see where she gets it — and why she’s as screwed up as she is. Sure, she’ll want to drive a wedge between Blake and Cristal, but right now it’s so much about Alexis and Fallon. Alexis honestly wants Fallon to blossom and not be so riddled with anger.”
As a bonus, TVLine also has an exclusive sneak peek of Sheridan in action (above), which offers a glimpse into Alexis’ issues with her ex-husband’s new bride. (Those hoping for more physical friction between Alexis and Cristal, Sheridan simply says, “Don’t you fear. It’s coming.”)
“Today we lost an amazing and wonderful member of the SPT family. This is a shock to all of us, and we are heartbroken,” SPT president Jeff Frost and co-presidents Chris Parnell and Jason Clodfelter wrote in a note to the company staff announcing Patmore Gibbs’ passing. “All of us at Sony Pictures Television were touched by Suzanne’s passion and friendship. She was a wonderful colleague and friend to all who worked with her. She will be greatly missed and our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends during this difficult time.”
Patmore Gibbs most recently relaunched TriStar Television as a division of SPT. She led the unit for the past three years, gradually building it into a label focused on female-driven projects, in front and behind the camera, as exemplified by the Amazon series Good Girls Revolt. Patmore Gibbs was passionate about providing more opportunities for female showrunners and directors, about championing projects with strong female roles and about encouraging new voices and diversity. The exec, who also shepherded TriStar TV’s series Shut Eye and The Last Tycoon, is leaving behind a slate of a slew of high-profile projects set up at cable and streaming networks.
Before taking over TriStar TV, Patmore Gibbs served as EVP drama development for SPT, where her team developed NBC’s The Blacklist, The Night Shift and The Player; Outlander on Starz; Bloodline and The Get Down on Netflix; Houdini and Doyle on Fox; and Powers on PlayStation.
Before joining Sony TV, Patmore Gibbs served as EVP scripted programming for ABC Entertainment Group, where she was instrumental in the development of hits Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy, which she championed, and also shepherded such series as Lost, Revenge, Once Upon a Time, Scandal, Suburgatory and Ugly Betty. She also worked as SVP drama development at Touchstone Television, as SVP development at Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz’s Bedford Falls and acted as an adjunct professor of screenwriting at the USC film school from 1999-2002.
Patmore Gibbs is survived by her husband, Stuart; children Dashiell and Violet; her brother, Alan; and her parents, Barry and Carole.
“She was a mentor, a guiding light, and a tastemaker for multiple studios including ABC, Sony and most recently TriStar Television,” the family said. “She was kind, thoughtful and supportive to everyone she worked with — and in return, she was respected and admired throughout Hollywood. While she was justifiably proud of her many career accomplishments, she felt that her greatest success was her loving family and friends. She will be greatly missed.”
Details regarding arrangements and services will be be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, her family has asked to make a donation to the Children’s Institute or Girls, Inc.
With her and husband José Antonio Bastón baby boy on the way, E! News can also confirm she's listed her stunning Hollywood mansion. The Desperate Housewives alum is asking $3.795 million for the lavish estate, which is three stories tall and spans 8,603-square-feet.
The not-so humble abode boasts six bedrooms (each with its own fireplace!), nine bathrooms and a slew of amenities fit for any A-lister.
In addition to an expansive kitchen and cozy living areas, the lucky purchaser of Eva's home can look forward to plenty of movie nights in the state-of-the-art theater and separate family room complete with a wet bar. The master bedroom also includes a massive bathroom and two separate walk-in closets.
Moving outside, lush landscaping wraps around a private pool, spa, dining area and outdoor kitchen.
The 43-year-old actress announced she was pregnant with her first child in December 2017.
Capone (Hardy) was the most infamous and feared gangster of American lore. A ruthless businessman and bootlegger who ruled Chicago with an iron fist. At the age of 47, following nearly a decade of imprisonment, dementia rots Capone’s mind and his past becomes present as harrowing memories of his violent and brutal origins melt into his waking life.
Cardellini will play Capone’s long-suffering wife Mae; Dillon is his closest friend Johnny; MacLachlan plays his doctor Karlock; Narducci plays Rosie, one of his sisters.
Bron Studios and Creative Wealth Media are backing the pic, which will begin shooting next month in New Orleans. Bron’s Aaron L. Gilbert is producing alongside Russell Ackerman and John Schoenfelder from Addictive Pictures, and Lawrence Bender for A Band Apart. Jason Cloth of Creative Wealth will serve as exec producer.
CAA and Endeavor Content are repping North American rights, while BLOOM is handling international sales.
Dillon by Untitled Entertainment and UTA; Cardellini is repped by Mosaic and ICM Partners; MacLachlan by UTA and Management 360; Narducci by Brillstein Entertainment Partners and Bret Adams Ltd.
GUEST CAST includes: Linn Bjornland(Cheryl Kaline), Jason Gedrick (Craig Kaline), Gail O’Grady (Krystall Richards).
Wendell Pierce and Danielle Brooks (Orange Is The New Black) also co-star.
This marks the second feature for Chukwu, who is known for her work on the clemency campaign for Tyra Patterson, who was wrongfully accused of murder and was recently released from prison after serving almost 23 years. Chukwu also created the Pens to Pictures program in an Ohio women’s prison.
Bronwyn Cornelius and Julian Cautherley are producing the project via ACE Pictures Entertainment.
“We were thrilled to discover the incredibly moving screenplay by writer/director Chinonye Chukwu, and with participation of the outstanding lead actress Alfre Woodard, multi-talented composer Kathryn Bostic and the highly experienced production team, led by producer Bronwyn Cornelius, our decision to come on board was very easy,” said Johnny Chang, Managing Director of ACE Pictures Entertainment.
Woodard will reprise her role on Season 2 of Netflix/Marvel’s Luke Cage, and also executive produced and stars in the Netflix film Juanita, as well as lends her voice in Disney’s Jon Favreau-directed live-action Lion King.
Hodge, best known for his role in WGN’s Underground, is set to star in the Brian Banks biopic from director Tom Shadyac. Schiff currently stars in the ABC drama The Good Doctor, which was recently picked up for a second season.
Woodard is repped by ICM, Circle of Confusion, and Gochman Law Group; Hodge by Paradigm, manager Jason Priluck and attorneys Benjamin Rubinfeld and P.J. Shapiro; Schiff by Paradigm and Leverage Management.
The former Desperate Housewives star found herself hitting headlines on Wednesday after a Star magazine story alleged the 53-year-old was so poor, she had been forced to live in her vintage Volkswagen camper van.
Dismissing the false gossip in a TV interview for KTLA 5 Morning News on Thursday, she said, “It’s totally absurd…
“It’s categorically false. I’m not broke, I’ve done very well investing my money. I’m not homeless, and I’m not living out of my van.”
Instead, Teri explained she has been busy filming a new show: “I am shooting my YouTube series, Van Therapy, in my van,” she shared.
According to TMZ, the star is now considering filing a lawsuit against the tabloid publishers over the article.
The actress, a mother of one, also took to Twitter to shut down the unfounded claims as she acknowledged International Women’s Day.
“On #internationalwomensday It’s important that we speak up for ourselves & speak up for what’s right,” she tweeted. “#VanTherapy is a series that was created for people to have a safe place to come & talk, not an opportunity for tabloids to spread false rumors.”
Just last month, Teri discussed her new project with HauteLiving.com, explaining she is enjoying travelling around Los Angeles for the show because it gives her an opportunity to connect to people from all walks of life.
“I’m learning and sharing so much, but one thing that seems so common and simple is that people just want to be seen and heard,” she said. “I think they are really valuing having a place to tell their story, to share a problem or a frustration even if the outcome isn’t a resolution.
“At this point, even with all our technology, I think many of us feel more alone than ever, which is ironic. Through these interviews, I’m learning that I’m not alone in my struggles and neither are they. The human experience is more common and similar than our media may make us feel sometimes. We all want to be accepted, loved, safe, and just okay. So it’s a bit cliche, but I think my experience with this project is really validating the saying, ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’”
The actress, who played Susan on the ABC series, appeared on ITV's Loose Women on Wednesday and talked to the co-hosts about the TV series and whether there's a possibility of a revival.
"We all miss Desperate Housewives, if there was ever a chance for that to come back, would you go back?" Hatcher was asked on the show.
"I would be the first person, yeah, I never wanted it to be over, I loved those characters," Hatcher shared, before admitting that she doesn't think the chances of a revival are "very good."
Why?
"Well just because of the creators, I mean it's not the women, I think the women would probably all do it," Hatcher said. She later shared that while she's "not so much" in touch with the other women, she's "supportive" of what everyone's doing in their lives, mentioning Eva Longoria's pregnancy.
"Very excited that Eva's about to have her first baby," she told the co-hosts.
Longoria, who played Gabrielle on the series, also spoke out about a Desperate Housewives revival in December.
"I wish! I love that show. I miss it every single day. I miss being Gaby. I miss being on set. I miss everything about it. But our creator [Marc Cherry] has said many times he wouldn't bring it back," Longoria told NewBeauty. "Plus, we're all so busy. Felicity [Huffman] is always off doing some Emmy award-winning show. I'm busy with my projects. I don't know if it will ever happen, but I'm all for the idea!"
After eight seasons, Desperate Housewives went off the air in May 2012. Would you like to see a revival or do you like how the show ended?
Written by Alpert, False Profits is described as Desperate Housewives meets Glengarry Glen Ross. It follows a team of down-and-out women in suburban Arizona as they fight their way to the top of the cutthroat world of a multi-level marketing cosmetics business.
Williams will play Suzanne, chief of a highly successful “tribe” of Brava Natural saleswomen, and she wants to add Laura (Young) to her cluster of money-making devotees. The cast also includes Kapil Talwalka.
Alpert executive produces with Reed and former Desperate Housewives exec producer Sabrina Wind via Jason T. Reed Productions. ABC Studios is the studio.
Williams, who received three Emmy nominations for playing Wilhelmina Slater on ABC’s, Ugly Betty, co-starred in the final season of Desperate Housewives as Renee Perry and headlined ABC’s 666 Park Avenue and VH1’s Daytime Divas. She also co-starred in the TV movie The Trip to Bountiful opposite Cicely Tyson. Williams is repped by UTA and GEF Entertainment.
From poolside photo shoots to launching a new clothing collection with HSN, the mom-to-be tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s issue that she’s feeling “amazing” now that she’s six months along.
“I’m in the golden months right now,” explains the actress, 42. “I’m full of energy, and the hard part of the first trimester is over.”
Longoria and her husband, media mogul José “Pepe” Bastón, will welcome their first child together, a son, in May. She says Bastón, who has three children from a previous marriage, is “ecstatic” about their new addition and that she’s ready to “embark” on this new journey.
“I don’t know anything about the mom world even though I have a lot of nieces and a lot of girlfriends with kids,” she says. “I’ve been reading, and it’s a lot of information and things to absorb.”
She adds of her baby boy on the way, “I can’t wait for him to be here!”
Though Longoria, who next stars in the April 13 movie Overboard, admits she’s going to “live in leggings” and dresses for the rest of her pregnancy, there’s one thing she can’t wait to wear after her son’s arrival: jeans.
“I think everybody looks forward to the jean moment when you go, ‘It fits!’ ” she says. “I’m resistant to buying maternity wear just because I’ve been wearing my stuff and now I’ve gotten to a point where I’m like, ‘I’m so uncomfortable!’ ”
“So I have broken down and bought some pregnancy leggings and mostly bottoms because it’s just impossible now to wear my old clothes.”
Longoria feels “lucky” that most of her pregnancy occurred over the winter months because she had no trouble layering and hiding her bump under coats and big sweaters.
“Now that we’re getting into spring and I’m going to be getting bigger, I’ll have to have a new approach,” she says.
While creating the Eva Longoria Collection — which launched Wednesday on HSN — Longoria recalls that she was “very” hands-on.
“[I was] involved in everything from designing different styles, grabbing different influences, reading trend books, reading trend colors and working with our design house here in L.A.,” she says. “It’s a long process from fittings, to models, to stitching, to textiles and to shooting the lookbooks.”
On March 22, Longoria will appear on the network to sell her line to viewers.
“I love talking about why I chose that silhouette, why I chose that textile, how you should wear it … what woman this is for, and you can’t do that with garments hanging on a rack in a store,” she says.
“With HSN, you can just speak to each garment, you can talk about the emotion you want women to feel when they put it on. I want them to feel power, and I want them to feel beautiful.”
Another thing she loves about HSN is that it gives her access to one of her guilty pleasures. “I am a kitchen gadget person, so don’t throw a kitchen gadget in front of me on HSN because I will buy it,” Longoria says.
The styles in her line range in price from a $29 graphic tee with a wine slogan to a $99 jumpsuit, and she says the fabrics and ruffles “scream feminine.”
Longoria’s love of design is deep-rooted in her childhood and dates back to when she started sewing at age 7.
“That was the main inspiration for this,” she says. “I’ve always sewn, I’ve always been obsessed with the construction of a garment, I’ve always looked at the seams and looked how they are put together and at the quality. It’s why I wanted to create the line because I’m so interested in creation.”
And while her sewing skills might’ve come in handy for the baby, she jokes, “Well since I’m not having a girl, I only know how to make dresses!”
The Eva Longoria Collection is available now on HSN.com.
For more on Eva Longoria, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
Woodard — a four-time Emmy winner — will appear on a recurring basis during the second half of Empire‘s current fourth season, which resumes on Wednesday, March 28 at 8/7c. The actress began shooting her arc earlier this month.
The gig marks a reunion for the two Oscar-nominated powerhouses: They co-starred together in the 2008 pic Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys.
Woodard’s recent TV credits include series-regular stints on Netflix’s Luke Cage (which is returning for Season 2) and NBC’s ill-fated State of Affairs.
“They want to look cute but .?.?. you can see that they are cold.”
And with all the TV classics coming back, Williams said, “I would love to reboot ‘Ugly Betty.’ We had a great time .?.?. I only got to keep a few dresses. A lot of the stuff was tailor-made to fit me. I do not know who’s got it, but it all fits my body, so good luck with that.”
Hatcher, who also starred in James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, is joined by the likes of Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp and Not The Nine O’Clock News star Griff Rhys Jones in The Great Stand Up To Cancer Bake Off for Channel 4.
The show, which airs later this year, forms part of a range of programming by the British broadcaster to raise funds and awareness of the cancer charity. It will air five episodes of the Love Productions format, which will see the celebrities battle it out over three rounds in a bid to be crowned Star Baker.
Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood will be judging the delicious delights and devastating disasters, and Bake Off hosts Noel and Sandi will also be back to provide tea and sympathy for the celebrity bakers.
Other stars appearing in the show include musical comedian Tim Minchin, presenter Stacey Solomon, Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party Ruth Davidson, comedian, writer and actress Roisin Conaty, Kaiser Chiefs’ frontman Ricky Wilson, Diversity’s Perri Kiely, TV presenter Nick Hewer, broadcaster Melanie Sykes, comedian Lee Mack, Paralympic gold medallist Kadeena Cox, comedian Joe Lycett, Made in Chelsea’s Jamie Laing, comedian Harry Hill, pop star Ella Eyre, journalist and presenter Bill Turnbull, comedian Alan Carr and comedian and actor Aisling Bea.
Felicity Huffman will join the cast of Epix’s Get Shorty in its second season, TVLine has learned.
The Desperate Housewives alum will recur as Clara Dillard, a maternal, high-level FBI special agent who is described as “hippie therapist meets J. Edgar Hoover” and who will oversee the Bureau’s investigation of Amara and the crime organization.
The comedy, which loosely is based on the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name, was renewed for a 10-episode sophomore season in August. Season 2 will find Chris O’Dowd’s Miles Daly meeting various obstacles on his path to be a filmmaker; these include his former partner, Ray Romano’s Rick, cooperating with the Feds.
In addition to her long run as Housewives‘ Lynette Scavo, Huffman’s TV career includes shows like Sports Night, Frasier, American Crime and BoJack Horseman.
In related news, Sarah Stiles — who recurred as Gladys in Season 1 — has been promoted to series regular for Season 2.
Written by Tanen, Grand Hotel is a soapy drama set against the backdrop of a Miami Beach hotel, centering around the family who owns the business, the staff who run it, and the explosive secrets they hide under the perfect exterior.
Longoria and Ben Spector executive produced via UnveliEVAble Entertainment alongside Tanen as well as Oliver Bachert and Christian Gockel of Beta Film, which distributed the original series.
UnveliEVAble, ABC and ABC Studios also developed a Grand Hotel adaptation last season with a different writer. Televisa USA previously took a stab at an English-language adaptation of the series set in pre-Castro Havana.
Gran Hotel (aka Grand Hotel) was created and produced by Bambu Producciones and ran on Spain’s Antena 3 for three seasons, with its first season reaching a 18.5% share. Dubbed “a Spanish Downton Abbey,” the original series, set in 1905 Spain, has been a top international seller for Beta Films.
Written and executive produced by Bilsing-Graham and Kreamer, Three Rivers centers on Rebecca who left her family’s Texas ranch years ago to work at an upscale hotel in New York, but after being promised ownership of the ranch by her smooth-talking cowboy dad Beau, she’s back and ready to utilize her big city tactics to turn their rustic ranch into a destination spot oozing Southern hospitality. Getting her siblings to fall in line with her vision will be the real thorn in Rebecca’s side. And that’s going to be even harder once Beau reveals a life-changing family secret.
This is the fifth ABC comedy pilot this season from female creators vs. only one, untitled Tim Doyle, from a male creator. (The network also has straight-to-series Kenya Barris/Alec Baldwin sitcom).
Bilsing-Graham and Kreamer co-created, wrote and executive produced I Hate My Teenage Daughter, which aired on Fox from 2011-2013. The duo most recently served as consulting producers on NBC’s Trial & Error.
The Desperate Housewives actress will appear as herself in the March 2 episode, in which Rogelio seeks out Longoria to co-star in the American adaptation of The Passions of Santos, ETOnline.com reports. The two will then discover that they have a “surprising connection.”
Jane returns with new episodes on Friday, Jan. 26 at 9/8c.
As the countdown continues for the start of award season, two beloved actresses are teaming up for Sunday's big show.
E! News has learned Reese Witherspoon and Eva Longoria will walk the red carpet together Sunday night in support of Time's Up.
The movement launched on New Year's Day aims to promote equality and safety in the workplace. The initiative also addresses legislation, corporate policy and hiring practices.
"Thank you to @nytimes for helping us shine a light on ALL people silenced by abuse and harassment within their own industry," Reese wrote on Twitter when the movement was announced. "I'm very proud to be part of this group of over 300 women & men who are determined to take this moment to help others. @timesupnw."
Eva added, "I stand with women across every industry to say #TIMESUP on abuse, harassment, marginalization and underrepresentation. @TIMESUPNW."
According to the New York Times, Time's Up has also been urging women to wear black at the Golden Globes to use the red carpet as an opportunity to raise awareness about the initiative.
"This is a moment of solidarity, not a fashion moment," Eva shared with the publication. "For years, we've sold these awards shows as women, with our gowns and colors and our beautiful faces and our glamour. This time the industry can't expect us to go up and twirl around. That's not what this moment is about."
Jennifer Aniston, Shonda Rhimes, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Emma Stone and Rashida Jones are just some of the many Hollywood stars also supporting the initiative in various ways.
The Blast was first to report Eva and Reese's red carpet news.
Watch E!'s Countdown special Sunday, Jan. 7, starting at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT followed by the two-hour Live From the Red Carpet: 2018 Golden Globes special at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT! The 2018 Golden Globes air on NBC starting at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT. After, recap the night during E!'s After Party starting at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT. For complete Golden Globes coverage, watch E! News Monday at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m
A spy at the Seaspice restaurant tells us that the Brazilian superstar — once considered the best player in the world — and the actress began in the evening in separate groups but “their two parties ended up joining together for drinks of Rosé Piscine and Barceló rum cocktails after dinner.”
Meanwhile, Dsquared2 designers Dean and Dan Caten were spotted having dinner at the Forte dei Marmi’s private FDM Arts Club.
We’re told the twin brothers dropped into the kitchen to compliment the chef, Antonio Mellino.
Longoria and Bastón were seen strolling along Miami Beach early on Monday, and also shared a Christmas Eve celebration with Olivia Munn. Munn shared a photo of the pair indulging in tacos and drinks on Instagram, writing, “Christmas in Miami.”
Longoria has been with 49-year-old Bastón — the president of Televisa — since 2013. They married last year. The actress, 42, recently confirmed she was expecting her first child, a boy.
The untitled LA Women project, written by Fox, centers on longtime friends Reza, June, Amelia, and Indie who have climbed to the top of the Hollywood ladder together as a lawyer, an actress, a writer-producer, and an entrepreneur. It all looks pretty enviable from the outside, and they all enjoy the many perks of their high-flying lifestyles – but there’s no such thing as having it all, at least not all at the same time. Each of them has made significant sacrifices to get where they are. When a face from their past resurfaces in the pilot, they have to confront some ugly buried secrets and protect their lives from being destroyed.
Fox also executive produces with UnbeliEVAble’s Longoria and Spector along with Friendly.
Written by McMillan, Sidekicks is about ambitious young Detroit Police detective Shay Kendricks who is forced to team up with a newly-paroled criminal informant — who also just happens to be her dad. While Benny Kendricks quickly becomes a secret weapon solving cases, he also shakes up Shay’s emotional life, pushing her to reconcile with the past — and the feelings — she’d rather avoid. A character procedural that is centered around the love that exists between a father and daughter.
These are the latest sales for UnbeliEVAble under its overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV. Longoria and Spector also are executive producing comedy Bell Heights with Bobby Bowman and Peter Murrieta, which is in development at Fox. UnbeliEVAble also has soapy drama Grand Hotel set at ABC with writer Brian Tanen. Longoria also recently teamed with another former Desperate Housewives writer, David Schulner, for immigrant drama Lucky Boy, with Nisha Ganatra directing. Unbelievable also is in post on a documentary feature at Netflix with Lincoln Square Productions slated for a 2018 release.
McMillan’s writing credits include Good Girls Revolt, Mad Men, United States of Tara, and Satisfaction. She’s written three books – a memoir, I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway; a novel, Multiple Listings; and a relationship book, Why You’re Not Married… Yet. She also wrote the viral blog Why You’re Not Married.
Katz also was an executive producer on Fox’s 24: Live Another Day, ABC’s Body of Proof and NBC’s The Event.
Fox recently served as showrunner on Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce and was a writer and co-executive producer on A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Friendly is currently an executive producer on USA’s Queen of the South, which was recently renewed for a third season.
Longoria and UnbeliEVAble Entertainment are repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Eva and media mogul husband, Jose Baston, are expecting after getting married last year outside Mexico City. Eva's been married twice, but never had any kids with Tyler Christopher or NBA superstar Tony Parker. Jose already has 4 from a previous relationship.
Reps confirmed the baby news, which, we guess, means the honeymoon stage is officially over for 49-year-old Jose and 42-year-old Eva. Time to start making nursery plans.
Congrats!
Bell Heights was developed at ABC last season and 20th Century Fox TV has boarded the ABC Studios project to co-finance the project for re-development at Fox.
Written by Bobby Bowman (My Name Is Earl) and Peter Murrieta (Superior Donuts), Bell Heights is about an Eastside LA family with three very different adult siblings who are all held together by the baby, who is a dutiful son.
Bowman and Murrieta executive produce with Longoria and Ben Spector for UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, along with 3 Arts’ Miner and Greg Walter. ABC Studios co-produces with 20th Century Fox TV, 3Arts, and UnbeliEVAble.
UnbeliEVAble also has soapy drama Grand Hotel set at ABC with writer Brian Tanen. Longoria also recently teamed with another former Desperate Housewives writer, David Schulner, for immigrant drama Lucky Boy, with Nisha Ganatra directing.
Murrieta recently worked as a writer and producer on CBS’ Superior Donuts and Netflix’s One Day At A Time.
Longoria and UnbeliEVAble Entertainment are repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Bowman is repped by CAA and 3Arts. Murrieta is repped by CAA, 3Arts, and attorneys Warren Dern and Lon Sorenson.
The American Crime Story star and the former Desperate Housewives actress joined forces at the Global Gift Gala at the Nobu Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach. The hurricane relief event was held to support victims in Puerto Rico.
Longoria sported an all-cream-colored outfit, and her blazer is from her Eva Longoria collection. Martin hit the carpet in a suit and brought his Fiancé Jawn Yosef as his date.
Serena Williams, Loren Ridinger, and Miguel Bose also attended the event.
In October, Martin also went live on Facebook to raise funds for his beloved island.
"A dollar that you give to me is a dollar that will go straight to the victims. I cut the middle man because I am the middle man. You give me, and I give to the victims," Martin explained. "I will be posting through my social media everything that I'm doing with the money that you're donating."
"On our way to The Global Gift Gala Miami. Thank you @lyft for your support and the free rides for#BetterTomorrows. We are #AllIn4PR#GGGMIA17 #GGFUSA," the 42-year-old actress captioned the photo of herself and Martin on the way to their big night.
"Global Gift is almost ten years old. It's an initiative and a platform that we use to help a lot of people around the world. This year, Ricky called me and asked me, he said, ‘We need to make the entire night for Puerto Rico,'" Longoria explains to Univision's Alan Tacher.
"She gives me all the credit, but it's really her. You don't understand the heart that this woman has, you don't know," Ricky says with a smile. "I had the opportunity to do this type of gala on various occasions in different countries like she said, but now we…well, I want to focus on my people. Sadly, we're going on 77 days and a lot of people in my land don't have light, they don't have power, and they don't have drinkable water."
Nicollette Sheridan, who famously portrayed Edie Britt on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, is joining the cast of Dynasty as the mother of all troublemakers, TVLine has learned. Per the network, Alexis “will return unexpectedly to [Blake, Fallon and Steven’s] world, challenging Blake’s marriage to Cristal, seeking to reunite with her children and fighting to claim what is hers.” (In other words, lots of drama.)
This marks Sheridan’s first gig on a TV show since she departed Desperate Housewives in 2009. Prior to her five-season stint on the ABC drama, Sheridan was a series regular on the primetime soap Knots Landing.
“There are certainly Easter eggs along the way until her grand entrance,” executive producer Sallie Patrick recently told TVLine of Alexis, a role made famous by Joan Collins in the original series. “What we like is that we know when she’s coming. I’m not sure they knew their timing of her [on the original Dynasty], so she was really absent from the first year. When she did show up, it was a huge twist and a great surprise. Since we live in a world that already knows about Alexis and knows about Joan Collins, we thought it’d be fun to build up that wonderful, delicious character before her grand entrance. We can only bring her in once, so we’re taking our time to figure it out.”
The question is: Was that time well spent?
Written by Tanen, Grand Hotel is a soapy drama set against the backdrop of a Miami Beach hotel, centering around the family who owns the business, the staff who run it, and the explosive secrets they hide under the perfect exterior.
Tanen, Longoria and Spector executive produce alongside Oliver Bachert and Christian Gockel of Beta Film, which distributing the original series.
UnveliEVAble, ABC and ABC Studios also developed a Grand Hotel adaptation last season with a different writer. Televisa USA previously took a stab at an English-language adaptation of the series set in pre-Castro Havana.
Gran Hotel (aka Grand Hotel) was created and produced by Bambu Producciones and ran on Spain’s Antena 3 for three seasons, with its first season reaching a 18.5% share.
Dubbed “a Spanish Downton Abbey,” the original series, set in 1905 Spain, has been a top international seller for Beta Films.
Longoria recently teamed with another former Desperate Housewives writer, David Schulner, for immigrant drama Lucky Boy, with Nisha Ganatra directing. Longoria is repped by CAA.
Lucky Boy, which was published in January by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, follows the conflict between two immigrant mothers, one undocumented, one first generation, as they fight to love and protect the same small American boy.
Schulner executive produces with UnBeliEVAble’s Longoria and Ben Spector as well as Ganatra. Sekaran is co-executive producing. The project stems from a deal UnbeliEVAble had with Universal TV where Schulner also has been based.
On the feature side, UnbeliEVAble is teaming with Charles D. King’s MACRO on an American-set remake of Sin Filtro, the Chilean film by Nicolas Lopez, with an eye toward a 2018 production start. Longoria also is set to star in Dog Days, Ken Marino’s next comedy for LD Entertainment. Longoria and UnbeliEVAble are repped by CAA.
Lucky Boy reunites Longoria and Schulner who worked together on Desperate Housewives, in which Longoria starred. Schulner served as writer and co-producer on the first season. He most recently served as executive producer of Emerald City. He is repped by UTA.
Ganatra was a co-executive producer on You Me Her and Better Things, and also has directed episodes of Red Oaks, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Fresh Off the Boat. She is next helming the Mindy Kaling-Emma Thomson feature Late Night. She is repped by ICM Partners.
Sekaran is repped by UTA and Lindsay Edgecombe at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency.
The star purchased the place from none other than Tom Cruise for $11.4 million in 2015. At the time, she had just become engaged to José “Pepe” Bastón, now her husband.
She told Us magazine that when she saw the L.A. property, it was love at first sight. “I know Tom; he’s a lovely person. He did a very, very good job on this house because it was stunning and beautiful, and the minute we walked in I was like, ‘This, this is a home.'”
After a short stint living there, she decided to move to another spot in nearby Beverly Crest. Multiple reports note the actress paid $13.5 million for a more contemporary build. So the “Desperate Housewives” actress must be just a bit desperate to unload her real estate.
Not that this place should be a hard sell.
The one-of-a-kind “celebrity compound” is designed for the paparazzi-averse set, according to the listing. As we noted in 2015, when Cruise was selling the house: “Set back from Mulholland Drive on its own knoll, the home has a long, private driveway that separates prying eyes from the home’s occupants.” This home is for lovers of extreme privacy. So A-list celebs, step right up.
The 2.5-acre lot is filled with trees and walkways and has 180-degree views. The property includes two houses: a three-bedroom European-style villa and a four-bedroom country-style guesthouse. There is also a small stone cottage that could be a wine room. Two small studios lie just off the main pathways.
The main house features a country-style kitchen, a living room with fireplace, and large picture windows. The gated grounds include a lagoon-style pool and spa, fountains, gardens, and trellises.
Perhaps one reason Longoria decided to decamp to Beverly Hills was the same problem noted in our earlier story of the possible downside of the location. While you do get serenity and privacy, the property is rather secluded and inconvenient should you want to grab a cup of coffee or a drink.
Longoria’s acting credits include most recently the TV show “Empire.” She has produced shows “Telenovela” and “Devious Maids.”
Loren Judd holds the listing.
Directed by Michael Wilson, Right Before I Go. will be performed as a one-night-only benefit on Monday, December 4, 2017 at Town Hall (123 W 43rd Street). A student panel / talkback will take place at 6:30 PM; a VIP pre-show cocktail reception will begin at 7:00 PM followed by an 8:00 PM performance.
Proceeds will benefit prominent suicide awareness and prevention charities, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (afsp.org) and JED Foundation (JEDFoundation.org). Additional casting will be announced shortly.
The previously announced cast for Right Before I Go. includes Elizabeth Ashley, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Lacey, Jennifer Lim, Maulik Pancholy, and Raviv Ullman.
Judith Light is known for her extensive body of work on stage, in television, and film. She currently stars in Amazon Prime's Gold Globe-winning series, "Transparent," for which she has received two Emmy nominations. On stage she received a Tony nomination for the play Lombardi, followed by two consecutive Tony Award wins for the plays Other Desert Cities and The Assembled Parties. Light starred in the television series "Who's the Boss," and received two consecutive Emmy Awards for her work on "One Life to Live." She has been a longtime advocate in the fight to end HIV/ Aids and has been a champion for LGBTQ & human rights.
Vanessa Williams is one of the most respected and multi-faceted performers in the entertainment industry today. Having sold millions of records worldwide, Vanessa has also scored numerous #1 and Top 10 hits on various Billboard Album and Singles charts. Her critically acclaimed work in film, television, recordings and the Broadway stage has been recognized by every major industry award affiliate including 4 Emmy nominations, 11 Grammy nominations, a Tony nomination, 3 SAG award nominations, 7 NAACP Image Awards and 3 Satellite Awards. Her platinum single "Colors of the Wind," from the Disney film Pocahontas, won the Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe for Best Original Song.
Lois Smith recently appeared in both the feature film and Playwrights Horizons production of Marjorie Prime, and can also currently be seen in the feature Lady Bird. She appeared at the Signature in Annie Baker's John, for which she received a Lucille Lortel nomination; Tony Kushner's The Illusion; and Horton Foote's The Old Friends and The Trip to Bountiful, winning many awards for the latter. Other favorite stage roles include The Grapes of Wrath and Buried Child (Tony nominations for both). Smith has been seen in countless films, including East of Eden, Minority Report, Fatal Attraction, and Four Friends. Television credits include "Sneaky Pete," "Younger," "Blacklist," "Grace & Frankie," and "True Blood."
Wilson Bethel is best known for his roles as Wade Kinsella on "Hart of Dixie" and as Ryder Callahan on the CBS daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless." He is also the star and creator of the web series "Stupid Hype" on the The CW's new online platform CWD.
A student panel will take place prior to the performance, starting at 6:30 PM at Town Hall. Open to high school and college student groups attending the performance, the panel will include representatives from each of the beneficiary organizations (AFSP.org and JEDFoundation.org) along with a trained representative from the Traumatic Loss Coalition (TLC) and Wendy Sefcik of Remembering TJ. Please email RightBeforeIGo@gmail.com for more information and to reserve tickets.
Right Before I Go. brings to life the last words of those lost to suicide, including the heartsick, bullied, veterans, mentally ill and the achingly lonely. This poignant, deeply moving, and surprisingly light play invokes a raw and authentic approach to storytelling in an effort to help broaden public perspective of suicide, eliminate the stigma associated with depression, and strengthen the relationship between survivors and those struggling every day.
Right Before I Go. made its world premiere as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2015, where it received rave reviews.
Proceeds from the evening will benefit American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the JED Foundation.
Tickets for Right Before I Go. are available starting at $52 and can be purchased online at RightBeforeIGo.com or TicketMaster.com, by calling 800-745-3000, or in person at the Town Hall Box Office (123 W 43rd Street). Tickets purchased at the $252 level and above come with admission to an exclusive VIP pre-show cocktail reception.
Right Before I Go. is produced by R. Erin Craig, La Vie Productions, Amy Blavin, Diane Orley, Jane Dubin, Ryan Ratelle, Melissa Chusid, Fireplay and One Company.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across the United States. If you, or someone you love, is in crisis call 1-800-273-8255.
The Crisis Text Line serves anyone, in any type of crisis, providing access to free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week support and information via the medium people already use and trust: text. Text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the U.S., anytime, about any type of crisis.
Fore more information, visit RightBeforeIGo.com.
Established in 1987, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is a voluntary health organization that gives those affected by suicide a nationwide community empowered by research, education and advocacy to take action against this leading cause of death. Led by CEO Robert Gebbia and headquartered in New York, and with a public policy office in Washington, D.C., AFSP has local chapters in all 50 states with programs and events nationwide. AFSP celebrates 30 years of service to the suicide prevention movement. Learn more about AFSP in its latest Annual Report, and join the conversation on suicide prevention by following AFSP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. www.afsp.org
JED is a nonprofit that exists to protect emotional health and prevent suicide for our nation's teens and young adults. We're partnering with high schools and colleges to strengthen their mental health, substance abuse and suicide prevention programs and systems. We're equipping teens and young adults with the skills and knowledge to help themselves and each other. We're encouraging community awareness, understanding and action for young adult mental health. www.jedfoundation.org.
The dramedy starred Vanessa Williams (Ugly Betty) as Maxine Robinson, the host and creator of a View-esque talk show, though her scandalous personal life — which included a sordid love affair, a murder cover-up, etc. — frequently overshadowed her on-air persona.
Maxine was joined at The Lunch Hour table by a parade of diverse co-hosts: war correspondent Nina Sandoval (played by Happyland‘s Camille Guaty), former child star Kibby Ainsley (Pretty Little Liars‘ Chloe Bridges), conservative icon Heather Flynn-Kellogg (Wilfred‘s Fiona Gubelmann), and off-the-wall comedian Mo Evans (Everybody Hates Chris‘ Tichina Arnold).
The show’s first (and only) season concluded with a two-hour finale on July 31, during which Maxine was arrested for copping to her husband’s murder — even though it was really the work of her son Shawn (Hit the Floor‘s McKinley Freeman).
“[Maxine is] very resourceful, and I think it’d be interesting to see a woman like that in prison, where her resources and access and influences are limited — at least initially,” executive producer Chris Alberghini told TVLine in July. “It’d be fun to see what she could make out of that situation.”
GUEST CAST includes: Kai Daniels (10 Year Old Clay), Danny Pardo (Vargas), Doug Savant (Malcolm).
Joining Longoria in the film is Tig Notaro (One Mississippi), Rob Corddry (Ballers), Michael Cassidy (Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Hamilton), Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us), John Gemberling (Broad City), Ryan Hansen (Party Down), Thomas Lennon (The Odd Couple), Lauren Lapkus (Jurassic World), Jessica Lowe (Wrecked), Toks Olagundoye (Castle), Jessica St. Clair (Playing House), and David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later).
The film follows a group of interconnected people in Los Angeles who are brought together by their loveable canine counterparts. The script is written by Elissa Matsueda, with current revisions by Erica Oyama. It is filming in Los Angeles.
LD Entertainment is fully financing the comedy. It is being produced by Mickey Liddell, Pete Shilaimon, and Jennifer Monroe. Previously announced cast include Jon Bass (Baywatch), Tone Bell (Disjointed), Nina Dobrev (The Vampire Diaries), Vanessa Hudgens (Spring Breakers), Adam Pally (Band Aid), and Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things).
Dog Days follows a group of humans brought together by their canine pets as they work through hardships in life. Longoria is in talks to play Grace, a loving wife and mother who can’t bear to disappoint her adopted daughter Amelia when the girl falls in love with a lost dog.
Scott Holoryd, Mickey Liddell, Pete Shilaimon and Jennifer Monroe are producing the project.
Longoria just wrapped on the MGM/Pantelion remake Overboard with Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez. Recently, she was tapped to star in workplace comedy film 24-7, along with Kerry Washington, based on a pitch by screenwriter Sarah Rothschild, which Universal acquired. Longoria will also produce the project via her UnbeliEVAble Entertainment company.
She’s repped by Brillstein Entertainment Partners and CAA.
Eric Kripke wrote the script based on the novel, which tells the tale of a recently orphaned 10-year-old boy who discovers a world of hidden passageways, magic and danger in his uncle’s old house. MacLachlan will play Isaac Izard, the sinister original owner of the house. Deadline reported in August that Blanchett was landing a co-starring role.
Mythology Entertainment’s Brad Fischer and James Vanderbilt are producing with Kripke. The exec producers include William Sherak, Tracey Nyberg and Laeta Kalogridis.
MacLachlan, who reprised his role as FBI Agent Dale Cooper in David Lynch’s recent Twin Peaks revival, also just reprised his role in IFC’s Portlandia, whose eighth season premieres in 2018. He also is aboard with Maria Bello and Josh Wiggins in the indie high school drama G.L.O. (The Giant Little Ones).
He is repped by UTA, Management 360, Special Artists Agency, and Jackoway Tyerman.
“The Long Goodbye” – Phil and Claire realize that Alex may be more self-sufficient in college than they give her credit for when they drop in for a quick visit. Meanwhile, Manny is determined to avoid a long tearful goodbye after Gloria and Jay move him into his college dorm. Finally, Mitch may have accidentally accelerated a planned renovation, and Hayley gets an unexpected opportunity when she befriends a wealthy female member at the country club.
The beloved Hollywood pair celebrates 20 years of wedded bliss today, a major milestone for any couple—famous or otherwise. Felicity took to Instagram on Wednesday with a heartwarming tribute to the Shameless star, and yes it includes an epic set of vintage photo booth snapshots.
"You took me home in 1985," the Desperate Housewives alum penned. "You married me in 1997. You give me a thrill every time you walk through the door. Thank you for marrying me 20 years ago today."
Macy also tweeted, "Twenty years ago today I did the best thing I've ever done in my life. I married Felicity Huffman."
We aren't crying, you are!
A walk down the aisle wasn't always in the cards for Felicity and William, who dated off and on for 15 years before the actress decided he was the One.
"I was so scared of marriage that I thought I would've preferred to step in front of a bus," the actress, 54, told Tribune News in 2015. "Bill Macy asked me to marry him several times over several years. And I was finally smart enough to go: ‘I'm going to marry this guy or really lose him for good.'"
She continued, "And it was after we broke up for four or five years when he asked me again, I knew I couldn't say no. It was the work I had to do in order to bring myself to the marriage and then the work that I did to be able to trust another person and see what comes out of that comfort and that safety. I was able to blossom out of that."
The lovebirds ultimately became husband and wife in 1997, welcoming their first child, daughter Sophia Grace, three years later. Their second daughter, Georgia Grace, was born in 2002.
In 2009, Macy and Huffman became only the second couple to receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame together. And seven years later, both found themselves among the nominees at the 2016 Emmys.
Here's to 20 more years of achievements and love! Happy anniversary, you two.
Written by Corrado, Kristy Kottis is inspired by the real-life Vespa riding, shit kicking, former New York City public school teacher-turned-FBI agent, Kristy Kottis. The is a darkly comedic drama seen through the eyes of a real woman — not a super hero, not first in her class, but fiftieth, who found her calling in a place she never imagined; as the first female supervisor in charge of the Guardian Squad, the division responsible for uniting the NYPD, Homeland Security, Secret Service, Amtrack and Port Authority Police in New York City.
Corrado executive produces with Working Title’s Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Andrew Stearn and Liza Chasin as well as Huffman and Winter. There are no current plans for Huffman to star.
Three years ago, Winter and Huffman teamed for another FBI drama project that was set up at ABC with a put pilot commitment, which had Huffman attached to star as a special agent leading the New York City Joint Terrorism Task Force. At ABC, Huffman starred in the series Desperate Housewives and American Crime and also headlined the comedy pilot Libby & Malcolm this past season.
Corrado, who adapted the 2016 financial thriller feature Equity as a TV series for ABC last development season with Amy Pascal producing, is coming off a three-year stint on FX’s The Strain, last two as an executive producer, working alongside executive producer/showrunner Carlton Cuse who also recruited her as a writer-producer on his A&E drama series The Returned. Corrado started her career on David Milch’s Deadwood and John Fran Cincinnati and also worked on FX’s Sons of Anarchy for four seasons. She is repped by CAA and Zero Gravity Management.
She told us that tacos and other Latin food is to blame. “I love tacos .?.?. I can’t get enough of tacos,” she told Page Six.
“Mostly in Cannes and before red carpets, I just have to work out a little harder. In Cannes, there are a lot of gowns and a lot of red-carpet events, so I have to watch my figure.”
She received the Style Ambassador Award from Robert Verdi at Monday night’s ACE Awards at Ciprani 42nd Street.
Executive produced by Selena Gomez, 13 Reasons Why deals with teen suicide, bullying, drunk driving and rape in graphic detail. Season 1 follows teenager Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette) as he returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker (newcomer Katherine Langford) — his classmate and crush — who had committed suicide two weeks earlier. On tape, Hannah explains that there are 13 reasons why she decided to end her life.
Weber will play Barry Walker, father of Bryce (Justin Prentice), a successful hedge fund manager and pillar of the community. Strong will play Nora Walker, Barry’s husband and Bryce’s mother. Monroe will play Carolyn, Alex’s mother, a hardworking nurse and devoted mother. Brown, is Caleb, Tony’s boxing trainer, a fierce competitor and dedicated coach, but out of the ring he has a warm smile and a wry sense of humor.
Weber, known for his role as Joe Dubois on Medium, recently recurred on Homeland and Secrets and Lies. His recent film credits include Learning to Drive opposite Patricia Clarkson. He’s repped by APA and Frameworks Entertainment.
Two-time Emmy nominee Strong most recently was seen as Lex’s mother Lillian Luthor on the CW’s Supergirl and also as a recurring on Fear the Walking Dead. She’s also known as the voice of Mary-Alice Young, the departed narrator, on all eight seasons of ABC’s Desperate Housewives.
Monroe has recurred on Criminal Minds and Hart of Dixie and played Chloe Metz on Californication, along with other guest spots. On the feature sidem she most recently was seen playing Woody Harrelson’s girlfriend, Greer, on The Edge of Seventeen. She’s repped by Abrams Artists Agency.
Brown has recurred on Tycoon, The Carries Diaries and Girls and recently guest-starred on The Blacklist and Blue Bloods. His feature credits include starring roles in thriller The Heart Machine and Home of the Giants. He’s repped by Gersh.
On Saturday, Williams, 35, hosted a ’50s themed baby shower from the aptly named “Baby O Diner” with all of her famous gal-pals.
“When you and your crew go so far back to the 50’s. Even then they had your back,” Williams captured the snaps.
Williams, who is due this fall, wore a yellow poodle skirt with black and white polka dots ruffles underneath. She let her bump shine through in a crop top that came off the shoulders. She completed her ‘50s ensemble with a top-knot, red scarf, chunky white pearls and black and white saddle oxfords.
The tennis champ was joined by Ciara, La La Anthony, Eva Longoria, Kelly Rowland and sister Venus Williams for the party.
The girls also jammed with a juke box and posed with a retro red pick up truck.
While Williams and fiancé Alexis Ohanian have yet to formally announce the baby’s sex, he believes they’re having a girl.
“We have our hunches,” the Reddit co-founder beamed to Jimmy Kimmel in early August. “She put it really well – she won the Australian Open while pregnant, and she remarked that she feels like it has to be a girl because everything that little baby went through and handled like a champ, only a woman could be strong enough to take on.”
Based on the network’s successful movie franchise, Good Witch is set in the fictional town of Middleton and follows Cassie Nightingale (Catherine Bell) and her bright teenage daughter Grace (Bailee Madison), who shares her mom’s special intuitive charm. Sam (James Denton), a doctor, and his teenage son (Rhys Matthew Bond) live next door and are charmed by the “magical” mother-daughter duo and wonder is it really magic, a lucky coincidence or just a special intuitive insight only this family possesses?
Whizbang Films is the producer. Orly Adelson, Jonathan Eskenas, Frank Siracusa and Craig Pryce executive produce. Bell is co-executive producer. ITV Studios America controls distribution rights outside of North America.
Darren Mann (Let the Right One In, Hello Destroyer), Taylor Hickson (Aftermath, Deadpool, andEverything, Everything) and Peter Outerbridge (Orphan Black) round out the cast.
GLO reunites the creative team from Mean Dreams (Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight selection and TIFF Special Presentation). The film is produced by Allison Black with executive producers Bello, Patrice Theroux, Storyboard Entertainment’s Richard Blumenstein, Jason Potash and Paul Finkel, euclid431’s Nathan Morlando, Mongrel Media’s Hussain Amarshi, Daniel Bekerman, and Mark Gingras and John Laing of Urban Post. Susan Wrubel and Tom Spriggs will co-executive produce.
Financing for the production provided by Telefilm Canada, Storyboard Entertainment, OMDC, NOHFC, Mongrel Media, CBC, Urban Post, Bell Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund, and TMN.
UTA is handling U.S. sales. Mongrel Media will distribute the film in Canada and will handle international sales.
MacLachlan, Bello, and Wiggins are all repped by UTA. MacLachlan is also managed by Management 360 and Wiggins by Loch Powell of Power Entertainment Group.
Choice TV Villain (#ChoiceTVVillain)
Cory Michael Smith – Gotham
Grant Gustin – The Flash
Janel Parrish – Pretty Little Liars
Josh Segarra – Arrow
Mark Pellegrino – Supernatural
Teri Hatcher – Supergirl
Lopez won’t direct the remake. His next film, Hazlo Como Hombre releases in Mexico on August 11 and in the US on Labor Day by Pantelion/Lionsgate, and No Estoy Loca bows in Chile on January 4.
The producers will look to quickly set a writer and director for the remake, with Will Rack overseeing for UnbeliEVAble Entertainment. Both of those companies have been busy. UnbeliEVAble, with a first-look deal with Universal Pictures, most recently teamed with Kerry Washington’s Simpson Street Productions to sell 24/7, a pitch being written by Sarah Rothschild for the studio as a potential star vehicle for Longoria and Washington. Led by former WME partner King, MACRO is coming off co-financing and producing the Best Picture nominee Fences, and financing the Dee Rees-directed Sundance hit Mudbound; the company launched in 2015 to create content for African American, Latino and multicultural audiences, hatched with funding that included lead investor Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective.
CAA repped the remake deal and Lopez, and also reps Longoria, who’s managed by Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
The fierce actress, 41, used to have a bit of a temper, both on set and off. Unfortunately, fellow actress Teri Hatcher experienced it firsthand, as Theron recounted in the August issue of W magazine.
“The fight was between me and Teri Hatcher. I hit her really bad,” Theron confessed of filming the 1996 movie “2 Days in the Valley.” “… I think she was bruised. And because it was Teri Hatcher, who was a star, and I was this bleached-blonde-Amazonian, catsuit-wearing nobody who was punching her in the face, I was like a wild animal. Back then I didn’t know how to hone in my energy and I was knocking over lights.”
She continued, “I had no concept of a set. I connected right with Teri Hatcher’s face. I felt terrible about it. I had no money and sent her some cheap beer the next day. Sorry, Teri.”
Theron admitted that her run-in with Hatcher wasn’t her only violent moment.
“But other than Teri Hatcher, I had only connected my fist with a girl’s face once in my entire life, so I had to do a lot of training for [new thriller ‘Atomic Blonde’],” she said. “I was working in Milan as a model, and this girl got very aggressive with me at a bar. She pushed me and started talking smack, and that was it. My body just took over, and I thought, ‘I didn’t just do that, did I?'”
Even though the Oscar winner doled out some punches in her heyday, Theron also sustained injuries while filming “Atomic Blonde.”
“I remember it was day two, my body was hurting, and my face was all bruised up, and my eye was swollen shut,” Theron said in an interview with the New York Times. “I remember thinking to myself, Really?”
“Soaring together again,” Hatcher, 52, wrote on both Twitter and Instagram. “So fun to reunite. Thanks to #bridgeclimbsydney.”
Hatcher was all smiles as her arms wrapped around her 50-year-old former costar, similar to what her character, Lois Lane, had so often done with Superman.
Cain, meanwhile, remained serious — raising his fist in a typical Superman pose, ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound (or, in this case, complete the rest of the popular tourist attraction with the help of a safety harness).
Cain and Hatcher — who was also decked out in safety gear — are currently touring Australia for the Supernova Comic Con and Gaming Expo.
The pair’s sweet reunion comes nearly 20 years to the date after their popular ABC show had its series finale. That episode aired June 14, 1997.
While it’s been awhile since they flew together as Man of Steel and Lois, both are no stranger to Metropolis.
Previously, Hatcher and Cain had roles on The CW’s Smallville and Supergirl — the latter where Hatcher had the chance to tap into her villainous side as Queen Rhea of Daxam. Cain, meanwhile, played M.I.A. Danvers patriarch Jeremiah.
Additionally, Sara Rue (Impastor), Lucy Punch (Ben & Kate) and Roger Bart (Desperate Housewives) are on board for the Netflix series’ sophomore run, our sister site Variety reports.
No character details were revealed as producers announced the castings at a Friday night FYC event, though The Wrap is reporting that Fillion will play the brother of Patrick Warburton’s title character.
Based on the series of novels, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events was renewed for Season 2 in March, and weeks later saw that renewal extended through Season 3.
Rothschild is a writer on Love, Unscripted for Awesomeness TV; the Universal comedy The Gauntlet; and The Dog Walker, which has Alison Eastwood attached to direct. The writer is represented by Verve and attorney Kim Stenton.
Longoria is with CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Group and Washington with CAA, Washington Square Films and attorney Gretchen Rush.
Longoria most recently was seen in Ricardo de Montreuil’s Lowriders as well as the BBC Two miniseries Decline and Fall, an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic social satire. Simpson Street is developing feature films based on the books The City of Saints and Thieves with Will Packer and Universal; The Perfect Mother, which is set up at TriStar; and The Mothers at Warner Bros.
VP Production Sara Scott will oversee development on 24-7 for Universal. VP Will Rack will oversee development for UnbeliEVAble, and VP Pilar Savone for Simpson Street.
The role-reversal adaption follows a spoiled playboy (Derbez) from one of Mexico’s wealthiest families who falls overboard off his yacht and comes down with amnesia only to be convinced by Kate (Faris), a single, working class mom that he is her husband. Longoria will play Theresa, Kate’s employer at the pizza restaurant as well as her closest family friend and trusted confidant.
Fisher is producing with Ben Odell and Derbez via their 3Pas Studios banner. MGM’s Cassidy Lange is overseeing the project, which is slated to begin production this week in Canada.
Repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, Longoria can currently be seen on the big screen in BH Tilt/Universal’s Lowriders opposite Demian Bichir. On the TV side, she recently guest-starred Fox’s musical drama Empire, which just wrapped its third season, and co-starred in the BBC/AcornTV miniseries Decline and Fall.
Set to a version of “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, the promo features the four, all wearing pretty amazing boots, unexpectedly meeting up in National City’s alien bar. A 30-second version aired during the final, but Warner Bros. TV released an extended 45-second version that you can watch above.
Directed by Patty Jenkins, Warner Bros’ long-awaited DC Comics adaptation stars Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, along with Robin Wright and David Thewlis. It hits theaters June 2.
As I reported exclusively, ABC sibling Freeform is close to picking up the Black-ish spinoff pilot starring Yara Shahidi to series.
While the Marc Cherry small-town drama pilot starring Reba McEntire is not going forward at ABC, I hear it also is being shopped around by ABC Studios. Cherry and ABC Studios have a successful track record. In 2012, ABC also passed on Cherry’s Devious Maids pilot, which ABC Studios sold to Lifetime where the series had a successful four-year run.
There are possibilities for the new Cherry pilot — set in the colorful small town Oxblood, KY — at Lifetime or a network like CMT, which also aires Nashville, co-produced by ABC Studios. But while its setting and lead, country star McEntire, would feel right at home on the Viacom network, its storyline, about a local sheriff and and FBI agent, may be a bit off-brand as CMT has been focusing on music-driven projects. And the series may prove too expensive.
While the multi-camera comedy pilot Household Name starring Carol Burnett is not getting picked up to series in its current form, the project is very much alive with discussions underway about its future. Different scenarios are considered that would likely involve some retooling.
The series was never a ratings powerhouse for ABC, but its Season 3 ratings were particularly woeful; it wrapped its run on April 30 with an anemic 2 million viewers and a 0.4 demo rating. But Crime was arguably ABC’s most acclaimed drama of the past few years, snagging consecutive Emmy nominations for Best Limited Series and back-to-back wins for star Regina King.
Last month at Deadline‘s The Contenders Emmy soiree in Los Angeles, franchise vet Felicity Huffman seemed prepared for the worst, saying, “If there isn’t a Season 4, I’m so honored that this is our last season. I think ABC has changed the face of network TV and what network TV can do. … They are beyond what cable can do. Sometimes those things have a short shelf life, but the ripple effect is great.”
At the same event, exec producer Michael McDonald revealed that a fourth season would’ve centered on “women in the workplace,” before citing the recent sexual harassment scandals enveloping Uber and Fox News (Bill O’Reilly specifically) as examples.
"We can't believe it," Longoria told me while promoting her new indie drama Lowriders before adding with a laugh, "You know some days it feels like 40 years, and some days it feels like we met yesterday."
And sometimes they have to deal with pregnancy rumors. The most recent being last month when paparazzi snapped pics of Longoria in a bikini while they were on vacation.
She usually ignores the gossip, "but this time my mom called me because I actually really did look pregnant," Longoria said. "So I was like, 'Oh yeah, I could see why you were questioning that.'"
She blamed the "baby bump" on some extra cheese she ate during lunch.
Funny enough, she appears on the cover of the new issue of Health in a bikini. The photo shoot took place just before "cheese-gate." "I am trying to get back to this because this was pre-vacation," Longoria said.
As for baby planning with Bastón, Longoria said, "I don't know. Right now I am a step mom to three amazing kids, and I've had my hands full, and they are amazing and wonderful...It's been a lot of fun, a lot of fun being a step mom."
Lowriders tells the story of a young man (Gabriel Chavarria) who is torn between his distant father (Demián Bichir) and an older brother (Theo Rossi) who has just gotten out of prison after eight years behind bars. The film takes places in L.A.'s lowrider community with Longoria playing the young man's step mom.
The movie is in theaters on May 12.
In tonight’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine (8/7c, Fox), Castle‘s Nathan Fillion guest-stars as a TV sleuth who thinks his experience catching perps on the small screen qualifies him to solve actual crimes. In other words, he’s basically playing the P.I. version of Lowe’s late, great Grinder “lawyer” Dean Sanderson — and we are here for it.
As previewed in the exclusive clip above, the episode finds Jake and Rosa investigating a burglary case on the set of their favorite Law & Order-esque series. Their initial excitement about being in the presence of Fillion’s Mark Devereaux quickly gives way to utter disdain when the wannabe sleuth assumes the role of chief interrogator.
“Quantico” stars Priyanka Chopra as Alex Parrish, Blair Underwood as Owen Hall, Aunjanue Ellis as Miranda Shaw, Jake McLaughlin as Ryan Booth, Johanna Braddy as Shelby Wyatt, and Yasmine Al Massri as Nimah and Raina Amin.
Guest starring Hunter Parrish as Clay Haas Jr., Dennis Boutsikaris as Henry Roarke, Jon Kortajarena as Felix Cordova, Marcia Cross as President Claire Haas, Henry Czerny as Matthew Keyes, Todd Alan Crain as Peter Theo, Elisabeth Waterston as Alice Winter, and Fredric Lehne as Maxwell Fletcher.
RLJ Entertainment’s Acorn brand, in partnership with Endemol Worldwide Distribution, also acquired North American rights to Season 1 of the British drama Delicious, starring Iain Glen (Game of Thrones), Dawn French (The Vicar of Dibley) and Emilia Fox (Silent Witness). The four-part drama about food, love and infidelity in Cornwall premieres on Memorial Day weekend, Friday, May 26.
Other May premieres include the return of top Australian dramedy 800 Words Series 2, Part 2, on May 29, and veterinarian documentary series The Yorkshire Vet in Spring, Series 2.
Additional Acorn TV offerings in May include the 1979 BAFTA-nominated Royal Shakespeare Company production of Macbeth; BAFTA-winning BBC series Criminal Justice, Emmy-winning Edward & Mrs. Simpson, Rake Series 3, family drama The Flame Trees of Thika and Lorna Doone.
“Acorn TV is off to another record year, and May just might be our best schedule yet,” said Mark Stevens, President of Acorn Brands at RLJ Entertainment. “We’re thrilled with the subscriber response to our first 2017 Acorn TV Originals — Agatha Christie’s The Witness for the Prosecution and Irish drama Striking Out — and Decline and Fall is a perfect addition to our Originals slate. This new BBC One comedy has been getting rave reviews in the UK for its witty script and stellar cast led by Jack Whitehall, David Suchet, and Eva Longoria, so we know U.S. fans will love it as much as we do.”
Babak Najafi is directing from a script by John Stewart Newman and Christian Swegal, with production scheduled to being this month in Boston. The film follows Mary who, working as for an organized crime family in Boston, is completely turned around when she meets a young boy whose path she crosses when a professional hit goes bad.
Paul Schiff and Tai Duncan are producing.
Avery, who is reuniting with her The Color Purple co-star Glover in this pic, is repped Ideal Talent Agency. McDonough (DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow) is with Paradigm, Matt Luber, and attorney Stuart Rosenthal. Berkeley is repped by Paradigm, Affirmative Entertainment and SMGSB. Winston is with Abrams Artists Agency and Jackoway Tyerman. Serbedzija is repped by Innovative Artists and United Agents in the UK.
Longoria is best known for playing Gabrielle Solis in “Desperate Housewives.” The Illinois school announced Monday the actress, producer and philanthropist will speak at the June 4 graduation ceremony.
Knox College President Teresa Amott says Longoria’s accomplishments embody key liberal arts college values like appreciation for the arts and commitment to social justice.
Longoria has starred in feature films including “The Sentinel” and directed episodes of acclaimed shows like “Jane the Virgin.” She created The Eva Longoria Foundation to help Latinas build strong futures through education and entrepreneurship and co-founded Eva’s Heroes to support individuals with special needs.
Knox College was founded in 1837 and enrolls 1,400 students. Previous commencement speakers include comedian Stephen Colbert and then-Senator Barack Obama.
“Modern Family” airs WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29 (9:00-9:31 p.m. EDT), on The ABC Television Network.
“Modern Family” stars Ed O’Neill as Jay Pritchett, Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, Sofia Vergara as Gloria Pritchett, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron Tucker, Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy, Nolan Gould as Luke Dunphy, Ariel Winter as Alex Dunphy, Rico Rodriguez as Manny Delgado, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as Lily Tucker-Pritchett and Jeremy Maguire as Joe Pritchett.
Guest starring are Nathan Fillion as Rainer Shine and Joe Mande as Ben.
“Five Minutes” was written by Elaine Ko and directed by Gail Mancuso.
Ricardo Chavira (Desperate Housewives) has joined CBS’ NASA-inspired drama pilot Mission Control, taking the place of 24 alum Nestor Serrano, our sister site Deadline reports. The part was reportedly recast after the first day of shooting.
Written by Andy Weir (The Martian), Mission Control follows a group of NASA scientists and astronauts struggling to balance their personal and professional lives. Previously announced cast members include David Giuntoli (Grimm), Poppy Montgomery (Without a Trace), Peyton List (Frequency) and Levi Fiehler (The Fosters).
Chavira’s character, Diaz, serves as the director of the Johnson Space Station. And this casting is just the latest in a hot streak for the actor, who recently recurred on The CW’s Jane the Virgin, ABC’s Scandal and Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet.
The Desperate Housewives vet has signed on to play Axler, an ambitious, brutally honest consultant who is at war with her inner “nice girl.”
Penned by Life in Pieces scribe Lesley Wake-Webster, the project is loosely based on the book Assholes: A Theory by Aaron James. Jason Winer (The Crazy Ones, Modern Family) is set to direct the pilot.
Longoria’s most recent stab at sitcom success, NBC’s Telenovela, was cancelled after one season. Next month, she begins a recurring stint on Fox’s Empire as Charlotte Frost, the formidable director of the all-powerful state gaming commission who has the power to make-or-break Lucious’ (Terrence Howard) dreams of expanding Empire’s reach to Las Vegas.
“Quantico” stars Priyanka Chopra as Alex Parrish, Blair Underwood as Owen Hall, Aunjanue Ellis as Miranda Shaw, Jake McLaughlin as Ryan Booth, Johanna Braddy as Shelby Wyatt, Yasmine Al Massri as Nimah and Raina Amin, Russell Tovey as Harry Doyle and Pearl Thusi as Dayana Mampasi.
Guest starring Hunter Parrish, Aaron Diaz as Leon Velez, Jenna Leigh Green as Emily Meyers, Karolina Wydra as Sasha Barinov, with Henry Czerny as Matthew Keyes and Marcia Cross as President Claire Haas.
Series star Kyle MacLachlan will make a special appearance Thursday night March 16 at The Showtime House at Clive Bar on Rainey Street. Showtime will also host a special two-day musical lineup March 16 and March 17, with afternoon and evening sessions, featuring music inspired by Twin Peaks. Performers will include Neko Case, Real Estate, M. Ward, Agnes Obel, Holly Macve, Julie Byrne, Alex Cameron, Aldous Harding, Alexandra Savior, Cameron Avery and Annie Hart (of Au Revoir Simone), Tim Darcy, L.A. Salami and Let’s Eat Grandma.
Twin Peaks, the follow-up to David Lynch’s cult ABC series, will debut on Showtime on May 21 at 9 PM with a two-hour premiere.
Directed entirely by Lynch, the new 18-part limited event series picks up 25 years after the inhabitants of a quaint northwestern town were stunned when their homecoming queen Laura Palmer was shockingly murdered. Twin Peaks is written and executive produced by series creators Lynch and Mark Frost, and is executive produced by Sabrina S. Sutherland.
Amazon on Wednesday announced that Season 2 of the Ron Perlman/Dana Delany drama will drop on Friday, March 10. In the final batch of episodes, Judge Maximum fights to restore his sanity and regain his freedom after spending much of Season 1 (which premiered back in September 2015) haunted by visions and the ghost of his son. Linda Gray (Dallas) and Nia Long (Lifetime’s Beaches) join the cast, which also features Andre Royo (The Wire) and Garret Dillahunt (Justified).
The Hand of God pilot was initially released by Amazon all the way back in August 2014, while Season 1 dropped 13 months later. It quickly received a second season order, but was later cancelled by the streaming video service last summer.
“I love that Jillian is doing her thing on her own,” Williams told us at New York Fashion Week.
“I have never heard anyone say she reached where she is because of me — or nepotism.”
The proud mom added, “But if needed I would be ready.” Williams said of her own career, “I am still doing my thing.”
The next time, in 2011, the guru believed he’d fallen down a ravine, but was able to escape and was then picked up by someone on the street. Williams never saw Enzo again.
The Castle vet will guest-star on Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Mark Devereaux, the star of a Law & Order-type series titled Serve & Protect, EW.com reports.
Mark thinks playing a detective on TV makes him qualified to help Jake (Andy Samberg) and Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) investigate a crime that occurred on the set of his crime drama.
Since Castle‘s end last year, Fillion has done guest spots on Modern Family — he reappears on the ABC comedy this Wednesday — and Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet. He also stars in the web-based Con Man, created by Alan Tudyk.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine resumes its fourth season Tuesday, April 11, at 8/7c on Fox; Fillion’s episode will air this spring.
“Quantico” stars Priyanka Chopra as Alex Parrish, Blair Underwood as Owen Hall, Aunjanue Ellis as Miranda Shaw, Jake McLaughlin as Ryan Booth, Johanna Braddy as Shelby Wyatt, Yasmine Al Massri as Nimah and Raina Amin, Russell Tovey as Harry Doyle, and Pearl Thusi as Dayana Mampasi.
Guest starring Marcia Cross as President Claire Haas, Henry Czerny as Matthew Keyes, Aaron Diaz as Leon Velez, David Lim as Sebastian Chen, Tracy Ifeachor as Lydia Bates and Jay Armstrong Johnson as Will Olsen.
“EPICSHELTER” was written by Beth Schacter & Marisha Mukerjee and directed by Constantine “Gus” Makris. Executive producers are Joshua Safran, Mark Gordon, Nicholas Pepper, Robert Sertner and Jorge Zamacona. “Quantico” is produced by ABC Studios.
Survivor’s Remorse follows the life of Cam Calloway (Jessie T. Usher), a hard-working, young basketball star who is thrust into the limelight after signing a huge contract with a pro basketball team in Atlanta.
Washington will play Rodney Barker, the estranged and incarcerated father of Cam (Usher) who is on a journey of forgiveness and redemption as it relates to the sins of his past. Calloway will play Missy Vaughn’s (Teyonah Parris) mother, Camille Jordan, a business executive and DC civil rights activist who wants more for her daughter. McDonough is Brian Powers, a Bostonian business man from Cam’s (Usher) old neighborhood.
Survivor’s Remorse is executive produced by Mike O’Malley, Tom Werner, LeBron James and Maverick Carter for SpringHill Entertainment, Paul Wachter, Victor Levin, Hilton Smith and Ali LeRoi. Season 4 is set to premiere this summer.
In addition to her lead role as Lady Ella Johnson in Saints & Sinners, Calloway’s other credits include Shameless and feature Southside With You. She’s repped by Zero Gravity Management.
Washington, best known for his role as Dr. Preston Burke on long-running series Grey’s Anatomy, can currently be seen as Thelonious Jaha on the CW’s The 100. He’s repped by Amy Weiss at Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
McDonough’s credits include Arrow, Justified, Band of Brothers and Rogue. He’s repped by Paradigm Agency, Luber Roklin Entertainment, and Bloom Hergott Diemer.
The CW superhero series has cast Teri Hatcher in Season 2, TVLine has learned.
Hatcher, who played Lois Lane to Dean Cain’s Clark Kent in ABC’s 1990s Superman series, will appear in multiple episodes of Supergirl; character details are scarce, but she’ll eventually become the season’s big villain.
Cain, of course, also has a recurring role on the show — he plays Kara’s adoptive father, Jeremiah Danvers.
In addition to Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Hatcher’s TV credits include Desperate Housewives, Seinfeld, The Love Boat and Jane By Design. She also recently recurred on CBS’ The Odd Couple.
“No offense to any of the wonderful actresses who have also played the part, but Teri Hatcher is my all time favorite Lois Lane,” Supergirl executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said in a statement. “To have her come back to the SuperWorld in a completely different part is an unbelievable gift to me, [EP] Greg [Berlanti], and the fans.”
The Desperate Housewives vet is joining Empire‘s current third season for a multi-episode arc.
She’ll play Charlotte Frost, the formidable director of the all-powerful state gaming commission who has the power to make-or-break Lucious’ (Terrence Howard) dreams of expanding Empire’s reach to Las Vegas. The twist? Beneath Charlotte’s alluring facade, lies a force of darkness and corruption.
Longoria most recently starred in the short-lived NBC comedy Telenovela.
Empire — which has already been picked by Fox up for an 18-episode fourth season — resumes its third season on Wednesday, March 22 at 9/8c.
Dubbed Telemundo Films, the new business strand will be led by Luis Silberwasser, president of Telemundo network, and will operate under Telemundo Studios. The aim will be to develop, produce and market feature films in English and Spanish for Hispanic audiences.
Lowriders will see Telemundo Films team with Imagine Entertainment, Blumhouse Productions’ BH Tilt and Universal Pictures. Longoria stars in the pic alongside Demian Bichir, Melissa Benoist, Theo Rossi, Tony Revolori and Gabriel Chavarria.
Richard de Montreuil directs the project, which is set against the vibrant backdrop of East Los Angeles’ near-spiritual car culture. It follows the story of Danny, a talented young street artist caught between the lowrider world inhabited by his old-school father and ex-con brother and the adrenaline-fueled outlet that defines his self-expression. Imagine’s Brian Grazer and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum produce.
“Telemundo Films will allow us to leverage our expertise to expand our entertainment business into a new genre of storytelling,” said Cesar Conde, Chairman of NBCUniversal International Group and NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. “We are excited to kick off this new venture in partnership with Imagine, Blumhouse and Universal Pictures and look forward to working with them to serve the vibrant movie-going Hispanic market.”
Lowriders is set for a May 12 U.S. release date.
Danza plays Freddie de Cordova, the executive producer of The Tonight Show. He’s old-school Hollywood (think martinis and cigarettes) and the reigning authority — the bearer of good news and certainly bad news. Danza has a special connection to the role. He was a frequent guest of Carson’s on The Tonight Show and even guest-hosted multiple times.
Nelson will play bright, sweet-faced, innocent Andy Klavin. An average kid from Valentine, NE, who, along with his mother and father, is a huge Johnny Carson fan. To make his beloved dad proud, Andy gets himself to Burbank and on the set of The Tonight Show, mistakenly believing he has a job there. He’s thrust into an exciting new world he’s barely even dared to dream about — and to his surprise, he quickly finds he might have a place there.
Levy is Joy Greenfield, the assistant talent coordinator for The Tonight Show. While Andy initially is smitten with Joy, she feels more like a big sister toward him, guiding and mentoring him through this strange new world.
Bart will recur as Angelo, the show’s affable wardrobe guy who subtly serves as the moral compass for the rest of the Tonight Show crew.
Written by Reiser and David Steven Simon (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Mad About You), the coming-of-age story is set in 1970s Los Angeles, when The Tonight Show first moved from New York to Burbank. Reiser and Simon executive produce. David Gordon Green (Red Oaks, Vice Principals) directs.
Danza has been pursued aggressively lately by networks with several projects eyeing to mark his return to television. He starts shooting There’s Johnny this week and will complete filming in time for pilot season this year. He has no exclusivity or commitment to future seasons, so he will be free to do a network show if he chooses. Last year he starred in NBC/CBS Studios half-hour comedy pilot Sebastian, exec produced by Greg Garcia. He most recently starred in the critically praised Broadway musical comedy Honeymoon in Vegas and also co-starred in indi hit Don Jon. Danza is repped by CAA and manager Dan Farah.
Nelson’s credits include The Deleted, The Boy Next Door and The Judge. He’s repped by UTA, 3Arts, Jordan Gill and Morris Yorn.
Produced in conjunction with the Carson Estate and with unprecedented access to the full Carson archives, the comedy will intertwine live action with authentic footage of Carson and his guests on screen. The series will focus on the people behind the scenes of the legendary late-night show, while Carson will be portrayed as a looming presence. Carson’s nephew Jeff Sotzing also will executive produce.
The series will premiere in 2017, 55 years after Carson’s first Tonight Show appearance and 25 years after his last show. He died in 2005.
Executive producers include Paul Reiser, David Steven Simon, Brian Volk-Weiss, Michael Pelmont, Cisco Henson, and Matt Ochacher. Seeso’s Evan Shapiro and Kelsey Balance will also Executive Produce the series, and Craig Knizek will serve as Producer. The series will be co-produced by Nuance Productions, Comedy Dynamics, and Rough House, in partnership with the Carson Estate.
“The Court finds that the Defendant has presented substantial undisputed evidence of the creative decision to kill off Sheridan’s character, developed over several seasons of the show,” said a January 12 ruling by Judge Holly Kendig granting the motion for summary judgment by Touchstone TV in the actor’s her claim of retaliation against the ABC unit.
“Thus, …Touchstone’s legitimate reasons for killing off Sheridan’s character would have resulted in the same decision,”the LA Superior Court judge added in the just released ruling (read it here) “Sheridan has not presented a triable issue of fact showing that retaliatory animus was a ‘substantial motivating factor’ of the employment decision,”.
Not that this latest loss is going to stop Sheridan says her main lawyer. “We look forward to winning in front of the court of appeal, again,” Mark Baute told Deadline.
As is evident from the Baute Crochetiere & Gilford LLP attorney’s remarks and as any one who has been watching the past few years recalls, Sheridan’s legal pursuit has seen a series of victories and losses in a variety of jurisdictions.
Most recently, the actor’s efforts looked to see a new trial get a June 5, 2017 start date after the 2nd District Court of Appeal revived the matter in October 2015. The unanimous opinion penned by Justice Thomas Willhite jilted the October 2013 ruling by Judge Michael Stern denying Sheridan another trial. This was based on a 2013 amendment to the California Labor Code that altered the process so that “there is no requirement that an individual exhaust administrative remedies or procedures” – which had previously proved a hurdle to high for Sheridan.
In the 2012 trial, which was filed two years beforehand, Sheridan claimed that DH creator and EP Marc Cherry had intentionally struck her on set in 2008 while the two were disagreeing, to put it mildly, over a scene. The actor insisted that her complaining about the incident to network execs was what resulted in her being tossed from the once ratings dominating show – which ended its run in May 2012. Later released as a defendant from that case, Cherry testified that discussions of getting rid of Sheridan’s Eddie Britt character preceded the incident and her termination had zero to do with it. He was backed up by former ABC executives like current CW boss Mark Pedowitz and then programming chief Steven McPherson.
It is unlikely that Cherry would have been called as a witness if the new trial had gone forward. However, a witness list did have Sheridan’s DH co-stars Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross are on it – though that didn’t ensure they actually would be taking the stand.
Adam Levin of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP has been since almost Day 1 and continues to represent ABC and Touchstone in the matter.
“Quantico” stars Priyanka Chopra as Alex Parrish, Blair Underwood as Owen Hall, Aunjanue Ellis as Miranda Shaw, Jake McLaughlin as Ryan Booth, Johanna Braddy as Shelby Wyatt, Yasmine Al Massri as Nimah and Raina Amin, Russell Tovey as Harry Doyle, and Pearl Thusi as Dayana Mampasi.
Guest starring Marcia Cross as President Claire Haas, Aaron Diaz as Leon Velez, Tracy Ifeachor as Lydia Bates, David Lim as Sebastian Chen, Jay Armstrong Johnson as Will Olsen, Paige Patterson as Carly Klapp, Jeff Leaf as Adam Elling, Javier Muñoz as Gabriel Carrera and Nick Westrate as Robbie Robertson.
“JMPALM” was written by Braden Marks and directed by David McWhirter. Executive producers are Joshua Safran, Mark Gordon, Nicholas Pepper, Robert Sertner and Jorge Zamacona. “Quantico” is produced by ABC Studios.
The tomato-red villa with three bedrooms and three baths sits on a 3,700-square-foot lot just south of the Hollywood Bowl. The 2,011-square-foot home features a large living room, canyon and city vistas, and chef’s kitchen. A second-floor master suite has french doors that open to a terrace.
The 41-year-old Longoria listed the Mediterranean-style property in August for $1,395,000; it was sold for a smidge under her asking price, at $1,374,500. Records show she purchased the home in 2005 for $1.15 million. The current median list price for a home in the 90068 ZIP code is $1.5 million.
Longoria played the sexy and saucy Gabrielle Solis on “Desperate Housewives,” ABC’s long-running prime-time soap. She has since become a philanthropist and activist for Latino causes.
In May, the actress gave marriage a third try when she wed businessman Jose “Pepe” Baston.
The network has given its first pilot order of the 2017–2018 season to Marc Cherry‘s untitled drama about a southern sheriff (McEntire) who teams up with a Middle Eastern FBI agent to fight “horrific” crimes in small-town Kentucky.
No, really, it’s happening. Here’s the official logline in all its southern-fried glory:
Ruby Adair, the sheriff of colorful small town Oxblood, Kentucky, finds her red state outlook challenged when a young FBI agent of Middle Eastern descent is sent to help her solve a horrific crime. Together they form an uneasy alliance as Ruby takes the agent behind the lace curtains of this southern gothic community to meet an assortment of bizarre characters, each with a secret of their own.
–“I am thrilled to be coming back home to ABC,” Cherry said in a statement. “What makes it all the sweeter is Reba McEntire is coming with me. And we can’t wait to share with our fans this wonderful Southern Gothic soap opera we’ve been cooking up for them.”
In addition to Desperate Housewives, which ran on ABC from 2004 to 2012, Cherry also created Devious Maids, which wrapped its four-season run on Lifetime last year. Cherry will executive-produce this new project, along with McEntire, Sabrina Wind, Mindy Schultheis and Michael Hanel.
McEntire also has a brief history with ABC, having starred in the short-lived comedy Malibu Country (2012–2013).
RECURRING CAST: Teri Hatcher (Charlotte), Geoff Stults (Murph).
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD / Lacie – “BLACK MIRROR” (Netflix)
FELICITY HUFFMAN / Leslie Graham – “AMERICAN CRIME” (ABC)
AUDRA McDONALD / Billie Holiday – “LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL” (HBO)
SARAH PAULSON / Marcia Clark – “THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY” (FX Networks)
KERRY WASHINGTON / Anita Hill – “CONFIRMATION” (HBO)
Described as a Southern Gothic soap opera, the show is set in motion after a horrible, suspected act of terrorism happens at a 4th of July parade in the small town of Oxblood, Kentucky. The FBI sends a cocky agent of Middle Eastern descent to investigate. He teams up with the mercurial local Sheriff (McEntire) to uncover secrets far darker than either could have ever imagined.
In addition to writing, Cherry will serve as showrunner on the ABC Studios series, which he executive produces with Sabrina Wind via their own Cherry-Wind Productions, McEntire, as well as Mindy Schultheis and Michael Hanel of Acme Productions. Shultheis and Hanel are long-time McEntire collaborators and served as executive producers on her previous TV series, the WB comedy Reba and ABC/ABC Studios comedy Malibu Country.
Besides the ABC Studios-produced Desperate Housewives, one of ABC’s biggest hits of the past decade, Cherry also created the studio’s dramedy Devious Maids, which just wrapped a successful run on Lifetime. He is repped by Paradigm and attorney Jon Moonves. Wind is repped by Paradigm and attorney Michael Gendler. Acme and McEntire are repped by attorney Jim Jackoway. McEntire is also repped by WME.
Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Felicity Huffman, AMERICAN CRIME
Riley Keough, THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE
Sarah Paulson, THE PEOPLE v. O.J. SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY
Charlotte Rampling, LONDON SPY
Kerry Washington, CONFIRMATION
Titled Libby & Malcolm, the potential series — from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and co-executive producer Vijal Patel — explores how today’s “politics of division” plays out between two opposing pundits who also happen to be husband and wife. (Think James Carville and Mary Matalin.) Bitter work rivals on their show Black & Wright, the couple has to turn conflict into compromise at home when it comes to raising their kids.
Huffman will shoot the pilot after completing work on American Crime Season 3, which is currently in production. Vance, meanwhile, is coming off his Emmy-winning turn as Johnnie Cochran in American Crime Story: The People Vs O.J. Simpson.
The Desperate Housewives alum caught up with E! News during Wednesday evening's L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth Awards, revealing her plans to ring in her very first Thanksgiving with hubby Jose Bastón. "We have felt married for so long that I forget everything's the first," Longoria dished in her Noon By Noor ensemble. "We've only been married six months; we're actually celebrating six months this weekend. It's been great!"
Longoria and Bastón got tied the knit in Mexico in late May. They later embarked on a magical honeymoon through Hong Kong, Cambodia, and Thailand, seemingly riding the wave of wedded bliss ever since.
And as it turns out, it's not only Jose's inaugural Turkey Day with the actress, but his first ever!
Eva explained, "This is going to be our first Thanksgiving married and my stepkids and my Mexican husband don't celebrate Thanksgiving so this is the first time they're coming to the United States for Thanksgiving."
Like most hungry Americans, Longoria shared that her main man and rest of the fam are "very excited about turkey and I'm cooking up a storm."
The Mexican-born media mogul has four children of his own from a previous marriage, but that doesn't mean Eva's ruled out welcoming even more little ones into their bunch.
The 2017 Tartikoff Legacy Award recipients are recognized for exhibiting their extraordinary passion, leadership, independence and vision through the process of creating compelling content. Named in honor of esteemed television programmer Brandon Tartikoff, the Award was created to acknowledge a select group of television professionals who have demonstrated a high degree of excellence in their field.
“Each of this year’s inspiring honorees shares Brandon Tartikoff’s passion and vision for excellence in television. Dana, Gary, Susanne, Randy, Eva and Josh have each earned the respect of the industry and rightly deserve to have their achievements celebrated in Miami,” said Andy Kaplan, Chairman of the Board, NATPE.
Here’s a look at the 2017 honorees:
Dana Walden and Gary Newman are the Chairmen and CEOs of Fox Television Group, overseeing a consortium of media and content creation companies which includes the broadcast network Fox Broadcasting Company (FBC); the broadcast and cable production studios 20th Century Fox Television (TCFTV) and Fox 21 Television Studios; the licensing division, Fox Consumer Products; and syndication supplier of off-network programming, Twentieth Television. Their recent projects include Empire, This is Us, Speechless, The Last Man on Earth, Grease: Live as well as The X-Files. Their upcoming projects include Star from Lee Daniels and a new take on the classic 24 franchise, 24: Legacy.
Susanne Daniels is the global head of original content for YouTube where she oversees original programming that provides subscribers with access to exclusive content through YouTube Red, featuring stars that became famous on the media platform. Current programming includes Scare PewDiePie, Dance Camp, A Trip to Unicorn Island, Lazer Team and an upcoming Lionsgate-produced series based on the Step Up franchise. Prior to joining YouTube, Daniels held the position of president of programming at MTV, the WB and Lifetime.
Randy Falco is president and CEO of Univision Communications Inc., overseeing a media portfolio that reaches an estimated 89 million average monthly unduplicated monthly media consumers, and includes 17 broadcast, cable and digital networks and partnerships; 126 local television and radio stations; an array of online and mobile apps and products and content creation facilities across the United States. Falco has received numerous recognitions including 10 Emmy awards for Olympics coverage, a Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame induction and a recipient of the Frank Stanton Award, the Ballet Hispanico Gala Honor, Museum of Moving Image Honor, the MALDEF Legacy Leader Award, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Board of Trustees’ Award, and the Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) Champion Award, among many others.
Josh Sapan is the president and CEO for AMC Networks Inc., overseeing television networks AMC, IFC, SundanceTV, WE tv, and BBC America (operated through a joint venture with BBC Worldwide); feature film labels IFC Films and Sundance Selects; and AMC Networks International, the company’s international programming and distribution division. Under Sapan’s leadership, AMC Networks has created some of the most popular, acclaimed, and awarded television series and films, including AMC’s The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Preacher, Better Call Saul, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad; SundanceTV’s Rectify and Top of the Lake; IFC’s Portlandia; and IFC Films’ Boyhood. Sapan is on the Executives Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) and serves on numerous boards, including the American Film Institute, The Paley Center for Media, The Cable Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, People for the American Way and WNYC Radio.
Eva Longoria is a Golden Globe-nominated, Screen Actors Guild and ALMA Award-winning actress, director, producer and activist, and Desperate Housewives alum. She filmed Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx’s directorial debut film All-Star Weekend, and stars alongside Academy Award nominee Demian Bichir in the Lionsgate feature film Lowriders as well as the BBC miniseries Decline and Fall, with the latter two premiering Spring 2017. Additionally, Longoria is the executive producer of Devious Maids, Lifetime’s hit one-hour dramedy, and recently directed episodes of the Golden Globe nominated Jane the Virgin and Emmy Award nominated Black-ish. In addition to founding “The Eva Longoria Foundation,” she is also co-founder of “Eva’s Heroes” which enriches the lives of adolescents with developmental disabilities; and is the national spokesperson for “Padres Contra el Cancer,” a nonprofit committed to improving the quality of life for children with cancer.
BEST ACTRESS IN A MOVIE MADE FOR TELEVISION OR LIMITED SERIES
Olivia Colman – The Night Manager – AMC
Felicity Huffman – American Crime – ABC
Cynthia Nixon – Killing Reagan – National Geographic
Sarah Paulson – The People v. O.J. Simpson – FX
Lili Taylor – American Crime – ABC
Kerry Washington – Confirmation – HBO
E! News learned in August Jesse Metcalfe, 37, and longtime girlfriend Cara Santana, 31, were engaged after dating for more than eight years and on Saturday, the two celebrated their upcoming nuptials at Hills Penthouse West Hollywood, a luxury club.
The two posted on their Instagram pages Sunday morning a short time-lapse video of the two sharing a sweet kiss at the bash. The bride-to-be looked gorgeous in a glittering gold backless dress, while the John Tucker Must Die and former Dallas reboot actor looked dapper in a gray suit and plum shirt.
"Such an awesome evening celebrating our engagement!!!" he said. "Thank you so much to all of our family and friends for sharing this moment with us! Love you all!!!"
"Such A Fun Night // Thank You To All Our Family And Friends For Celebrating With Us," Cara wrote.
Earlier that day, Jesse shared on Instagram a throwback pic of him and Santana making out on a sailboat on the Hudson River in New York City.
He had proposed to Cara there, with a 5.5-carat emerald shaped diamond ring.
"Woot woot! We are SO excited to celebrate our engagement with our family and friends this evening!!!" he wrote.
On Sunday morning, Cara and Jesse enjoyed a hearty post-engagement party breakfast consisted of bagels and lox, as well as doughnuts, as seen in a video she posted on Snapchat.
"Last night was made real," she wrote.
The 41-year-old actress wears many hats, she's a director, cookbook author, documentary filmmaker, political activist, fashion powerhouse and founder of her own well-respected charity.
How has she achieved so much? The actress says that the key is not feeling sorry for yourself when things don't go as planned.
"I remember losing auditions or being let go from a job and I'd say, 'That must mean there's something amazing ahead for me!' My friends would laugh and look at me like I was crazy. I have never, ever had a personal pity party," she said.
Longoria revealed to the magazine that she didn't always have it so easy while growing up, but that never stopped her from working hard for what she wanted.
"I wanted to have a Quinceañera when I was 15 and my family didn't have the money, so I got a job at Wendy's and paid for it myself. I couldn't wait to get to work and make my own money," she said, before adding. "There was never any resentment, because I saw how hard my mother worked and all she did for my sister [with special needs], and I wanted to do whatever I could to help. We all did."
This May, the actress married José Bastón, who is president at Grupo Televisa. Longoria says that long before their wedding, they felt like husband and wife.
"Even before we got engaged, we just felt married. We called one another 'my husband' and 'my wife,'" she said. "It didn't take either one of us very long to know that "this is the one." In my case, it only took 40 years to find him!"
After being legally married, the star decided to change her name to Eva Longoria Bastón, which seems wasn't a difficult decision to make.
"I love him, I love his last name, and I love that tradition. It's a choice I made, but I realize it's not for everybody. I was thrilled to take his name," she said.
This new election-themed promo for IFC’s sketch-comedy series asks us to consider the show’s wacky mayor (played by the inimitable Kyle MacLachlan) when we’re casting our ballots for president next Tuesday. According to the campaign ad, Mr. Mayor is courageous, enthusiastic, sensitive and experienced in foreign affairs — which he demonstrates by banging a tiny gong. (Of course.)
He rides a bike, he plays in a reggae band, he admires indigenous art — he can even sing, people! The ad concludes by imploring us to “make America weird again” and vote for Mr. Mayor. Hey, he doesn’t seem like such a terrible option right now, does he?
Portlandia returns for Season 7 on Thursday, Jan. 5 at 10/9c on IFC — with Kyle MacLachlan in tow, we’re hoping.
“Modern Family” airs WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16 (9:00-9:30 p.m. EST), on the ABC Television Network.
“Modern Family” stars Ed O’Neill as Jay Pritchett, Julie Bowen as Claire Dunphy, Ty Burrell as Phil Dunphy, Sofia Vergara as Gloria Pritchett, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Mitchell Pritchett, Eric Stonestreet as Cameron Tucker, Sarah Hyland as Haley Dunphy, Nolan Gould as Luke Dunphy, Ariel Winter as Alex Dunphy, Rico Rodriguez as Manny Delgado, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as Lily Tucker-Pritchett and Jeremy Maguire as Joe Pritchett.
Guest starring are Nathan Fillion as Rainer Shine, Winston Duke as Dwight and Matt Besser as Jerry.
“Thanksgiving Jamboree” was written by Jon Pollack and Chuck Tatham and directed by Steven Levitan.
“Notorious” stars Piper Perabo as Julia George, Daniel Sunjata as Jake Gregorian, Kate Jennings Grant as Louise Herrick, Aimee Teegarden as Ella Benjamin, J. August Richards as Bradley Gregorian, Sepideh Moafi as Megan Byrd, Ryan Guzman as Ryan Mills, Kevin Zegers as Oscar Keaton.
Guest starring are Melina Kanakaredes as Dana Hartman, Adam Rayner as Max Gilford, Haley Ramm as Maya Hartman, Adalgiza Chermont as jail guard, Theresa June-Tao as inmate #1, Leslie Miller as inmate #2, Maiara Walsh as Willow Ferrera, Doug Savant as Paul Weston, Carlos Sanz as Eduardo Nogales, Matt Walton as Darin Mills, Chris Brochu as Preston Mann, Rogelio Ramos as Officer Martinez, Matt Kaminsky as reporter #2.
“Choice” was written by Tyler Bensinger and directed by Miller Tobin.
When it comes to becoming a mother, Longoria isn't dismissing the idea.
"It if happens, it happens—if it's meant to be it would be a blessing," she said.
Longoria's private life has always made headlines and even after going through two previous marriages and other public relationships, the star admits that she doesn't regret any of them.
"No, I think every relationship is a path to where you are today. Every wrong turn led you to the spot where you are, so it wasn't necessarily the wrong turn at the time. I wouldn't change anything—never," she said.
Longoria's Snapchat account is all sorts of amazing. The star is funny, real (doesn't wear makeup half of the time) and gives us some great behind-the-scenes exclusives.
"Luckily, I've never been on the receiving end of something really horrible, but a younger actor could be destroyed by the comments that you read online. I'm glad that there was no Twitter or Instagram when Housewives started, for sure. It was a different world back then. Social media can be overwhelming. I don't really have rules for myself—it's just common sense," the 41-year-old actress explained. "I have a very private husband, so I don't really post with him, and of course I don't post the kids for security reasons. But I share a lot, and I use it for charity and my clothing line. It's a great tool when used correctly."
We couldn't agree more, Eva!
“The fact that he uses the word ‘Latino’ to be synonymous with ‘illegal’ is a mistake,” she tells Ocean Drive magazine. “I’m ninth-generation American — I’m way more American than Donald Trump! I have to turn my offense and anger into a vote, not just complain about it.”
The actress and director also says of Clinton, “I have no idea why people don’t find Hillary likable. I know her on a personal level, and she is one of the most likable [people] .?.?. I don’t want to go have a beer with Obama — I want him to run the country. I look for quality in a leader.”
The comedy centers on two tow-truck drivers, Malik (Foxx), and Danny (Piven), who are basketball fanatics and would take a bullet for their respective favorite players, LeBron James and Steph Curry. Danny’s girlfriend Abby (Szohr) is reconsidering the relationship as she does not want to take a back seat to his obsession. The two drivers finally get a break from their dead-end job when they win tickets to the NBA All-Star Game. En route to the big game, Malik and Danny meet the beautiful and mysterious Asia (Longoria), who might have her own hidden agenda. After many twists and turns, the guys find themselves and their heroes in a precarious life-or-death situation.
Chuck Pacheco is producing with Deon Taylor and Butch Kaplan. Front Row Center Films and Sijma Equity Group are producing and financing.
Longoria, repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, recently signed a two-year first look deal with Universal and has many projects in the works including the Magnum P.I. sequel and My Daughter’s Quinceañera. Piven won an Emmy for his role as Ari Gold on HBO’s Entourage and starred in the period drama Mr. Selfridge. He is repped by UTA. Szohr, who’s with ICM, recently was seen in Ted 2 and the TV series Kingdom.
The comedy, tentatively titled 940 Saturdays, hails from Universal TV and Longoria & Ben Spector’s studio-based UnbeliEVAable Entertainment.
Written by Pietrosh and Goldstein, here is what 940 Saturdays refers to. There are 940 Saturdays between the day your child is born and the day they turn eighteen. In this single-camera series, three families band together to enjoy… and survive them all.
Pietrosh and Goldstein executive produce with Longoria and Spector.
This is the second sale at ABC for UnbeliEVAble this season, along with the Magnum P.I. sequel, with Leverage creator John Rogers, which follows Magnum’s daughter. The company also has NBC comedy project Big Of Me, written by Awkward creator Lauren Iungerich, on which it is collaborating with Will Packer Productions.
Pietrosh and Goldstein’s Telenovela was one of two high-profile single-camera comedy projects vying for Longoria to star during the 2014-15 development season. She went with Pietrosh and Goldstein’s Telenovela, and the comedy, set behind the scenes of a telenovela, was picked up to series by NBC. It launched last midseason, with Longoria starring and Pietrosh, Goldstein, Longoria and Spector executive producing. It did not draw wide enough audience for a second-season renewal but garnered solid reviews.
UnbeliEVAble is repped by CAA. Pietrosh and Goldstein, who previously worked as co-executive producers on Cougar Town, are with ICM Partners.
RECURRING CAST: Wendy Moniz (Julianna Wallace).
GUEST CAST inlcudes: Michael Johnston (Luke Wallace), Doug Savant (Simon Monroe).
In the above featurette, Kyle MacLachlan and other returning cast share their reactions to the early revival rumors, as well as the official announcement. Cast members familiar and new then preview the revisiting to come, as well as reflect on the impact Twin Peaks originally made on the TV landscape some 25 years ago.
Other Twin Peaks alumni on board for the revival include Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey), Madchen Amick (Shelly), Sheryl Lee (Laura/Maddy), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby), James Marshall (James), David Duchovny (Agent Dennis), Miguel Ferrer (Agent Rosenfield), Grace Zabriskie (Sarah), Peggy Lipton (Norma), Ray Wise (Leland), Wendy Robie (Nadine), Russ Tamblyn (Lawrence) and the late Catherine E. Coulson (the Log Lady). New additions include Jim Belushi, Robert Knepper, Ashley Judd, Michael Cera, Trent Reznor, Jessica Szohr, Jane Levy and Richard Chamberlain.
Picking up 25 years after the original series left off, the new Twin Peaks episodes will premiere “sometime in 2017.”
"Spoiler alert: it's going to be rocky," jokes Odd Couple executive producer Bob Daily.
As of now, The Odd Couple's third season will consist of 13 episodes, with the potential for more if CBS picks up the option. Which it might, if The Odd Couple continues to perform like it did in Season 2, which got better-than-expected ratings.
The show was rewarded with a slot on the network's fall schedule -- the first two seasons premiered in the spring -- so it's getting to do some seasonal things it didn't get to do before, including Halloween and Christmas episodes, Daily tells TVGuide.com. Daily is particularly excited for the Halloween episode, which will be a good parallel character-development episode for the two of them -- Oscar will try to prove that he can be a responsible grown-up by taking Charlotte's son trick-or-treating, while Felix will try to lighten up and prove to Emily that he has any sense of childlike fun.
The other big change was the loss of Garry Marshall during the season's production cycle. The TV icon, who died in July at age 81, developed the original Odd Couple series starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman back in 1970 and created many other series, including Happy Days. Marshall was an executive consultant for the new Odd Couple's first two seasons, pitching story ideas and jokes and entertaining the studio audience at tapings. He even played Oscar's father in one Season 2 episode.
"He made us so much better," says Daily. "It really was a blow. He was sort of our mascot/guiding light/the guy that always made us laugh."
There will be an episode that pays tribute to Marshall at some point in Season 3, Daily says.
Season 3 picks up three months after the action of the finale. Oscar and Charlotte are happy after getting back together, but Felix is in an emotional tailspin because Emily has been away in London on an internship. He's so distraught that his fastidiousness is slipping -- he's grown a beard. Things get even worse when Emily tells him she might be extending her stay to go on a business trip to Paris with her boss, a man named Fergus who Felix suspects is trying to steal Emily away from him. Felix and Emily's relationship could be in trouble, and Oscar is forced to choose between being a good, romantic boyfriend on his and Charlotte's three-month anniversary or helping his freaking-out friend.
Guest stars this season will include R&B group Boyz II Men -- who appeared at the behest of Odd Couple cast member Yvette Nicole Brown, who pulled some strings to make it happen -- and NBA star Chris Bosh, who will be a guest on Oscar's radio show, among others.
After marrying the man of her dreams, the actress says she and husband José ‘Pepe’ Bastón are without a doubt still living on cloud nine.
“People ask us how it is being married now, but we were always married in our hearts and our souls, so the wedding was just a beautiful party to celebrate with everyone, but marriage wise we just are still floating from three years of being together,” the actress tells PEOPLE during an exclusive celebration with JCPenney to showcase the new Eva Longoria Home bedding and bath designs in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
“It’s amazing,” she continues of celebrating their sixth-month wedding anniversary. “Our wedding didn’t change our relationship.”
Longoria and media mogul Bastón, 48, tied the knot during a “really small,” fairytale wedding in Mexico in May. Dating since 2013, Bastón popped the question in Dubai in December 2015 with a ruby and diamond engagement ring.
It was love at first sight.
“He was the most handsome man I’d ever seen,” Longoria previously gushed to PEOPLE about first meeting her husband. “He was so charismatic, charming, sweet and funny. I thought, ‘Who is this guy?!'”
The feature follows Mia Stone, a young wife, mother, and workaholic entrepreneur. She is faced with an eerie supernatural opportunity to reset her future when a strange encounter with an eccentric man (Trejo) gives her a second chance at saving her company, marriage, family, and future. Metcalfe plays her charming and questionable family friend and business partner.
Rounding out the cast are T.C. Stallings (War Room), Jaci Velasquez, Jules Willcox, Jaime Gallagher, and Jeff Grace. The film is produced by Werksma, James Simmons, and Josh Norman.
Trejo, known for his role in the Machete film series, can up next be heard in Warner Bros’ animated pic Storks. He is repped by AEFH. Metcalfe’s film credits include John Tucker Must Die, God’s Not Dead 2, and Dead Rising: Endgame. He is repped by Untitled Entertainment and Gersh.
Desperate Housewives alum Ricardo Chavira is set for a recurring role on the upcoming third season of Jane The Virgin, playing Xo’s (Andrea Navedo) ex-boyfriend who dated her when he was married.
In one of several cliffhangers in the Season 2 finale of the CW series, Xo, who had just slept with ex-husband Rogelio’s nemesis Esteban, was seen holding a positive pregnancy test for a baby that could be any of the two men’s.
Chavira starred as Carlos Solis opposite Eva Longoria on all eight seasons of ABC’s Desperate Housewives and has been recurring as Presidential candidate Francisco Vargas on ABC’s Scandal. He’ll next be seen opposite Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant on Netflix’s new comedy series Santa Clarita Diet. He’s repped by Innovative Artists and Gilbertson Entertainment.
The American Crime actress is attached to a star in an untitled political family comedy from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and co-executive producer Vijal Patel, which has earned a big commitment from the Alphabet network.
Per our sister site Deadline, the potential series explores how today’s “politics of division” plays out between two opposing pundits who also happen to be husband and wife. (Think James Carville and Mary Matalin.) Bitter work rivals on their show Black & Wright — one’s black, one’s white; one’s left, one’s right — the couple (Huffman plays the wife) has to turn conflict into compromise at home when it comes to raising their kids.
Should the project go to series, it is not expected to impact Huffman’s ability to star in a theoretical fourth season of American Crime.
The actor known for his roles in Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives and more projects shared good news with his followers on social media Tuesday afternoon. As it turns out, he just became a dad.
"The newest, best and brightest part of my life hanging out with the chillest and hairiest part," he shared on Instagram as his newborn smiled next to the family's golden retriever. "These two are going to learn a lot from each other."
He added, "Welcome to the world, my son Logan."
The announcement caught many fans by surprise especially because his last Instagram post was nearly 38 weeks ago.
And while he's been a bit more active on Twitter, the Hollywood star tries to keep his private life pretty darn private.
Back in November 2014, the Mad Men star married Cassidy Boesch just outside Santa Barbara, Calif. "Making it official," he wrote on Instagram with a photo from Villa Sevillano.
Family and friends including groomsman Jonathan Bennett watched the couple exchange vows below a beautiful canopy covered in white roses.
Since the magical wedding day, the actor has gone on to star in Switched at Birth and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Before then, fans may recognize the star from Mad Men, Greek and American Dreams.
Congratulations to the couple!
The Ron Perlman-Dana Delany drama will end after its upcoming second season, per The Hollywood Reporter.
“We’re wrapping up the storyline in Season 2, which debuts next year, and are excited to bring it to customers,” an Amazon rep tells TVLine.
The streaming video service will release Season 2 sometime in 2017. Hand of God was renewed for a sophomore run in December.
Chuck Pratt Jr., who most recently served as headwriter on CBS’ The Young and the Restless, has been named showrunner and executive producer of the upcoming Fox series, filling the void left by departing producer-writer Charles Murray.
In early September, Murray left the show after he and Star co-creators Daniels and Tom Donaghy amicably parted ways over creative differences.
Pratt’s TV resumé includes The Lying Game, Desperate Housewives, Melrose Place and Ugly Betty, as well as soap staples All My Children, General Hospital and Santa Barbara.
The Atlanta-set Star follows three young women (Ryan Destiny, Jude Demorest and Brittany O’Grady) who form a musical group and experience the music business’ highs and lows on their road to fame. The cast also includes Queen Latifah, Benjamin Bratt and Nicholas Gonzalez.
Star, which is slated to premiere in early 2017, will air Wednesdays at 9/8c.
Created and written by Iungerich, Big of Me centers on two women from different walks of life who start an unlikely friendship after their mutual husband dies.
Iungerich and Packer executive produce alongside UnbeliEVAble Entertainment’s Longoria and Ben Spector. Will Packer Prods.’ head of TV Korin D. Huggins co-executive produces.
Big of Me reunites Longoria and Parker who also partnered last year to produce a comedy project about two women for NBC, the multi-camera Bonita & Mechelle, written by Kriss Turner Towner. Additionally, Big of Me expands Longoria and UnveliEVAble’s relationship with Iungerich. The company recently sold Iungerich’s feature pitch My Daughter’s Quinceañera to Universal under a first-look pact with a studio.
Iungerich created MTV’s comedy Awkward, which was a breakout for the network when it debuted in 2011 and recently aired its fifth season. She is repped by CAA and Madhouse Entertainment. Packer has produced eight No. 1 films at the box office, including both Ride Along and Think Like a Manfranchise films, as well as No Good Deed, Takers, Stomp the Yard and Obsessed. His next film, Almost Christmas, comes out Nov. 11 from Universal Pictures. Parker is repped by CAA and Ziffren Brittenham. Longoria recently executive produced NBC comedy series Telenovela, in which she also starred, and Lifetime’s Devious Maids. She is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Desperate Housewives alum Jonathan Cake is joining the Showtime drama in the recurring role of Whitney’s boss and love interest, TVLine has learned exclusively. Cake’s character, Furkat, is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose brashness is polarizing. (Whitney is, of course, the daughter of Maura Tierney’s Helen and Dominic West’s Noah.)
Additional Season 3 guest stars include Brendan Fraser and Jennifer Esposito.
The Affair returns Sunday Nov. 20 at 10/9c.
When he proposed to actress Cara Santana this month on a sailboat in New York's Hudson River, the diamond ring he slipped on her finger was one he helped create. The couple have been together for a decade.
"Don't they say it's a carat for every year you're together?" Metcalfe said. "I couldn't quite afford that, but I think I did pretty well."
Their engagement crowns a busy year for the "John Tucker Must Die" and "Dallas" actor. He plays opposite Meghan Ory in Hallmark Channel's new series "Chesapeake Shores" (airing 9 p.m. EDT Sunday through Oct. 9) and stars in an upcoming big-screen movie "The Ninth Passenger" as a thief involved in corporate espionage.
"Chesapeake Shores," based on Sherryl Woods' novels, opened with driven working woman and divorced mom Abby O'Brien (Ory) pondering a move from New York City to her Maryland hometown to improve life for her daughters. Metcalfe brings the romance as Trace, Abby's high school sweetheart. He's a country singer who's beaten his own path home to Chesapeake Shores after leaving his Nashville career under a mysterious — for now — cloud.
Metcalfe talked with The Associated Press about the drama, including the chance to work his musical muscles in it, and when he and Santana will tie the knot.
Associated Press: Many actors yearn to front a band. Is playing a musician the next best thing?
Metcalfe: At the risk of sounding cliched, I have been playing and singing and writing music for a decade now. It was just something I always kept to myself. ... But this is a nice opportunity, and I wrote two original songs to the themes and the tone of the show. It's not necessarily the style in which I normally write (indie singer-songwriter). ... But I get to live out my dream a bit and be a successful country music artist in the series.
AP: How much does Trace's Nashville past figure in his story?
Metcalfe: I definitely wanted him to be layered and I wanted him to have a secret, a dark past, a reason he came back to Chesapeake Shores. In a lot of Hallmark shows and films, a major theme is coming back home, having the realization that success in the big city isn't as satisfying as the comfort you feel back home (with family). That theme rings true in this series as well, but the characters are a lot more layered, a lot more complicated. ... Hallmark said they wanted to push the envelope a little, attract a younger audience and do something different, and I think we've done that.
AP: How far can you stretch the boundaries on a family friendly channel?
Metcalfe: I think it's about keeping a little bit of edge in the show. If we're going to write and play compelling characters, sometimes they have to make mistakes. Not small mistakes, but relatively big mistakes. And you have to trust that in their pursuit of redemption, the audience will also find them redeemable as well.
AP: How did you go about designing the engagement ring?
Metcalfe: I had a close friend, (jewelry maker) Adam Campbell, walk me through the process. We knew that Cara wanted an emerald shape. ... I wanted a really feminine, delicate low-profile setting and band with diamonds all the way around the band and the basket, and really small prongs holding the diamond. I enjoyed it and Cara deserved it.
AP: Has the wedding date been set?
Metcalfe: Still to be determined. We're roughly talking about a two-year plan: a year to enjoy our engagement and a year to start planning.
House of Moore, from Daniel and Ben Barnz, ABC Studios and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment, has been designed as a starring vehicle for American Crime leading lady Huffman, which would not interfere with her commitment to the acclaimed John Ridley drama series. Said to be similar in tone to The Devil Wears Prada and focused on plus-size fashion, House of Moore centers on the lives of an iconic fashion family, looking at our beauty-obsessed culture through a darkly comedic lens. Daniel Barnz, who penned the original script, is also writing the revision under Craft and Fain’s supervision.
ABC has been looking for a family drama set in the fashion industry. Three years ago, the network ordered one such project, Americana, to pilot which starred Anthony LaPaglia.
At ABC, Kapital Entertainment has new comedy series American Housewife and returning drama Secrets & Lies.
Craft and Fain, repped by WME, recently served as writers/consulting producers on the ABC/ABC Studios drama The Family.
Former Telenovela actress Eva Longoria will guest-star in an upcoming episode of Jane the Virgin's third season (Monday, Oct. 17 at 9/8c). The totally awesome news -- which we're sure has Rogelio freaking out -- was announced Wednesday, when star Jaime Camil posted a photo to Instagram.
"Guess who is checking into the Marbella Hotel this season?" he captioned the photo.
Camil's costar Andrea Navedo also posted the same photo with the caption, "Guess who is checking into the Marbella Hotel this Season? #JaneTheVirgin Can"t wait to share with you all!" Both photos were then shared by the official Jane the Virgin Twitter account.
Though there's currently no news regarding Longoria's storyline and how she fits into the dramatic world of Jane, it's possible that, like Britney Spears, Charo and Paulina Rubio before her, she could be playing herself.
We can't wait!
Jane the Virgin returns for Season 3 Monday, Oct. 17 at 9/8c on The CW.
E! News has confirmed that actor Jesse Metcalfe has proposed to longtime girlfriend Cara Santana during a getaway in honor of her birthday this weekend."She loves her ring and is thrilled to be engaged to the love of her life," a source tells E! News.
The John Tucker Must Die star popped the question with a stunning 5.5-carat emerald shaped diamond ring (that he designed, of course) while aboard a 50-foot sailboat in the middle of the Hudson River in New York, according to Us Weekly, who first reported the engagement.
The romantic gesture comes during a special weekend for the lovebirds, who have been together for 10 years.
Posting a selfie of the couple enjoying a river ride in New York City, Metcalfe captioned the sweet snapshot, "What a weekend! Meant to get this up yesterday, but was too busy celebrating. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my baby!!!"
"I wouldn't say it was love at first sight," Metcalfe told Your Tango in 2013 of meeting his future bride. "It was more of a slow burn, which I think is a better start for a relationship. I think if it comes on fast and furious, it generally fizzles out just as fast. We were slow and steady."
"We took the time to get to know each other," Santana added at the time. "We've known each other for, like, 10 years."
Congratulations to the happy couple!
Created by Sarah Watson (Parenthood) Issues was inspired by the life of Joanna Coles, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. It follows three young career women, who have set out to conquer New York City together. All three work at Scarlet Magazine, and they try to balance their ambition and their drive to find love with the realities of life.
Page will play Richard, a member of the Board of Directors of Scarlet Magazine, and lawyer for the publishing group, a man with great looks and charm, who is catnip to women and knows it.
Page’s credits include stints on Mad Men, House of Cards, and Switched at Birth. He’s repped by UTA, Inphenate and Jackoway Tyerman.
On the Universal deal, Cramer said: “While audiences have identified with Eva through her iconic television roles, she is also an extremely savvy producer with a keen eye for projects that appeal to a broad range of diverse audiences. We are fortunate that Eva has a found a home with Universal, sharing with us her creative instincts and passion for storytelling.”
Longoria has named Will Rack as Vice President, in conjunction with the new deal. Rack joins UnbeliEVAble Entertainment from Shawn Levy’s Fox-based 21 Laps Entertainment, where he was an associate producer on Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and The Internship and was an executive on Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. He oversaw development on the New York Times young-adult bestseller Steelheart, which was adapted by Carter Blanchard. He helped shepherd Substitute Teacher at Paramount with Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele.
Longoria, whose deal was made by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners, is filming BBC Two’s high-end comedy miniseries Decline and Fall, an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic social satire. She next will be seen in Ricardo de Montreuil’s Lowriders, which premiered at this year’s LA Film Festival. The film is produced by Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer and Blumhouse Production’s Jason Blum.
“Building upon our continued success as producers in television, we were seeking a home to expand the UnbeliEVAble brand into features,” said Longoria. “There’s simply no better place I could think of than Universal Pictures, whose diverse portfolio of releases is inspirational. Jeff, Donna and Peter’s passion was instrumental in keeping us in the Comcast family, and, beginning with My Daughter’s Quinceañera, we look forward to a long relationship with all our partners at the studio. Lauren’s pitch was so brilliant and funny, and to bring this experience to life is like reliving my 15th birthday.”
Iungerich is repped by CAA, Madhouse Entertainment and attorney Rob Goldman.
Eva's hillside crib was home during her marriage with Tony Parker and during her single years. Now after tying the knot in May, she's unloading the gated 3 bed, 3 bath Mediterranean-style property ... which was built in 1924.
She bought it for $1.15 million and is now listing it for $1.395 mil.
Eva and media mogul Jose Baston will be just fine -- she dropped $11.5 mil on one of Tom Cruise's old Hollywood Hills pads.
Executive produced by Jim Carrey, I’m Dying Up Here follows up-and-coming comedians in Los Angeles in the 1970s, who are mentored by “Goldie” (Melissa Leo), a brassy comedy club owner who rules over her business with an iron fist and nurtures her comedians with tough love. Ari Graynor, Andrew Santino, RJ Cyler, Al Madrigal, Erik Griffin and Stephen Guarino star as the main stand-ups at the club.
Nordling will play Eli Goldman, a member of Goldie’s inner circle. Babatundé will portray Barton Royce, a comedy manager.
Michael Angarano and Clark Duke play ballsy young comedians from Boston who move to L.A. with the hopes of making it big. Alfred Molina, Sebastian Stan, Robert Forster, Jon Daly, Dylan Baker, Brianne Howey, Ginger Gonzaga and Cathy Moriarty guest star.
APA-repped Nordling will be seen in HBO’s upcoming limited series Big Little Lies, starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, He was a series regular on Desperate Housewives and recurred on Killer Women, Rake and Arrow, and also will be seen opposite Tom Hanks in Clint Eastwood’s upcoming feature Sully.
Babatundé won a 2016 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Guest Performer In a Drama Series for The Bold And The Beautiful and also received a supporting actor Primetime Emmy nomination for Miss Evers’ Boys. He’s repped by Stone Manners Salners Agency and Margie Weiner Management.
Connie Britton, Julie Bowen and Jesse Tyler Ferguson were among the many celebrities to partake in an a capella music video for “Fight Song” that debuted during the Democratic National Convention.
The video, which was produced by Pitch Perfect alum Elizabeth Banks, also featured the likes of Jane Fonda (Grace & Frankie), Kristin Chenoweth (American Gods), Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives), America Ferrera (Superstore), Mandy Moore (This Is Us), Idina Menzel (Frozen), Aisha Tyler (The Talk), Mary McCormack (In Plain Sight), Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), Kathy Najimy (Veep), Jamie King (Hart of Dixie), Rob Reiner (All in the Family) and John Michael Higgins (Pitch Perfect), among others.
The 41-year-old Telenovela actress not only married Jose Antonio Baston in May, but she's about to launch her very own clothing line with The Limited on Aug. 15. Longoria's new collection will feature 250 pieces, including stretch denim, body con dresses, office-ready pencil skirts and blazers, and plenty of graphic tees for a more relaxed look.
E! News caught up with the actress to find out just how she was feeling about her foray into fashion. "I'm really excited. This has been a long, long time in the making," Longoria said. "The thing that people don't know about me is that I sew, and so I am really involved in the construction and the seams and the textiles and materials that we use."
"I want this line to have my DNA," Longoria emphasized. "It has been two years in the making, and we're finally here and finally launching at The Limited, and we're so excited about it."
The project will be an ongoing collaboration, and Longoria is already at work designing the Spring/Summer 2017 collection.
In the meantime, Longoria will continue to enjoy the honeymoon phase. "Love it," she said. "We just celebrated two months. Yes, only 50 more to go!" And far as the actually honeymoon goes, the actress told E! News, "It was amazing."
Longoria and Baston tied the knot in a sunset ceremony in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, a lakeside town roughly 88 miles from Mexico City. The wedding was a beautiful affair, much like the dress Victoria Beckham designed for her BFF. Beckham created a beautiful silk crepe gown that fit Longoria like a glove.
"She's an allover inspiration to me," Longoria said. "She's an amazing human being, an amazing woman, an amazing mom. I mean, she brought out everything in her arsenal to make that day perfect for me, so it was a really special dress."
Offering up an energetic speech on Monday in Philadelphia, the actress spoke on her experiences as a Mexican-American, calling out stark contradictions between her upbringing and GOP candidate Donald Trump's earlier comments about Mexican immigrants.
"I'm from a small town in South Texas, and if you know your history, Texas used to be part of Mexico," Longoria, 41, said. "I'm ninth generation American. My family never crossed a border; the border crossed us."
Continuing on, Longoria made obvious references to Trump addressing immigrants as "rapists" who are "bringing drugs" and "crime" to America, as the former Desperate Housewives star pointed to her own family to disprove the billionaire businessman's claims.
"When Donald Trump calls us criminals and rapists, he's insulting American families. My father is not a criminal or a rapist, in fact, he's a United States veteran," Longoria said. "When Trump cruelly mocked a disabled reporter, he was also mocking my special-needs sister Lisa and many like her."
She added: "When he said that a wife who works is a very dangerous thing, he not only insulted me, he insulted my mother who worked as a special-education teacher for 40 years and raised four children while being a wife."
Despite a rocky start at the DNC, which saw a struggle for unity, Longoria's oration – similar to First Lady Michelle Obama's and Senator Bernie Sanders' speeches – rallied the crowd as they cheered for her honest and personal account of why she'll be casting her ballot in Hillary Clinton's favor come November.
The two were spotted enjoying a day at the beach during their getaway in Formentera, Spain. Longoria, 41, stunned in a turquoise bikini and aviator sunglasses.
The happy couple, who recently celebrated their one-month wedding anniversary, stayed close to one another while splashing around in the water and embracing.
At one point, the two posed for an epic mid-air jump shot with a few pals.
The former Desperate Housewives star also took to Instagram to document her celebrity run-in whilst in Ibiza: Cristiano Ronaldo!
"Oh hello @cristiano #NoBigDeal #EuropeCupChampion #Portugal," she captioned a pic of the two posing with Bastón and a few other friends.
Longoria and media mogul Bastón, 48, tied the knot with a fairy tale wedding in Mexico in May. The two have been together since 2013, and Bastón popped the question with a ruby and diamond engagement ring in Dubai in December.
"There were so many memorable moments," Longoria recently told reporters of the wedding. "Then the tequila kind of blurred it all! But he surprised me throughout the night – a surprise singer, a surprise video, a surprise this. So every half hour there was another surprise that I was like, 'I can’t handle any more! My heart is going to explode!' "
"It was actually a really small wedding," added the actress. "It looked huge on social media because everyone was posting, but it was actually like 80 people. Super small."
So to create a range of pieces she’s sport, the star says, she was involved in “everything: From design to storyboards of what story to what’s our color palette. I feel like we’re constantly in a meeting where we’re like, This has to be ordered now!” she says, adding that she constantly was looking for inspiration while creating her line. “I cut things out of magazines, I sketch. I was in Cambodia and I bought a little dress on the side of the street that was $2 from this woman — I brought it back and said, What is this, because this is something I want to have in my line! I will take pictures of people on the street going, I love that. I love the feeling of that outfit. How can we make that feeling in a garment?”
Longoria, 41, describes her own personal style ethos as “wanting to be comfortable all day long” and “classic,” and says she’s long loved fashion — after all, she’s been sewing her entire life. “I sew dresses. I sew blouses. I sew Halloween costumes — I’ve made all my nieces’ and nephews’ Halloween costumes since they were born!”
And while she does religiously give things away, there are a few things she keeps for sentimental value. “I archive gowns from awards shows, stuff like that,” she says. “I have a vintage 1930s dress from a movie I did, Cristiada, which is just a piece of art. My Lucille Ball dress from when I did SNL and I played Lucy.” And of course, there are a few pieces from her Desperate Housewives years. “Oh my gosh, I have so many Gabby clothes. Of course now A) it probably doesn’t fit or B) I am like, Oh my God, that is a little much!”
She also has a pair of shoes from her first Desperate Housewives premiere that will stay in her collection no matter what. “The first pair of shoes that were gifted to me — I was in a photo shoot and they were like, You can keep those if you like them. I was like, Whaaat?! And I wore them to our first premiere ever. I just thought that was the most generous thing ever,” she says. “They’re pretty dated — the’re so not me now, but years ago they were!”
Longoria says she was determined to be involved in every facet of the line, and she had an excellent example in her best friend (and fellow designer) Victoria Beckham. “She’s the ultimate example,” Longoria says. “She’s a true designer. She’s lived and breathed fashion her entire life. She was born to do her line.”
And that extends to creating a wedding dress for Longoria when she walked down the aisle with José Baston in May. “Victoria took such care into making it. We had so much fun,” she says. “I went to her London studio twice — I thought for sure someone was going to see me. She pulled out literally every dress she’s ever made and was like, Do you like this top? That bottom? This material? That color? That strap? That zipper? And we just went through everything and she had pulled so many different white fabrics: What about this one? What about that one?”
Her Victoria Beckham fashion parade didn’t stop there: “She wanted to make the after dress to change into and I was like, Oh, great! I love that dress. And then the night before, the civil ceremony, I needed another dress for the civil ceremony. I was going to wear pants and then at the last minute I actually had a simple white dress in my closet, and I was like I’m just going to wear this! My assistant was like, It’s Victoria Beckham, and I’m like, Oh my gosh! She’s just a genius. I think she is just amazing.”
Though Longoria took a honeymoon, she’s back in the swing of things and so excited to have people see her “from work to wine”-appropriate designs. “This has been years in the making. I’ve been really looking for a true partner in developing my vision for a clothing line. I didn’t want it to be celebrity clothing line that somebody makes some clothes, and you throw your name on a label,” she says. “There’s really affordable pieces that you can mix and match, for a lot of those young professionals who don’t have the largest budget for wardrobe but still have enough to want to invest in themselves. You are worth it.”
Shop the first pieces at TheLimited.com starting July 25.
The former "Desperate Housewives" star and Aaron Phypers are dunzo just 6 months into their marriage ... this according to legal docs obtained by TMZ.
According to the docs, they separated a month ago.
Rumors swirled they had been mulling over marriage ... but there was never a clue they tied the knot.
Nicollette is asking the judge to reject any claim Aaron might make for spousal support.
As for kids ... the marriage didn't last long enough for a proper gestation period.
It's been 20 years in the making, when Eva Longoria moved to Los Angeles she walked on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and vowed to one day have a star of her own. Well, she got it!
Yesterday, they announced the celebrities that will be given their own stars in 2017 and the Telenovela star made the list of future honorees.
Longoria took to her Snapchat to announce the news to her fans in a very nonchalant manner, "Oh my God, you guys, I forgot to tell you…I'm getting a star!"
She continued, "and I'm so excited about it. I've dreamt of this day my whole life. This is so exciting. And I just couldn't wait to tell you guys, I'm on a plane right now, and I'm getting a star with Selena Quintanilla."
This is a big deal for Longoria, because both stars share almost identical roots. "With her, she was also selected, and she's from Corpus Christi like I am," she said. "So we're two Texas girls from the same hometown getting a star."
Fans rejoiced at the news of Selena receiving a star 21 years after her death. The Grammy Award winning singer was shot and killed by the president of her first fan club in 1995. She was 23.
Longoria then shared this touching post on Instagram, of herself and the Bidi Bidi Bom Bom singer, "I could never have dreamed that one day I would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But even more ironic is that the same year I receive my star, so does my idol, my inspiration, my fellow Tejana, my fellow Corpus Christi native, Selena Quintanilla. She was the reason I even dared to dream that a better life was possible. And that that life didn't have to distance you from where you came from," she said. "So many people become famous and leave a place without ever crediting it with the role it played in shaping their lives. Selena was proud of being from Corpus Christi, Texas. And that made me proud to be from Corpus."
She continued, "She blazed the way for all of us and I will be forever grateful to her for not only that but for the pure joy I felt when I got to see her perform. Her smile, her charisma, her beauty put every single person who watched her under a spell. Thank you Selena. I know I will receive my star on the Walk of Fame because you dared to dream it first."
Once Longoria shared the connection, we felt all sorts of fuzzy feelings inside. If you take a step back, you realize that this recognition will mean a lot to so many different people. The people of Corpus Christi will be having a double celebration next year.
These are two Latinas that have helped paved the way for many, and that's quite an accomplishment in itself.
Huffman has re-upped for Season 3 of the ABC anthology series, joining castmate Regina King, whose return was cemented earlier this month.
No word yet on a deal for co-star Timothy Hutton, who also is expected to return for the North Carolina-set third season. The subject of the upcoming episodes: labor conflicts and economic disparity, as well as individual rights.
Quintanilla is among the newest group of entertainers to receive stars, which includes Goldie Hawn, Chris Pratt, Hugh Laurie and Mark Ruffalo.
The Walk of Fame Selection Committee of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced the new class Tuesday, selected from hundreds of nominations.
The honorees include movie and television stars like Dwayne Johnson, Amy Adams, Jason Bateman, Tyra Banks and Eva Longoria.
Recording artists Hall & Oates, Ice Cube and John Legend are also on the list.
The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce says recipients have two years to schedule star ceremonies.
Longoria presented the legendary stage and screen actress with an honorary doctorate of fine arts Wednesday in Los Angeles.
"As you go on to write and direct and produce ... rise above caricature, as she does. Create complete and complicated characters, as she does," Longoria told the audience of students and their family members — including Denzel Washington, whose son was graduating. She stressed how important it was to her as a young Latina girl to see Moreno lighting up the big screen in "West Side Story."
Moreno took the podium with a little spin and a kick after the "America" song and dance scene from "West Side Story" played on the big screen behind her at the TCL Chinese Theatre.
"All I can figure is that the powers that be are giving me credit for 70 years of not giving up," Moreno said. "The trick is just to live for 84 years and wear them the hell down."
Moreno recalled her discouraging early days in Hollywood where she was called on by studios to play any and every ethnicity — and how she'd use the same accent for all. She called them "dusky maiden roles," and usually they would involve her character ending up devastated after being rebuffed by white men.
"I had to deliver lines to my white lover like, 'why you love Ula no more?'" Moreno said, referring to the 1955 film "Seven Cities of Gold."
And yet, Moreno said, that those directors and studios "could not succeed in drowning this Puerto Rican." She of course would rise above that early stereotyping, winning Emmys, a Grammy, Tony and Oscar.
Quentin Tarantino was also on hand to pick up an honorary doctorate, laughing about the fact that he never even graduated high school.
"I actually did try to enroll in AFI in the early 80s," he said. "I actually tried to get a job at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and that didn't work out either."
He urged the graduating students to use their work to contribute to the conversation "on race ... on culture ... on America ... on the world ... on politics."
"We need you," he said.
The just over two-week trial will certainly see Sheridan take the stand, though likely not former DH EP Marc Cherry, who was released from the original case before it went to the jury back in 2012. However, fellow ex-DH stars Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman, Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross are on the defense witness list – though they may not actually appear say attorneys. Of course, with all the starts, stops, mistrials and motions this matter has seen over the past six-years, it could all go off the rails again anyway if dismissals sought by ABC/Touchstone lawyer Adam Levin get a green light later this year.
As she did back in 2012, Sheridan claims that DH creator and EP Cherry struck her on set in 2008 while the two were in dispute over a scene. Sheridan has argued that her complaining about the matter to ABC execs resulted in her being suddenly let go from the show, which ended its run in May 2012. Cherry and ex-ABC execs like current CW boss Mark Pedowitz and then programming boss Steven McPherson testified that discussions of getting rid of Sheridan’s Eddie Britt character preceded the incident and her termination had nothing to do with it.
A hung jury resulted in the first more sprawling trial being tossed in March 2012. After numerous attempts to resurrect the matter, Sheridan and her main lawyer Mark Baute succeeded last year in getting the Appeals Court to overturn the October 2013 ruling by Judge Michael Stern denying Sheridan another trial. That setback was based on Stern noting that Sheridan didn’t filed a complaint with the California Labor Commission within six-months of the alleged assault by Cherry in September 2008.
Judge Holly Kendig will proceed over the new trial – if and when it happens.
The onetime Desperate Housewife is in negotiations to star alongside British comedian Jack Whitehall (Bad Education) in a small-screen adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, our sister site Deadline reports.
The three-part miniseries is described as a social satire that follows Paul Pennyfeather (Whitehall), a hard-partying man sent by Oxford to serve as headmaster at a boys’ private school in Wales. There, he meets a wealthy South American woman, Margot Beste-Chetwynde (Longoria), with whom he is instantly smitten.
The comedy, which is set to air in the UK on BBC Two, has not yet been acquired by a U.S. network or streaming service. Production begins in mid-July.
Longoria’s recent TV credits include NBC’s one-and-done Telenovela and a cameo in the Season 4 premiere of Lifetime’s Devious Maids.
The former "Desperate Housewives" star raked in $2,724,650 for the 3 bedroom, 3 bath pad ... which sits on one acre and features a chef's kitchen, walk-in closets, sauna and massive pool.
Nicollette -- who bought the home in the mid '90s -- listed it in October for $2.95 mil.
It's a sweet location, but the buyer might have to drop a few bucks to upgrade the '90s look.
As revealed in promos for Season 4, Longoria appears as herself — she’s playing Flora, opposite Peri Westmore as Evelyn Powell, in the movie based on Marisol’s true-crime novel — and has these biting words for her co-star, “You are the meanest person I’ve ever met. And I worked on Desperate Housewives!”
Before you continue, take a minute to enjoy that moment in full: Video.
“[Creator] Marc Cherry pitched it,” executive producer Sabrina Wind tells TVLine. “I think it was just a fun way to showcase the pretend Eva Longoria that we have there. The real Eva is a delight, and this person she’s playing is sort of a faux version. We just thought, ‘Why not play off all the rumors and fun and scandal that we had for eight years on the air?’ And Eva is such a great comedian. She sells that whole opening scene like nobody’s business.”
But Longoria’s tongue-in-cheek jab at the ladies of Wisteria Lane isn’t the only reason that scene will go down as “one of [Wind’s] favorite days ever on set.”
“I loved seeing Mariana [Klaveno] playing Peri playing Evelyn,” Wind recalls. “It’s so spot on and so delightful. I actually taped it on my cell phone because we were going out with a few cast members that night, and for anyone who wasn’t on set that day, I wanted them to see how great Mariana was.”
Bonus scoop: This isn’t the only Housewives allusion in Monday’s premiere! A key moment between [someone] and [someone else] will remind die-hard fans of a particularly pivotal moment for Susan and Mike. (And, no, the allusion has nothing to do with Housewives alum James Denton guest-starring in the serious premiere, though he does.)
Eva Longoria being a bridezilla could not be further from the truth. In fact, the newly-married actress had some major assistance in planning her wedding.
"I didn't have to do anything. There was no wedding planning, it planned itself," Longoria, 41, told PEOPLE at Thursday's premiere of Devious Maids, which she executive produces.
The Lowriders star and José "Pepe" Bastón tied the knot in Mexico on May 21, five months after he proposed during their Dubai vacation in December.
Longoria credits her sister-in-law Rosalia Baston for keeping the planning of her nuptials under the radar.
"Pepe's sister did it. She's an event planner in Mexico. We automatically used her and that's how we're kind of able to keep it quiet, because we kept it in the family. She really did everything," the newlywed said to PEOPLE.
The former Desperate Housewives star also explained that the wedding process was more stress-free than she anticipated. "I loved it because I was so busy. Plus when you have such a small amount of people, there's not a lot to worry about," Longoria shared. "I kept going like, 'Isn't there more I should be worried about?' and it was never the case."
Though she chose to have a destination wedding, the Texas-born bride wanted to make sure there were some "American" touches to her big day.
"We had my dear friend Troy Williams who's a wedding planner here to kind of put the American touch on it because, if not, we're going to be having dinner at 11!" Longoria said. "I'm like 'Troy, please help Americanize a little bit, cause I'm Mexican American.' So, Troy did that and helped out on that side."
This is the third marriage for Longoria, who was previously married to actor Tyler Christopher and NBA star Tony Parker. Baston has three children from his previous marriage to actress Natalia Esperón.
Through the first seven episodes, Season 2 of Good Witch is averaging a solid 2.3 household rating and 2.5 million total viewers in Live+3.
Based on the network’s successful movie franchise, Good Witch is set in the fictional town of Middleton and centers on Cassie Nightingale (Catherine Bell) and her bright, teenage daughter Grace (Bailee Madison), who shares her mom’s special intuitive charm. Sam (James Denton), a doctor, and his teenage son (Rhys Matthew Bond) live next door and are charmed by the “magical” mother-daughter duo and wonder is it really magic, a lucky coincidence or just a special intuitive insight only this family possesses?
“Fans are enchanted by the magical adventures of Cassie, Sam and Grace – charming characters who have inspired our viewers to believe in the magic that can be found in our everyday lives. We’re excited to see the captivating adventure continue with a third season,” said Michelle Vicary, EVP Programming and Network Publicity at Crown Media Family Networks. “Our original series have performed outstandingly well on a very competitive night, and we will continue to bring quality entertainment to Sundays with the August debut of our newest series Chesapeake Shores.”
Whizbang Films is the producer. Orly Adelson, Jonathan Eskenas, Frank Siracusa, and Craig Pryce executive produce. Bell is co-executive producer. ITV Studios America controls distribution rights outside of North America.
Good Witch airs at 9 PM Sundays.
According to local reports, the couple got married in Valle de Bravo, Mexico, a lakeside town roughly 88 miles from Mexico City. According to previous reports, the couple hosted roughly 200 guests at a private residence and planned to finish off the big day with fireworks.
In photos posted by Al Rojo Vivo, a Telemundo news program, Longoria and Baston can be seen exchanging their vows in front of a giant white cross overlooking the lake. Longoria wears a strapless white gown with a long white veil.
Ahead of the ceremony, a source told PEOPLE that the star-studded guest list was expected to include David and Victoria Beckham, Penélope Cruz, Ricky Martin, Katy Perry, Mario Lopez, Prison Break alum Amaury Nolasco and Jane the Virgin's Jaime Camil.
The Desperate Housewives actress, 41, and her new husband, 47, first stepped out as a couple in November 2013. Bastón, president of Latin American media brand Televisa, proposed during a vacation in Dubai in December with a stunning ruby engagement ring.
Longoria, previously gushed to PEOPLE about Bastón.
"He was the most handsome man I'd ever seen. He was so charismatic, charming, sweet and funny. I thought, 'Who is this guy?!' " she said.
This is the third marriage for Longoria, who was previously married to actor Tyler Christopher and NBA star Tony Parker.
Longoria, 41, and José "Pepe" Bastón, 47, are set to say "I do" this weekend after dating for nearly three years, PEOPLE has learned.
A source confirms to PEOPLE that the wedding will be held this weekend in Acapulco, Mexico, and the guest list will be glittering because the couple is "expecting half of Hollywood to be there."
David and Victoria Beckham, Penélope Cruz, Ricky Martin, Katy Perry, Mario Lopez, Prison Break alum Amaury Nolasco and Jane the Virgin's Jaime Camil are on the high-wattage invite list.
Longoria and Bastón first stepped out as a couple in November 2013, and Bastón, who is president of Latin media brand Televisa, popped the question to the actress while on vacation in Dubai in December by presenting Longoria with a stunning ruby engagement ring.
The former Desperate Housewives actress previously opened up to PEOPLE about her relationship with Bastón, saying, "He was the most handsome man I'd ever seen. He was so charismatic, charming, sweet and funny. I thought, 'Who is this guy?!' "
This is Longoria's third marriage. She was previously married to actor Tyler Christopher and NBA star Tony Parker.
In response to the news, the actor tweeted a specific request to his fans asking for their help as he looks for his next role. "Dear Fans, In whatever project I do next, loudly notice how unlike Castle and fresh and versatile I am. Thanks," he said in hopes of convincing future casting directors he can be more than the self-assured police consultant.
@NathanFillion : Dear Fans, In whatever project I do next, loudly notice how unlike Castle and fresh and versatile I am. Thanks.
Fans aren't the only ones getting put on notice. Fillion also sent out a tweet informing directors that he's available for casting.
@NathanFillion : Dear Every Director, It appears I have an opening in my schedule.
It wasn't all jokes and sarcasm though. Fillion also sent out a heartfelt thanks to the cast and crew of Castle for all of the hard work they put into the show to make it a success for the past eight years.
@NathanFillion : All things must end. It has been an honor working with the men and women of Castle. I am truly amazed at what we’ve done. Thank you all.
ABC announced Thursday night that the show would be ending after its current season. The news came as a bit of a shock after it was revealed that Fillion's co-star Stana Katic wasn't invited back for the potential ninth season. Executive producers had prepared for the scenario though, by filming an alternative ending to the planned season finale in case the episode became their last.
Castle's series finale airs Monday at 10/9c on ABC.
NBC has cancelled the Eva Longoria-starring comedy after one season, TVLine has confirmed.
The low-rated series featured the Desperate Housewives alumna as the star of a Spanish-language soap.
We caught up with the L'Oreal spokesperson, was in Cannes for the annual film festival, to find out how her wedding planning is coming along.
"We haven't even started to plan, we've kind of just been so busy and enjoying the engagement…we just got engaged!" Longoria told us.
"Everyone's asking us, but we're just enjoying the moment that we're in."
So maybe wedding planning hasn't begun, but has Longoria thought about her wedding dress at all? It appears not, and the bride-to-be hasn't even mentioned it to her designer pal (and fellow Cannes Film Festival attendee) Victoria Beckham.
"I haven't talked about the dress, to her or to anybody." Well, that settles that!
The brunette beauty also dished about becoming a stepmom to Baston's three children, telling us, "I love them, they're really a great gift to me."
The 41-year-old also gushed to us about her beauty secrets and her love for "serums and oils and facial oils."
"Lots of sleep and water and I find that when I'm working out a lot, my skin looks better," she shared.
"Just when you're all around releasing these endorphins and it kind of manifests in your face sometimes. And love…I tell people all the time, fall in love as much as you can because it's good for your skin!"
Per the network, the third season will focus on “a new crime committed in a different setting, as told through the eyes of those affected.”
At an Emmy-themed event hosted by TVLine’s sister site Deadline last month, exec producer Michael McDonald hinted at the premise for a then-potential third season. “There a huge disparity in this country that we can tap into, which is that people who are working very, very hard can barely put food on the table while there are many millionaires and billionaires being tapped into the politics as you can see,” he said. “I think that’s is something we would like to explore, the vast differences of how Americans live.”
Immediately following American Crime‘s polarizing Season 2 finale in March, series creator John Ridley expressed uncertainty about the low-rated show’s future. He nonetheless spoke highly of ABC. “What ABC has allowed us to do has been absolutely special, in front of and behind the camera,” he marveled. “This has been one of the most special moments of my career. It’s pretty much been defining, and this is after three years that have really defined me as a person and as a storyteller. If this is the last thing I did, people would mention American Crime when they think of me, and that’s pretty special. It really is.”
In the wake of the firestorm that has erupted following leading lady Stana Katic’s confirmed ouster, ABC has cancelled the venerable procedural, TVLine has learned. The axing comes despite ABC Studios closing new one-year deals with star Nathan Fillion and several supporting players, including Jon Huertas and Seamus Dever.
Katic’s exit — which was reportedly a budgetary move on ABC’s part — was announced last month. Longtime co-star Tamala Jones was similarly let go. At the time, Katic said in a statement, “Rather then distract from what was an amazing experience, I would just like to say that I’m very grateful to ABC for giving me the opportunity to be a part of a much beloved show. Thank you to the fans.”
Several days later, Fillion released a statement of his own in which he thanked Katic “for creating the character of Beckett,” before adding, “I wish her well, and have no doubt she will succeed in everything she pursues. She will be missed.”
Exec producer Alexi Hawley previously told TVLine that if Castle was renewed then next Monday’s finale would end in a “dynamic” way that allowed the show to move forward in a slightly altered incarnation — meaning, sans Katic and Jones. However, if Castle was cancelled, an alternate, closure-filled ending would be swapped in.
The CW will take over as the new home for the superhero drama, which in October debuted on CBS to 13 million total viewers and a 3.1 demo rating, tying NBC’s Blindspot as the 2015-16 TV season’s top-rated drama launch.
And speaking of new homes, TVLine can confirm that Supergirl will move production to Vancouver, after setting up shop in Los Angeles for its maiden voyage. At this very early stage, sources say there is nothing to report yet, either way, on Calista Flockhart‘s participation in the relocation away from L.A.
Starring Glee grad Melissa Benoist in the title role, Supergirl averaged 7.7 million viewers and a 1.7 rating, numbers which with Live+7 DVR playback swell to 10 mil/2.5. Its freshman finale last month did 6.1 mil and a 1.3 in Live+Same Day numbers.
One of Supergirl‘s most popular outings featured a crossover from the star of The CW’s The Flash, Grant Gustin, which boosted the CBS series to a 7-week high in the demo.
In Santa Clarita Diet, Joel (Olyphant) and Sheila (Barrymore) are husband and wife Realtors leading vaguely discontented lives in the L.A. suburb of Santa Clarita, until Sheila goes through a dramatic change sending both their lives down a road of death and destruction — but in a good way. Chavira will play their neighbor, a law-enforcement officer who loves his work.
Fresco, who will serve as showrunner, executive produces with Barrymore through her Flower Films banner, Olyphant, Kaplan, Katsky, and Flower Films’ Chris Miller and Ember Truesdell. Flower Films’ Nancy Juvonen is a producer.
Chavira, who plays presidential candidate Senator Vargas on ABC’s Scandal, is repped by Gordon Gilbertson Management and Innovative Artists.
For the Ninth Annual George Lopez Celebrity Golf Classic in Burbank, California, on Monday, the actress went for a pretty pink makeup look to match her sleeveless A-line mini (which is actually a piece from her new eponymous collection for The Limited!).
Longoria, who is a longtime brand ambassador for L’Oréal Paris, opted for a monochromatic makeup look including a shimmery pink smoky eye, flushed cheeks and a gorgeous rose to pink ombré lip. And now we’re dying to know: Why hasn’t she been doing her makeup from the beginning? She’s that good.
As for her hair, Longoria left her long tresses in the hands of a pro (Paves), who gave the star a voluminous blowout with tousled waves.
Longoria isn’t the only star who has dabbled in the art of red carpet makeup. Fellow celebs including, Lauren Conrad, Zendaya and Ashley Tisdale have all opted out of getting ready with a pro and put their contouring skills to the test for the cameras.
Perhaps this signals a new DIY trend among the stars, or maybe celebrity makeup artists are just too busy now.
Partnered with his wife, Kim Moses, in their Sander/Moses Prods., Sander executive produced CBS’ long-running drama Ghost Whisperer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, on which he also served as in-house director. Sander’s death comes as he and Moses were wrapping their ABC pilot, drama Spark, which the duo executive produce. Simultaneously, he was executive producing YouTube’s first longform documentary on the life of YouTube personality Gigi Gorgeous, directed by Oscar winner Barbara Kopple. Additionally, Sander/Moses has a first-look deal with NBC Universal International TV Studios.
New York-born Sander executive produced more than 600 hours of primetime drama series including the 2014 CBS summer series Reckless. His other series producing credits include All Fly Away (ABC), for which he was named Producer of the Year by the PGA; Profiler (NBC); The Beast (ABC); New York News (CBS); Brimstone (Fox); and For The People (Lifetime) — all of which he also directed.
Sander’s TV movie credits include Ali: An American Hero, the Emmy Award-winning Stolen Babies, Kansas, Chasing the Dragon, and I’ll Fly Away: Then And Now. He directed both Chasing The Dragon and I’ll Fly Away, the latter earning him a DGA nomination.
Additionally, Sander produced the features Everybody’s All-American and D.O.A. He also recently produced French Kiss, a branded content film for Marriott International Studios produced in Paris.
For the past 10 years, under his SLAM digital media shingle, Sander co-created and produced entertainment event programming including all digital media IP for Ghost Whisperer, the content for feature films Happy Feet Two (Warner Bros) and Hotel Transylvania (Sony), as well as Desperate Housewives (ABC), Ugly Betty (ABC) and Comic-Con. He co-authored the book Ghost Whisperer: Spirit Guide and created and wrote the award-winning Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side webseries.
Additionally, Sander co-created with Moses the Total Engagement Experience, a creative model for television that uses each show as a component of a broader multi-platform entertainment experience. Using Internet, mobile, publishing, music, DVDs, video games, Audience Outreach Program and more, TEE establishes an infinity loop that helps to drive ratings, increase revenue streams, and create viewer loyalty.
Sander is survived by his wife, Kim Moses Sander; and sons, Aaron Sander and Declan Sander.
The Emmy-nominated actress will recur on Season 3 of the action-comedy series as the brilliant-but-tough General Rockwell, our sister site Variety reports.
Head of the top-secret black ops government agency known as DOSA — the Department of Statistical Anomalies — Rockwell sets out to apprehend the Librarians and get her hands on the magical artifacts inside the Library.
The Librarians returns later this year.
Once upon a time, fashion lines designed by the rich and famous were limited to a one-off line of leggings or a single eponymous shoe. But these days, celebrities are involved in clothing line creations in a whole new way. Musicians and actresses aren’t just wearing designer brands, they’re helping create them from the first sketch to the final stitch, and the latest celeb to join those ranks is none other than petite fashion plate, Eva Longoria.
The star’s line for The Limited has been brewing since the summer, but she’s just let WWD inside her design process for the styles, which will hit stores this fall. Previously, Longoria made her first foray into design with a homeware line for J.C. Penney, but this marks the first time she’ll try her hand at clothing. The collection will feature 250 pieces, including stretch denim, body con dresses, some office-ready pencil skirts and blazers, and plenty of graphic tees with wine-centric slogans.
According to the Telenovela star, her love affair with fashion started early when she got a Singer sewing machine for Christmas as a child. Sewing curtains and pillows quickly turned into a high school obsession with creating her own clothes. She even had a sewing machine in her trailer on the set of Housewives, confessing to WWD, “I made a lot of my dresses but I never told anyone. And if you looked at it really hard, you’d be like, ‘Your seam’s falling apart.’ Sewing zippers is still a challenge for me.”
Since The Limited is doing the sewing these days, you can wear her designs without fear. And those designs will include stretch denim, bodycon dresses and graphic tees with sayings like “Life is too short to drink bad wine” and “Money doesn’t make you happy, wine does,” at prices 15 to 25 percent higher than the Limited’s non-Longoria designed offerings, WWD says.
1. The first fragrance she ever owned: White Diamonds
“I remember saving my allowance for a White Diamonds,” the actress tells tells PeopleStyle. “I loved the bottle, and I remember it was such an aspirational thing to own. I was in high school, but fragrance was not a necessity in our home — it was like, ‘If you want that, you’re going to have to buy it yourself.'”
2. One scent she’ll always recognize no matter what: Grapefruit
“That’s a note in fragrance that I love because it’s clean and fresh — it smells like you just bathed.”
3. The best-smelling place she’s ever visited: The Park Hyatt in Paris
“I love the smell of the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme,” she reminisces. “They have their own fragrance pumped through the hotel, and one time they gave me a bottle because they don’t sell it. I spray it in my bedroom. Not in my home — just in my bedroom.
4. The scent that makes her feel cozy: Cooking
“What scent makes me feel at home? Probably cooking — the scent of cooking.”
5. The scent that reminds her of Desperate Housewives: Hairspray
“The scent that reminds me of my Desperate Housewives days is hairspray,” she laughs. “We were constantly working.”
6. The scent that reminds her of her fiancé: Musk
“He wears different ones so it’s hard — it’s definitely musky,” she admits of her fiancé, Jose Antonio Baston‘s scent. “When I smell his aftershave or the cologne he uses… I think its sexy for a man to have a signature smell. I veto some! I don’t influence the choice, but I veto the bad ones. I have veto power.”
7. The scent she imagines for her wedding: Floral“Jasmine and gardenia, like fresh flowers,” she says.
Dougray Scott has been cast to play Randall James, CEO of Indian Motorcycles, Harley’s chief competitor, in the miniseries premiering September 5.
Bethel has starred in The CW’s Hart of Dixie the past four years. Last summer, he starred in ABC’s Astronaut Wives Club and recently wrapped filming the pilot Infamous for A&E.
Scott recently finished shooting AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead; credits include Mission: Impossible.
The actors will join a cast that includes Michiel Huisman (Game of Thrones), Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones), Bug Hall (The Little Rascals) Stephen Rider (Daredevil), Jessica Camacho (Sleepy Hollow), Daniel Coonan (EastEnders), Annie Read (Awkward), Gabe Luna (Matador), Alex Shaffer (Win Win) and newcomers Essa O’Shea and Sean Scully.
From Raw Television, the three two-hour episodes of Harley and the Davidsons dramatizes the launch of the Harley-Davidson brand in 1903 by Milwaukee friends William Harley and Arthur Davidson.
PEOPLE caught up with the Desperate Housewives alum, who opened up about what it's been like to work with the stars of Scandal since he started guest-starring as Mexican-American Governor Francisco Vargas in February.
"I walk onto the set and I'm immediately greeted with a smile, a handshake and a hug from Tony Goldwyn," Chavira, 44, tells PEOPLE of his costar, who plays President Fitzgerald "Fitz" Grant on the hit Shondaland show. "He's been a sweetheart. And the man, I mean – my God. I'm like: 'Dude, you are handsome as all hell!' You know? It's hard not to look at him!"
Though "you don't always know what you're going to get" during a guest-starring gig, Chavira says it's been a dream.
"It's just that kind of set," Chavira says, recalling how Kerry Washington came up to him the other day and referenced an article she read about him: "It's little things like that where you just kind of pinch yourself and you're like: 'Thank you for letting me be there!' "
And while he couldn't tease too much about his character, who is in the throes of being manipulated to run for president by Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry), he's particularly pleased with the fact that he's playing a good guy – for once!
"My character, who's going to be potentially made – or manipulated, I should say – into an American hero. It's unlike anything that I get to play," he says. "You know, my characters are always seedy businessmen! So to get to play this guy who is the untainted hero is very unfamiliar territory for me – I jumped at it."
"[Vargas] is walking around with some rose-colored glasses on," Chavira explains. "He doesn't have any information."
What happens if and when his character finds out what Cyrus is up to? Chavira can't say, but he does promise that "it'll be very interesting."
As for whether he's Team Fitz or Team Jake? Neither, it turns out: "I'm just happy to be on team Scandal!"
Scandal airs Thursdays (9 p.m. ET) on ABC.
“[Faith is] really important to me,” he explained. “I really discovered a connection with a higher power and with God as I understand him probably five years ago when I got sober through the 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous.”
In 2007, Metcalfe entered rehab and he said prayer got him through that dark time.
“A large part of that program is giving the will and character life over to God — or a God as you understand him — and prayer is also a big part of that program as well. I feel that that really helped me overcome a difficult time in my life and since then has really deepened and enriched my life in a lot of ways.”
“God’s Not Dead 2,” the sequel to “God’s Not Dead,” tells the story of a public school teacher whose Christian faith and career come under attack as she answers a question about Jesus with scripture.
Along the way, a civil liberties group files a lawsuit in an attempt to make an example of the teacher’s quest to remove God from public discourse. In the film, Metcalfe plays a lawyer.
“It’s a deeper, more intellectual role with a greater responsibility,” he said. “Discovering my own faith and my own connection with God, I brought some of that emotional foundation to the character so the character would be really connected and really fighting for something on a deeper level and that the emotion would come through. It was a lot of preparation.”
The movie also stars Melissa Joan Hart, Robin Givens and Pat Boone. Givens also opened up to FOX411 about how God and faith play a strong role in her life.
“I do a lot of writing about fatherless daughters; I grew up without my dad,” she began to explain. “I think that role is so important and in many respects God has sort of been the only father I know. I can’t imagine not having that belief in my life. It has been the thing that I have leaned on a daily basis, so it’s very important to me. “
Metcalfe has high hopes for the film.
“I’m hoping the film brings us closer together and unites us as a people and as Americans instead of being something that people call upon to further divide us,” he said. “There are so many different belief systems in the world and specifically in our country and I think we pride ourselves as a nation … on diversity and on tolerance, and I think the basic takeaway is that faith is important to having a well-rounded life and to the human experience as a whole. You have to have some spiritual foundation to your life.”
“God’s Not Dead 2” hits theaters April 1.
Now, at 52, she’s taking a lifetime of fashion fascination to the next level by launching her first line, V. by Vanessa Williams, on the Evine home shopping network and evine.com starting March 19.
“This collection is a combination of me as a professional, me as a mother, and me as what I wear for comfort around the house,” she tells PeopleStyle of the line, which she named after her lifelong signature, a single V and a period. “It’s your urban look, it’s your suburban look, it’s your casual look, and it’s your glam look, all in one.” What does that translate to? An 18-piece debut that includes jumpsuits, blousy caftans, stretch skirts, and rouched tops—all for $100 or less. (The dress she models below is the stretch-knit sleeveless knee-length style in cobalt and retails for $50.)
But for Williams, she also wanted her line to act as a problem solver, “particularly for women who are 40 and up,” she says. “My friends and I complain about bra fat and loose arms. We’ve got a couple areas that we want to cover. Gone are the days when you’re 20 and you can just wear a little spaghetti strap thing and everything’s up and perky by itself. I’ve gone through my 30s, 40s, 50s and my body keeps changing with every decade. Yes, I’ve got bra fat and love handles. It’s a constant struggle. So, my view is don’t give up the fight, keep it moving, embrace where your body is going, and then dress accordingly.”
That’s why she made sure every piece is cut so bras fit comfortably underneath and the straps will be covered. Armholes are looser. Sizes go up to 24 and 26. Overall, the pieces are complementary to the areas we are trying to hide,” she explains. “We don’t want to mask them and we don’t want to disappear in loads and loads of fabric and look like were wearing a muumuu. I want women to look the best they can.”
Her final touch to make this especially Vanessa: Choosing her favorite colors, embellishments, and prints and then “adding a bit of glam,” she says. “I love animal prints, grays, greens, khakis, and blues. I love that I got the chance to have a little color—but nothing that’s multiple leopards on top of each other—or, really, anything too cougar.”
“I don’t think anything that ‘Scandal’ could do could mirror what’s going on in the real world right now. I think what Shonda would come up with and what this show is revealing is far more presidential than anything we are being offered in reality,” Chavira tells Variety, speaking on the U.S. primaries and the colorful showcase of presidential hopefuls, including Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
“This guy, when we meet him in the first episode at the town hall meeting, he’s talking about wanting to establish free education in the state that he’s governor of — those are big goals. When I was reading it, I was like, sh-t! I’d vote for this guy!” He adds, “If you look at what’s going on currently in our politics in 2016, that’s the Bernie Sanders agenda, so you’ve now put the agenda of a 74-year-old Jewish man in the characterization of a 40-year-old Latino American.”
Following the episode in which Chavira’s character gave the speech about free education, his second appearance featured his character involved in a shooting at the Capitol. When asked about his reaction to seeing the scene in his script, the actor, who played Eva Longoria’s husband on “Housewives,” admitted he’s “a little desensitized” to hearing about shootings.
“Growing up in Texas, I’ve been around guns my whole life,” he says. “It’s a sad state of affairs in our country that we have shootings daily. The thing is, we’ve had shootings daily for a long time. The problem is that they’ve always centered within certain socioeconomic communities so we don’t pay attention to them, but now that they’re extending beyond those communities and getting into non-ethno-specific communities, oh my god, we have to pay attention. Compton has been dealing with shootings for a long time. The South Side and the West Side of San Antonio have been dealing with shootings for a long time.”
While gun control is a major point of discussion this election cycle, perhaps the most controversial topic has been Trump’s comments on Mexican immigrants. Chavira, a second-generation American, says his “Scandal” character reflects the upside of the heated debate.
“We’re seeing this story of this second-generation immigrant coming into his own as a politician. That is an aspect of that American dream,” he says. “Let’s look at the landscape of what’s going on politically right now — there are so many people jumping on this Donald Trump bandwagon that I think have literally forgotten that your roots in this country are immigrant roots. Let’s be very clear about this, people: This country is built on nothing but fucking immigrants. Let’s not forget that. For me, it’s very easy to step into this role because I commend this character for having the voice that he has. I feel honored to be able to play a character that has this kind of conviction.”
Chavira’s role is another example of Rhimes’ inclusion of diverse types of roles for diverse actors in her shows, exemplified by Kerry Washington, “How to Get Away With Murder’s” Viola Davis and “Grey’s Anatomy” alum Sandra Oh, to name just a few.
“For me, as a Latino Mexican-American actor in this country, the way the demographic of actors is playing out these days in Hollywood, it’s very refreshing that there’s a role for a second-generation actor to be playing close to himself on television,” Chavira says.
“I’m not having to play a gang-banger, I’m not having to play a janitor, I’m not having to play a drug cartel guy — I’m playing someone that had I not chosen to be an actor, this might be my actual storyline for my life,” Chavira explains. “I applaud Shonda for offering that accessibility. If you look at this character, he is the Castro brothers from San Antonio. When I read this, I envisioned this in my head so I’m very proud to be able to step in and play a character like this and that it could slightly compare to those two men. I’m very proud of them and all of their accomplishments.”
Chavira’s next episode of “Scandal” airs Thursday, March 10 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
In the pilot, written by Matt Miller and directed by McG, when Texas cop and former Navy SEAL Martin Riggs suffers the loss of his wife and baby, he moves to Los Angeles to start anew. There, he is partnered with LAPD detective Roger Murtaugh (Wayans), who, having recently suffered a “minor” heart attack, must avoid stress in his life.
Rahm will play the successful yet humble Captain Avery, more politician than cop, dressing the part of top brass since his early days as Murtaugh’s partner. Avery, who paired up Murtaugh with Riggs, hoping the younger cop can put a little vigor back in Murtaugh’s career, enjoys the corner office that came with his recent promotion to Captain.
Miller, McG, Dan Lin and Jennifer Gwartz executive produce the pilot for Warner Bros. TV and Lin Pictures.
Rahm, who played Ted Chaough on Mad Men for four seasons, rising to regular in Seasons 6 and 7, recently recurred on CBS’ Madam Secretary. The Desperate Housewives alum is repped by Gersh and Forward Entertainment.
The series centers on daytime TV talk show The Lunch Hour and the fireworks that ensue each weekday when the co-hosts discuss life, love, family, politics and gossip. Williams will play Maxine, the show’s creator and host, a formidable, powerful and decisive woman who fears she’s being put out to pasture. Slated for a 2017 premiere, the series will focus on Maxine and her co-hosts, five women with very different points of view. On the small screen they’re best friends and colleagues. Behind the scenes, however, they’re “Satan’s Sisters” — an off-camera world filled with power struggles, personal demons, diva fits, love affairs, man troubles, cat fights…and cocktails.
Williams received three Emmys for her role as Wilhelmina Slater on Ugly Betty. She was seen most recently in the final season of Desperate Housewives, ABC’s 666 Park Avenue, in guest-starring roles on Royal Pains and The Good Wife and the Broadway, Los Angeles and Lifetime Television productions of The Trip to Bountiful, opposite Cicely Tyson.
Jones executive produces Satan’s Sisters with Josh Berman (Drop Dead Diva, CSI), Suzanne de Passe (The Temptations, Lonesome Dove) & Madison Jones, and Susan Levison. Amy Engelberg and Wendy Engelberg write and exec produce. Suzanne Coston serves as co-executive producer. The series is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television.
The Telenovela star has provided us with the twist on The Spice Girls' iconic hit "Wannabe" that we didn't even know we were, yes, desperate for. Because instead of going for bouncy Brit pop, Longoria tackled the tune in her character's character, showing us what the song would sound like telenovela-style, the Spanish-language soap operas being known for their flair for the mega-dramatic.
While Longoria may be getting tired of being asked to reinterpret a variety of standard things soap-opera style as she makes the rounds promoting her NBC sitcom, she is amiably handling all requests with aplomb.
The season finale of Telenovela airs tonight at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.
"It's a great city," says the actress, who is featured in the current issue of PEOPLE. "The people there are so kind and polite and outgoing and friendly. I love working there."
This is the second season the anthology series has shot in the capital of Texas, which has given Huffman, 52, plenty of time to explore the city.
"Working out there is great. I take yoga and spin classes and run around Lady Bird Lake," she says. "And they have such unique stores and restaurants. I love eating at [Japanese restaurant] Uchi and getting butter coffee at Picnik."
And Huffman isn't the only one excited about the city.
"There's something like 185 people moving there every day," she says. "That's crazy!"
American Crime airs Wednesdays (10 p.m. ET) on ABC.
“First, I have to recognize how lucky I am to have to navigate these sorts of issues. I have a job that I love and a fabulous family that I love,” says Huffman, who is featured in the current issue of PEOPLE.
“But people always ask, ‘How do you balance home life and work?’ And I tell them, ‘I don’t. I just drop the ball all the time.’ ”
To make things more difficult, Huffman’s current series, ABC’s American Crime, films in Austin, Texas, while her two daughters with husband William H. Macy — Sofia Grace, 15, and Georgia Grace, 13 — live and attend school in Los Angeles.
“I try and fly back to L.A. every two or three days. But that can take a toll. Sometimes I think, ‘I’m failing as both a mother and an actress.’ But I do what I can to stumble forward joyously,” says Huffman, 52.
“And I’m able to fly home that often, so these are champagne problems, really.”
American Crime airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.
"I was lucky to learn the word 'volunteer' at a very young age," Longoria, 40, tells PEOPLE exclusively. "It was integrated into our family."
When the Telenovela star founded the Eva Longoria Foundation nearly four years ago, she had one thing in mind: inspiring young women through education.
"With the Eva Longoria Foundation I knew I wanted to focus on education," the actress says. "I researched to see who had the greatest educational disparities in the United States, and it happened to be Latinas. I thought, 'I'm Latina, and this community needs help.' "
Adding, "Education immediately improves your chances for economic mobility. With our funding, we encourage parental engagement, after-school programs and entrepreneurial programs."
Though Longoria, who is engaged to José Antonio Bastón, keeps a packed schedule, being a role model to young women is one of her top priorities.
She explains, "When [young women] see me and other women around them who are successful and educated, they go, 'Oh, that's a possibility for me.' "
Eva Longoria made sure to cover all her bases for her Lip Sync Battle performance of Flo Rida and T-Pain's 2008 hit "Low." The 40-year-old Telenovela star went the extra mile by sporting a backwards ball cap and some major bling, helping her fully embody the woman in the rap song. Ahead of her episode, Spike TV released a snippet of her performance on YouTube Wednesday.
Longoria faces some stiff competition in the form of Hayden Panettiere. While she may be diminutive in size, the 5-foot Nashville actress went all out for her rendition of Moulin Rouge's "Lady Marmalade." Though Pattie LaBelle made the song famous in 1982, Panettiere opted for the remake released in 2001 featuring Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Missy Elliott, Mýa and Pink. Looking like Aguilera did in the Paul Hunter-directed music video, Panettiere, 26, proved she's a diva to be reckoned with. She had an ace up her sleeve, too, as Aguilera herself made a cameo.
Needless to say, the episode will be quite a showdown.
To see which other songs Longoria and Hayden Panettiere performed, watch Spike's Lip Sync Battle Thursday at 10 p.m., hosted by LL Cool J with "colorful commentator" Chrissy Teigen.
"I look at her like a sister," Chavira tells PEOPLE of Longoria. "She's friends with my wife. She knows my kids. We're family."
So when his newly engaged pal asked him to guest star on her new NBC comedy Telenovela, it was an instant yes from Chavira.
"When Eva calls me and asks me to do something for her, I don't hesitate," says the actor, who had similarly had Longoria guest star on his 2013 NBC comedy Welcome to the Family.
On the Feb. 8 episode of Telenovela, Chavira will play an ex-convict who is trying to win back Mimi (Diana Maria Riva), the best friend of Longoria's character, Ana Sofia.
"It's a return to the I Love Lucy dynamic Eva and I had on Housewives," Chavira says of playing the "straight man" to Longoria and Riva's Lucy and Ethel. "You need a character like mine to ground the humor of their crazy and manic characters. It's a lot of fun to get to do that."
Telenovela airs Mondays (8:30 p.m. ET) on NBC.
"We always have a Valentine's Day weekend – a couple's war weekend. So we invite a lot of couple friends of ours and we have this insane competition of like minute-to-win-it games," she told PEOPLE at the Public Display of Godiva campaign at the Godiva store in Glendale, California. "It's a fun weekend but it's definitely a competitive weekend," she continued.
While Longoria's invites have surely gone out for her Valentine's Day couples weekend, she hasn't even begun to think about invitations for her upcoming nuptials.
"[There's] no theme or location. No guest list. You know, I guess I keep advocating for eloping," the actress, 40, said.
The only thing Longoria has decided on is that it if there is a wedding, it won't be grandiose.
"I think we're going to do something really, really simple. We've both been married before, so there's not going to be a lot of pomp and circumstance," Longoria said.
Aside from planning a wedding, Longoria stays busy on her new NBC series Telenovela, which she stars in and produces. She also revealed that she will be guest starring in another show she produces, the season four premiere of Lifetime's Devious Maids. And who will she be playing?
"I play me. I actually play Eva Longoria – but a much heightened version. I'm kind of the a--hole version of Eva Longoria," she said with a laugh.
Though details on his character are (of course) being kept under wraps, TV’s erstwhile Carlos Solis is set to recur on Scandal, starting with the second episode back after winter hiatus, according to EW.com.
Scandal resumes Season 5 next Thursday, Feb. 11.
Thanks to Entertainment Weekly's "Beyond Beautiful" issue, we now get the chance to be a fly on the wall during a particularly candid conversation between Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria and Elizabeth Banks on all things women in the entertainment industry.
The powerhouse actresses, who also appear together on the mag's cover, swap stories and hatch plans for further world domination (well not really, but they might as well be).
On the pressures women face, Washington likened her experience to one felt by all minorities in the industry.
"It's this idea you have to be twice as good to get half of what they have," the Scandal star explained. "It's something that most black people I talk to, when they heard that line, it completely resonated with how they were raised and the messaged their parents gave them."
The outspoken star believes "the pressure to be extraordinary," is the "same for women," adding, "You just know, you have to be twice as good. In a way, until girls don't have that feeling, we will not have done our jobs."
Banks echoed Kerry's statements as well, recalling feelings of being "underused" when she first set out to act. "I'm competitive naturally as a human being. And suddenly I was in an industry that said, 'You can just sit over there and wait and we'll call you,' the Pitch Perfect 2 director revealed.
But even decades after establishing a successful career, Witherspoon expressed she still encounters "awful, terrible" scripts that place female characters on the back burner.
Offering one alarming example, the Oscar winner says after turning down a part, "[The filmmakers] said, 'Well this actress is chasing it, that actress is chasing it: three Oscar winners and two huge box office leading ladies.' And I thought, 'Oh, that's where we're at? You're fighting to be the girlfriend in a dumb comedy? For what?' And by the way, two Oscar winners did it."
As for any changes these leading ladies hope to see for women in the future?
In reference to events celebrating women in Hollywood, Washington believes, "It'll be so exciting when we don't have to do this because we're just equal players at the table."
For more, check out this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly on newsstands Feb. 5.
The actress is part of a bold and powerful project by French artist and photographer Olivier Ciappa in which the subjects pose as same-sex couples or families to combat homophobia.
In her shots, Longoria, 40, poses in an intimate embrace with singer Lara Fabian.
For the series, called "The Imaginary Couples," Ciappa also shot other straight actors, artists and athletes, including Sicario director Denis Villeneuve and Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallée.
On his website, Ciappa explains he decided to create the photographs after a picture of himself, his partner and their baby was shared millions of times on the Internet, inspiring him to put together the series as a message of "peace and unity."
"Homophobia is the first symptom of a widespread ignorance of homosexuality, a distorted vision, sometimes fantasy," he explained. "So I wanted the viewer to confront the gentleness, the simplicity of these images in order to change their look, sweep their representations and keep only the essentials: love, nothing but love."
As for Longoria's real-life love story, the star got engaged to her beau José "Pepe" Bastón during a trip to Dubai this past December.
The couple have yet to announce any official wedding plans, but the Telenovela star recently told PEOPLE Now she wouldn't mind eloping so the ceremony is "free of guests and guest lists and things like that!"
"We call him 'Mr. Fancy Pants' because he always has a pocket square and a suit," Longoria added of her fiancé. "He's super stylish. He loves fashion way more than I do!"
Murder One and Boomtown star Jason Gedrick will guest-star on the final five episodes of the TNT drama's current season as Mark Hickman, the estranged ex-partner of Tao (Michael Paul Chan), and we've got your exclusive first look at the pivotal character above.
As we previously reported, the five episodes will tell one serialized story, as the team investigates a the connection between the present-day murder of a young woman and her 3-year-old son and a cold case murder of an off-duty cop and a deputy district attorney 12 years before. And as you can see in the photo, Hickman isn't exactly interested in helping his old crew.
"He was fired from the LAPD for perjuring himself on the stand in an effort to put away a killer who was about to walk because their evidence had been screwed around with," executive producer James Duff reveals. "He believes all the other cops are corrupt and he just got caught, and that he's being made to pay the price for what they all did. It's an unusual character to see in our version of the LAPD because he is so, so politically incorrect."
And while Hickman has zero interest in working with Tao ("Tao refused to back him up... [and] Hickman believes all the murders that happened afterwards are attributable to Mike Tao wanting to protect his pension," Duff says), he will enter into a "off-the-books partnership with someone on the Major Crimes squad -- even though contact with Hickman has been expressly forbidden.
"Taylor doesn't want Hickman approached or dealt with because of the way he left the LAPD and because now he consults with lawyers in discrediting LAPD officers on the stand during the trials of criminals," Duff teases.
So, what's Hickman really up to? Find out when Major Crimes returns on Monday, Feb. 15 at 9/8c on TNT.
NBC held TCA Q&A sessions last week for Shades Of Blue with Jennifer Lopez, America Ferrera-starrer Superstore and Eva Longoria’s Telenovela. During the latter session, one TV critic noted, “When you think about the impact of shows like [Fox’s] Empire, one reason why they’ve had impact is because a huge number of black viewers watch the show, they showcase black culture, and a bunch of black viewers watch the show. It seems like it’s been harder for TV to figure out how to do that with Latino viewers, even when the show features Latino cast members.”
The critic asked Longoria, who stars in and exec produces Telenovela, if her new series is drawing “a lot of Latino viewers,” and “what’s the key to reaching especially second- and third-generation folks who may not be as tied to traditional television.”
After confirming her show is over-indexing with Latinos, Longoria agreed with the premise. “It’s very hard to program to Latinos,” she said. “I am not saying African Americans are a monolithic group, because they are not. They are very diverse as well. But Latinos are definitely not a monolithic group. When you have the Cubans and the Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans – if you see our cast, just our cast, we touch all of that and then some…If you tell an East L.A. story, sometimes the New Yorkians don’t get it. And I’m a Texican. So sometimes I don’t get either coast.
“I don’t think, ‘If you cast it, they will come’,” she said. “These roles authentically had to be Latino. They are on a telenovela. So casting this show was very different than stunt casting the Benetton ad.”
Longoria said the TV industry “automatically” comes to her “with content that is Latino-themed or have Latino cues, but I don’t think that you can program to Latinos. I don’t think Latinos like that. I think they want good shows.” She described Telenovela as a “great big broad comedy that has a lot of Hispanic cues in it, and so I think a general audience can enjoy it and understand it and laugh at it.”
The series scored a big commitment from NBC at the pitch stage — a 13-episode order if Longoria committed to star, and a pilot order if she didn’t. Longoria had been developing Telenovela through her Universal TV-based UnbeliEVAble at NBC for some time. Written/executive produced by Cougar Town co-executive producers Chrissy Pietrosh and Jessica Goldstein, it’s based on an idea by Longoria who plays diva Ana Maria, popular star of Latin America’s most beloved telenovela who strives to stay on top in that world.
Talk show host Wendy Williams caught up with Eva on The Wendy Williams Show this week and couldn't help but ask the Telenovela star if she still kept in touch with her former Housewives cohorts.
"Yeah, Felicity [Huffman] and I live right next to each other, I saw her yesterday. Marcia [Cross] and I did some work together for some candidates, and we always stay in touch," the actress shared.
As for the whom she is not quite as desperate to dish with?
"I haven't seen Nicolette [Sheridan] or Teri Hatcher] in a while," Eva added.
But not for lack of like, we're sure. After all, the lovely leading lady has quite the packed schedule these days. With her recent engagement to media tycoon Jose Antonio Baston and a new show underway, it's not hard to see why the actress's social calendar may be taking a back seat.
Also very likely taking up some space on Eva's plate? Her handsome soon-to-be hubby's three children, ages 19 and 12 (twins no less!), who the actress raves are "wonderful." And Eva may just be gearing up to pop out some kiddies of her own. "I'm open to it," the actress revealed. "I know I'm already 40...but I love children and if it's in the stars, I will welcome it with open arms!"
The star is a tad less open to some other endeavors. Like, for example, a gargantuan wedding. Eva half-jested to Wendy that she is "advocating for no wedding. Eloping." But what the wedding dress? Perhaps a gorgeous gown designed by the star's gorgeous BFF Victoria Beckham?
"I don't know, I haven't even talked to Victoria about it," Eva spilled.
Aw, treat yourself, Eva! Success looks good on you.
No details, but Lifetime says Longoria will make a one-time guest appearance in the season premiere. Denton, who played plumber Mike Delfino in Desperate Housewives, will play Peter, the charming, confident head of a movie studio who falls hard and fast into a new relationship this season. Rodriguez is Daniela, a sexy, fun, and unpredictable Latina in her 20’s who loves to stir the pot. She arrives in Beverly Hills with dreams of stardom and is easily tempted by the fabulous lifestyles of the rich and famous. They join returning cast Ana Ortiz, Dania Ramirez, Roselyn Sanchez, Judy Reyes, Susan Lucci, Grant Show, Rebecca Wisocky and Tom Irwin.
Inspired by the hit telenovela, Ellas son… la alegría del hogar, Devious Maids is produced by ABC Studios. The series was created by Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives) and is executive produced by Cherry, Sabrina Wind (Desperate Housewives), Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives), Brian Tanen (Desperate Housewives), Curtis Kheel, Larry Shuman (Kissing Miranda), David Lonner, John Mass, and Televisa USA’s Paul Presburger and Michael Garcia.
The actor penned a heartfelt essay that was split in a series of five posts with the photo of the inspirational quote, "Be Who You Needed When You Were Younger."
Carver, 27, has played several gay characters on screen but had not commented on his own sexuality until now.
"As a young boy, I knew I wanted to be an actor. I knew I wanted to be a lot of things... It was around that age that I also knew, however abstractly, that I was different from some of the other boys in my grade," he wrote. "Over time, this abstract 'knowing' grew and articulated itself through a painful gestation marked by feelings of despair and alienation, ending in a climax of saying three words out loud: 'I am gay.'"
Carver noted that he came out to his friends and family knowing that he was in a safe space with loved ones where his sexual orientation was "celebrated." However, in acting and Hollywood it was more complicated for him.
"I did not want to be defined by my sexuality," the star continued in part three. "Sure, I am a proud gay man, but I don’t identify as a Gay man, or a GAY man, or just gay. I identify as a lot of things, these various identifications and identities taking up equal space and making up an ever-fluid sense of Self."
Adding: "As an actor, I believed that my responsibility to the craft and the business was to remain benevolently neutral – I was a canvas, a chameleon, the next character. For the most part I had a duty to stay a Possibility in the eye of casting, directors, and the public. If I Came Out, I feared I would be limiting myself to a type, to a perception with limits that I was not professionally comfortable with."
But after playing characters both gay and straight, Carver realized the business is changing. Following those LGBTQ trailblazers before him, Carver feels more "excited" than ever to be himself and help others discover their true identities.
"So now, let the record show this – I self-identify as gay... I owe it to myself, more than anything, to be who I needed when I was younger. And let the record show my twin brother is just as cool for being straight."
Teri, who's 51 by the way, and her 18-year-old stopped short of getting new ink, opting instead for new ear piercings at T-Man Tattoo shop in Studio City.
We're told it was for a good cause ... the mom-daughter duo were celebrating Emerson reaching her fundraising goal for Child Life playrooms at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
Teri's not just a cool mom, she's also a good tipper. She left $20 on a $73 tab -- better than most.
"We haven't even discussed it. I mean, I would like to elope," the Telenovela star tells PEOPLE Now, laughing. "Free of guests and guest lists and things like that!"
And don't expect the actress to be a bridezilla: She actually expects Baston, 47, to be more involved in planning their special day.
"We call him 'Mr. Fancy Pants' because he always has a pocket square and a suit," says Longoria, 40. "He's super stylish. He loves fashion way more than I do!"
The couple got engaged last month during a romantic trip to Dubai, and Longoria calls the moment the businessman bent down on one knee to pop the question "beautiful and memorable and everything you want a proposal to be."
Telenovela airs Monday at 8:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood) and James Tupper (Revenge) have been cast as male leads opposite Kidman and Witherspoon, and Shailene Woodley, who was reported to have been in talks, has now closed her deal. They join previously announced Laura Dern, Adam Scott, Zoë Kravitz and Kathryn Newton.
Additional new cast members are Jeffrey Nordling (Desperate Housewives), Santiago Cabrera, P. J. Byrne, Kelen Coleman, Sarah Burns, Darby Camp, Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti, Ivy George, Chloe Coleman, Virginia Kull, Sarah Baker (The Good Lie), Kathreen Khavari, Larry Bates, Hong Chau and Gia Carides.
Big Little Lies will be an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2014 darkly comic novel about three mothers of kindergartners –Celeste (Kidman), Madeline (Witherspoon) and Jane (Woodley)— whose apparently perfect lives unravel to the point of murder. Jean-Marc Vallée is directing.
Woodley’s Jane is a single mom of modest means and a mysterious past, Jane is new to not only Monterey but to the complicated social hierarchy of Mesa Elementary School, where her son is a student. Skarsgård is Perry Wright: One half of the seemingly perfect Monterey couple, alongside his wife Celeste (Kidman), Perry is a successful businessman, loving father and devoted husband. Tupper will play Nathan Carlson: Ex-husband of Madeline (Witherspoon), he is married to a beautiful and younger yoga instructor, Bonnie (Kravitz) and faces the challenges of co-parenting a teenage daughter along with his ex.
Nordling plays Gordon Klein, a high-powered executive, married to Renata (Dern). Cabrera plays Joseph Bachman: He runs the local Monterey theatre company and has an extramarital affair with Madeline (Witherspoon); P. J. Byrne is Principal Warren Nippal who runs the school in Monterey; Camp is Chloe Mackenzie: 7-year-old daughter of (Witherspoon); Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti are Max & Josh Wright: 7-year-old twin sons of Celeste and Perry (Kidman and Skarsgård); George is Amabella Klein: 7-year old daughter of Renata and Gordon (Dern and Nordling); Chloe Coleman plays Skye Carlson: 7-year-old daughter of Nathan and Bonnie (Tupper and Kravitz); Kull is Ms. Emily Barnes, first grade school teacher; Kelen Coleman, Burns, Baker, Khavari, Bates, Hong Chau, and Carides are Monterey parents.
Tupper is repped by Untitled Entertainment, United Talent Agency and Jackoway Tyerman. Nordling is repped by APA. Baker is with Pakula/King & Associates and 3 Arts.
The actress got engaged to the president of content and television at Grupo Televisa late last month, and at least for now, Longoria hopes they can enjoy their engagement rather than plan every detail of their wedding day. Asked about her fiancé on NBC's Today Monday, the TV star gushed, "He's amazing! He's gorgeous and really the kindest human being I've ever met. And he's really private! So, I never talk about him, because he's always like, 'Don't talk about me!'"
Savannah Guthrie joked, "We don't want to be the source of your first fight."
Somehow we don't think Baston will be too upset with Longoria. After all, she had only the nicest things to say about him. Later, when asked about setting a wedding date, she admitted that it's the furthest things from their minds. "We haven't even discussed it. I'm still in the glow of the engagement," she said. Then, describing the proposal, she said, "It was such a surprise. It was in Dubai and it was in the desert. We're still absorbing that moment. I'm still applauding him for how beautiful and amazing it was, then we'll talk about the big fat Mexican wedding."
Longoria was on Today to discuss her new NBC sitcom, Telenovela, in which she plans a Spanish soap opera star who doesn't speak Spanish. "I was developing it in my production slate, and when the first draft came in, it was so funny," she said. Longoria explained that she originally did not plan to play the "vulnerable and "crazy" Ana Sofia, but she "fell in love" with the role. "I knew I was going to go back to TV one day," she said, "but the bar was set so high from Desperate Housewives that I was like, 'I don't know.' I was a little gun-shy, and I loved the time off!"
Telenovela airs Mondays at 8:30 ET on NBC.
Longoria dove into producing and directing projects like Lifetime's Devious Maids.
Even when developing her new NBC comedy Telenovela, Longoria originally was only going to serve as producer.
"But when I read the script, I knew I had to do it," the former real-life soap actress says of playing over-the-top Spanish soap star Ana Sofia Calderon, a performance that is drawing comparisons to the likes of Lucille Ball. "It was so fresh and fun. It was the comedy I'd always wanted to do. It's my love letter to telenovelas."
Telenovela premieres Jan. 4 at 8:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
“I just turned 40, so I have thought, ‘Is time running out?’ ” the former Desperate Housewives actress says in the current issue of PEOPLE. “I should be thinking about [children], but I feel like my life is full.”
One thing filling her life aside from her fiancé José “Pepe” Bastón, are his three children from a previous marriage.
“They’ve been such a gift in my life. I don’t feel like we are lacking because we don’t have a baby,” says Longoria, whose new NBC comedy, Telenovela, premieres Jan. 4 at 8:30 p.m.
Not that she’s ruled out the possibility of having a child of her own.
“We are fulfilled,” she says of life with Bastón. “If there is anything else to come, it would be icing on the cake.”
For more on Longoria’s life with Bastón, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Monday.
"Some people said, 'Oh. You don't want to be alone.' And I said, 'I'm not alone! I'm with myself. And myself is fabulous,' " the former Desperate Housewives star says in the current issue of PEOPLE.
Even when she was the sole single on a European couples trip, Longoria, 40, felt no qualms about being on her own.
"People went, 'Aw. Did you feel weird?' And I said, 'No! I had so much fun! These are my best friends,' " she says. "It's not like you change because you became a single person. It's not like you become an alien."
Longoria dated Peneélope Cruz's brother Eduardo and entrepreneur Ernesto Arguello, but the actress says that time as a single gal was essential to preparing her to meet her fiancé José "Pepe" Bastón.
"I learned to be content on my own," says Longoria, whose new NBC comedy Telenovela" premieres Jan. 4. "I think I needed that to be ready for what I have with Pepe."
In Season 2, issues of sexual orientation and socioeconomic disparity come to a boil when lurid photos of a high school boy are posted on social media following a school party. Circumstances become more complicated when the boy accuses two players on an elite private high school’s championship basketball team of drugging, assaulting and then posting the pictures of him online.
Several Season 1 cast members are back, including stars Felicity Huffman and Timothy Hutton, as well as co-stars Regina King — who won an Emmy for her role — Lili Taylor and Elvis Nolasco. They are joined by Trevor Jackson, Connor Jessup, Joey Pollari and Angelique Rivera.
Ridley executive produces with Michael J. McDonald for ABC Studios.
Longoria, 40, announced the news on Sunday when she shared a photo of the couple kissing in a desert in Duabi.
"Ummmm so this happened....#Engaged #Dubai #Happiness," she wrote."
In the photo, the actress is seen wearing a stunning ruby and diamond ring.
Longoria and Baston, 47, began dating in 2013.
"He's been sweeping her off her feet and courting her like a proper gentleman," a source told PEOPLE of their budding romance in 2013.
The Desperate Housewives star has gushed about her new fiancé in the past, praising both his mind and his personal style.
"I'm attracted to humor and intellect in a man," Longoria told PEOPLE in 2014. "Let me tell you, I'm very lucky in my life."
Longoria's friend Ana Ortiz gave her stamp of approval in September.
"They're a gorgeous couple, and I've never seen her happier," the Devious Maids star told PEOPLE. "I am so thrilled that she has someone who is not intimidated by her and who is not afraid by her power, her beauty, her friendship and her drive."
Longoria was previously married to actor Tyler Christopher from 2002 to 2004. Her second marriage to NBA star Tony Parker ended when the couple split in 2011.
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
KIRSTEN DUNST, FARGO
LADY GAGA, AMERICAN HORROR STORY: HOTEL
SARAH HAY, FLESH & BONE
FELICITY HUFFMAN, AMERICAN CRIME
QUEEN LATIFAH, BESSIE.
Cross (Desperate Housewives) debuts as Caleb’s politician mom Claire, and Coupe (Happy Endings) as hardcore FBI agent Hannah Wyland in the episode, which airs Sunday at 10/9c.
The photos seem to show a New Year’s Eve party thrown by Caleb’s folks, with many dolled-up NATs in attendance. Ryan is there, too, despite moving on from the academy in last week’s episode.
But don’t get too distracted by the gowns (or the in-retrospect-cringeworthy moment of Shelby meeting Claire for the first time), because we’ve also got photos of a beat-up Elias and Caleb in his religious-cult-infiltrating persona.
"I don't have enough words to say about her comedic timing," co-creator and executive producer Jessica Goldstein tells TVGuide.com. "We could say, 'In this episode, you're going to fall down a well,' and she's like, 'I'm doing it!'"
One scene from the pilot, in fact, finds Longoria, who plays the sassy, self-absorbed telenovela star Ana Maria, hanging upside down while trying to attack her ex-husband Xavier (Jencarlos Canela) who's been hired as her love interest on her show. "When you're upside down, blood is rushing to your head, which can make reciting lines difficult," co-creator and executive producer Chrissy Pietrosh says. "She's like, 'I'm doing those lines!' We never had to hold back. She does things strong grown men won't do."
That's true of both Longoria the actress and Longoria the businesswoman. She's an executive producer on Telenovela, and in doing so, helps create a space that brings more Hispanic and (female) voices to the forefront. Telenovela, which boasts three other Hispanic writers, was more than a year in the making, and not without its challenges, including a name change (it was previously titled Hot and Bothered) and having its episode order cut from 13 to 11. That said, both Goldstein and Pietrosh say Longoria became an invaluable resource as they worked on scripts. "We trusted Eva implicitly and she trusted us," Pietrosh says.
It's too fitting that there was some behind-the-scenes drama in getting Telenovela ready - the show itself a campy look at the behind-the-scenes antics on a fictionalized show, Las Leyes de Pasion, which parodies the Spanish soap genre.
Already frazzled by learning that her ex-husband, who she's certain cheated on her with Shakira, will play her new love interest, Ana Maria is constantly looking for ways to rattle her rival Isabella (Alex Meneses), who was the show's lead until the younger, hotter Ana Maria seized her spot. Ana Maria is also working to make sure her secret - that she doesn't speak Spanish - stays under wraps, while navigating through all kinds of other mini crises, including her mess of a love life. There's definitely a lot going on, particularly with the inclusion of her BFFs - her gay buddy Gael (Jose Moreno Brooks) and costume designer Mimi (Diana Maria Riva) - but the writers say they enjoyed the challenges of making all the layers work. "It was never challenging, but a puzzle to put together the way we had it in our head," Goldstein says. "Every day, we would start each morning with 20-minute hug."
Although Goldstein and Pietrosh were certainly not inexperienced - they co-executive-produced the Courteney Cox sitcom Cougar Town - they did have to do due diligence to make sure they could accurately bring the telenovela world to life. They mined YouTube, dug into Longoria's past on The Young and the Restless for material and toured Telemundo's studios in Miami, where they watched scenes and the editing of telenovelas including Duenos del Paraiso.
"We learned that the people behind the scenes work so hard and produce so much more content than we do, and the quality is so great," Pietrosh says. Telenovela teams work so hard, in fact, Pietrosh says they had to loosen up the material they gained from the very serious staff. "We are very lucky that our actors are open and friendly, so we just sat back and watched and kept our ears open."
That helped inform the cultural insights that come through on Telenovela, including the idea of a Latina who can't speak Spanish. (That actually came from Longoria's own experience; the actress, born and raised in Texas, has been open about not speaking Spanish growing up.) "At one of our first screenings, a [Hispanic] woman came up to us saying she doesn't speak Spanish, and it's not something you see very often on TV," Pietrosh says. "It's just right for the show."
Of course, Telenovela has a broad appeal, with its main themes of jealous co-workers, failed romances and sibling rivalries familiar to just about everyone. Some will no doubt compare Telenovela to other famous send-ups of the genre, such as Ugly Betty and Jane the Virgin, which will feel more densely layered and nuanced than this. It's best to let those comparisons go though and enjoy Telenovela on its own merits. Right from the outset, when the hurricane-level wind machine nearly blows the assembled actors away, it's clear Telenovela's tone, pacing and style have more in common with screwball workplace sitcoms than the aforementioned comedy-dramas.
No, the goofy one-liners and slapstick moments, like watching Ana Maria trying to save face while having a wardrobe malfunction, don't make the show rise to the level of epic, landmark TV, but they do make it fun and enjoyable. Telenovela gets stronger as it progresses too, the banter more rich and the scenarios more elaborately funny, culminating with a big, life-or-death cliff-hanger by the end of the season.
"We're hoping everyone loves it," and not just one segment of viewers, Pietrosh says. "Our biggest goal was to deliver a great comedy."
Telenovela has a special preview Monday with two episodes beginning at 10/9c on NBC before officially premiering Monday, Jan. 4 at 8:30/9:30c on NBC.
As previously reported, Desperate Housewives‘ Marcia Cross soon will debut in the recurring role of Claire, the wife of the FBI Deputy Director and mother of the conflicted recruit.
Casting the primetime vet “was like kismet,” executive producer Joshua Safran tells TVLine. “I’m very grateful that happened.”
Aside from a few one-off roles, Cross hasn’t done much TV work since Desperate Housewives ended in 2012.
“The role was written for her. The second we came up with Claire, I was like, ‘We have to get Marcia Cross,'” Safran adds.
Read on for five quick facts about Mrs. — we mean, “Senator” — Haas’ arrival (including when it’ll happen).
CLAIRE WAS AN FBI AGENT | From the moment in the pilot that we find out both of Caleb’s parents were G-men, “we wanted to keep broadening out his family,” Safran says. (Caleb’s sister, by the way, also is on the Bureau’s payroll; we may meet her someday.) The Haases “were salt-of-the-earth people… who have now gone up a notch.” Caleb’s clan is a “dynasty,” the EP adds, “but it’s a different kind of dynasty.”
CLAIRE IS NOW A SENATOR | Her position as a power player will help the show look “at how the FBI interacts with the political side of the government,” Safran says.
CLAIRE MAY BE A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME | For those wondering what Quantico will look like “We’re going to use Claire and the emotional ties she has with Caleb and Clayton as a way to broaden our view of the show, so it’s not just about the FBI but also begins to become about politics in general, as well,” Safran previews.
CLAIRE AND SHELBY WILL HAVE WORDS | Caleb’s on-again, off-again love interest and his momma will have plenty of chances to be in each other’s orbits. “There’s a great Shelby-Claire story” that also involves Alex, Safran says.
CLAIRE WILL FIRST APPEAR… | … in Episode 11, airing Dec. 13.
In Designated Survivor, when the President, VP, and Cabinet all meet in one location for an event such as the State of the Union, one Cabinet member is conspicuously missing: the Designated Survivor. Hidden away in an undisclosed location with Presidential-level security, the Designated Survivor is ready to take the reins of the President should the unthinkable happen and the rest of the government is wiped out in an attack. Toscano is writing the project, which stems from a blind script deal Depp’s Infinitum Nihil had with Fox. Toscano and Depp will executive produce with Infinitum Nihil’s Christi Dembrowski.
The ABC drama is a Texas-sized soap about an ambitious political family with differing agendas loosely inspired by a 2013 Vogue article Pair Of Aces, which profiled Democratic rising-star twins Julián Castro, mayor of San Antonio, and Joaquin, then-newly elected U.S. congressman. UnbeliEVAble and ABC first took a stab at developing a Texas political family drama using the article as source material last season with a different writer. Toscano is writing and will executive produce with UnveliEVAble’s Longoria and Ben Spector and Conde Nast’s Dawn Ostroff. This marks Toscano’s return to ABC where she worked on another primetime soap, Revenge.
Toscano landed her first pilot order in 2014 with CBS’ Red Zone. Her series credits also include A&E’s Bates Motel. She is repped by UTA, manager Carel Cutler and attorney Patti Felker.
UnbeliEVAble has midseason NBC comedy series Hot & Bothered, starring Longoria, as well as four other broadcast projects in development: genre drama Zone Of Silence at NBC with Blumhouse and writer Rashad Raisani, comedy Bonita & Mechelle at NBC with Will Packer Prods and writer Kriss Turner Towner, a comedy at ABC with veteran comedy writer Bobby Bowman and drama Casino with East Los High co-creator Carlos Portugal. The company is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment.
Depp’s Infinitum Nihil recently teamed with Richard Branson’s Virgin Produced and City Entertainment’s Joshua Maurer and Alixandre Witlin to produce a TV series based on the award- winning feature documentary Muscle Shoals. As an actor, Depp stars in Black Mass. He is repped by UTA.
In her first major series role since Desperate Housewives, Cross will play analyst Caleb Haas’ (Graham Rogers) mother Claire, the ruling force of the Haas clan who has transitioned from decorated FBI agent to high-ranking senator and now Vice Presidential candidate. The public sees a skilled politician, a passionate advocate for her causes, a force for good, but her family sees a different woman: one whose ambition comes before all else. Her husband and Caleb’s father, FBI Deputy Director Clayton Haas — recently revealed as having an affair with an FBI recruit — is played by Mark Pellegrino.
Cross is repped by Gersh and manager John Carrabino.
The first season of the show, which followed a racially charged murder and the subsequent trial, aired in the Thursday 10 PM slot, succeeding How To Get Away With Murder, which has shorter (18-episode) seasons per star Viola Davis’ contract. This season, the plan is to keep the Shondaland branding on the night intact with the latest Shonda Rhimes-produced drama, The Catch, following HTGAWM in the 10 PM hour.
That left ABC with few choices for American Crime, whose subject matter makes it hard to play it before 10 PM. Still, its Wednesday scheduling makes for a huge tonal swing between ABC’s 8-10 PM family comedy block and one of the darkest drama series on broadcast television that tackles tough issues like race and class.
In Season 2, issues of sexual orientation and socioeconomic disparity come to a boil when lurid photos of a high school boy, Taylor Blaine, are posted on social media following a school party. Circumstances become more complicated when Taylor accuses two players on an elite private high school’s championship basketball team, Kevin LaCroix and Eric Tanner, of drugging, assaulting and then posting the pictures of him online.
Many of the Season 1 cast members are back, including stars Felicity Huffman and Timothy Hutton as well as co-stars Regina King who won an Emmy for her role, Lili Taylor and Elvis Nolasco, who are joined by Trevor Jackson, Connor Jessup, Joey Pollari and Angelique Rivera.
Ridley executive produces with Michael J. McDonald for ABC Studios.
The film also stars a bigger lineup than the first installment which was anchored by Kevin Sorbo. Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters), Jesse Metcalfe (Dallas), PureFlix CEO David A.R. White (God’s Not Dead), Hayley Orrantia (The Goldbergs), Sadie Robertson (Duck Dynasty), Robin Givens (Head of The Class), Maria Canals-Barrera (Cristela) and the late Fred Thompson (Law & Order) in one of his final film appearances star alongside cameos by Pat Boone and Ray Wise (Robocop). It will be released on April 1, 2016.
This is also a PureFlix film and was also directed by Harold Cronk and scripted by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon. The first film ended up in a lawsuit after John Sullivan and Brad Stine sued PureFlix Entertainment and its CEO White, seeking at least $10 million in damages and alleging that God’s Not Dead was based on a “faith-based Dead Poets’ Society” concept called Proof that they came up with back in 2009.
Check out the trailer for God’s Not Dead 2 above.
Ahead of Telenovela and Superstore’s Monday January 4 premieres, each will air back-to-back original episodes behind Monday’s The Voice from 10-11 PM on November 30 (Superstore) and December 7 (Telenovela). They will succeed in the timeslot of new drama Blindspot, which will have aired its fall finale. The Voice will wrap its season the week of December 14.
NBC recently trimmed the orders for both Telenovela and Superstore from 13 to 11 episodes. Given their regular Monday time slots, 8 PM (Superstore) and 8:30 PM (Telenovela), the comedies will serve as bridge between the two cycles of The Voice, which explains the network’s need for fewer episodes. It is unclear yet what will air in the Monday 9 PM hour while The Voice is on hiatus.
NBC plans to use the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and live musical The Wiz Live! (December 3) to promote the comedy previews. Telenovela stars and is produced Eva Longoria, while Superstore is toplined by America Ferrera.
Here is NBC’s Monday schedule for the nights of the comedy series previews and their Monday debuts:
Monday, Nov. 30
Monday, Dec. 7
8-10 p.m. ”The Voice”
10-11 p.m. ”Telenovela” preview
Monday, Jan. 4
8:00 p.m. ”Superstore”
8:30 p.m. ”Telenovela”.
Casino stems out of efforts by Longoria — who is of Mexican descent and holds a master’s degree in Chicano Studies — to bring Hispanic voices to television.
Born in Cuba, Portugal began his career at San Francisco local PBS station, KQED, where he produced the Emmy Award-winning documentary Frida Kahlo: Portrait of an Artist. For the past three seasons, he has served as creator, showrunner, head writer and director of Hulu’s original drama series, East Los High, directing 42 of the 48 produced episodes to date. Before East Los High, which has been renewed for a fourth season, Portugal worked on Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns and House of Payne for TBS. He is repped by APA.
UnbeliEVAble has midseason NBC comedy series Hot & Bothered, starring Longoria, as well as three other broadcast projects in development, genre drama Zone of Silence at NBC with Blumhouse and writer Rashad Raisani, comedy Bonita & Mechelle at NBC with Will Packer Prods. and writer Kriss Turner Towner, and a comedy at ABC with veteran comedy writer Bobby Bowman. The company is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment.
But these days, he’s more into making breakfast for his 7-year-old. “I cook a lot at home, primarily for my son but also for my wife, and I really enjoy it,” the star told us.
His son can “do a few things. He breaks eggs really good. He can stir stuff up.”
MacLachlan’s even contributed a recipe to a God’s Love We Deliver charity cookbook: “It’s a breakfast-centric waffle recipe.”
Zone Of Silence, written by Rashad Raisani (NBC’s Allegiance), focuses on the area acting like a domestic Bermuda Triangle, an invisible interference which appears in the southwest and not only wreaks havoc on communications but is central to key myths, folklore and legends. When a group of ICE agents go missing under odd circumstances within the “zone”, a task force is formed to find them. Science clashes with the unexplained on a weekly basis while the larger search to explain the disappearance continues.
The project hails from Universal TV, where Longoria and Ben Spector’s UnveliEVAble Entertainment is under an overall deal and Blum’s Blumhouse has a deal as part of the company’s 10-year first-look agreement with NBCUniversal. Zone Pf Silence also stems from Raisani’s overall deal at Uni TV that came out of his stint as an executive producer on NBC/Uni TV’s drama Allegiance. He previously worked on Burn Notice and White Collar.
Raisani, Longoria, Spector, Blum and Blumhouse’s Jessica Rhoades executive produce alongside Winter, who have had long-time interest in the “zone of silence” phenomenon. There are no plans for him to act in the project.
Blumhouse is coming off winning an Emmy for HBO’s The Jinx after also earning a trophy for HBO’s The Normal Heart last year.
UnbeliEVAble has midseason NBC comedy series Hot & Bothered, starring Longoria, as well as two other broadcast projects in development, Bonita & Mechelle at NBC with Will Packer Prods. and a comedy at ABC with veteran comedy writer Bobby Bowman. The company is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment. Raisani is repped by UTA and the Shuman Co.
Our favorite vigilante violence party may be back on TV after that hellish hiatus that some call summer and we may still be jumping with joy, but things in Star City are far less than happy at the moment.
Oliver and Felicity are well and good (finally!) but there's a menace roaming the streets, recruiting new bad guys and using the Force (or something) to torture people.
Damien Darhk is a villain unlike any that Arrow has ever had, and that was clear from the moment he walked into that city officials meeting in last week's premiere. He's bigger, funnier and possibly more evil than any other Star City bad guy before him. He's also sticking around for a while, and will have a hand in pretty much all evil-doing in a season that is already promising some incredibly high stakes.
E! News talked to Neal McDonough about playing the new big bad, and found out a few very worrying tidbits about what's to come for all the Star City citizens we've come to know and love.
E! News Can you talk a bit about the notes you got from the producers, and what your goal was in playing Damien?
Neal McDonough: We always said we were trying to make him more Lex Luthor-y, rather than just dark, because for me, my wheelhouse isn't black and white, it's the grey area in between. So for Damien, it's a comic book thing, so I get to put the comedy in as much as possible, make him funny in a really absurd situation. A couple of episodes from now, I put my hand in this guy's chest and kill three guys, and then quickly after that I'm like, oh, I could do this all day.
I try to infuse as much comic book comedy into the character, you know, like [Jack] Nicholson did with the Joker and [Gene] Hackman did with Lex Luthor. So I'm trying to make the same thing with Damien Darhk, where you can't wait to see Damien come back on the screen, because he's just going to be crazy. There are times where I'm just enjoying punishing people so much and then there are moments that I have to get it done because I'm getting impatient, and I just want to throttle people. There's so many sides to Damien, but in all of it there's one true agenda to rule the world, and no one's going to stop me.
E! News: Does Damien have any redeeming qualities?
NM: Halfway through the season, you find out something about Damien: that he actually does have a soul. We'll go into why Damien turned into who he is. We're flashing back to why Damien's so evil and so determined to crush the world. He does have some heart in there somewhere. You haven't seen it yet, and you don't see it for a good third of the way through the season, and then once you do see something that he does love, then that sets him off, and he'll want to kill anyone who does mess with the thing that he does love.
E! News: Should we be prepared to blame you for the death that was teased at the end of the premiere?
NM: I can't speak to that. Damien has something to do with basically everything this season, without giving too much away, but it's about to get dark for a lot of people. So yeah, when I start to introduce how I turn my H.I.V.E. guys into H.I.V.E. members, what they do and what they will do for me and the allegiance they paid to me with no regard for their own bodies, it's pretty phenomenal. It's like a dictator ruling a country, and he takes the troops and says, OK, go into that battle right now and prepare to die, and they do. And then this one guy, this Arrow guy, comes along and just ruins everything.
E! News: How worried should we be about Lance, since he's being forced to work with Damien?
NM: Oh, Lance is in trouble. He's in a good bit of trouble with Damien, because I hold the card of his family over his head, so Lance has to pay allegiance to me or else I will just take his children and do something torturous and horrible to them. He knows that, because he's watched me do it to other people. So he's my little pawn right now, and Paul [Blackthorne] is such an incredible talent, it's ridiculous. He's standing his ground as much as he can against this sociopath, and it's great drama.
E! News: Should we be worried about him recruiting anyone else as a pawn?
NM: None of the heroes are recruitable, but there are certainly many people in this world that are recruitable, and that's who I go after. I'm Darth Vader, and I'm looking for as many people to sign up to my program as possible.
E! News: What is Damien up to this week?
NM: He's starting to build the power within Star City and people start to buy into this thing that he's selling. The audience doesn't know exactly what he's selling yet. When you do figure out what he's selling, you're like whoa, OK, that's awful. So people come to see what he's selling, and if it doesn't go well, I'm going to use my powers to make a point. A very dark point, without spoiling too much, but it is very entertaining to say the least.
E! News: What is your favorite scene that you've shot so far?
NM: Favorite scene that I shot the other night was when I turned regular guys into HIVE members, and the speech that I give to them to coerce them and get them to swallow the Koolaid, I'm like, OK, now… It's such a powerful scene, that's pretty fantastic. What's happening next week between me and Arrow, it's a massive spike between two of us. He messes with something that I actually love, and I'm going to break every limb in his body, and it sets up the scene which makes you realize, OK, Damien Darhk actually has, underneath all that—like the Grinch, whose heart was two times too small—his heart's probably 20 times too small, but there's some part in there underneath all that dark soul, and I'm so looking forward to next week.
Arrow airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on the CW.
The Justified alum made his Arrow debut in the Season 4 premiere as the heretofore unseen ally-turned-adversary of the mighty Ra’s al Ghul. Darhk has a plan to not so much destroy Star City but “let it die,” while among his skillsets are mystical powers that let him fell foes with a touch, or stop arrows mid-flight.
On Legends of Tomorrow, which as detailed during the series’ New York Comic-Con panel on Sunday will flit around time each week, McDonough told ComicBook.com, “I look exactly the same in 1975 but you see he’s not as confident, and doesn’t have such an agenda … as he does now.”
During his visit to The Flash, meanwhile, “I’m just this crazy, fun, enjoy-everything-while-I-kill-everybody type of character.”
The Flash and Arrow air Tuesdays and Wednesdays, respectively, at 8/7c.
Written and to be directed by Daniel Barnz, House Of Moore is said to be similar in tone to The Devil Wears Prada and to explore plus-size fashion. It centers on the sexy, twisted lives of an iconic fashion family, looking at our beauty-obsessed culture through a darkly comedic lens.
Huffman remains fully committed to John Ridley’s anthology series American Crime. If House Of Moore goes to series and American Crime is renewed for a third season, Huffman will topline Moore only if she could also do American Crime. That is not unconceivable as American Crime is done as a limited series, producing around 10 episodes a year. Additionally, both House Of Moore and American Crime are on the same network, ABC, and hail from the same studio, ABC Studios, making coordination easier.
Huffman and Kaplan executive produce. Daniel Barnz and business partner/husband Ben Barnz, who together brought the idea to Kaplan and Huffman, also executive produce through their We’re Not Brothers Productions banner.
“We’re incredibly grateful to have this opportunity to work with ABC, Aaron and Felicity,” said Daniel Barnz. “Ben and I are committed to telling stories of outsiders, and this show’s message about learning to love yourself as you are is especially meaningful to us.”
This is the Barnzes’ third collaboration with Huffman and first in television. Previously, Daniel directed and Ben produced two feature films co-starring the Oscar-nominated actress: Phoebe In Wonderland and last year’s Cake. Daniel also recently was tapped to write and direct Valentina, a drama based on a telenovela for ABC Family, which he also executive produces with Ben and Kaplan. At ABC, WME-repped Daniel Barnz directed dramedy pilot Mix, about a family in the restaurant business, this past season.
ABC has been looking for a family drama set in the fashion industry. Three years ago, the network ordered one such project, Americana, to pilot which starred Anthony LaPaglia.
This marks Desperate Housewives alumna Huffman’s return to lighter fare. Her role on the ABC/ABC Studios dramedy earned her two Emmy nominations and a win in 2005. Huffman landed a third Emmy nom this year for American Crime. She is repped by CAA.
House Of Moore joins three other Kapital Entertainment broadcast projects with put pilot commitments: single-camera comedy Sugarland at Fox, multi-camera comedy Hello Again at CBS, and drama Monstropolis at ABC.
This marks the return to ABC for former Desperate Housewives star Longoria and Family Tools creator Bowman. Last year, ABC and ABC Studios developed a half-hour comedy as a starring vehicle for Longoria before she committed to NBC’s Hot & Bothered. That series, which UnbeliEVAble produces with Universal TV, debuts in midseason.
In addition to Hot & Bothered, UnbeliEVAble has Bonita & Mechelle in development at NBC with Will Packer Prods. as well as projects at HBO Films and NBC International. The company is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment.
Bowman also is writing comedy How To Speak American, about a coddled millennial who teaches ESL to immigrants, at CBS, with Greg Garcia executive producing. Bowman has a long history with Garcia and has worked as co-executive producer/executive producer on all of Garcia’s series: Yes, Dear and The Millers on CBS, My Name Is Earl on NBC and Raising Hope on Fox. He is repped by ICM Partners.
Eva Longoria and Ricardo Chavira, who starred as on-screen husband and wife in the hit ABC series Desperate Housewives, reunited on Thursday to film NBC's upcoming comedy Hot & Bothered.
At one point, Longoria, 40, jumped on her (much taller) costar Chavira, 44, as he appeared to be dangling a set of keys out of her reach.
This wasn't Longoria's only run-in with a Wisteria Lane flame: The actress bumped into her former costar and on-screen lover Jesse Metcalfe in August.
In the new show, Longoria stars as Ana Sofia Calderon, a telenovela superstar who doesn't actually speak fluent Spanish and whose ex-husband gets brought back on her show following their vicious divorce.
Longoria, who divorced NBA player Tony Parker in 2011, is dating Mexican businessman Antonio Baston.
Longoria's friend and Devious Maids costar Ana Ortiz told PEOPLE in September that she's "never seen her happier," adding that the two are a "gorgeous couple."
Hot & Bothered premieres on NBC in 2016.
Law enforcement sources tell TMZ the 'Desperate Housewives' actress had her bike at a Los Angeles repair shop two weeks ago when the theft occurred. We're told an employee who was working on the bike left it outside for just a couple minutes and when he returned, the bike was gone.
LAPD is now on the case ... reviewing surveillance footage to try and nab the crook.
But don't worry, we're told Teri will be able to get right back into triathlons ... the shop owner is going to foot the bill for a new bike.
The renewal comes after a stable Season 3 performance, which Lifetime EVP Liz Gateley summed up as, “Devious Maids is a steady hit that continues to deliver for us. It has found a loyal audience that is socially engaged with the show.” Indeed, Devious Maids‘ third season launched with 1.47 million viewers in Live+Same Day and ended with a 1.53 million. What’s more, the series wrapped the season with an uptick, hitting season highs with the last two episodes (1.52 million, 1.53 million). In addition to total viewers, the August 24 finale also logged season highs among adults 25-54 and women 25-54.
Devious Maids, from ABC Studios and executive producers Marc Cherry and Eva Longoria, stars Ana Ortiz, Dania Ramírez, Roselyn Sánchez, Judy Reyes, Rebecca Wisocky and Susan Lucci. It is set in a world where murder and mayhem collide in the mansions of Beverly Hills’ wealthiest and most powerful families.
Inspired by the hit telenovela, Ellas son… la alegría del hogar, Devious Maids was created by Cherry and is executive produced by Cherry, Sabrina Wind, Longoria, Brian Tanen, Larry Shuman, David Lonner, John Mass, Ric Swartzlander and Televisa USA’s Paul Presburger and Michael Garcia.
Written by Kriss Turner Towner (The Soul Man), Bonita & Mechelle hails from Will Packer Prods. and Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment. Universal TV, where both companies are under deals, is the studio. Towner executive produces with Packer and UnbeliEVAble’s Longoria and Ben Spector. Will Packer Prods.’ Korin D. Huggins co-executive produces.
This marks the third sale for Will Packer Prods. this season, joining the hourlong Under Her Thumb and Buckhead, which also went to NBC. The company, which started its expansion into TV last year, has two new series for this coming season, Truth Be Told on NBC and Uncle Buck on ABC. Packer, repped by UTA and Ziffren Brittenham, also executive produces the Roots remake for A+E Networks. In features, he recently executive produced hit Straight Outta Compton and his next film is the Ride Along sequel, which comes out in January.
In addition to Bonita & Mechelle, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment has a comedy penned by Hot and Bothered writer-producer Rob Sudduth set at NBC as well as projects in development at HBO Films and NBC International. The company is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment.
"They're a gorgeous couple, and I've never seen her happier," Ortiz, 44, told PEOPLE at the National Women's History Museum brunch in Los Angeles this weekend.
Former Desperate Housewives star Longoria, 40, and Mexican businessman Baston, 46, started dating in 2013, and, despite recent rumors of a new ring on her finger (that turned out to be one of her own), they are not engaged … yet.
"I am so thrilled that she has someone who is not intimidated by her and who is not afraid by her power, her beauty, her friendship and her drive," Ortiz revealed. "He's just as driven and he's so supportive."
The "drive" that Ortiz is referring to is in Longoria's career, which currently consists of acting in film and TV, producing projects including Devious Maids and engaging in political activism to fight for the rights and voices of Latinos everywhere.
And according to Ortiz, it's not too unrealistic that Longoria's passion could one day lead her to a political office. "I push her all the time to do it," said Ortiz. "She has brilliant ideas. She really walks the walk. I think she would be an incredible politician and people would want to listen to her. She's gorgeous, she's smart she's funny. She has my vote!"
Longoria for President in 2020, perhaps?
Alan Cumming — who this year is again Emmy-nominated for Supporting Actor in a Drama — told TVLine’s Michael Ausiello on the Primetime Emmy Awards’ red carpet that the former Ugly Betty scene stealer will appear in multiple episodes as a love interest for his character, Eli Gold.
The Good Wife opens Season 7 on Sunday, Oct. 4.
In addition to her thrice Emmy-nominated Ugly Betty run, Williams’ previous TV credits include Desperate Housewives, 666 Park Avenue and Boomtown.
Woodard will play Mariah Dillard, a local Harlem politician — and cousin to recently announced Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes (Mahershala Ali) – who is looking to bring a new era of change to the streets she grew up on. Her personal life and professional career are thrown into turmoil by Harlem’s newest hero Luke Cage and Cottonmouth’s nefarious acts.
In Luke Cage, Mike Colter plays Cage, a wrongly accused man who, granted superstrength by a sabotaged experiment, escapes prison to become a superhero for hire. He becomes a fugitive trying to rebuild his life in modern day Harlem, New York City. But he is soon pulled out of the shadows and must fight a battle for the heart of his city–forcing him to confront a past he had tried to bury.
Marvel’s Luke Cage premieres in 2016 on Netflix. Cheo Hodari Coker (Southland, Ray Donovan) will write the series’ first two episodes in addition to serving as showrunner and executive producer. Marvel’s Luke Cage is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios for Netflix.
"We are thrilled to welcome her 'home' as our head judge as she helps select the 95th Anniversary Miss America," Miss America Executive Chairman and CEO Sam Haskell, III told PEOPLE ahead of the event.
Williams – who was welcomed back by the organization 32 years after the release of nude photos caused her to relinquish her title – judged the contest alongside Zendaya, Brett Eldredge, snowboarding bronze medalist Amy Purdy and Taya Kyle, veteran activist and widow of US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle.
The pictures, which were taken a year before her victory in the 1984 pageant, surfaced 10 months after Williams – the first black Miss America – was crowned.
After Penthouse magazine announced their plans to buy and publish the photographs, Williams resigned her Miss America title in a press conference in July 1984, and the crown was passed down to runner-up Suzette Charles.
But only four years after publicly relinquishing her title, Williams managed to establish herself as a serious recording artist with her debut album, The Right Stuff, which garnered her a 1989 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.
"I knew once the dust settled I'd get the chance to show people who I am," Williams told Good Morning America''s Robin Roberts on Thursday.
The star went on to appear in a variety of iconic roles earning her a handful of awards, including three Emmy nods for her portrayal of editor-in-chief diva Wilhelmina Slater in the ABC comedy series Ugly Betty.
The event on Sunday opened with a public apology to Williams from Haskell.
"I have been a close friend to this beautiful and talented lady for 32 years," he said. "You have lived your life in grace and dignity and never was it more evident than during the events of 1984 when you resigned.
"Though none of us currently in the organization were involved then on behalf of today's organization I want to apologize to you and to your mother Ms. Helen Williams. I want to apologize for anything that was said or done that made you feel any less the Miss America you are and the Miss America you always will be."
Williams responded by giving Haskell a kiss on the cheek and calling the moment "unexpected but so beautiful.
"I did the best I could as my reign of Miss America 1984, on behalf of my family, my mother in particular. I'm so honored to be back."
Set against the world of Texas Rangers, the comedy follows train wreck Texas Ranger “Cathy Cruz,” who after inadvertently catching a serial killer, is recruited by the rough-and-tumble Texas Rangers. Cruz butts heads with her straight-laced macho partner at work as well as her judgmental Mexican family at home, and the biggest question that remains is: which world does she fit into less? Longoria is executive producing with her UnbelEVAble partner Ben Spector.
Sudduth won “Best Comedy” in the Page International Screenwriting Awards for Going to Gunn, and has written for GCB, The New Normal, The Crazy Ones, and Red Band Society. He is repped by UTA and Metamorphic Management.
In addition to Hot and Bothered, which is in production for a midseason premiere, UnbeliEVAble has projects in development at HBO Films and NBC International. The company is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment.
Hatcher has delivered memorable performances in film and television since 1990, including her portrayal of Susan Mayer on “Desperate Housewives,” which earned Hatcher a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and as Lois on the series “Lois and Clark.” Her film credits include “The Big Picture,” “Soapdish,” “Spy Kids,” “Tomorrow Never Dies” and “Coraline.”
The Associated Press reports Tuesday (Sept. 8) that Williams has been named head judge for 2016 competition, the finals of which take place live Sunday (Sept. 13). Williams, who was the first African-American Miss America, gave up her 1984 crown after Penthouse published explicit photos of her that were taken several years prior. Sam Haskell, executive chairman and CEO of the Miss America Organization, says he’s been working to try to get Williams back involved with the pageant since he became chairman.
“I have been friends with Vanessa for 32 years,” Haskell tells the AP. “When the photos were published, there were people urging her to fight, but close supporters knew if she lost that fight that she would be completely removed from the history books.
“Instead of pursuing what would surely have been a long and stressful legal battle, Vanessa decided to resign and focus on her career. … When I became chairman of Miss America, one of the first calls I made was to Vanessa, to try to find a way to get her to come back. Her return as a huge success is a way for us all to move forward and put the past behind us. It’s truly an honor to welcome her back to the Miss America Pageant.”
Williams joins hosts Chris Harrison and Brooke Burke-Charvet and judges Brett Eldredge, Taya Kyle, Danica McKellar, Kevin O’Leary, Amy Purdy and Zendaya. It airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
Delany says she couldn't be happier working with Perlman, star of "Sons of Anarchy" for six seasons.
"We just both like to act. There's no drama around the drama," she said in a recent interview. "We just like doing what we do and that's it.
"Sometimes I would come back to my trailer and there would be like chocolate bars sitting on my little station and he would like leave me little gifts like that because he knew I liked chocolate. So sweet."
The 10-episode season of "Hand of God" will be available to Amazon Prime members on Friday.
"I was very curious, because when I signed on it was over a year and a half ago — and that was before 'Transparent' had become the hit that it is, (and) it seemed like this was the future," said Delany, known for her roles in the TV series "China Beach," ''Desperate Housewives" and "Body of Proof."
She will also appear this fall in the miniseries "Une chance de trop," based on Harlan Coben's novel "No Second Chance," on the TF1 network in France.
"When I did 'Desperate Housewives,' (it was) huge in France," the 59-year-old actress said. "They love that version of America. They think it's hilarious and they also love women in France and they love older women, which was nice. I would go there to do press for 'Housewives' and they really appreciated me, in a way more than in America, I have to say. They just appreciate women who are getting older and they think you're getting better like wine, you know?"
"Harlan is a friend because I went to high school with his brother," she said. "He knew that I wanted to work in France and he said, 'Well, maybe you'd like to come and do a little part of this American at the end of the series.' And it's true what they say about shooting in France — they eat, they drink, everybody drinks at lunch and sits together and they sing songs. It's convivial and at night the whole cast, we would go out and eat and drink and work on the script, and then you just show up at seven in the morning and you do your job. It's rich, you know?"
Delany said she "had a ball."
"I got a French agent and it just spurred me on to want to work more in France. So I now have a French tutor and I'm hoping to work there. It's kind of been my dream," she said.
“You can swear,” she says, laughing, “which I embraced wholeheartedly.”
The series co-stars Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy) as Parnell Harris, a powerful judge who has a religious awakening — complete with visions and cryptic messages — soon after his adult son PJ unsuccessfully attempts suicide.
Delany plays Crystal, Pernell’s slick, politically savvy wife of many years. As the first season unfolds, we learn that Mrs. Harris does, indeed, have many reasons to detonate an f-bomb here or there. (And that the judge’s holy moment has deeper ramifications than even he realizes.)
Though the streaming site doesn’t censor its content, Delany says she soon found herself doing the job instead.
“You realize, ‘I don’t need to swear as much. I should maybe pick and choose,'” she tells TVLine. “I started eliminating swear words, because you want them to have impact when you do it.”
In advance of Hand of God‘s Sept. 4 premiere, we spent some time with the Emmy-winning actress. Topics of discussion included: Crystal’s own secrets, smoking pot (as research!), the possibility of Body of Proof and/or China Beach revivals and how Delany really, really likes the idea of a Desperate Housewives musical. Read on for more.
TVLINE | We don’t get a lot about the Crystal-Pernell relationship at the start of the season. Do we learn more as the series continues?
Yeah. What emerges, which I really found interesting, is the adult relationship that these are two people who are married a long time… I like that it’s a partnership. You don’t see that a lot, especially on television you don’t see that. You see the good, the bad and the ugly about their relationship. You see that there’s a certain respect and they like each other, but not always. That’s what I enjoyed evolving: how they needed each other.
TVLINE | A few episodes in, we learn that Crystal is hiding some secrets of her own from Pernell. What can you tease about that aspect of the character?
Just that Crystal is an animal. She’s a survivor. She’s always going to have a safety hatch. He doesn’t know about that. That’s part of her plan: I need to have my exit strategy at all times.
TVLINE | We get a lot about Pernell’s relationship with PJ, but not much about Crystal’s with him. Does that change?
That’s a really good question, and maybe it could’ve been explored a little bit more. I think that she can’t go to that emotional place. If she starts buying into his stuff… she can’t handle that. So she has to just keep moving forward. In her mind, she had a good relationship with him, and that’s all she’s going to hold onto: It was good, he’s dead, let’s keep moving.
TVLINE | Crystal keeps all of her feelings tightly in check — does she ever get an emotional release?
I can’t remember! [Laughs] I think that’s what pot is for!
TVLINE | I would not have picked pot for the drug of choice for Crystal, but she seems to enjoy it a lot.
I know!
TVLINE | I thought that was a surprising choice.
I thought that was surprising, too. I am so not a pothead. This is funny — it was so old-school Hollywood, because I had to go to the prop man and say, “Can you get me some pot? Because I need to try it. I don’t know what it’s like.” [Laughs]
TVLINE | How did that experimentation go?
Well I didn’t realize there were so many kinds of pot now, and he gave me the kind that’s kind of a downer. I went back to him and I said, “I didn’t like this.” And he goes, “Oh, you need the other kind. I’ll get you the other kind.” [Laughs]
TVLINE | Body of Evidence: Is it finished completely? (I think Michael Ausiello wants another shot at a guest spot.)
[Laughs] Yes, it’s done.
TVLINE | Do you have feelings about that?
No, it was time. I feel like we had a great run with it. It was so much work. I mean, I took a year off when we wrapped because it was so much work for me that I needed to get my life back. And that’s why I feel like this new model that Amazon’s doing — and so many places are doing — of 10 episodes is perfect. Because it doesn’t kill you, it’s good for the writers, it’s enough for the audience, it makes them want more, and you can explore other avenues as actors. I was doing The Comedians and this in one year, and you can do that.
TLVINE | Do you have anything lined up next?
I did this French miniseries [Une Chance de Trop], and so that’s sort of my next goal: to work in France more. It’s kind of been a dream of mine. I have a French tutor, and I have a French agent, and I’m going to Paris in a couple of weeks and it’s just been a dream.
TVLINE | Has there been any talk of a China Beach reboot/revival?
Well, it’s kind of a weird thing, because we did it: We played those characters 20 years later and where they were. Even though I had a lot more gray hair 20 years later than I do now. [Laughs] That character would. No, I’m just grateful that it’s finally come out on DVD. That was huge. That was such a big thing with the musical rights… I would like to see Desperate Housewives as a musical. I think that would be great.
TVLINE | Would you do it?
I’d love it. Totally! Yeah. Don’t you think? I asked [DH creator] Marc Cherry about it, but he was like this [hides face] at that point. Did you ever see that French movie 8 Women?
TVLINE | No.
It’s really good. It’s Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert. You should see it. It’s very much in the vein of Desperate Housewives, and it’s eight women. And they sing! They break out into song in it. It’s worth seeing.
TVLINE | Desperate Housewives was so over the top.
Yes! It would not be weird for somebody to start singing. I could totally see that.
Eva Longoria, 40, recently reunited with the 36-year-old actor, her former Desperate Housewives co-star. The two were photographed together on Saturday at the LG Electronics Farm-to-Table: ProBake Edition Series charity event, which the actress hosted in Los Angeles.
Longoria played housewife Gabrielle Solis on the ABC show, which ended in 2012 after eight seasons. Metcalfe (aka John...Tucker), made his debut in season 1 as her character's family gardener, teenager John Rowland, with whom she has a steamy extra-marital affair.
"Look who I ran into today!" Longoria wrote on Instagram, alongside a pic of the two. "My favorite gardner!!!! #DesperateHousewives #OneOfMyFavPeople."
Metcalfe arrived with his girlfriend, actress Cara Santana, 31.
Longoria attended wearing a gorgeous, semi-sheer, white, over-the-knee shift dress.
The event helped benefit the No Kid Hungry campaign and included cooking activities, games and culinary demonstrations, including some featuring recipes from Longoria's cookbook, Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends. Executive chef Angel Estrada from the Los Angeles restaurant Beso, which the actress co-owns, helped prepare the food.
"One of my greatest passions is being able to cook with those I love and create warm memories together over food," Longoria said. "I come from a tight-knit family where we value the importance of gathering for meals and celebrations, and I'm thrilled to join LG to encourage families to do the same, all while benefitting such a fantastic cause."
Other celebrity attendees included Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting and husband Ryan Sweeting as well as married couple Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott, who brought their four children.
Woodard will play a lead character listed on the breakdown as Minetta, a powerful woman in local politics who will have an impact on Luke Cage’s life. No one is commenting, but I hear she may actually be playing a version of Marvel villain Black Mariah, a nemesis to Luke Cage as well as Iron Fist. In the comics, she is a professional criminal and a drug dealer.
In Luke Cage, Mike Colter, who will be first introduced in the second Marvel series for Netflix, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, plays Cage, a wrongly accused man who, granted superstrength by a sabotaged experiment, escapes prison to become a superhero for hire.
Cheo Hodari Coker serves as executive producer and showrunner on the series, produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios for Netflix.
Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Woodard, repped by ICM Partners and Circle of Confusion, recently co-starred on NBC’s State of Affairs and recurred on TNT’s The Last Ship. She is currently seen in the feature Mississippi Grind.
The story is about reincarnation and also what happens after you die. Because of the reincarnation theme, Fraser plays multiple characters in the past as he finds himself in World War II through the present and future. The project is being produced by Milan Friedrich via Crypto One Bill and Phillip Goldfine via Hollywood Media Bridge (Oscar winner The Lady in Number 6: How Music Saved My Life).
As aforementioned Stach (you guessed it — the Czech writer/director) was twice declared clinically dead; during one of those experiences, he was told he had to live to make a film about this. “I was told by someone who also died twice that I was supposed to share the story, and if I didn’t tell the story, it was going to kill me,” said the director through a translator. “The very next day, I had a near miss with a tragic auto accident as two cars crashed together and barely missed me. After that, I started to prepare everything, but then had doubts again because I was afraid to tell people what happened to me. And then, after that, I got into a car accident but survived, and that’s when I knew I had tell the story.”
The story reminds me very much of Only Love Is Real, written by American psychiatrist Brian Weiss, which I read just a few years ago and follows a patient under hypnosis who recounts her many former lives.
But here’s the thing, (and having had a near-death experience myself it doesn’t surprise me), 40% of the cast and crew consist of people who have had near-death experiences (and some of them it has happened twice to). “That just happened. It wasn’t planned, it just all started happening,” said producer Friedrich. “My belief is the same’s as Dalibor’s, and I met him at a cafe and we began talking and I knew it had to be started quickly, and I basically just started putting the money together. It all came together very quickly.”
How did Goldfine come into it? “A mutual friend of mine’s and Milan’s said that Milan was looking for someone to help him with the movie and he flew into Los Angeles, and I said, ‘I’m in.” Within a month, the the project started shooting in Czechlosavkia while American casting was underway in the states.
The rest of the cast of the film is pretty much international. It also stars Dawn Oliver (House of Lies), Massimo Dobrovi (stars in the Italian version of CSI: Rome), Czech actor Bolek Polivka (portrays the male side of ‘The Boss’), and finally Czech actress Petra Buckova (mysteriously appears throughout the main character’s life and offers guidance).
The show was canceled last fall after 3 seasons, but Metcalfe's making good use of his hard-earned cash. He purchased the 4 bedroom, 5 bath home in the celeb-favored Birds Streets neighborhood for $175,000 under asking price.
His girlfriend, actress Cara Santana?, is also on the deed ... they've been dating for 5 years, so there's plenty of room to settle down and start a family.
There’s also a pool, spa and fire pit, chef’s kitchen inside and another outdoor kitchen too … so yeah, party at Jesse’s house ... until further notice.
With her career in a lull, she’s reshuffling her property portfolio and parting with her home in Bel Air, Calif. Listed for $3.6 million, the quaint ’50s ranch is billed as the “Quintessential Charming Hideaway.” The private driveway and lush landscaping back up that claim.
The three-bedroom main house offers more than 2,700 square feet of living space. Out back is a one-bedroom guest cottage, which is perfect for extra income if/when your TV character is killed off.
In fact, Sheridan has used the home she purchased in the ’90s as an income generator for the past couple of years. In 2013, Variety reported that she was renting her spread for $12,500 per month.
Situated on just over an acre and a half, the home also has a pool, patio and landscaped backyard with views of the canyon below.
We don’t know the next chapter of this soapy tale, but we’re sure Sheridan is hoping for a dramatic bidding war culminating in a successful sale.
On the heels of his Emmy nomination for American Crime‘s first season, Timothy Hutton and his co-star Felicity Huffman have revealed a bit more about their roles in Season 2 of the ABC anthology drama.
Confirming what TVLine exclusively revealed in June, our sister site Variety reports that Season 2 will take place in the Midwest, where an incident at an elite prep school will spark conversations of sexual identity and disparity in the school systems.
“I haven’t read anything yet, but I know that the story is going to involve an incident that happens involving students at a high school and a private high school in the same town,” Hutton tells Variety. “I’m going to be playing the basketball coach at the private school.”
Adds Huffman, who will play the prep school’s headmistress: “We work at the same place, and an incident happens that we both have to put our full attention into. I’m not sure what the dynamic of that relationship is yet. I’m excited to find out more.”
As previously reported, Regina King, Richard Cabral, Elvis Nolasco and Lili Taylor — all of whom appeared in American Crime‘s first season — will return for its sophomore run.
McDonough will portray Damien Darhk, a former ally of Ra’s al Ghul who then became an adversary. The official character description reads, “Damien Darhk is a mysterious and sophisticated villain, and an adversary of the late Ra’s al Ghul. Now the leader of his own clandestine group, this cunning foe will prove to be one of the Arrow’s greatest challenges.”
While he wasn’t seen in Season 3, Darhk’s presence was felt in Starling City in the season finale. Oliver offered to capture Darhk and trade him to Ra’s in exchange for the virus the Head of the Demon planned to release in Starling City. Unfortunately for Oliver, Darhk found out about the plot and fled the city before Oliver could find him.
With Ra’s now out of the picture — and Malcom acting as Head of the Demon — Darhk may be looking for retribution, after Oliver tried to hand him over to his enemy.
“Arrow” returns Oct. 7 on The CW.
Vanessa Williams swapped "I-do's" with longtime beau Jim Skrip on Saturday, July 4 in Buffalo, N.Y., donning not one but two dresses for the big day. First up, the 52-year-old singer-actress slipped into a breathtaking Carmen Marc Valvo design with a classic sleeveless silhouette. With a thick gold waist belt, the gown was a mixture of classic romance with a sexy goddess-like vibe. The Ugly Betty star topped it off with luxe straight locks, a traditional veil and a pair of T-strap heels.
Overall, this glowing wedding look was perfect choice for the starlet.
For her second dress, the actress did a quick change into another Carmen Marc Valvo design. While there aren't any photos of the pretty little number (yet), Vanessa's new hubby Jim dished to People about both gorgeous designs, admitting his new wife was just so gorgeous walking down the aisle, he didn't even notice her dress at first!
"When I finally noticed the dress, it was perfect for Vanessa: sleek, simple and sexy," Skrip told People. "She then had another surprise for me: she did a quick change into another beautiful gown for the vows ceremony. She was stunning!"
Well, we can't blame him for overlooking the main dress at first—girl looked phenomenal!
Rather than stick with one traditional dress, the actress slipped on two different gowns by Carmen Marc Valvo for her big day, both of which paid homage to her love story with her businessman beau, Jim Skrip.
For her first gown, Williams opted for a “very silky and streamlined” skirt and top combination with a band of gold at the waist. “It was magnificent,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I felt like an Egyptian goddess, and that was exactly the theme I was going for.”
Her husband loved the dress as well — though it took him a minute to notice it! “Honestly, when I saw Vanessa walking down the aisle, I didn’t even notice her dress. We locked eyes and I got caught up in the moment, full of happiness and joy,” he tells PEOPLE. “When I finally noticed the dress, it was perfect for Vanessa: sleek, simple and sexy. She then had another surprise for me: she did a quick change into another beautiful gown for the vows ceremony. She was stunning!”
The couple, both 52, held their weekend-long celebration at various venues in Buffalo, New York, where Skrip is from. Williams’s mother is also originally from there, and the city is what the duo initially bonded over.
“He was wearing a Buffalo Sabres shirt, and I walked over to him and said, ‘Are you from Buffalo? My mom’s from Buffalo,’ ” says the actress. “There was an immediate attraction, and after a long, three-hour dinner, we had so much in common. It was obviously meant to be!”
For all the photos and details from Williams’ “perfect” day, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
"Road trip for the holiday weekend," the new bride tweeted just two days before tying the knot. "Happy 4th.
Williams, 52, and the former accountant first met in Egypt back in 2013. "You go across the world to find somebody who's six hours away," the Broadway star told Philly.com in February 2014.
The Ugly Betty alum first announced she was engaged during an appearance on The Queen Latifah Show in September 2014. "I got engaged," she said, showing off her new sparkler. "I have had a lot of good things happen. I turned 50 when we were in rehearsal [for Trip to Bountiful] on Broadway, I just got engaged a couple of weeks ago. It has been a lot of blessings on this trip.
This is the third marriage for Williams. She shares daughters Melanie, 28, and Jillian, 26, and son Devin, 22, with ex-husband Ramon Hervey, whom she was married to from 1987 to 1997. She and Rick Fox split in 2005 after six years of marriage, and share daughter Sasha, 15.
"I want to be the female George Clooney," Longoria, 40, says in the August issue of InStyle. "He directs, produces and stars. I want to be in charge of the final product."
The Desperate Housewives alum and self-proclaimed "control freak" also wants to clear up a misconception about her rise to fame: "Everyone goes, 'Oh, she's an actor–turned–director,' and I'm like, 'No, I was always a director and a producer who happened to become an actor.' "
Just last month, Longoria revealed her passion for life beyond the camera when she told PEOPLE that she would be in corporate America if she weren't in Hollywood.
"I love quotas and budgets, and I like barometers of success. I like measurements of success," said Longoria. "Tell me what to do, and I will exceed it."
Though the former beauty queen is adamant about channeling her inner Clooney, there's one secret weapon she has over the two-time Sexiest Man Alive: false eyelashes.
"I've been using individual false eyelashes since my pageant days," Longoria told InStyle. "Squeeze the glue out and let it dry for a minute before applying lashes. If you put them in the glue right away, they slide like crazy."
Savvy and stunning? Watch out, George.
Hot & Bothered premieres on NBC in 2016.
The actress and political activist weigned in on the presidential candidate's controversial remarks about Mexicans during my keynote interview with her at the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Media Summit luncheon.
"What I don't think he understands and what people don't understand is words create emotional poison," Longoria said. "That's what they do, they create emotional poison.
"Hitler moved a nation with words, just words," she continued. "So you have to expect this backlash. If you say something like that, as he has said, you must expect a backlash."
Longoria said she has been hesitant to comment on Trump because she didn't want to give him any more attention.
"It struck a cord within our community that touched our emotions so deep that I don't want to contribute to that poison being spread because if I contribute, it's just going to bring even more attention to the orginal comments," she said.
NBCUniversal announced yesterday they were dumping their relationship with Trump because of his brash commentary and beliefs.
Earlier today, Cheryl Burke and Thomas Roberts announced they were pulling out as co-hosts of the upcoming Miss Universe pageant.
A country western star (Dallas‘ Jesse Metcalfe) returns to his hometown to sell his childhood home prior to his wedding – only to bump into the girl (Autumn Reeser) he proposed to when he was 8 years old.
Ryan Murphy's highly anticipated Scream Queens has cast the parents of Ariana Grande's character (Chanel #2), and we are all about it. E! News has learned that Roger Bart (Revenge, Desperate Housewives) will play Chanel #2's father, and Charisma Carpenter (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel) has been cast as her mother.
We screened the pilot episode of Scream Queens last night and can tell you it does not disappoint--and neither does Ariana. In fact, her scene (as well as Nick Jonas') got the biggest laughs of the entire first hour, as her character, #2, texted and social media'd her way through a ridiculous situation.
From the looks of these photos that were taken this week on set, Ariana's character will get a little bloody...
And Lea Michele's Hester won't have her neckbrace and don't-care hair for long...
Scream Queens, a social satire that dishes up equal parts laughs and gasps, will have a two-hour premiere Sept. 24.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Emma Roberts, Skyler Samuels, Keke Palmer, Abigail Breslin Niecy Nash, Nasim Pedrad and more star in it. And if you want to know why you'll be completely obsessed with this show, we have at least five reasons!
"To become a person you have to embrace and allow the sadness and those kinds of feelings to come in or you're out of balance," MacLachlan tells Zap2it. "That was the realization of the little characters as well as everyone watching. It's OK. It's really fine -- it's an essential part of being a human being."
As Riley's dad in the film, MacLachlan's character isn't privy to the emotional turmoil his daughter is going through as the family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. However he's an essential part of one of the movie's most tear-jerking moments when he has to confess to his daughter that she isn't the only one that's had a hard time with the move.
"When we find her after she attempted to run away -- there's that moment when we're actually admitting, 'I'm afraid as well, but we'll get through this together,' [that makes me tear up.]"
The role also meant that actually getting to see the emotions on the big screen for the first time was a shock for the actor -- and he was amazed at the scope the film was able to convey with such a simple concept.
"I was amazed at the complexity of it and the vision that they had to take it from headquarters and the emotions running around to this vast other area. It was so interesting how they interpreted the mind and how they created it," he says. "They had talked about it to me, [but] when you see it -- it's something else."
While MacLachlan's animated alter ego may not have been running around the long-term memory maze of Riley's mind, he's still happy to be a part of Pixar's latest accomplishment.
"It's a very good feeling to be a small part of something I think is potentially so changing. Just the way that people look at their emotions now -- Pixar has done it again in a really amazing way."
"Inside Out" is in theaters now.
The July 25 ceremony will also feature appearances by actress Eva Longoria, comedian Jimmy Kimmel and athletes Yao Ming and Michael Phelps in a ceremony created by the production company that crafted the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in London and Sochi.
Lavigne is planning to perform her song "Fly" publicly for the first time at the ceremony, which will be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The ceremony, to be broadcast on ESPN, will also feature performances by Colombian reggaeton artist J. Balvin and former Pussycat Dolls frontwoman Nicole Scherzinger.
Simpson, the band O.A.R. and two Special Olympics athletes will perform the games' anthem, "Reach Up LA," according to a news release announcing the lineup. It will include elements familiar to other Olympic opening ceremonies, such as a parade of athletes and torch-lighting ceremony.
This year's Special Olympics World Games features 7,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities competing in a variety of sporting events. It is the first time the World Games have been hosted in the United States since 1999, and organizers say it is expected to draw 60,000 spectators.
"I am touched to be a part of this celebration of determination, courage, joy and skill," Wonder wrote in a statement. "Throughout my own journey of overcoming the odds, it's truly an inspiring moment to join these incredible athletes as they come to Los Angeles to compete and accomplish so many victories."
Tickets to the opening ceremony range from $30 to $120, but there is no charge for competition events being held during the games, which will be located around Los Angeles between July 25 and Aug. 2.
Yep, that's right—the 55-year-old Dallas star and her director-actor beau married last month, E! News can exclusively confirm. And after saying "I do," the newlyweds have been enjoying some well-deserved R&R!
Much of the former Desperate Housewives star's honeymoon has been spent with her handsome hubby at Villa del Palmar at the Islands of Loreto in Loreto, Mexico. The lovebirds have enjoyed spending time together hiking along the resort's mountains, doing yoga on a private beach, playing tennis, kayaking, sailing around the islands on a yacht and more! For one special night, the resort's executive chef even prepared a special meal for the newlyweds in their suite.
Strong has yet to publicly confirm she and Farmanesh-Bocca tied the knot in early-May, but she's happily tweeted and Instagrammed several photos of "island hopping" and the many "vacation" activities that she and Farmanesh-Bocca are enjoying together at Villa del Palmar.
It certainly looks like they're having fun! Closer Weekly was first to report about Strong and Farmanesh-Bocca's engagement this past January. The news came nearly four years after the actress and yoga enthusiast filed for divorce from former husband Tom Henri after 22 years of marriage.
Strong, who has an adult son with her ex, told Closer Weekly that she and Farmanesh-Bocca met while working together on a play. It wasn't until two years after that initial meeting, though, that they started to date.
"This came completely by surprise on all levels," she said at the time. "I have so much to look forward to with him and in our lives together."
Tight and white is not a combo many are brave enough to chance, but Longoria did so effortlessly. Showing off her perfect curves and toned midriff, the 40-year-old actress donned a body-hugging white laser cut cropped top and matching pencil skirt by Twenty, with each piece ringing in at $138.
Sticking with the monochromatic theme, the brunette beauty added a few inches to her pint-size frame with white Christian Louboutin court shoes, which make a great summer alternative to your trusty nude pump. But with a price tag of $675, they're not exactly the most budget-friendly kicks.
Now the pièce de résistance: her awe-inducing Hermes Birkin bag. This bag qualifies as some serious arm candy, and with a price tag of $22,500, it's every inch as luxe as it looks.
Finishing off her look, Eva opted for a sleek pair of shades. It seems that almost every celeb has this pair of Ray-Bans in their rotation, and Eva's $170 oversized mirrored aviators are no exception.
There you have it: Eva's $23,621 airport style.
Breaking it down piece-by-piece:
Twenty crop top - $138
Twenty pencil skirt - $138
Christian Louboutin heels - $675
Hermes Birkin bag - $22,500
Rayban sunnies - $170
While ratings have been very modest, American Crime has been widely praised by critics and is expected to garner awards attention for Ridley as well as Huffman and Hutton in the limited series Emmy categories.
Like was the case with the maiden season of another anthology series, FX’s American Horror Story, I hear the actors on ABC Studios-produced American Crime all had one-year deals going in, so new contracts need to be hammered out.
Back in January NBC revealed Eva Longoria is coming back to primetime TV thanks to a 13-episode Season 1 order for her new series "Telenovela." Longoria will play the "willful but popular diva" Ana Maria, "star of Latin America's most beloved telenovela who strives to stay on top in a world where the drama on-camera is nothing compared to the drama off-camera."
Cast: Eva Longoria
Producers: Christine Pietrosh, Jessica Goldstein, Longoria, Ben Spector and Steve Pink
DRAMAS
“CASTLE” (Season 8)
“GREY’S ANATOMY” (Season 12)
“HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER” (Season 2)
“MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.” (Season 3)
“NASHVILLE” (Season 4)
“ONCE UPON A TIME” (Season 5)
“SCANDAL” (Season 5)
“AMERICAN CRIME” (Season 2)
“SECRETS AND LIES” (Season 2)
“MARVEL’S AGENT CARTER” (Season 2)
COMEDIES
“black-ish” (Season 2)
“FRESH OFF THE BOAT” (Season 2)
“THE GOLDBERGS” (Season 3)
“THE MIDDLE” (Season 7)
“MODERN FAMILY” (Season 7)
“GALAVANT” (Season 2)
ALTERNATIVE
“AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS” (Season 26)
“THE BACHELOR” (Season 20)
“DANCING WITH THE STARS” (Season 21)
“SHARK TANK” (Season 7)
“BEYOND THE TANK” (Season 2)
“20/20”
BEST ACTRESS IN A MOVIE OR LIMITED SERIES
Aunjanue Ellis, "The Book of Negroes"
Felicity Huffman, "American Crime"
Frances McDormand, "Olive Kitteridge"
Jessica Lange, "American Horror Story: Freak Show"
Maggie Gyllenhaal, "The Honorable Woman"
Queen Latifah, "Bessie"
“This is a natural extension of what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to do a home line,” Longoria told PEOPLE at the Eva Longoria Home Collection launch for JCPenney in L.A. on Thursday. “My mom always told me, ‘Make a house a home’ and that’s a very big difference.”
Longoria’s first-ever collection includes four different bedding styles with complementary window treatments and decorative pillows to complete the looks—all of which Longoria made sure were very family-friendly.
“Sometimes you go to people’s homes and you don’t want to sit on the couch and you don’t want to use the throw and you don’t want to touch the throw pillows,” she said. “This is a very functional line you can really use it and beat it up.”
So, what’s Longoria’s favorite design? The Solana, which combines warm grey and lavender shades. “It’s so calming to me and whenever I look at it. It invites me to lay in it!”
The Devious Maids producer says making over your bedroom can be easy and fun. She suggests starting by changing up the bedding because, as she points out, it’s “the center piece of the bedroom.”
“You can easily put a pop of color to brighten it in the summer, do a black-and-white in the winter to be a little bit more modern,” she said.
A quick makeover trick: Decorative pillows. “I really love beading on pillows that is delicate and not overdone because the pillow has to be functional,” the actress said. “I have some throw pillows in my house that you can’t sit on because you may get cut, but they’re pretty. They have this Indian silver beading. I’m always like ‘Ow! I think I just cut myself.’ I love light beading, light embroidery—just enough to give the pillows a pop.”
"I'm just in a happy place in my life that it's easy to be open and in love because I am in a complete place in my life," Longoria, 40, told PEOPLE at the Eva Longoria Home Collection launch for JCPenney in Los Angeles on Thursday.
"Whether it's personally, career, new projects, going back to television, there's just so much happiness and joy in my life and I think you know that transmits to everything," the Devious Maids producer – who has been dating the Mexican businessman since the end of 2013 – added.
Although Longoria's most recent project is her own home décor line, she admits Baston, 46, is "definitely [the] frustrated interior designer" out of the two.
"He's all about furniture and architecture, and I'm all about towels and comforters," the Desperate Housewives alum explained.
But it doesn't come as too much of a surprise that her man has a sharp eye for design. "He's a good dresser, too. I always have to step it up," Longoria shared in April 2014. "It's exhausting."
To find someone who could eventually step into Potter's role, "Good Witch" cast Denton as Sam, a curmudgeonly neighbor who could be a possible love interest for Cassie. However, even though the first season is coming to a close on Saturday (April 18), Denton is aware that, although some fans have grown to like him, some are going to continue to give him the cold shoulder.
"As far as [fans] are warming up to me, you know, I think there's some movie fans that never will," Denton tells Zap2it. "I think they love the 'Good Witch' so much, and that [includes] the entire cast."
Although, he knows that some viewers were upset that Jake was killed off, he thinks that the series did a good job honoring the character, and he hopes the fans don't "hold it against Hallmark."
"I also thought we did the character justice with two episodes about the memorial and how wonderful Jake was," says Denton. "I hope they were satisfied with how we dealt with it. And it's really all we could do when he wasn't available."
As for fixing the absence of another notable character from the film series, Cassie's father-in-law, Denton thinks "Good Witch" should give him a call.
"I think we also have to get Peter McNeil back in there, I think they missed him," says the actor. "Everyone loves grandpa, and Peter's a really good actor and he was only in the first two episodes, and that was it. I really want him to get back in there, too, because I think you really need to give the movie fans their due. And that would help."
The "Good Witch" finale airs on Saturday, April 18 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark.
John Ridley, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "12 Years a Slave," is using that framework as the creator-writer-director and an executive producer of an ABC drama series.
Premiering Thursday (March 5), "American Crime" covers a cross-section of lives tied to the home-invasion murder of a military veteran in Modesto, Calif., with Oscar winner Timothy Hutton ("Ordinary People") and Emmy winner Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives') leading the ensemble cast as the victim's long-estranged parents.
The premise observes matters of gender, race and social standing as it weaves in additional characters, including an addicted young couple (played by Caitlin Gerard and Elvis Nolasco) and the mother (Penelope Ann Miller) of the slain man's brutally assaulted wife. Also among the show's stars are Regina King ("Southland"), Lili Taylor, W. Earl Brown ("Deadwood"), Benito Martinez, Johnny Ortiz and Richard Cabral.
Ridley tells Zap2it that ABC came to him with "a desire to do a show that looked at where we are now, and who we are now, and do it through an inciting incident that people tend to galvanize around.
"And one of the things that I wanted to explore was the concept that it's not about the police. It's not about the prosecutors. But it really is about the family and what they deal with ... not just for 45 minutes, but the fact [is] that these events usually take months, if not years, to deal with. And sometimes even then, there's not a resolution."
The maiden season of "American Crime" lasts 11 episodes, a fact that held particular appeal for Ridley: "Because it was a limited series, because we had room, it was really an opportunity to sit down with the actors and talk about these characters and build them out. So I believe [in], and I hope that I came in with, specific ideas that I was offering up to everybody."
Returning to series work after his five seasons on TNT's "Leverage," Hutton clearly liked the "American Crime" approach, since he notes that "from the beginning, the conversations with John -- about the characters and their place in the story and what they mean to the overall -- were really great conversations in a way that I had never experienced before."
"They were very, very specific. Ideas were shared. And it was clear that this wasn't just going to be a story about the outcome of this investigation, but that it would really focus on the details of these people, everyday people, that all intersect one another because of this tragedy. We were going to follow each of them, not just what they had to say, but what they do in a given day."
If some elements of "American Crime" reflect recent and even current events in the U.S., such as the nature of police relations with the public, Ridley maintains that's not intentional. Still, he doesn't mind that they add timeliness to the show.
"The reality is that, unfortunately, these events remain cyclical in this country," he reflects. "It was never our desire to try to exploit any of these things, but at the same time, you want to build the space where people do recognize that it is not purely empty entertainment, in the sense that we're not trying to acknowledge things that are going on."
The film, based on the British novel of the same name by Joan G. Robinson, will be released May 22 in New York and Los Angeles, with expansion to all major markets in the following weeks. Released in Japan last summer, it was acquired by GKIDS in January.
It marks the second feature film by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, director of The Secret World of Arrietty which received critical acclaim and marked the highest-grossing Ghibli film to date in North America. The English-language version of Marnie is produced by Studio Ghibli and Geoffrey Wexler.
GKIDS and Studio Ghibli previously partnered on The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya, an Oscar nominee this for Best Animated Feature. Other recent collaborations include the 2014 documentary The Kingdom of Dreams And Madness, and the celebrated 2013 animated feature From Up On Poppy Hill. GKIDS also handles North American theatrical distribution for the Studio Ghibli library of films with titles including Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and Princess Mononoke.
GKIDS has garnered six Best Animated Feature Oscar nominations with The Secret oOf Kells in 2010, A Cat In Paris and Chico & Rita in 2012, Ernest & Celestine in 2014, and this year’s Princess Kaguya from Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata, and Song Of The Sea from Tomm Moore.
TVLine has confirmed that on the heels of Annie Wersching’s Castle encore, fellow 24 alum Reiko Aylesworth will guest-star on the ABC drama.
What’s more, Desperate Housewives vet Ricardo Chavira has a key role in the same episode; the actor revealed the castings with this photo on Twitter:
TVLine has learned exclusively that Chavira will play Alex Lopez, a popular congressman whose life may in danger, while Aylesworth is playing his astute wife, Mia.
They both appear in Episode 18, when Detective Ryan — who it was established has been working side jobs — pulls some hours at his brother-in-law Frank’s private security company, which has been charged with protective Congressman Lopez.
Heather Mazur (Awkward, Pretty Little Liars) guest-stars as Ryan’s sister/Frank’s wife Gwen.
Teasing the Ryan-centric episode, showrunner David Amann told TVLine, “He gets involved in a situation where [he and Frank] are guarding somebody important and an incident occurs, and he is caught in the middle of it.”
Since her three-season run on 24, Aylesworth has appeared on such series as ER, Damages, Lost, Hawaii Five-0 and Revolution. Chavira’s post-Housewives credits include Burn Notice, Welcome to the Family and Bad Teacher.
Castle resumes its season, with Episode 17, on March 16.
"I was so scared of marriage that I thought I would've preferred to step in front of a bus," the actress, 52, tells the Tribune News Service.
"I thought I'd disappear. Men's stock when they get married goes up. Women's stock goes down. Another thing, 60 percent of first marriages fail, 80 percent of second marriages fail."
Huffman, who plays the ex-wife of Timothy Hutton on ABC's new drama American Crime, dated Macy for 15 years before they finally wed, in 1997. And Macy was trying to bring her around for much of that time.
"Bill Macy asked me to marry him several times over several years. And I was finally smart enough to go: 'I'm going to marry this guy or really lose him for good,' " she says. "And it was after we broke up for four or five years when he asked me again, I knew I couldn't say no."
Not that it was easy. But it was worth it.
"It was the work I had to do in order to bring myself to the marriage, and then the work that I did to be able to trust another person and see what comes out of that comfort and that safety," Huffman says. "I was able to blossom out of that."
She also reveals that love helped save her from a crippling period of despair and depression when she was single.
"I went through a very, very dark three years … It was that kind of depression where I just wished I was dead, that kind of relentless – I just wished I was dead," she says. "It was kind of the crucible, from 28 to 31. That dark time changed me, I think, for the better."
She recovered through "the love of my family, through therapy. I came out of it." And while she still has fears, they're more manageable now.
"I wake up afraid. I'm afraid of everything," she says. "Everything is triage to me, I have to get the kids' breakfast. I have to get everything done. I guess I would string it together to say I feel like I'm a lazy girl. I feel bad about being a lazy girl. I want to be a perfect girl, so I drive myself to do it."
"When I was on Desperate Housewives, it was the number-one show in the world, and I was ranked really high [on the] Forbes list," she told a crowd gathered at Harvard University on Saturday. "I said to my mom, 'Look,' and she said 'Right, when are you getting your Master's?' "
Longoria said the importance her family placed on education has stayed with her and is evident in her philanthropic work (including the Eva Longoria Foundation and for Eva's Heroes), for which she was honored with the Artist of the Year Award at Harvard University on Saturday.
In addition to urging the Ivy League students to use the opportunities they have been given and the knowledge they possess to make the world a better place, Longoria, 39, applauded Harvard for embracing cultural diversity.
"I've kind of lived my life straddling the hyphen of being Mexican-American. I kind of just sit on that hyphen, you know – navigating loving enchiladas and apple pie, loving mariachi music and Britney Spears," she said. "But there are so many moments in my life that were memorable to that experience of being a hybrid, of being a hyphen."
Longoria, who grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, would often take day trips with her family to Mexico and wondered why they were able to get in the shorter line when entering back into the U.S. while others had to wait in a much longer line.
"[My dad] said they were born on the other side – el otro lado – and I said, 'Dad, why were we born on this side?' and he said, 'Luck,' and I never forgot that. And I never forgot how important it was to be an American."
As for that Master's degree, Longoria made her mom proud when she got a MA in Chicano Studies at Cal State Northridge in 2013.
"Last summer, we decided with the upcoming excitement of going off to college herself, we would do a trip across the country looking at colleges," says the Desperate Housewives actress, 50.
But Emerson also wanted to give back to her community while traveling, so she started a blog (reachandsafe.com) to raise money for the Fulfillment Fund, an organization that offers mentoring, help with college applications and more for underprivileged students.
"Many of these students are experiencing college for the first time in their entire family," says Hatcher about the organization. "When one sister goes off to college, that goal becomes reachable and attainable, and it trickles down into their families."
Since her daughter was a little girl, Hatcher has worked hard to instill "compassion and generosity" in her.
"I think when you have fortune, one of the most important things to do as a parent is to not raise a brat," she says. "The older she gets, now things are beginning to come more and more from her. This idea of wanting to really help education locally in our community really came from her."
In addition to starring, Connolly is executive producing alongside McAuliffe and 3 Arts’ Michael Rotenberg, Jonathan Berry, Greg Walter and Troy Zien.
Williams, repped by UTA, manager Geordie Frey and attorney P.J. Shapiro, guest stars on New Girl — also for Fox and 20th TV — later this month. She was approached for multiple project this season.
After ending 2014 in Cancun, Mexico with a mysterious blonde, Bloom decided to enjoy a Tuesday night out much closer to home with a different lady.
Lo and behold, the actor's new unidentified friend looked quite similar to a few past ladies he's been spotted out with in recent months. Yes, you can blame it on the hair folks.
Wearing a black button-down with gray pants and black sneakers, Bloom appeared to be enjoying his dinner at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica, Calif. But before any relationship rumors start flying around with his new blond friend, an eyewitness tells E! News that nothing romantic was going on between The Hobbit star and his dinner partner.
Furthermore, Bloom didn't even spend the whole night with this new face. As it turns out, he decided to spend part of his meal with the one and only Eva Longoria.
"They sat a few tables away initially, then Orlando went over to Eva's table after his party called it a night," an eyewitness shared with E! News. "They all looked like they were having a normal, fun night out with friends."
Longoria was also dressed casually in pink heels, ripped denim jeans and a white blouse as she dined with close friend Holly Robinson Peete. Not a bad way to end a night that also included an iHeartRadio concert featuring Ricky Martin.
"They all looked happy and had a good time," an eyewitness told E! News who said the friendly outing lasted about three and a half hours in total.
Can we get an invite to this group dinner next time, please? Thank you!
Set in 1983 Los Angeles, and in the vein of HBO’s Entourage, Living On Video revolves around the players of the then-exploding music video industry — directors, record executives and crew members, many of them dabbling in drugs — through the eyes of a newcomer, Robby (Ross). Robby is a wide-eyed guy who drops out of college and drives to Hollywood with dreams of directing a sci-fi epic and lands a job as a PA for a company making music videos.
Page plays a meteorologist trying to transition into game-show hosting. He is reuniting with Fincher after recurring on the past season of House Of Cards.
Fincher, who is directing, revisits his music video director past with the comedy, written by Rich Wilkes (xXx) and Bob Stevenson, a friend of Fincher’s from his music video days, based on an idea by Fincher. I hear also set or in negotiations for the project, which I hear will film two episodes in lieu of a pilot, are Jason Flemyng, Kerry Condon and Elizabeth Lail.
Ross is repped by Paradigm and Sanders.Armstrong.Caserta Management; Page is with UTA and Inphenate.
The Desperate Housewives alum has been cast as a suspect on an upcoming episode of Law & Order: SVU, E! Online reports.
Cross’ first role since Desperate‘s Bree will be Charmaine Briggs, the latest in a long string of novelist Walter Briggs’ wives. Walter’s daughters think Charmaine is sexually abusing their dad — hence the involvement of Benson & Co. (If the case reminds you of of Casey Kasem’s family drama, that’s no accident.)
Walter will be played by Robert Vaughn (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.); Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Mercedes Ruehl (Big) also will guest-star in the episode.
Desperate Housewives ended its run in 2012. Since then, Cross was attached to the Fox comedy Fatrick, which didn’t make it past the pilot stage in 2013.
Cross’ episode of SVU will air Wednesday, Feb. 25, at 9/8c on NBC.
The network has given a pilot green light to the project, from Desperate Housewives and Devious Maids creator/executive producer Marc Cherry, Under The Dome showrunner Neal Baer and Blue Bloods executive producer Dan Truly. Written by the trio, Cheerleader Death Squad is described as “Heathers meets Alias“ and centers on a disgraced CIA agent-turned-teacher at an elite Washington D.C. prep school. When he realizes that his students have high-level access through personal connections, he trains a select few to be his eyes and ears into the world of international espionage and help him earn his way back into the agency.
CBS TV Studios, where Baer has an overall deal, is the studio. Cherry, Baer and Truly executive produce with Cherry’s partner in Cherry/Wind Productions, Sabrina Wind.
In addition to his duties on Blue Bloods, Truly serves as a consulting producer on Under The Dome.
Mehcad Brooks will play the more maturely monikered James, TVGuide.com has confirmed. The character is a photographer at the media company where Kara (aka Supergirl, played by Melissa Benoist) works.
You may know Brooks from his time on Desperate Housewives, where he played Matthew Applewhite, or True Blood, where he played Eggs. Brooks also starred on Necessary Roughness and My Generation.
The network has given the go-ahead to Flesh and Blood, a thriller from onetime Grey’s Anatomy/Scandal producer Jenna Bans.
The potential series centers on a politician’s son who shows up nearly 10 years after his presumed death and rocks the local community. His reappearance, naturally, has repercussions for the neighbor jailed for his murder and the police officer that handled the case.
In addition to writing several episodes each of Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy, Bans created the one-and-done Shondaland drama Off the Map, and before that wrote for Desperate Housewives.
Bans will pen the project and executive-produce alongside Mandeville Productions and ABC Studios.
The Dallas star is engaged to her director-actor beau John Farmanesh-Bocca, E! News confirms.
"I honestly never thought I would find somebody else that I could spend the rest of my life with," the 54-year-old actress tells Closer Weekly, which was first to report the news of the couple's engagement.
The wedding buzz comes nearly four years after the erstwhile Desperate Housewives star, who played deceased narrator Mary Alice Young on the show from 2004 to 2012, filed for divorce from former husband Tom Henri after 22 years of marriage. The two are parents to 21-year-old son, Zak Henri.
Strong also reveals to Closer Weekly that she and her hubby-to-be met when they did a play together, but it wasn't until two years later when they finally started dating.
"This came completely by surprise on all levels," the actress admits. "I have so much to look forward to with him and in our lives together."
Meanwhile, Strong, who currently stars alongside Jesse Metcalfe and Jordana Brewster on the TNT series Dallas, has yet to share the news on social media, but she's certainly not afraid to flaunt her love for her man on Instagram.
"Happy Birthday to this beautiful man! I am so grateful you were born ;-)" she captioned an adorable PDA pic.
Congrats to the happy couple!
Williams will play Dr. Phillips in the current season’s Episode 17, titled “Danny Castellano Is My Nutritionist.”
The actress announced the gig via her Instagram feed.
The project already had a big commitment in the pitch stage — Telenovela, from Cougar Town co-executive producers Chrissy Pietrosh and Jessica Goldstein and Universal TV, was going to get a 13-episode order if Longoria committed to star and a pilot order if she didn’t. The project is expected to hire a casting director shortly. Additionally, since Telenovela is set behind the scenes of a telenovela, NBC was in discussions with sister network Telemundo for 4-5-minute segments in Spanish that would be used to promote the NBC series to Spanish-speaking audiences.
NBC was one of two networks that was pursuing Longoria for a long time. At ABC, she had a comedy from ABC Studios and the Trophy Wife team of Emily Halpern,Sarah Haskins, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. It was fast-tracked as a script that will go to pilot with a 13-episode penalty for Longoria attached if she commits to star.
Longoria had been developing Telenovela through UnbeliEVAble with Universal TV and NBC for some time. Based on an idea by Longoria, it centers on an ambitious telenovela star — a character created for her — who struggles to stay on top in a world where the drama on-camera is nothing compared to the drama off-camera.
Since the end of Desperate Housewives, Longoria had been focused on producing through her UnbeliEVAble banner. She executive produces Lifetime’s Devious Maids and her company has sold several projects this development season, including medical drama Critical at NBC and Texas political/family drama Pair Of Aces at ABC.
NBCUniversal stepping up in a big way to keep UnbeliEVAble in the fold no doubt played a major role in Longoria’s decision to commit to Telenovela. She had been heavily courted with single-camera comedy vehicles by two networks this season, NBC and ABC.
At ABC, a half-hour from Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky was fast-tracked as a script that was going to go to pilot with a 13-episode penalty for Longoria if she committed to star.
NBC had promised Telenovela, from Cougar Town co-executive producers Chrissy Pietrosh and Jessica Goldstein, a 13-episode order if Longoria committed to star and a pilot order if she didn’t. There had been discussions about cross-promotion with Spanish language sister network Telemundo. Showing its commitment to the project, NBC hired a casting director long before Longoria had decided which comedy she would do as an actress.
Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble had been under a first-look deal at Universal TV since 2012. She and producing partner Ben Spector, who executive produce Telenovela together, had been developing the project, based on an idea by Longoria, at the studio for some time.
This development season, UnbeliEVAble, repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment, has set up nine projects, including medical drama Critical at NBC and Texas political/family drama Pair Of Aces at ABC.
"I'm very excited to return to the strange and wonderful world of 'Twin Peaks.' We look forward to seeing all of you there. May the forest be with you," intones MacLachlan, after walking on stage to hand Showtime president David Nevins a "damn fine cup of coffee."
As for the rest of the cast, Nevins says that announcements will be coming soon since they start shooting within a few months. "I expect [MacLachlan] is not the only original person. I expect there to be lots of people from the original cast back."
In addition to original cast members, the series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost have signed on to write and direct all nine episodes of the limited series.
"It felt like the only way that you could do it would be to have [Lynch] committed to directing all of [the episodes], so that was sort of the thing that I was begging for," says Nevins, adding that the creators have a clear vision in mind for the ending. "They have been very specific in promising closure and that's exciting. From what I've seen, I think this is going to live up to expectations and then some."
Nevins also says he expects filming to return to Washington state, among other places. "Twin Peaks" is slated to premiere in 2016.
That sort of variety is expected from the Kennedy Center Honors as the yearly event salutes several titans of the performing arts. It's fulfilled again as Tom Hanks, Sting, Lily Tomlin, Al Green and Patricia McBride receive the tributes from first-time host Stephen Colbert and others in CBS' telecast of the 37th annual edition Tuesday (Dec. 30).
Taped earlier in the month at the title site in Washington, D.C., the ceremony boasts a talent lineup from Meryl Streep, Bruce Springsteen and David Letterman to Lady Gaga, Whoopi Goldberg and Steven Spielberg. Tomlin can be counted among the most surprised honorees ever -- to the degree that she merely glanced at the notice, then tossed it aside.
"I've gone to the ceremony a few times," she tells Zap2it. "I had a letter from [Honors producer] George Stevens Jr., and it started out, 'We're celebrating our 37th ceremony.' And I just put it aside, and it laid on my desk for about a week. Then my partner Jane (Wagner) called me and said, 'Did you see the letter?' I said, 'Yeah, just inviting us to the ceremony.' And she said, 'No, I think they want to honor you.' "
Tomlin still didn't buy it: "I said, 'Oh, no. I know that's not true.' And she said, 'Go read it again,' and then I just couldn't believe it. I frankly never thought I would get the Kennedy Center Honors, because I have the Mark Twain Prize (which the Center also awards). And then, I was excited!"
Surely no stranger to accolades, Tomlin also owns four Emmys, two Tonys and a Grammy. They span a career that has touched television ( "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," "Murphy Brown," "The West Wing"), movies ("Nashville," "9 to 5," "All of Me"), stage ("The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe") and records ("This Is a Recording," showcasing her phone-operator character Ernestine).
As for those she's receiving the Kennedy Center Honors with, Tomlin says, "I like this company very much. I met Tom Hanks when he started out, and I've used Al Green's music in a couple of projects. I used 'Let's Stay Together' in a 1973 television special, then it was used very significantly in 'The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.' "
Reunited with fellow "9 to 5" star Jane Fonda (who also appears in the Kennedy Center salute) in the upcoming Netflix series "Grace and Frankie," Tomlin went into the Honors with no expectations for how her tribute might play out Â... though it would be surprising if her famous alter egos Ernestine, Edith Ann and Mrs. Beasley didn't make appearances.
"It's, like, a five-minute film [biography] and a couple of people speaking about you," Tomlin acknowledges, "so it's how they choose to express it. It's just the fun of it, and the excitement of it. You wonder if they'll have a parade of Ernestines walking across the stage."
Still, one thing is certain with such an occasion, Tomlin knows.
"You have to get your garments together," she muses. "Whenever I'd do a fashion thing, I'd always quote Thoreau when he said, 'Beware of the enterprise that requires new clothing.'"
The actress was photographed sitting on Baston’s lap Monday afternoon during an al fresco lunch at a cafe in Mexico City.
The couple, who have been dating for a year, took separate seats to eat their meals, then walked away holding hands as they strolled through the city.
Actress Vanessa Williams — the voice of M&M’s Ms. Brown for the past two years — is helping to relaunch the candy, which hits shelves this week.
But at home, she says her holiday indulgences are centered around the cravings of her four kids, ages 14-27.
“Everyone has their favorites,” the star, 51, tells PEOPLE. “My daughter Jillian’s is lemon squares. I gotta make those for her. One is cornbread, so I have to make sure we have cornbread with the meal. My son loves crepes. It all depends on what they want when they want it. Come holidays I’m doing a lot of fixing favorites for everybody in the family.”
Not that she minds the work. With her three oldest children out of the house, “I actually miss the hustle and bustle. But come holidays, they’ll all be home and I’ll be cooking brunch and dinner and snacks and goodies. I can’t wait.”
How does she avoid gaining weight during the calorie-rich holiday season?
“I don’t!” the former Ugly Betty star says with a laugh. “I usually give in and then I just do the work come January. You go to the parties and they’re serving cocktails, and then you have great dinners and you’re drinking wine, and the desserts and cookies are all available. It’s hard to not be tempted. But I just kind of succumb and then just do the work in January.”
Williams has also been busy with her Broadway play, The Trip to Bountiful, which she also performed in L.A. and Boston. To mark the show’s recent closing, “I got personalized M&M’s for everyone, brown of course and white and blue which were kind of the colors of our show,” she says. “I had ‘Trip to Bountiful’ printed on one and ‘congratulations’ and ‘break a leg’ on the others.”
And she has plans to incorporate them into her upcoming wedding to Jim Skrip.
“I’ll definitely be using them as party favors,” she says of the big day, revealing that it’s set for “next summer.”
Overall, Last Ship averaged 5.6 million total viewers in its Sunday plays, with 2.1 million adults 25-54 and 1.7 million 18-49s. Its Season 1 finale drew 4.4 million viewers August 24.
Moses, whose credits include Mad Men, Desperate Housewives and the current season of Showtime’s Homeland, will play a high-ranking U.S. government official trying to protect citizens from the plague. O’Byrne (Mildred Pierce) and Court (300: Rise Of The Empire) are set to play Sean and Ned Ramsey, a pair of British brothers whose plans impact the mission of the USS Nathan James.
Eric Dane and Rhona Mitra star in Last Ship, based on William Brinkley’s novel. It deals with a global catastrophe that nearly decimates the world’s population. Because of its positioning, the Navy destroyer Nathan James avoids falling victim to the devastating tragedy and must confront the reality of their new existence in a world where they may be among the few remaining survivors.
The series is from Bay’s Platinum Dunes and its partners, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, who executive produce with creator-showrunners Hank Steinberg, Steven Kane and Jack Bender.
According to Yahoo!, Hatcher was speaking at the Nov. 25 event commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women when she recalled being molested by her uncle when she was 7.
"I was convinced it was my fault and I blamed myself for what had happened, so I didn't tell anyone and I was silent," Hatcher said. "I did, however, unsurprisingly, start to act out and my mother decided to keep me away from my uncle. I didn't see him anymore, but no one in my family ever asked exactly what happened. We remained silent."
Hatcher said she was abused by Richard Hayes Stone, her uncle through marriage, until she was 8 or 9. He continued to molest other children, but it wasn't until 2002, when Hatcher learned about one of his victims committing suicide, that she reached out to the district attorney and helped put Stone away for 14 years.
"I was helping my parents pack up my childhood home and I came across a current newspaper article about a beautiful 11-year-old girl named Sarah from my hometown," Hatcher said. "The story recounted how she had wrapped her head in a towel in order to avoid making a mess and shot herself in the head. Her reason? In a suicide note, she implicated my uncle, who had been sexually abusing her for years."
Hatcher first spoke about her own abuse and Sarah's story in a 2006 Vanity Fair interview, in which she admitted, "I haven't tried to kill myself, but I've certainly thought about it." The Desperate Housewives star has been very active throughout her career in trying to prevent sexual abuse. On Nov. 24, Hatcher helped light the Empire State Building orange in honor of the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
"I am simply one in three women who is forced to accept violence as part of their life story," Hatcher told the listeners at the U.N. "I am one of three women who for the rest of her life battles the voice in her head that accepts blame for abuse, a voice that is antithetical to self-esteem, self-worth and happiness. This is a statistic that has to change. One in three women can no longer have to face a stigma and a fear that prevent them from seeking help."
The former Desperate Housewives actress posted a photo a wet and wild photo of herself standing on the shoulders of pal John Salazar while a child looked on at the twosome's cheer squad moves.
Longoria captioned the fun WhoSay picture, "Me and John having fun reliving our cheerleading days!! #HappyThxGiving." If the 39-year-old actress could still pull off these moves all while rocking that amazing bikini, we can only imagine her back during her days on the squad. The brunette bombshell cheered for her high school team and even picked up her pom-poms at Texas A&M University.
Seriously—the woman has a phenomenal bikini bod!
Although we shouldn't be surprised that she is in such phenomenal shape, as she makes it her priority to get in a good workout despite how busy she is as a full-time producer these days. Fortunately for the busy bee, she prefers to hit the road for a workout so she doesn't need any fancy exercise machines—not even a treadmill!
"I'm a runner. I don't need a gym, I'll go run anywhere. I was in Australia, Budapest and Paris...In Australia and I went running around the botanical gardens and when I got to Paris I ran around the Eiffel Tower," she shares.
"And when I was in Budapest I ran around their little medieval section passing the castle. It's truly one of the best forms of exercising and the best thing to do while traveling because you get to sight-seeing and as I'm running I was really standing under the Eiffel tower at seven in the morning going, ‘This is so cool!'"
So not only does she manage to get in a good sweat while balancing her busy schedule, she also manages to sight see in the best way possible! Talk about killing two birds with one stone.
Hats off to you, Eva.
In a message to fans posted to DallasDecoder.com, Cynthia Cidre and Michael M. Robin — executive producers on TNT’s recently cancelled revival of the classic CBS sudser — reported that “Herculean” attempts to find the show a new home on another network or outlet came up empty, and thus have ended.
“[Production studio] Warner Horizon has attempted, in a Herculean way, to try and find us a new home, but at the end of the day it did not work out,” the duo’s statement reads.
Cidre and Robin then go on to commend the #SaveDallas effort, saying: “We so appreciate the outpouring of support by all of you, and the #SaveDallas campaign was a truly remarkable undertaking. We cannot fully express how much we loved making this show for you and with you.”
In the wake of waning ratings, TNT pulled the plug on Dallas in early October, two weeks after it aired its Season 3 finale.
How to Get Away with Murder will air its two-hour Season 1 finale on Thursday, Feb. 26at 9/8c, the network announced Wednesday.
Its timeslot will be filled by new drama series American Crime, which will kick off its 11-episode first season on Thursday, March 5 at 10/9c.
From Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave), American Crime stars Felicity Huffman and Timothy Hutton, and chronicles the aftermath of a brutal attack on a young couple inside their home in Modesto, Calif. After the husband is murdered and his wife is left clinging to life, socioeconomic and racial tensions arise among members of their community.
ABC's new drama series Secrets and Lies will have its two-hour premiere on Sunday, March 1 at 9/8c. The show stars Ryan Phillippe as Ben Crawford, a Good Samaritan who eventually becomes a murder suspect after discovering the dead body of his neighbor's young son. Juliette Lewis co-stars as the detective investigating the case.
How do you think How to Get Away with Murder will end? And will you watch American Crime and Secrets and Lies?
The 38-year-old actor, most recently known for playing Christina Hendricks' ex on Mad Men, wed fiancée Cassidy Boesch over the weekend surrounded by family and friends. The nuptials took place on Saturday at a villa just outside Santa Barbara, Calif., a source confirms to E! News. "It was truly a fairy-tale weekend," the source adds.
Page also posted a gorgeous wedding pic of him and Boesch sharing their first kiss as husband and wife. "Making it official," Page wrote on Instagram.
In the shot, Page and Boesch wrap their arms around each other while locking lips in front of wedding guests during the outdoor garden ceremony. Behind them is a beautiful canopy covered in white roses.
Page also took to Instagram to share a photo of him and his groomsmen. "On the runway, first class, about to walk down the aisle, and this is my groomsmen detail. Great men all of them. #cassidyandsam," he wrote. Among Page's groomsmen was Mean Girls star and recent Dancing With the Stars cast-off Jonathan Bennett.
In addition to Mad Men, you may recognize Page from his appearances on shows like Desperate Housewives, House of Cards, Switched at Birth, Scandal and Gossip Girl.
Congrats, you two!
Ricardo de Montreuil is on board to direct the script, written by Josh Bierne-Gordon and Justin Tipping. Previous drafts were written by Cheo Hodari Coker and Elgin James.
Collins just came off Warren Beatty’s untitled Howard Hughes project. Longoria is now filming Bichir’s directorial debut Refugio, a Mexico City-set drama about a young dreamer who’s born in the circus and embarks on a search to find his long lost true love. Longoria plays a horse acrobat who joins the circus trying to heal a broken heart.
Imagine’s Brian Grazer will produce the Low Riders movie with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum. Kim Roth and Alexandre Dauman will oversee for Imagine, with Couper Samuelson overseeing for Blumhouse.
Longoria and Collins are repped by CAA.
The Phantom Of The Opera drama, from Cherry and Sabrina Wind’s Cherry/Wind Prods. and ABC Studios, will be penned by Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner, writers of the musical First Date, which ran on Broadway last season and starred Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez. It will be set in the sexy and cutthroat world of the modern-day music business. Unlike Webber’s creation, to which the TV show has no ties, the drama is not envisioned as a musical but will feature musical elements in the vein of ABC’s country music industry drama Nashville. Zachary, Weiner, Cherry and Wind — all repped by Paradigm — will executive produce.
Zachary & Weiner’s latest Broadway-bound musical, Secondhand Lions, had a world premiere at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre last year and is being produced by Warner Bros Theatre Ventures. The team also is writing a stage musical based on the 2009 New Line Cinema feature 17 Again.
Cherry, creator/executive producer of Lifetime’s Devious Maids, also from ABC Studios, is a free agent this season and has been selling around town. He has prep school spy drama Cheerleader Death Squad set up at the CW through CBS TV Studios with Neal Baer.
Cherry is also repped by Jon Moonves & Jean Tanaka, Wind by Michael Gendler, Zachary & Weiner by Michael Schenkman.
A&E’s serial thriller is adding Mad Men‘s Kevin Rahm to the Season 3 cast in a recurring role, TVLine has learned exclusively.
Rahm will play Bob Paris, the wealthy, self-involved and gregarious owner of an elite hunting club who grew up with Romero. The pair now have a strained relationship, but they keep their mutual dislike under wraps.
The former Desperate Housewives co-star is Bates Motel‘s third major Season 3 hire, following the casting of Revolution‘s Tracy Spiridakos (as a mystery woman who may or may not cozy up to Dylan) and Sons of Anarchy‘s Ryan Hurst (as an onscreen rival to Kenny Johnson’s Caleb).
Bates Motel reopens in March 2015.
This is the seventh sale for UnbeliEVAble this season, including Texas politics drama Pair Of Aces at ABC. The network also is developing a comedy with the Trophy Wife team of Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky as a potential starring vehicle for Longoria. All parties are repped by CAA. Longoria is also with Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Described as “Heathers meets Alias“, Cheerleader Death Squad centers on a disgraced CIA agent-turned-teacher at an elite Washington D.C. prep school. When he realizes that his students have high-level access through personal connections, he trains a select few to be his eyes and ears into the world of international espionage and help him earn his way back into the agency.
In a follow-up to his global hit Desperate Housewives, Cherry developed Devious Maids, based on a Mexican series, which recently was renewed by Lifetime for a third season. Cherry executive produces the mystery drama and served as showrunner the first two seasons. Baer is executive producer/showrunner of CBS’ summer drama series Under The Dome, also recently renewed for a third season. He previously served in the same capacity on NBC’s Law & Order: SVU, where Truly was a co-executive producer. The two have continued to work together, with Truly currently serving as a consulting producer on Under The Dome in addition to his duties on Blue Bloods, and last season, Baer and Truly co-wrote medical drama script The Three Behrs for CBS.
Cherry, Baer, Wind and Truly are repped by Paradigm. Cherry also is repped by attorneys Jon Moonves and Jean Tanaka; Baer, Truly and Wind by Michael Gendler.
The first season is based on the ancient Hispanic tale of La Llorona, the “weeping woman,” and follows a troubled Detective investigating a young mother accused of trying to drown her child in a small town hiding a supernatural secret. In the legend, a woman drowns her children for a man and is destined to search for them for eternity, sometimes abducting wandering children who resemble her own. The tale is familiar to NBC viewers as it was retold in an episode from the second season of the network’s popular supernatural drama Grimm (photo above). La Llorona also was the first villain on the CW’s long-running drama Supernatural.
Newman will write the script and will executive produce with Longoria, who is of Mexican descent and holds a Master’s degree in Chicano studies, as well as UnbeliEVAble’s Ben Spector. The project stems from Universal TV’s overall deal with Newman and first-look pact with UnbeliEVAble.
Newman, repped by ICM Partners and Jeff Frankel, has worked on such series as The Secret Circle, Human Target, Private Practice, Cold Case, 24 and Felicity. This is the fifth sale for UnbeliEVAble this development season. Longoria and UnbelEVAble are with CAA and Brillstein.
"After I shot Transamerica I kept going to Desperate and saying, 'We need a trans character. We need a trans character,'" Huffman told me yesterday while promoting her new film Rudderless at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills. "There are wonderful trans actors that I know, but I think it was too early. I really wanted it to happen."
Sadly, it never did.
Desperate Housewives premiered 10 years ago. While it ran for eight seasons, Huffman doesn't think a reunion show will be happening anytime soon. "I think it would be so horrifying a reunion with all of us—except for f--king Eva Longoria who doesn't seem to age—tottering around. It would be terrible—Desperate Old Fogies!"
Rudderless (in theaters and on VOD on Oct. 17) marks the directorial debut of Huffman's husband William H. Macy. It centers on a dad (Billy Crudup) who finds recordings of his son's music after he dies in a school shooting.
"It's not a movie about a school shooting," Huffman says. "It's about the aftermath and hope and redemption and music."
Huffman said she jokingly threatened to bail on the film after finding out she'd be playing Crudup's ex-wife. "I was cast and it was supposed to be a couple of older actors and then Billy Crudup signed on and I said, 'Well, you gotta get rid of me,'" Huffman said. "I said, 'You've got to light me really well' and my husband said, 'Yes, we're totally going to light you the right way.' That's pretty much people standing there with flashlights. They had $2."
(FYI: Huffman is definitely not so "older" than Crudup. At 46, Crudup is only five years younger than Huffman.)
Huffman returns to series television in the upcoming American Crime, a drama from 12 Years a Slave writer John Ridley.
"I love a TV family," she said. "I feel like the family that's created on a TV show is like a theater family."
The ABC show, written by Coiro, centers on a buttoned-down 17-year-old who reunites with her recently widowed 36-year-old biological mom and they become the heart of a patchwork family bound by more than blood. Coiro and UnbeliEVAble’s Longoria and Ben Spector executive produce.
Longoria and Spector were introduced to Miller-Rodriguez by IPG’s Amy Schiffman and sparked to her book. The two brought the project to writer-director Coiro through her manager Oly Obst.
This is the fifth sale for UnbeliEVAble this development season. Longoria and UnbelEVAble are with CAA and Brillstein; Coiro’s with WME and 3 Arts and Bloom Hergott; Miller-Rodriguez with Intellectual Property Group.
The show, a sequel to the long-running CBS hit of the 1970s and '80s, wrapped up its third year on TNT with a car-bomb explosion taking the life of Christopher Ewing (Jesse Metcalfe). Although it was clear who perpetrated the crime -- Nicolas Trevino (Juan Pablo di Pace) -- fans will never get to see the aftermath of Christopher's death and how it affects the Ewing family.
"TNT has decided not to renew 'Dallas.' We are extremely proud of the series, which defied expectations by standing as a worthy continuation of the Ewing saga," TNT says in a statement. "We want to thank everyone involved with the show, from the extraordinary cast to the impeccable production team, led by the show's creative forces, Cynthia Cidre and Mike Robin. We especially want to thank the people of Dallas for their warm and generous hospitality during the production of the series."
"Dallas" now joins a long list of shows, ranging from "Carnivale" to "Now and Again" to "Twin Peaks," that ended on an unresolved plot point. Are you sad to see the show go and miss a chance to follow up the ending?
The untitled drama is about a special agent (Hoffman) who is the fearless leader of a team of young agents on the New York City Joint Terrorism Task Force. A self proclaimed sexual omnivore but true romantic at heart, she relies on her innate intuition, wry sense of humor, and her unbelievable ability to draw connections between disconnected bits of information that come across her desk. Armed with intelligence of immediate threats from law enforcement agencies around the city and governments throughout the world, she and her team must confront and neutralize dangerous situations before they escalate.
Mendelsohn, Hoffman, Dinner and Winter executive produce with Madhouse’s Robyn Meisinger and Adam Kolbrenner as well as Carol Mendelsohn Prods.’ Julie Weitz.
The project stems from Felicity Huffman and Rachel Winter’s friendship which goes back some 10 years. They previously developed another TV script together, and Hoffman starred in the indie Stealing Cars, which Winter produced. They were looking for another project to do together when Winter shared with Hoffman an idea she had been mulling over about a woman leading a terrorist threat response team. The two teamed to develop the concept, setting the project up at Sony TV where they partnered with studio-based A-list auspices, Mendelsohn and Dinner.
Hoffman stars in ABC’s upcoming John Ridley drama series American Crime. The project is envisioned as an anthology drama, with a different case and different cast every season, so Hoffman is only attached to the first season.
This marks Mendelsohn’s second big sale in her first development season at Sony TV. Drama Game Of Silence, based on a Turkish format with David Hudgins writing, has a pilot production commitment at NBC.
WME-repped Mandelsohn, who moved to Sony TV after 14 years at CBS TV Studios,e continues as executive producer on CSI, which she ran for 14 seasons, and on its latest offshoot, CSI: Cyber, which she co-created, along with the other two CSI spinoffs, Miami and New York.
Winter, repped by CAA and Bob Getman, and author Anne Rice recently sold to Televisa a one-hour drama series based on Rice’s erotic “The Sleeping Beauty” novel series. On the film side, she is set to produce the untitled LeBron James bio pic.
The TV vet and multiple Emmy winner has joined the cast of FX’s upcoming Billy Crystal-Josh Gad sitcom The Comedians in a recurring role, TVLine has learned exclusively.
Delany will play Sharon, the longtime wife of Crystal’s veteran-comic character.
This marks the Body of Proof actress’ first major half-hour comedy gig in nearly three decades (since 1987’s short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender).
Delany will juggle her Comedians duties with her regular role in Amazon’s Hand of God, which is on the verge of snagging a series order.
Leprechaun: Origins helmer and VFX veteran Zach Lipovsky is directing Dead Rising from a script by Tim Carter, based on the bestselling Capcom franchise that’s spawned two sequels and sold 7.6 million copies worldwide to date. As in the vidgame, Dead Rising: Watchtower is set during a zombie apocalypse. When a mandatory government vaccine fails, a group of survivors must evade infection while hunting down the root of the epidemic, which leads back to a government conspiracy.
Filming is set to begin tomorrow in Vancouver with Carter and Tomas Harlan producing for their Contradiction Films banner. Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is aboard as executive producer. Contradiction Films’ prior digital releases include Mortal Kombat: Legacy, another live-action action video game adaptation that scored big with online audiences. That web series went viral when it debuted online on Machinima.com’s YouTube channel, paving the way for similar video game spin-offs to take advantage of the gamer-centric digital space.
Dead Rising is set to debut as a 90-minute feature in the U.S. on Sony’s digital platform Crackle, followed by SVOD, DVD, VOD, and TV. Content Media, which released the popular Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn film and Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist series digitally, has international rights to Dead Rising and will release it in both feature-length and episodic form.
Metcalfe is repped by The Gersh Agency, Untitled Entertainment and Jackoway Tyerman Wertheimer Austen Mandelbaum Morris & Klein. Ory is repped by The Gersh Agency and Pacific Artists Management. Madsen is repped by UTA and Untitled Entertainment. Haysbert is repped by The Gersh Agency and GS Management.
Lifetime picked up 13 new episodes to air sometime in 2015. "Marc Cherry has created a uniquely twisted world that blends his comic wit with devilishly ingenious characters and plot twists," says Rob Sharenow, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Lifetime.
Ana Ortiz, Dania Ramírez, Roselyn Sanchez, Edy Ganem, Judy Reyes and Susan Lucci star on Devious Maids, which focuses on the close-knit group of maids who work for wealthy and powerful Beverly Hills families.
The show's Season 2 finale aired July 13, attracting 3.5 million viewers according to live + 3 data, a healthy 58% bump over its same-day viewership.
Inspired by the hit telenovela Ellas son... la alegría del hogar, the show is executive produced by Cherry, Sabrina Wind (Desperate Housewives) and Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives).
Vanessa Williams announced on a taping of The Queen Latifah Show that she's set to wed Jim Skrip of Buffalo, New York.
"Vanessa, I have been trying to have a conversation with you ladies and gents, but I am blinded by the light coming from that bling ring on your finger," Latifah says, joking with the actress.
"Oh sorry darling, Williams said, "I got engaged. I have had a lot of good things happen ... I turned 50 when we were in rehearsal on Broadway, I just got engaged a couple of weeks ago. It has been a lot of blessings."
The twice-divorced mother of four is currently starring in a touring revival of The Trip to Bountiful, which opens Friday in Los Angeles. She costars opposite Cicely Tyson and Blair Underwood, who also appeared with Williams on Queen Latifah.
Other than the close-up of her ring, the best part of the clip below is the resigned look on Underwood's face when Latifah brings up the engagement. Time for girl talk, mister!
The installment of Latifah airs Tuesday. Here's a sneak peek: Video.
But NBC stepped up in a big way. The network has deep ties with the actress, helping her launch her production company UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, which is based at Universal Television, and doing projects with her as a producer.
I’ve learned that Telenovela, from Cougar Town co-executive producers Chrissy Pietrosh and Jessica Goldstein and Universal TV, will get a 13-episode order if Longoria commits to star and a pilot order if she doesn’t. The project is expected to hire a casting director shortly. Additionally, since Telenovela is set behind the scenes of a telenovela, NBC is in discussions with sister network Telemundo to make episodes of the fictional telenovela that would air on the Spanish-language net.
The ABC project, from ABC Studios and the Trophy Wife team of Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, is being fast-tracked as a script that will go to pilot with 13-episode penalty for Longoria attached if she commits to star.
Longoria had been developing Telenovela through UnbeliEVAble with Universal TV and NBC for some time. Based on an idea by Longoria, it centers on an ambitious telenovela star — a character created for her — who struggles to stay on top in a world where the drama on-camera is nothing compared to the drama off-camera.
Last season, NBC developed the project as a one-hour with writer Robert Harling. The new, half-hour incarnation is being penned by Pietrosh and Goldstein under the overall deal with Universal TV they entered earlier this summer after a three-year stint at ABC Studios. The two exec produce alongside UnbeliEVAble’s Longoria and Ben Spector.
The untitled ABC comedy will be written by Trophy Wife creators Halpern and Haskins, who will exec produce with fellow Trophy Wife exec producers Stupnitsky and Eisenberg.
Longoria and Spector would executive produce if Longoria stars in it. The comedy centers on Mia, a character written for Longoria. She is a successful home renovator who can’t stop problem solving when she leaves the job site – especially when it comes to her boyfriend, her family, a random delivery guy, and basically everyone she comes into contact with. The project was taken out by ABC Studios, where Halpern & Haskins and Stupnitsky & Eisenberg are based, sparking a bidding between ABC and NBC and ultimately landing at ABC. Longoria, of course, has a long history at ABC and ABC Studios, which cast her in Desperate Housewives.
It is not unusual for a network to commission two scripts for an actor it has a talent deal with, which is what CBS did for Martin Lawrence two years ago. But for two big projects at two different networks to be developed for the same actor is very rare.
Since the end of Desperate Housewives, Longoria had been focused on producing through her UnbeliEVAble banner. She executive produces Lifetime’s Devious Maids and her company has sold several projects this development season, including medical drama Critical at NBC and Texas political/family drama Pair of Aces at ABC.
Longoria is repped by CAA. Halpern and Haskins are with UTA and Mosaic. Eisenberg and Stupnitsky are repped by WME and Mosaic. Pietrosh and Goldstein are with ICM Partners.
Bergen died at her Southbury, Conn., home from natural causes surrounded by friends and family.
In addition to playing the terrorized wife in 1962's Cape Fear, Bergen was also well known for playing the first female president in Kisses for My President. She won an Emmy in 1958 for the anthology series Playhouse 90and was nominated again in 1989 for supporting actress for the miniseries War and Remembrance. Bergen also earned a Tony nomination for her performance in the 2001 Broadway revival of Follies.
During her long career, the actress hosted her own musical-variety series, frequently appeared as a game show panelist on To Tell the Truth, and was an accomplished singer and Broadway star. Bergen also branched out to writing in 1962, releasing the first of three advice books, The Polly Bergen Book of Beauty, Fashion and Charm. The success of the book eventually led to her own cosmetics company.
Most recently, she portrayed Felicity Huffman's mother on Desperate Housewives and the mistress of Tony Soprano's father on The Sopranos.
Bergin is survived by three children, Peter Fields, Kathy Lander and Pamela Fields, as well as three grandchildren.
In memory of Bergen, who was a passionate women's rights activist, her family asks that donations be made to Planned Parenthood in lieu of flowers.
Created and written by Meredith Lavender & Marcie Ulin (ABC’s Nashville), Pair Of Aces, described as an operatic family drama, revolves around brothers Chris and Alex Reyes, Latino golden boys who are both best friends and rivals. They are rising stars in Texas politics whose destiny is engineered by their manipulative mother Maria. She is determined to turn the Reyes family into the most powerful dynasty modern politics has ever seen. The drama explores the American dream and the lies, blackmail and manipulation it takes to rise to the top of power in Texas — and perhaps someday D.C. Universal TV, where UnbeliEVAable Entertainment has a first-look deal, is producing, with UnveliEVAble’s Longoria and Ben Spector executive producing alongside Conde Nast’s Dawn Ostroff and Gina Marcheschi.
Pair Of Aces reunites Longoria and Conde Nast. Last season, they teamed for drama project based on an another article from a Conde Nast magazine, Glamour‘s Real Deal, which sold to CBS with penalty. This season, UnbeliEVAble also has sold medical drama Critical to NBC. All parties are repped by CAA.
The Leftovers actor (and Teen Wolf/Desperate Housewives alum) will guest-star on Season 5 of Hawaii Five-0, TVLine has learned exclusively.
Carver will play Travis, an attractive young man who is devastated by a crushing recent loss, but finds comfort from an unusual source. His episode is slated to air Nov. 21.
Hawaii Five-0 returns Friday, Sept. 26 at 9/8c.
The synopsis for episode 2, "Heavy in the Head," reads: "Hunted and running out of solutions, Coulson puts his team right in the line of fire in the hopes of saving them all. But with General Talbot, HYDRA and Creel all on the attack, can they possibly survive? Meanwhile, a mysterious Doctor (Kyle MacLachlan) harbors some dangerous secrets that could destroy one of our core team members."
"One of our core team members" almost certainly means Skye, but wouldn't it be interesting if it was someone else like Coulson? "Agents of SHIELD" proved in Season 1 that it often doesn't go the predictable route, so with Raina working with MacLachlan's character, they could have some dirt on SHIELD's new director.
"Agents of SHIELD" Season 2 premieres Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
Stepping out at Showtime's pre-Emmys party on Sunday night to support her Emmy-nominated hubby, Huffman revealed to PEOPLE that she forgot something.
"Getting into the car to come here, I suddenly realized we didn't call a babysitter," she says, "It's a reflection of my parenting. I quickly taught them how to use the alarm system and was like, 'Bye, sorry!' "
Not to worry, Huffman and the Shameless star's daughters Sophia, 14, and Georgia, 12, are old enough to handle the alone time. "Both my girls are in the beginning of their teenage years," says Huffman. "I have to say, I'm truly loving it."
The proud mom continues, "I love that they're complicated and deep people. I love their highs and their lows. I love watching them become who they are."
One thing she doesn't love watching? Her husband's nude love scenes on Shameless.
"When he's naked [and] making out with someone, that's a bit of a problem," says Huffman, "But just naked, I love it. He's such a sexual guy … and he's built!"
Those loving comments will undoubtedly send their teen girls shrieking. For now, Macy's focused on shielding them from all things sex-related. "I don't want them having sex until they've had children!" the actor jokes to PEOPLE of his daughters. "I'm sticking to that."
Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment is producing with Universal TV where the company has a first-look deal. Lovejoy executive produces with Glenn and UnbeliEVAble’s Longoria and Ben Spector. For Lovejoy, this marks a return to her roots as a TV writer — she came out of the USC screenwriting program after winning the Humanitas Prize’s Student Drama Fellowship for a House M.D. spec. Lovejoy, repped by CAA and Bob Myman, went on to pen a rewrite on Disney’s Prom and was the highest-ranked woman writer on the 2010 Black List for her script The Arsonist’s Love Story. Critical also marks a reunion for Lovejoy and CAA-repped UnbeliEVAble, who developed together an adaptation of telenovela Pura Sangre at ABC last season.
Critical joins several other high-profile medical dramas set up so far this season. Three have received put pilot commitments: The Cure at Fox, from Malcolm Gladwell and Glenn Gordon Caron; an untitled project from the Parenthood duo of Jason Katims and Sarah Watson at CBS; and Code Black, based on Ryan McGarry’s feature documentary, from Michael Seitzman and Marti Noxon, also at CBS. Meanwhile, ABC committed a significant penalty to a medical drama from Amy Holden Jones.
2 Broke Girls‘ Max has bagged herself a Ewing!
Dallas‘ Jesse Metcalfe has signed on to guest star in an early Season 4 episode of the CBS sitcom, playing a lust interest for Kat Dennings’ impoverished waitress, TVLine has learned exclusively.
Metcalfe’s character is Max’s new weekly booty call (their relationship is so casual that she doesn’t even know his name). As of now, the Desperate Housewives alum is booked for one episode.
2 Broke Girls returns on Monday, Oct. 27 at 8/7c.
Longoria will play Sophia, a defense attorney who catches the eye of Det. Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) when they face off against each other in court. She joins an ever-growing list of Season 2 guest stars that includes Kyra Sedgwick, Jenny Slate and former NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens appearing as himself.
Season 1 of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" ended with Peralta "quitting" the NYPD in order to go undercover for the FBI. When Season 2 picks up, viewers will get to see how that operation is going for Jake, while Capt. Holt is busy facing off with his longtime nemesis (Sedgwick).
"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" returns Sunday, Sept. 28 at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.
Kyle MacLachlan is set to reprise his role as oddball attorney Josh Perotti in The Good Wife‘s upcoming sixth season.
MacLachlan’s comeback will coincide with the previously-announced return of Carrie Preston’s Elsbeth, with whom his character generated major sparkage (both in the courtroom and out).
Will lightning strike twice for the loopy lawyers?
“They haven’t sent me any scripts [yet]… the only thing I know is that he and I have a little sparing thing that we do,” Preston told TVLine Saturday at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. “I am looking forward to getting back in the ring with him for another round.”
MacLachlan has a busy fall ahead of him. In addition to The Good Wife, the Twin Peaks vet is set to recur on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Skye’s father.
The Good Wife returns Sunday, Sept. 21 at 9/9c on CBS.
If it feels like this has been going on a while – it has. After a parade of former ABC execs and DH executive producer/creator Marc Cherry took the stand, Sheridan’s last trial ended in a mistrial in March 2012 after the jury deadlocked 8-4. Dramatically trimmed down from the original $20 million case, Sheridan was now just claiming that she had been fired from DH because she spoke out against working conditions on the series. After that spring 2012 mistrial, Sheridan and her lawyers had a retrial only to see the Appeals Court put it on ice in June 2012. Then she tried several times to bring a form of the case back. After being denied in lower courts, they went all the way to the California Supreme Court – only to have the appeal denied in November 2012.
In fact, if Stern doesn’t disagree with the Appeals Court, the hearing next week would be the second time he himself has turned Sheridan down after approving a new trial twice now before. In October of last year he sided with Touchstone and denied her attempt at getting a new trial. At that time, Stern’s ruling was based on Sheridan not filing a complaint with the California Labor Commission within six months of the September 2008 incident where Sheridan claimed Cherry struck her on set. In January Stern surprised almost everyone involved and flipped his own ruling – now it looks like things are going back to Square 1.
Sheridan was represented, as she has been since filing her first suit in 2010, by Mark Baute of LA firm Baute Crochetiere & Gilford LLP. He was joined by the firm’s David Crochetiere. Touchstone were represented by Adam Levin of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp. Levin represented the defendants in the first trial.
"I wanted to get my kids out of L.A.," he tells PEOPLE. "So we moved to Minnesota right away. I've also got a house in rural Montana, which is our escape from Minnesota!"
"Our main house is in Minneapolis because my wife [Erin]'s family is there," the actor, 51, continues. "And whenever we can, we head to the middle of nowhere in Montana; we live in a small town. It's quiet and peaceful, ideal for really connecting with my family. It was definitely the right decision for us. I only have one chance to be a good dad to them."
"Just being able to be present for them is a huge blessing," Denton, who is father to son Sheppard, 11, and daughter Malin, 9, tells PEOPLE.
"It means so much to them when I'm around. It makes them more relaxed and confident to have their parents as active participants in their lives. It's a real luxury for me to be with them. They won't always want Dad around as they get older, but for now, they do. I want to make the most of it."
But even in rural Montana, Denton is still approached by fans. "I went to the DMV this morning," he says with a laugh, "and the woman who was helping me was talking about how much she misses Desperate Housewives. It was flattering."
A Selective EyeAnd he's not done acting quite yet. Denton, who was a perennial in PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive issue during the run of Desperate Housewives, continues to field job offers. "I can afford to be a little more choosy," he explains.
"Obviously, Desperate Housewives was for a more adult audience, but my last few projects have been a lot more family-friendly. I did Grace Unplugged, which was an unapologetic faith-based movie. And I'm working on a kids' movie now. I've done three or four projects in a row that I'm happy having my kids see."
His newest project is Stranded in Paradise, a Hallmark Channel original movie airing Saturday at 9 p.m.
"It's a very nice, sweet romantic comedy. I costar with Vanessa Marcil, and we get stuck in a hurricane. I loved the script – and the fact that we'd be filming in Puerto Rico. And, again, it's a friendly movie that I can watch with my kids. There's a lot to be said about that."
One of the biggest questions of the show's Season 1 finale was just who Raina (Ruth Negga) was talking to when she handed that unseen person a picture of Skye (Chloe Bennet) and said, "I found your daughter." Per TVLine, MacLachlan will provide the answer, as he's set to recur on Season 2 as Skye's dad.
MacLachlan ("Twin Peaks," "Believe") is the second high-profile guest star to join "Agents of SHIELD" for Season 2. Lucy Lawless will also have a "mystery role" on the show, so feel free to connect whatever dots you might be inclined to connect.
"Agents of SHIELD" Season 2 premieres Sept. 23 on ABC.
“At that young age, having that happen to you, in your body, it awakens your sexuality at an age where it shouldn’t be awakened,” the actress, 51, said on the latest episode of “Oprah’s Master Class.”
According to the former Miss America, the trauma occurred on a trip with family friends to California when she was just a girl. One of the members of the traveling party, an 18-year-old woman whom the younger Williams admired, came into her room and molested her.
She wasn’t old enough to know what was taking place, but she knew that it wasn’t something that was supposed to be happening.
“At 10 years old, I had no idea what it was, but I knew it felt good,” Williams said. “And I knew I shouldn’t be saying anything, and I didn’t tell anyone. But I knew it felt good, but also something that was not supposed to be happening.”
Although Williams wanted to tell her parents what happened when she got back to New York, she never got the chance, as her father’s brother had just died.
“That was a family drama. Never really talked to my dad about it … and kind of suppressed it,” she said.
She noted that the incident has had a long-lasting impact.
“Had that not happened in my life and had I had an opportunity to have a normal courtship with a boyfriend at 16 or whatever and have your normal first kiss, there wouldn’t have been that shame that was always haunting me,” she said. “It made me more sexually promiscuous and more curious at a younger age than I should have been.”
Williams has previously written about the molestation in her 2012 memoir, “You Have No Idea.”
In Suits, McDonough plays Sean Cahill, an SEC investigator who is tasked to uncover any issues at Pearson Specter and will stop at nothing until he brings the firm down. He doesn't back down easily, viewers can expect major conflict. McDonough first appears in the Wednesday, July 9, episode titled "Leveraged."
Look at that face. He means business!
In the episode, Mike (Patrick J. Adams) moves for a hostile takeover of Gills Industries. Harvey (Gabriel Macht) and Louis (Rick Hoffman) will stop at nothing to make sure they win the takeover fight and things quickly get personal. Jessica (Gina Torres) and Malone (guest star DB Woodside) go toe-to-toe with Sean Cahill (McDonough).
Zelijko Ivanek, Brendan Hines and Eric Roberts also guest star.
McDonough has popped up on several of your favorite TV shows, including Desperate Housewives, CSI: NY, Justified and The X-Files. He recently appeared in TNT's Mob City.
Suits airs Wednesdays, 9 p.m. on USA.
The good news for the production is that it will be swapping one Tony winner for another. Bart’s replacement in the role of American theatrical producer Charles Frohman (played in the film by Dustin Hoffman), I’m told, is Michael McGrath, who won a Tony in 2012 for Nice Work If You Can Get It. He was also a Tony nominee for his performance in Mike Nichols‘ production of Spamalot. The amicable parting of ways — at least that’s what I’m told — is over that old standby, “creative differences.”
“Roger is fiercely brilliant,” my source said — as anyone who saw him in either of the earlier shows will agree. McGrath, too, is one of Broadway’s most appealing character actors. In addition to Paulus (Pippin), the show has music by U.K. pop star Gary Barlow (Take That) and choreography by Emmy Award-winner Mia Michaels (So You Think You Can Dance).
"It's just not in my future," the actress told PEOPLE at Wednesday's Brita Burbank YMCA special event, which celebrated the company's donation of water filtration pitchers and dispensers to YMCA locations across the country.
As children played and made their own fruit-flavored water at the outdoor event, Longoria, 39, explained what drew her to the cause.
"With kids, I love their energy and spirit and innocence," she said. "It's really important for us to be here today to talk to them about water because that stays with them. Water's the original energy drink. Water is really good for you. Water can be fun."
The Devious Maids producer – who's dating Mexican businessman Jose Antonio Baston – also shared her secrets for staying in shape.
"I run a lot. I'm a big runner. And I do yoga," she said. "So, I just alternate. Run, yoga, run, yoga. I do weight training as well."
And though she's all about staying hydrated, you won't find Longoria sipping from a disposable water bottle after a workout.
"So many end up in the ocean so I've banned them from the house," she said.
Officials with parent company Landry's said SHe by Morton's shut down effective Sunday. The restaurant had opened in late 2012 with a theatrical nightclub on the upper floor, but the club portion closed in early 2013.
"The restaurant was looking into alternatives to repurpose the space to enhance its dining experience," said Scott Marshall, SHe's chief operating officer. Unable to agree with the landlord on an overhaul after the club closed, "we were left with no alternative other than to sell the space back."
The restaurant was located inside the Crystals shops at the Aria casino and featured a catwalk and smaller portion sizes for female customers. Mirrors on the back of the dessert menus were designed for patrons reapplying lipstick after their dinner.
The steakhouse ran into trouble last month when the Southern Nevada Health District temporarily closed the restaurant. Health inspectors gave the restaurant numerous demerits, mostly related to keeping food at proper temperatures and maintaining accurate thermometers.
The eatery quickly reopened with a grade "A'' from the health district.
A pilot by Oscar winner “12 Years a Slave” writer John Ridley will hit ABC’s 2015 season. Weaseling from brainstorm to computer to airtime takes forever.
It’s get the idea, ponder it, develop a new twist, put it down, plump it up — add scenes, dialogue, characters. Pitch to a network’s decision-maker — if you can nail the appointment. With a go-ahead, they assign a writer.
Then it’s everyone’s suggestions, then it’s alter the original format, then the casting crapshoot, then a second draft, third draft, time slot availability and by then the decision maker has either hit the unemployment line or the original star choice is getting Social Security.
Result? “American Crime” has Felicity Huffman taking the handcuffs off racism, class warfare, gender, poverty, public housing and single parenthood. It’s how a murder touches everyone. She plays a desperate, tightly strung mother whose child’s killed. Co-star is Timothy Hutton.
We are not talking a musical here.
"Dallas" and "Desperate Housewives" actor Jesse Metcalfe now has a new gig as guest judge on truTV's "Motor City Masters."
Zap2it can exclusively reveal that he will make an appearance alongside the two season-long judges: Car designer Harald Belker and Automobile Magazine editor-in-chief Jean Jennings. A first look at the trio can be seen above.
The new truTV series will also feature appearances by Pete Wentz, Melissa Joan Hart, Robby Gordon, David Justice and Malia Jones. Each of the 10 episodes of the season will focus on different themes, such as car character designs (tied to the release of "Transformers: Age of Extinction"), custom car designs and body shape designs.
The series will premiere on June 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on truTV. Hosted by Brooke Burns, "Motor City Masters" brings together 10 expert designers to " explore various aspects of design, inside and out. In each episode, the contestants will have the ambitious task of creating new, fully functional (though not street legal) concept cars based on a theme that will showcase the each competitor's unique personality."
On Friday, Longoria was dining with Lake Bell and her tattoo artist husband, Scott Campbell, at Antica Pesa.
On Sunday, she was dressed in all white on the arm of beau Jose Antonio Baston as she perused art.
Also at the fair, James Franco was seen with his arms around two women at once.
A spy said Franco looked relaxed, even though he had to get to his show, “Of Mice and Men,” at 3 p.m.
Longoria and DNC finance chairman Henry Munoz worked together to raise millions from Latino and Hispanic donors for President Barack Obama's re-election bid in 2012 and have been laying the groundwork for the Latino Victory Project since then. If the effort and its sister political action committee prove successful, they could again raise tens of millions of dollars, this time dedicated to helping Latino candidates.
"People keep talking about the power of the Latino vote. But the truth is that (2012) was just the tip of the iceberg," Longoria told The Associated Press on Monday. "We are not tapping into the full potential yet of the Latino community."
The group is close to raising its goal of $5 million this cycle, project president Cristobal Alex said in an interview. The group also would focus on introducing chosen candidates to donors in a way Democratic groups have done for years with female and gay candidates.
"Let's consider it an investment in the nation. Let's not refer to us as 'the sleeping giant' after the midterms," Munoz said. "We are the change we have been waiting for."
Munoz and Longoria led the Obama campaign's Futuro Fund, which raised $32 million — much of which was from first-time donors. Neither has forgotten their allies and both have worked to keep those donors engaged.
"A lot of the Latino donors that we spoke to had never been asked before," Longoria said.
Among the group's first designed candidates: Amanda Renteria, a California Democrat who is running for the House; Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, who is running for lieutenant governor; Texas state Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, who is trying to become lieutenant governor; and Angel Taveras, the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, who is running for governor.
Taveras said the group's endorsement would help him "extend my reach nationally" to donors around the country.
Charlie Crist, who is running for his old job as governor of Latino-rich Florida, also won the group's backing.
"Latinos will decide that race," Alex said.
Added Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas: "This is going to be a big year for Latino candidates across the country."
The group is non-partisan but its first slate of candidate endorsements does not include any Republicans.
Longoria said the group eventually could back GOP candidates. "I don't think the solutions to issues of the Latinos lie within one particular party," she said.
About 11 million Latinos cast ballots in 2012's presidential election, yet about 12 million stayed home. Latinos vote at a rate lower than any other group and their numbers in Congress don't match their share of the U.S. population.
Although the group's first major announcement comes with buzz, Longoria acknowledges that Latino turnout will remain a challenge, especially in a year when Obama is not on the ballot.
"Everybody gets so energized and excited to vote in the presidential elections," she said, "but yet we're not energized enough to vote for the people who have to work with the president."
The brunette bombshell is known for getting some of her tattoos linked to ex-husband Tony Parker removed (the "nine" on the back of her neck and their wedding date on her right wrist), but it seems that she's heading toward a tat-free bod soon.
E! News has learned that Longoria went to see Dr. Tattoff, a tattoo removal clinic with multiple locations in California. According to an eyewitness, she was there for about 20 minutes and walked out with a bandage on her left wrist. The source adds that Eva seemed in pain during her visit (which makes sense considering what she was there to do).
It looks like Eva had a little star inked on her left wrist, which may or may not have any relation to her past romance since the celeb never revealed the meaning behind it (assuming there is one).
In 2012, the former Desperate Housewives star was spotted in Beverly Hills with a small red spot on her neck where she once had the word "Nine" (Parker's basketball jersey number) inked. It was just one of three Parker-celebrating tats that Longoria began to have removed back in January of that year.
The other two were the couple's wedding date on her wrist, as we previously mentioned, and Parker's initials, which were placed somewhere private and not for public viewing.
"Producing is my full time job right now so I've been dedicated all my time to it and my philanthropy is my second full time job… so I've been traveling and Skype has been my best friend," the star—who has just started a kickstarter campaign for her El Voto Hispano documentary—told E! News.
Her busy schedule and globetrotting ways leave little room for hitting the gym. Luckily, she's got a solution:
"I'm a runner. I don't need a gym, I'll go run anywhere. I was in Australia, Budapest and Paris...In Australia and I went running around the botanical gardens and when I got to Paris I ran around the Eiffel tower," she shares. "And when I was in Budapest I ran around their little medieval section passing the castle. It's truly one of the best forms of exercising and the best thing to do while traveling because you get to sight-seeing and as I'm running I was really standing under the Eiffel tower at seven in the morning going ‘this is so cool!'"
Admit it: The treadmill seems kind of lame right about now, doesn't it? Well played, Eva.
The former Desperate Housewives star has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the project, currently titled El Voto Hispano, which has already raised almost $125,000 in the last few weeks.
"We wanted to do the Kickstarter campaign in the same vein of a democratic process…We're trying to show Latinos, you matter, you count," Longoria tells E! News exclusively.
"[Latinos] made such a difference in getting Obama elected in 2012 yet we still have one of the lowest turnouts among all ethnicities and we still have the lowest turnout in midterm elections so that fact that you can be energized to turn out for a presidential election but not motivated enough to elect the people you have to work with, I think that's a problem."
She added, "One of the things we want to let Latinos know is that you have got to show up in midterm elections, too."
So how come Longoria decided to share her message through a documentary format?
"I feel like documentaries can really humanize an issue through a narrative, through storytelling where people can digest information and facts a lot easier," she told us.
"It just a presentation of facts about what's going to happened with demographic changes in the United States with Latinos."
Once Longoria is finished with the documentary, is there a chance that she may reprise her role on the hit show Desperate Housewives? Well, most likely not…
"I think Marc [Cherry] is super busy and successful with Devious Maids," she revealed.
"We fully explored the range of each character and Marc always says that there's really not much more to tell. But I love the girls and I miss playing Gaby."
"I work everywhere. I love planes, I love flying, I love airports," Longoria, 39, admitted on an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show airing Monday.
The always honest DeGeneres said what was on every weary traveler's mind: "That's weird."
But Longoria insists flying is more fun than it is a hassle.
"I know restaurants in certain airports that I will go earlier to the airport because I really want to eat there. Like in Dallas there's this barbecue place in terminal D, the American terminal. In San Antonio, there's a Mexican restaurant where the United Airlines are," she explained. "I love airports. I like reading, I like wifi. I get very excited."
It's a good thing Longoria likes going the distance: Her boyfriend, Jose Antonio Baston, is a Mexican businessman.
"I'm very happy," the former Desperate Housewives star said of her "uber private" beau. "He's a good dresser, too. I always have to step it up. It's exhausting."
The actor, 48, and his wife Ruvé welcomed their fifth child, a son, on Monday, March 31, his rep confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.
Born in Los Angeles, James Hamilton weighed in at 9 lbs., 9 oz. and is 22 inches long.
He joins sisters Clover Elizabeth, 2½, London Jane, 4, Catherine Maggie, 6½, and brother Morgan Patrick, 8.
“They weren’t complete until they literally had a handful,” McDonough’s rep tells PEOPLE, adding that the couple announce their happy news “with pride.”
“Big brother and sisters welcomed their newest addition with open arms and loads of hugs and kisses.”
While the arrival of James just about evens up the family gender divide, McDonough would have been equally thrilled with another daughter.
“My son Morgan and I will be in the McDonough House of Estrogen, but we wouldn’t have it any other way,” the actor joked to PEOPLE in 2011 while announcing his wife’s fourth pregnancy.
"Age is something you can't control, so why worry about it?" she says.
"I would never want to repeat my 20s," she tells Parade. "I welcome age with open arms because I want to evolve as a human being, gain more wisdom. I have so much more to do! And the only way you do that is with age."
Part of what makes the present such an enjoyable time for the former Desperate Housewives star is being in the company of Jose Antonio Baston, the president of Latin America's Televisa media company.
"I'm attracted to humor and intellect in a man," says Longoria, who got divorced from Tony Parker in 2011. "Let me tell you, I'm very lucky in my life."
The Devious Maids producer has been dating Baston, 45, since the end of last year.
In November, a source told PEOPLE Baston was "sweeping [Eva] off her feet and courting her like a proper gentleman."
The actress appears on the cover of Parade and opens up about her future family plans as well as her latest projects.
"I've always wanted a family," the Devious Maids producer tells the magazine. "I believe in family. But children are a product of love. So I don't think I'll go off and have a baby by myself. I do not have that need to procreate."
As for getting older—the Texas beauty recently celebrated her 39th birthday—Longoria would "never want to repeat" her 20s and has no worries about aging.
"I welcome age with open arms because I want to evolve as a human being, gain more wisdom," the Desperate Housewives star admits. "I have so much more to do! And the only way you do that is with age."
Longoria has shifted from appearing in front of the camera and is now focusing on appearing behind-the-scenes, as a producer and director.
"Had I known how hard acting was going to be, I wouldn't have done it," Longoria explains. "There's no recipe for success, no rhyme or reason why certain actors are famous and others aren't. As an actor, you kind of just say your lines and cross your fingers."
To read more about the new love in her life as well as her charitable and philanthropic work, be sure to pick up the issue on Sunday.
“The two were close the entire evening,” says a spy at the Ciroc bash at Cavalli Miami. “She was sitting on his lap.”
The former “Desperate Housewives” star, who was served a 3-foot-tall cake, was heard saying, “I love wine. I’d rather receive wine than flowers for any occasion.”
Other guests included Ken Paves and artist Romero Britto.
And she may be the only one after having sizzled on the screen for eight years on the hit drama Desperate Housewives
Looking drop dead gorgeous in a navy blue gown with sexy cutouts on the side, the brunette beauty covers Prestige Hong Kong's March 2014 issue, in which she opens up about her status as a sex symbol, her fiercely private personal life, and when she'll be returning to the boob tube after a busy few years working behind the scenes.
"I never thought of myself as a sex symbol," she tells the mag. "I just do the cover of magazines. I think it's really unfair men or people in the world think you can't be both—you can't be a sex symbol and a serious businessperson. Who says I can't be both?"
Fair enough. The actress continued, "Who says I can't do the cover of Maxim and run a production company? Women are complex. Women are beautiful and intellectual and spiritual and social and entrepreneurial. They're everything. And I think I'm a great example of that."
However, there is no doubt that the 39-year-old star is an expert at heating up the silver screen, and while she's recently taken a break from the cameras to focus on her production company as well as her foundation, Eva admits she will, eventually, be back on TV.
"I'm definitely going to return to television," she revealed. "I love the medium of television. I love going to the same place every day to work. I love diving into a character. I mean I really miss Gabi [from Desperate Housewives]. I really miss the family that we created for eight years. So I'll definitely be back. I love the idea of giving opportunities to women in the business, so most of the things I'm developing have female leads."
Clearly, Longoria's professional life is going well, so how are things on the personal side (in mid-November, a rep for the actress confirmed she was dating Mexican businessman Jose "Pepe" Antonio Baston)?
"You can ask, but I won't answer," the private celeb replied when asked what's going on with regards to romance side of her life. "But my social life is amazing. Lots of friends and things going on all the time. I'm at a very happy place in my life right now, both personally and professionally."
At a party hosted Friday night by Ocean Drive magazine in Miami – and where March cover girl Longoria also celebrated her 39th birthday – the actress told PEOPLE there was no doubt whom she's infatuated with on the show.
"Jon Snow!" she said excitedly, referring to the show's brooding bruiser who lost his half-brother and stepmother in last season's shocking "Red Wedding" episode.
Longoria also joked that while she's friends with Kit Harington, the actor who plays Snow, her attraction ends solely with the TV character.
"I don't like Kit Harington, I love Jon Snow," she cracked. "I like the fur coat and the bow and arrow and the swords – that person."
Longoria – who turns 39 on Saturday – celebrated her birthday eve with dinner at the new Cavalli Lounge in South Beach. Joined by a group of friends and boyfriend Jose "Pepe" Antonio Baston, Longoria sipped Chloe wine, snuggled with her man, and copped to indulging in her birthday grub, guilt-free. "I love to eat!" she said.
Eva also explained that even though she's approaching the big 4-0, she feels sexier now than she did a decade ago, when she first broke onto the scene in Desperate Housewives.
"I had no idea what was happening 10 years ago, I was in a big vortex of madness," reveals Longoria, who was dressed in a curve-hugging red David Koma dress.
Nowadays, "I feel more intelligent about a lot of other things than ten years ago," she admits. "So that makes me feel sexy."
After dinner, Longoria celebrated with Ciroc Vodka cocktails and was presented with a big birthday cake. Hairdresser-cum-best friend Ken Paves was on hand to help blow out the candles and show off his own creation: Longoria's sleek new bangs.
The birthday girl spent the rest of the event dancing with friends and cuddling with Baston late into the night.
And while the multi-hyphenate already has a full résumé – actress, producer, director (she helmed the Devious Maids premiere), political activist and Master's Degree holder – she has no interest in jumping into one particular field: politics.
When we asked if she'd consider running for office, her answer was clear: "No, no, I think the biggest part of politics is [being a] citizen, so I love participating in that manner."
Vanessa Williams: We did "[The Trip to] Bountiful" until October and the [Lifetime] movie in November. In December, I did a concert in Atlantic City and Hawaii, and in February, I am going to jump into "After Midnight." I will be in it from April 1 to May 11.
Zap2it: Will you be singing the same ballads Fantasia did, or will they change the score?
Vanessa Williams: Everyone does the same things, [such as] "Stormy Weather."
Zap2it: Are you going to do "The Trip to Bountiful" when it opens in Los Angeles?
Vanessa Williams: I start rehearsals in August, and it opens in mid-September and runs through the second week of November. It was one of those things as soon as I heard that Cicely [Tyson] had agreed to do it in L.A., I was definitely there for her. Not only that, I did not want to give up my role, but I loved it so much. It was one of those magical combos, and I hope they can get as many of our original Broadway cast. I don't know if Cuba [Gooding] signed on. I don't know if Blair [Underwood] signed on.
Zap2it: Were you a fan of playwright Horton Foote before this?
Vanessa Williams: I had seen "Tender Mercies" and the "Trip to Bountiful" movie, but I had never seen it onstage. You hear the stories and listen to his voice every night. I have seen documentaries and footage. And when we started our rehearsals, I saw a great piece of footage, and I feel very connected to him and would love to do more.
"The Trip to Bountiful" airs Saturday, Mar. 6 on Lifetime.
American Crime, which will be written, directed and executive-produced by the Oscar winner, tells the story of a group of people whose lives are turned upside down by a racially charged trial. Michael McDonald will also executive-produce.
Huffman will play Barb Skokie, a woman who raised her sons alone in public housing while her ex-husband Russ (Timothy Hutton) was off gambling. Barb continues to harbor resentment at being the only single white woman in the housing project and for the treatment she receives by her neighbors. When her son Matt is murdered, Barb decides to stay close to the investigation to get answers and isn't above giving statements to the press if it will keep the pressure on police to find the killer.
The pilot marks Huffman's return to ABC after her eight-season run as Lynette on Desperate Housewives, which earned her an Emmy for lead actress.
In addition to Huffman and Hutton, the cast includes Elvis Nolasco, Caitlin Gerard, Richard Cabral, Johnny Ortiz, Benito Martinez, W. Earl Brown and Penelope Ann Miller.
The actress visited her longtime hairstylist's salon in West Hollywood for more than a trim. The star got blunt bangs during the appointment.
Eva tweeted a photo of her mane makeover via Twitter, posting an image of her just-washed wet hair and faux-terrified face, while Paves looks on. When she emerged from the salon she sported her usually loose waves. (Twitter Photo)
Then on Tuesday the former Desperate Housewives star switched it up again, flat-ironing her new do for an extra-sleek effect.
The 38-year-old was one of three stars that flaunted new fringe over the weekend. Rihanna and Katy Perry both sported bob-and-bangs combos.
The actress, singer and former Miss America watched the matinee performance of "After Midnight" on Wednesday and then broke it to the cast backstage that she has signed up for a stint in the Broadway show celebrating Duke Ellington's years at the Cotton Club nightclub.
Says Williams: "It's an honor to jump in. It's a well-oiled machine, up and running and I think it'll be a perfect fit.
Williams, who next month turns 51, will start as a guest vocalist on April 1 and end May 11, replacing Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds and Toni Braxton, who in turn replaced k.d. lang.
According to the docs, Gale Harold -- who played Brian Kinney on "Queer as Folk" -- got a restraining order against Danielle Saklofsky after telling a judge point blank, "I am afraid."
Harold claims he tried breaking up with Saklofsky, who told him, "I will never let you leave me." He claims she attacked him a few days later outside a restaurant yelling, "You cannot leave me, I will destroy you" and then pummeling him.
Harold claims there were other attacks ... including the time she got really mad after getting fired -- he says she tried hitting him in the head with a mason jar of coins.
Saklofksy got her own restraining order against Harold ... and -- surprise -- she tells a different story. Saklofksy claims Harold grabbed her by her pony tail and then slapped her.
And here's how ridiculous it's gotten. In Harold's papers, he describe her as 5'5" and 145 lbs. In her response, she says, "The physical attributes are wrong ... I am about 5'7" and weigh 120 lbs.
They're both ordered to stay 100 yards away from each other.
The 27-year-old actor, best known for playing Bree Van de Kamp's gay son Andrew on Desperate Housewives, shared his story with fans on Sunday, Feb. 2, just hours after Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his New York City apartment. "Against the advise of others; I had to write this open letter. I can't stay quiet anymore about this...I am an alcoholic and a drug addict," Pyfrom wrote.
"And yesterday I celebrated five months of sobriety. I'm relatively new to being sober, considering the scope of time that I've been an addict. But within that scope, this is also the longest I've been sober; since I began using," he continued. "I've considered what's at stake, for myself, by sharing this—but I find myself without regard for that. I won't allow my selfish needs to get in the way of potentially reaching another human being's life."
"When news reaches us of a public figure, like Mr. Hoffman, passing away from such a terrible affliction; we tend to get the feeling of great loss. It is a great loss. I feel grief when I hear of such a talented human being leaving this earth...But every life is important. There are just some that hold the public forum. The loss of their life is no more, or no less, of a loss than anyone else's," the Tanner Hall star said. "And anytime a person uses drugs, they are taking the chance that their life will be taken from them. Whether they steal your breath, or rob one last beat from your heart—that is left to fate. But they will steal your life from you. Whether you are the occasional user, or someone that uses every day. Every moment spent using drugs (alcohol included) is a moment stolen from your life. A memory you will only recall with vague reflection—through fogged glass. Leaving an imprint in your memory, like a stamp without it's ink. That is, of course, my own realization."
Pyfrom shared his struggles publicly because he "could not hear of another person being robbed of their life, due to addiction; knowing that I stayed quiet about mine. Knowing that if, by sharing my story, I could potentially save a life—and didn't; that I would no longer be able to look myself in the mirror with the same pride I've allowed myself to have, for overcoming the thing that almost took my life."
"For several years, I lived for drugs. I lived for other things as well. But drugs dictated the other things I lived for. I thought more about using, than I thought about any other 'pleasures.' I put myself in places I never would have ended up, otherwise, for the sake of getting high. There are countless nights of blacking out, and making poor decisions as a result of my overusing. I wasted the time of valuable people, who worked so hard to pull my career to a higher place, by allowing my addictions to tug me out of their grip. I worried the people that care about me. My friends. My parents. My siblings. All for the sake of something that I believed I had control over. I didn't even realize how low drugs and alcohol had pulled me. But I stand now from a higher place. Not higher than anyone else, or anyone that is using. Just a higher place, than I was before. My thoughts are clear. My body is energized. And the creativity now flows out of me, easier than it ever had when I was using. I wake up looking forward to my days, rather than looking for a way to get through them. I feel the life inside of me now. The life that I deprived myself of for so long."
Pyfrom doesn't judge others. Instead, he said he only has "compassion for those who currently struggle with their addictions. I am fortunate enough to no longer struggle with mine. I can say with all honesty, that I have no desire to ever use again. But it took a long time, and a lot of struggle, to finally reach that place. We sometimes have to learn through our own experiences—as I had to with mine. I was too strong-minded and wrapped up in my own addictions to listen to anyone... I thought I had control. I thought...but now I know."
"I am an addict," he reiterated. "And I've never been more proud, saying it. Because when I think about where I've been, and where I am now...I am proud of the man who has addressed and admitted to himself, what was once a clouded denial. Self-pride and love are two things I've never had for myself, until recently. I hold them closely, now, by my own humbled awareness. And I wouldn't trade that in for any pill, line, or drink—on any day. I could go on, but I'll leave it here, for now..."
Pyfrom concluded his letter by offering words of "encouragement" and "strength" to those who "are currently battling an addiction" and those who "have never even sipped a drink."
"You may be one of the lucky ones that leaves unscathed from it all. With all sincerity; good for you. But I leave it to you to decide if it's worth risking; finding yourself on the unfortunate end of things," he said. "Just know that either way, I'm pulling for you. With only love...I hope you can save your life."
Pyfrom reached out his fans for sending their "love and support" after he'd published the blog post. "I am overwhelmed with joy and gratitude," the TV star wrote in an Instagram caption. "Thank you for letting me share. And thank you for sharing your love with me."
Sheridan originally sued ABC, Touchstone Television and show creator Marc Cherry for $20 million in April 2010, claiming she was unfairly fired for complaining about Cherry hitting her in the head during a September 2008 argument. In March 2012, a judge declared a mistrial when the jury couldn't reach a verdict and remained suck at 8-4 in Sheridan's favor.
An appeals court ruled in August 2012 that Sheridan was not fired, but rather the studio and network decided not to renew her contract. Sheridan then went after Touchstone for retaliating against her work condition complaints, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Stern ruled that she should have filed a complaint to the California Labor Commissioner within six months of the alleged incident before filing a labor lawsuit.
The basis for the issue of the new trial is not yet clear, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, Sheridan's lawyers filed papers last week with recent rulings proving that Sheridan was not required to exhaust administrative remedies by filing with the Labor Commissioner before filing a labor lawsuit.
A lawyer for Touchstone told The Hollywood Reporter that the company will be appealing.
A status conference has been scheduled for April.
The happy couple, who went public with their relationship in November, have spent the last 10 days on vacation in Acapulco, Mexico.
Yesterday the 38-year-old former “Desperate Housewives” star was photographed in a tiny blue bikini aboard the yacht the love birds have been spending their time.
Baston, 45, heads Televisa, the largest media firm in Latin America.
Joining in on the fun has been Mexican actor Jaime Camil and actress Sofia Castro, the step-daughter of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Longoria will helm the Season 2 premiere of the Lifetime soap, which she and Cherry both executive-produce. "After eight years of training, I told her it was time," Cherry said. "It's something she's always wanted to do."
Now that the former Desperate Housewives star is getting ready to pull double duty behind the scenes, the question quickly turned to when Longoria will guest-star on the hit Lifetime series. Although there isn't a plan (yet), Cherry confirmed he was interested in her popping up on screen "The Eva Longoria card — I will play that at some point, absolutely," he said.
However, he was also adamant about waiting for the right role for his former leading lady. "I told Eva, 'If I'm going to bring you on, it's something that I think would be great for you,'" he said. "Lifetime can't wait for me to bring her along, but Eva and I have to have talks about that first."
Looking ahead to Season 2 of Devious Maids, which returns on April 20, Cherry reflected back on Desperate Housewives — and its infamous sophomore slump. Cherry said one of the most important lessons he learned was "know what your second season is before you write your first season."
Cherry said he was grateful that he and the writers had months to prep Devious Maids' 13-episode cable series, as opposed to the six weeks Cherry said he had to prep for a 22-episode season of Desperate Housewives. "When I did Desperate, I was just trying to get through that first season. When Season 2 started, I didn't know what I was doing," Cherry said. "I learned a lot of lessons the hard way."
Therefore, for Devious Maids, Cherry "very much plotted everything for Season 1 with an eye towards Season 2." One such plot point Cherry knew from the get-go would come up in Season 2 would be Marisol's transition from a maid to a wife with her own devious maid. "She becomes one of the employers," Cherry said. "She's moving on up but she has a lot of deviousness to deal with in her house."
In a twist from last season, which was criticized for depicting Latina actresses in stereotypical blue-collar roles, Marisol (Ana Ortiz) will have a white woman named Opal as her maid, played by Joanna Adler. "So she'll be reversing racism in that particular household, so we're trying to diversity a little," Cherry said in reference to last summer's controversy. Adler's character is one of several that will be introduced this coming season. "You'll see some new faces, and we'll say goodbye to some other faces," Cherry hinted.
The second season of Devious Maids premieres on April 20 on Lifetime. Are you excited for Longoria to direct? Who do you think she should play on the series?
The couple wed in a private ceremony in Los Angeles. "They're very happy," a rep for Tomlin told the magazine.
In August, Tomlin said they were mulling getting married after the Supreme Court ruled against the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8, which secures federal benefits for gay married couples and cleared the way for same-sex marriages in California.
"We're thinking maybe we'll get married," Tomlin said at the time. "You don't really need to get married, but marriage is awfully nice. Everybody I know who got married, they say it really makes a difference. They feel very, very happy about it."
Tomlin, 74, and Wagner, 78, have collaborated several times during their relationship, including Tomlin's one-woman show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, and the film The Incredible Shrinking Woman, both of white Wagner wrote.
Tomlin most recently appeared in Web Therapy.
"It's especially awesome after how long it's been since my first cover," the former Desperate Housewives star told the magazine. "I've had a beautiful relationship with Maxim over all these years."
Longoria—who admitted to owning multiple vibrators in her 2006 cover story—thinks this photo shoot is her best yet. "When someone sees the cover of this issue, they're going to say, '¡Que rico!'" the TV star, 38, says. "'¡Que rico!' Say it when something is really good, when you're enjoying something."
While it's fun to play up her bombshell image, Longoria insists that she's more than just a pretty face. "One thing people are usually surprised about when they get to know me is how domestic I am. So when you see the sexy Maxim cover and then you put it against me in an apron with flour in my hair, it takes a moment to reconcile that image," says the star, who also received her master's degree in 2013.
In fact, Longoria asked to reschedule her interview in order to finish her thesis. The magazine, of course, obliged her request. "I was like, 'My brain can't jump that fast from a Maxim interview to a thesis!'" says the philanthropist and TV producer, who's currently dating Televisa president Jose "Pepe" Antonio Baston. "Back in high school I really was the chameleon, too. I got along with the honors math club, then I would go to cheerleading practice, and then I was a band geek as well."
Eva Longoria took full advantage of the sunny weather at her current location by hanging out poolside with some friends. The former Desperate Housewives actress flaunted her toned bod in a tiny two-piece and also slipped into a child's life vest for a funny photo.
"Anyone need a lifeguard?? (I'm wearing Manuelito's floatie)," she wrote on her WhoSay page (Manuelito is the son of Longoria's friend, Alina Peralta).
The brunette beauty hasn't disclosed where she is, but Eva shared that she was taking a trip with some pals for New Year's. "Bye bye LA...New Year destination here we come!!" she wrote with a photo of the group on a private plane.
In related news, the Latina actress recently blasted a media report claiming had been cast on three Latin soap operas on Televisa, one of which is a role as the mother of Dancing With the Stars alum William Levy.
Longoria tweeted, "How can people make stuff up and print it? Not one word of this is true! Even has fake quotes from me!" She later followed with, "Latin Post IS responsible for inaccuracies! U should check ur sources Melissa Castellanos before printing. And now REPRINTING! Idiots."
Additions to Eva Longoria's résumé: occasional pool lifeguard and journalism professor.
The former Desperate Housewives star took to Twitter to slam a fake report claiming Longoria had been cast to three Latin soap operas on Televisa, one of which is a role as the mother of hunky Dancing With the Stars alum William Levy.
"Longoria has signed an exclusive contract with Televisa, locking her for three telenovelas starting with Cuna de Lobos, where she will play the infamous Catalina Creel. The production finally came true after Por Derecho De Sangre, what was supposed to be the remake, proved to be a major flop after the pilot wasn't selected, but the network now hopes that with Eva on board, Cuna de Lobos will step up to the original 80's classic," according to the Latin Times.
Mmm, not so fast.
Longoria tweeted, "How can people make stuff up and print it? Not one word of this is true! Even has fake quotes from me!"
Although Eva isn't slated to appear on the network, she doesn have close ties with the station. The actress is currently dating Jose Antonio Baston, who is the president of Televisa, Latin America's largest media company. "They looked like such a great couple," an insider at Art Basel in Miami told E! News of the pair, who reportedly first started seeing each other in October. "She looks so happy and he is so madly in love with her."
"He wants her to be in the spotlight," the source added. "He clearly looked uncomfortable when the attention was on them. He loved it when it was just him and Eva."
When she's not hanging with her beau, Longoria is busy being the executive producer of the Lifetime series Devious Maids, which was recently picked up for a second season.
The couple attended Haute Living and Hublot's The Art of Fusion party on Friday, Dec. 6 in Miami, where the twosome was unafraid to flaunt their love for each other, with an eyewitness telling E! News the duo walked into the event holding hands and they were seen kissing all night.
"They looked like such a great couple," an insider tells E! News of the pair, who reportedly first started seeing each other in October. "She looks so happy and he is so madly in love with her."
While the former Desperate Housewives star was seemingly enjoying the spotlight at the party, smiling from ear to ear as she posed for pics in a pair of black leather pants, a crisp white blouse and red pointed toe pumps, her man was not nearly as comfortable with the cameras, according to the eyewitness, and instead let his ladylove take center stage.
"He wants her to be in the spotlight," the source adds of Baston, who is the president of Televisa, Latin America's largest media company. "He clearly looked uncomfortable when the attention was on them. He loved it when it was just him and Eva."
Other celebs at the event, which was presented by Dom Perignon, included Kim Kardashian's BFF Jonathan Cheban, as well as former Real Housewives of New York star Jill Zarin, Lenny Kravitz and Serena Williams.
A rep for the 38-year-old actress confirmed to E! News last month that Longoria is indeed dating Baston, 45, after the couple was photographed together attending the Museo Jumex Opening dinner at Casa De La Bola in Mexico City, Mexico on Nov. 15.
Longoria was last romantically linked to Ready for Love reality star Ernesto Argüello. The twosome split in August.
The 38-year-old beauty was nervous about taking it all off for the cameras, telling the magazine she "feared being so naked" for the photo shoot. Longoria added that "not being able to hide anything" amped up her insecurities. Given how sensational she looks, she had nothing to be worried about.
The actress, entrepreneur, producer and philanthropist recently made headlines for a very different reason: she's in love! On Monday, Nov. 18, Longoria's rep confirmed to E! News that the TV star is dating Jose"Pepe" Antonio Baston.
The handsome 45-year-old is the president of Televisa, Latin America's largest media company.
Prior to romancing Baston, Longoria dated Ready for Love reality star Ernesto Argüello. She was also romantically linked to George Clooney, but the sexy star denied their alleged coupling via Twitter. "As interesting as the George Clooney rumors are, they aren't true," she tweeted. "George and I have been friends for years,"
Longoria was also married to Tyler Christopher from 2002 to 2004 and Tony Parker from 2007 to 2011.
Posh ditched her ever-present high heels and got down on her hands and knees to make last-minute tweaks to the long black sheer-paneled design from her collection. Hours later Longoria rocked it on the red carpet.
Beckham totally transformed the dress for Longoria, transforming it from the midi that originally hit the catwalk at her Spring 2013 show last year into an elegant full-length stunner.
The designer also supported her friend on the red carpet, wearing yet another floor-skimming black look from her own archives, consisting of a silk plunging blouse and matching skirt.
"He's been sweeping her off her feet and courting her like a proper gentleman," a source tells PEOPLE of Baston, 45, the president of Televisa, the largest media company in Latin America. On Friday, he escorted the actress/producer, 38, to the Museo Jumex Opening dinner at Case De La Bola in Mexico City, Mexico.
Cameras flashed incessantly as the wealthy businessman and the former Desperate Housewives star made their way down their first red carpet together.
Last month, Longoria and Baston dined at New York's Serafina restaurant. A source told PEOPLE at the time that the Longoria was "very happy" with the budding relationship and that Baston was "crazy about her."
The actress tweeted Tuesday, "Sorry to disappoint some, but #bodyofproof will not be resurrected. May she rest in peace. Time for new adventures!"
ABC has no comment.
Last month, reports surfaced that ABC was considering bringing the procedural back for midseason after canceling it in May.
Weeks earlier, Delany told The Huffington Post that she thinks ABC would come to regret canceling Body of Proof, which delivered steady ratings in the Tuesdays-at-10 slot recently vacated by the axed Lucky 7. "I think we did OK. I think they could've kept us a little bit longer and I think they're going to probably regret it," she said.
Are you sad Body of Proof isn't coming back from the dead?
Rivera, who's been on the stand-up circuit since 2004, peppers his act with jokes about growing up half-Puerto Rican and half-Guatemalan. The NBC script is based on Rivera's act and will be written by Peter Murrieta (Wizards of Waverly Place).
Longoria, Murrieta, Ben Spector and Rivera are all attached as executive producers on the comedy, through Universal TV and Longoria's unbeliEVAble Prods.
Rivera recently appeared on Tonight Show with Jay Leno and also toured the country as part of NBC's "Stand-Up for Diversity College Tour" in 2010. Murietta's credits also include Greetings From Tucson, Hope & Faith and Level Up.
As for Longoria, the busy actress can currently be heard lending her voice in the lead role on Hulu's animated Mother Up, just uploaded yesterday. Longoria also executive produces Lifetime's Devious Maids and has several other projects in development at ABC, CBS, The CW and NBC.
Longoria executive produces Mother Up and also lends her voice to the main character, Rudi Wilson. Rudi is a disgraced former music executive who now finds herself managing her new life as the mother of two kids in suburbia. Two episodes of Mother Up will be immediately available on Hulu and Hulu Plus, followed by four more episodes posting weekly for the next month. After that, seven more episodes are set to launch in January.
Longoria also recorded a voice for an episode this season of Fox's The Simpsons. Following her lengthy stint on Desperate Housewives, Longoria has been busy as an executive producer, working on shows such as Lifetime's Devious Maids and NBC's Ready for Love.
Besides Longoria, Mass Animation's Yair Landau (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) and Michael Shipley (Family Guy) are also executive producers on Mother Up. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at Longoria's character.
A source exclusively tells PEOPLE that the 38-year-old actress has been dating "a wealthy, successful businessman from Mexico."
The budding romance has left the former Desperate Housewives star feeling quite blissful these days.
"She's very happy, and he's crazy about her," the source adds.
Longoria, who split from entrepreneur and onetime Ready for Love bachelor Ernesto Arguello in August, is not ready to reveal the identity of her new boyfriend, the insider says.
Just last week, reports surfaced that Longoria had rekindled her relationship with erstwhile flame Cruz after the two supposedly had a cozy lunch together in New York City, according to eyewitnesses.
Call it a case of mistaken identity: The source close to Longoria says that the actress "was not dining with Eduardo in New York" but was actually having a lunch date with her new man.
Both Longoria and Cruz later took to Twitter to deny the alleged Manhattan rendezvous.
"Sorry this is just not true," wrote Longoria, who included a link to a news story about her supposed lunch hookup with Cruz.
For his part, Cruz Tweeted, "Mmmmm ... Nope ... In San Francisco with my Girl Friend," and attached a photo of a car cruising down a mountainside road.
“She was making out like a bandit with a dark-haired gentleman,” said a spy. “It was PDA the entire dinner .?.?. to the point where it didn’t even seem like they were eating.”
We’re told the man was not Longoria’s ex, Penelope Cruz’s brother Eduardo. Longoria and Cruz were spotted smooching at Serafina over lunch Saturday in New York, then snuggling up over dinner.
Longoria’s rep had no comment.
EbonyLife TV's CEO Mo Abudu says the series will have "an African soul" featuring a cast of new and established pan-African talent that will showcase fashion by Nigerian dress designers. It is to air in summer 2014.
In a joint statement Monday, Abudu said the African version of the popular series will be filmed on location in a gated community of the upscale Lekki suburb in Lagos, Nigeria's bustling economic hub.
Disney EMEA general manager Giovanni Mastrangelo said it offers "the opportunity to engage African audiences through locally relevant and entertaining storytelling."
He said versions of Desperate Housewives have been produced in Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and the United States in Spanish.
It appears to be the case.
The former couple was spotted back together again, grabbing lunch at Serafina restaurant in New York City Saturday afternoon.
A fellow diner tells E! News Longoria and Cruz were in "good spirits" during their outing, with the former Desperate Housewives star rocking jeans, heels and a green tunic top for the occasion.
While it wasn't clear at first whether the duo was just enjoying a friendly meal or a date, the diner told E! News they were soon "all over each other."
"After a bit, they started holding hands and kissing," the diner said. "Then they began full on making out. They were seated a table out in the open at the front of the restaurant. They didn't seem to care who saw them."
Longoria and Penelope Cruz's younger brother were last spotted together leaving her L.A home separately in January.
The on-again, off-again couple first broke up in March 2012, got back together and then split again in June 2012.
The actress was previously linked to Ernesto Argüello, who she dated for a few months earlier this year.
Reps for Longoria had no comment.
Community will return with back-to-back episodes on Thursday, Jan. 2 at 8/7c. Parks and Recreation will move back to the 8:30/7:30c timeslot the following week with its 100th episode.
Chicago Fire spin-off Chicago PD will premiere Wednesday, Jan 8 at 10/9c, replacing Ironside, which has been pulled off the schedule. In the meantime, NBC will air other original programming, including Dateline, Saturday Night Live holiday-themed specials and holiday music specials starring Kelly Clarkson and Michael Buble. The final episode of Ironside will air next Wednesday.
Airing in place of Welcome to the Family on Thursdays will be an SNL Halloween special and the previously announced The Sound of Music Live! The Sing-Off will also move into the 8/7c timeslot in December for two weeks.
Judge Michael Stern ruled Friday that Sheridan's case couldn't proceed because the actress should have exhausted her claims to a labor commissioner before pursuing a trial.
Sheridan was seeking a re-trial on her claim that she was fired from "Desperate Housewives" because she complained that the show's creator Marc Cherry hit her on the head in 2008 on the set.
A jury in 2012 deadlocked 8-4 in Sheridan's favor that ABC had retaliated against Sheridan.
Adam Levin, an attorney for ABC, said the network was pleased with the ruling.
Sheridan's lawyers say they plan to appeal.
This marks the fifth sale this season for UnbeliEVAble, which also has dramas at NBC, ABC and the CW and a comedy at NBC. The company is repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment and Brad Small. O’Neill, repped by CAA, Adam Kolbrenner of Madhouse and Bruce Gellman, is coming off USA’s Burn Notice where he worked for the entire seven-season run, rising to executive producer. On the feature side, he just wrote the Warner Bros sci-fi feature Monte Cristo and is currently writing a film with Guillermo del Toro producing. Conde Nast is with CAA and Pamela Black.
The former Desperate Housewives star, who serves as executive producer of the latter's Devious Maids on Lifetime, couldn't resist capturing a few memories of all the fun the pair had south of the border when they attended Glamour's 15th anniversary party in Mexico City Thursday night.
The 38-year-old Longoria posted Who Say pics of her and the 40-year-old Sanchez lounging around at the affair after partaking in some of Mexico's national beverage.
"My and @Roselyn_Sanchez in Mexico having too much tequila!" wrote Eva in the photo's caption.
Both women received awards from the magazine and looked absolutely gorgeous, with Longoria sporting a thigh-high lace minidress and nude-colored shoes and Sanchez wearing a beautiful strapless red dress.
Eva also took a selfie with Roselyn and X Factor Judge Demi Lovato who, like Eva, has Mexican ancestry (Sanchez hails from Puerto Rico).
Besides the accolades, Longoria and Sanchez have another reason to be celebrating, as Lifetime announced in August in was picking up Devious Maids for a second season.
As Miguel, Chavira is furious that the boy is throwing away a full scholarship, and he can't stand the family of the girl. Off camera, he's already plotting ways to keep nasty boys away from his own daughter.
Wearing all black, tattooed, and looking a little tougher than he did as Carlos on "Desperate Housewives," Chavira smiles as he talks about his girl.
"My daughter gets to paint my nails and put clips in my hair, and I love it," he says to Zap2it. "I love my son, but my daughter has calmed me down.
"First, it's the convent," he says.
Chavira is not kidding. He had attended the University of the Incarnate Word in his hometown of San Antonio. He has already contacted the nuns about his daughter.
The second part of his plan may strike some fathers of girls as brilliant. Chavira has English mastiffs, which are huge dogs. Though he knows the dogs he has now won't be around if his daughter ever does start dating, he plans to stick with this breed and have two or three when she's about 15.
"Should she choose to go out with a boy, and if the convent doesn't happen," he says, "she will tell me on a Tuesday so I can starve the dogs Wednesday through Friday. And then we'll spray some deer blood, and we can't help what happens."
Chavira well remembers taking out his first big date and meeting her father. He says he recalls thinking, " 'I am getting the talk!' The father then said to me, 'I am trusting you. Do you know what that means?' "
In the Oct. 17 episode, Longoria plays the sexy teacher of the younger son of Miguel (Chavira) and Lisette (Justina Machado). "We come for back-to-school night and Miguel realizes she is someone he used to date," Chavira says. "When she starts flirting with him, Lisette is not having it." The actor admits it was a little awkward to work alongside his two television wives, "but we had a really good time. Both Eva and Justina are strong Latin women whose characters boss me around. You can't mess with them!"
"I didn't say I would never get married again," the 38-year-old, addressing the comments she made to Access Hollywood, told PEOPLE at Saturday's Eva Longoria Foundation Dinner in Hollywood.
"There's nobody in the works now," she clarified. "So, it's not really on my mind. It was very misconstrued."
In the same interview last week, Longoria touched upon prospective motherhood: "I don't think if I'm 50 and single – I'm not going to go and [have a baby] by myself," she was quoted as saying.
But according to actress Ana Ortiz, star of the Longoria-produced Lifetime show Devious Maids, Longoria is maternal by nature.
"She's our mother," insists Ortiz. As for no actual little Longorias, Ortiz adds: "Yes, it is a loss for the world. But whatever makes you happy as a woman, you have to follow your own destiny."
Not that the Devious Maids set will be childless. Since costar Dania Ramirez just announced she's pregnant with twins, Longoria and the other women will "get to be the aunties," says Ortiz. "We'll be squishing them and spoiling them."
In fact, says Ortiz with a laugh, "I'll be surprised if [Dania] holds the babies at all."
Don't expect the 38-year-old actress to follow in the footsteps of other single stars like Charlize Theron, Connie Britton and Sandra Bullock, all of whom adopted children later in life. "I'm not one of those women who are like, 'I must procreate!'" Longoria said of becoming a mom.
"I think kids are a product of love," she added. "So, if you find the right person and you want to have a family with that person, then that's when the time is right. But...if I'm 50 and single, I'm not going to go do it myself."
Longoria also denied rumors she had a fling with close pal George Clooney. "[Rumors] start all the time," she said. "Thank god it was a good one!"
During the interview, Longoria also admitted that she's not afraid of aging. "It's kind of irrelevant to me. I work out a lot, and I eat really well, and I just do that because I feel better," she said. "I'm not really overly concerned with it."
Longoria continued, "I love aging, as far as getting wiser. I have no desire to be 25 again. Maybe I want my 25-year-old body, but I don't want my 25-year-old mind!"
Even so, the single star—she recently split with Ready for Love reality star Ernesto Arguello—said she would consider going under the knife to turn back the hands of time. "I am not opposed to surgery or whatever stuff is going to be available," she revealed. "Sign me up!"
Produced by RCN Television, Pura Sangre (trailer below) ran for 126 episodes between 2007 and 2008 to strong ratings and award recognition. Written by Mauricio Navas, Conchita Ruiz and Tania Cardenas, it starred Marcela Mar and Rafael Novoa. Its international adaptations include a Mexican version by Televisa. In addition to Trust, CAA-repped UnbeliEVAble has a comedy at NBC inspired by sex therapist Laura Berman, and Longoria exec produces Lifetime’s Devious Maids. Katie Lovejoy, repped by CAA and Bob Myman, came out of the USC screenwriting program after winning the Humanitas Prize’s Student Drama Fellowship for a House M.D. spec. She went on to pen a rewrite on Disney’s Prom and was the highest ranked woman writer on the 2010 Black List for her script The Arsonist’s Love Story. In TV, Lovejoy also sold a pitch to ABC to adapt the bestselling book series The Spellman Files with Greg Yaitanes and has The Quilted Giraffe at Bravo!
And while most celebs are tirelessly working with a glam squad to ensure their gowns and accessories are positively perfect for the big day, others, like Alfre Woodard, are easing into awards season with a much more laid-back attitude.
E! News caught up with the actress at the press junket for 12 Years A Slave in New York City this week to see how she was preparing for her upcoming Emmys moment, and we were surprised to hear that she's barely had a second to think about it—and she's OK with that.
"I don't have a gown! I have been busy. I've been away from home since last July. I haven't even been in the country until this past week and I'm like, ‘What am I going to put on?'" she told us candidly with a shrug.
Eek! Sounds like a red carpet fashion nightmare to us, but for Woodard, it's simply a testament to her cool and collected spirit.
"That's what being a mature woman will do for you. You just stop and you keep your eyes on the prize and don't panic."
How inspiring! And while we completely commend her relaxed spirit about such a grandiose event, it probably doesn't hurt to be a celebrated star who is quite chummy with some pretty incredible fashion designers, too.
"Tadashi Shoji in his generosity said he would meet with me this week, so I am definitely wearing him, but who knows what it's going to be!" she laughed.
As for hair and makeup, Woodard is also planning on keeping it simple and styling herself.
"You know what, I feel like I'll just put on some eyelashes and lip gloss, because at the end of the day, I am an actor. I let the clothes horses and the actresses do it, but I think as an actor, we just do the best we can and go to be applauded."
We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
The former Desperate Housewives star, 38, has split with Honduran hunk Ernesto Arguello, 34, after dating for nearly four months, PEOPLE has confirmed.
"Eva is hard at work producing in Los Angeles, and Ernesto's work is based out of Honduras and Panama, which made their schedules difficult to coordinate," a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE. "They remain very good friends and adore each other through it all."
The split, which was first reported by TMZ, comes just weeks after the two were rumored to be headed for the altar.
The sexy actress met the Miami entrepreneur and philanthropist last year when Arguello was – ironically – cast as a bachelor in Ready for Love, the reality show Longoria produced.
Longoria is set to reunite with another old flame, though: She is shooting a guest appearance on the new NBC sitcom Welcome to the Family, playing an ex-flame to her former Desperate Housewives hubby Ricardo Chavira, who stars on the show. It premieres Oct. 3.
It ain't too surprising, considering Longoria is a die-hard democrat who even gave a speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Eva joins a ton of Hollywood stars who are already on-board the Clinton Express ... including Lionel Richie, Chris Rock and Barbra Streisand.
Of course, Hillary hasn't officially announced her plans yet ... but at this point, does she even have to?
Her mom, Esther, once suddenly went "unconscious" during a flight to the Kentucky Derby.
"I literally yelled, ‘Mom, don't die,' in the middle of the cabin," Hatcher told me at the premiere of her new movie, Disney's animated Planes. "It was that dramatic."
Luckily, her mom was OK. "She was fine," Hatcher assured us. "She's here tonight with my daughter, my dad, my friends. It's all a good and happy ending."
Actually not so much for everyone on the flight. Many were on their way to the Bluegrass State for the Kentucky Derby. "You're just like, ‘If I could stop the race, I would. I feel so bad,'" Hatcher said. "But it was my mom!"
Kendra Wilkinson-Baskett also recalled a not so pleasant flight experience. It happened when she flew to Alaska in a seaplane.
No biggie, except the plane's engine went out during the trip.
"I'm afraid of flying as it is," Wilkinson-Baskett said. "I wasn't getting back on that plane to go home until I got really really really drunk. So I went to a local liquor store and I got a big bottle of vodka and I just pounded it. That was the only way I was getting back on the plane. I don't remember the trip back, so it's all good."
Taking flight in a nightclub? Well, that's a much different story.
We do!
But we're not about to hold our breath waiting for a Wisteria Lane reunion.
"I don't think that script will ever be written," Teri Hatcher told me last night at the Planes premiere in Hollywood. "But if it was I'd be happy to consider it."
Hatcher told Extra last week, "I love the fans of the show so much, and they don't seem to be done with those characters."
Desperate Housewives premiered on ABC in 2004 and ran for eight seasons.
Maybe Hatcher can at least make an appearance on the Eva Longoria and Marc Cherry produced Devious Maids.
She just needs to watch the Lifetime show first.
"I've been traveling the whole summer," she said. "I haven't watched any television."
Hatcher in a maid's uniform? Totally hot.
In Planes, Hatcher voices Dottie, a forklift that fixes the planes.
She didn't try for a cartoony voice, but rather, "I actually did try to think of myself as very planted and in the earth as opposed to all the planes up there. I did try to have that centered grounded voice."
"I love the fans of the show so much," she says, "and they don't seem to be done with those characters. I think it would be great for them." Though "Desperate Housewives'" audience faded over the course of eight seasons, the series finale was still able to snag over 11 million viewers, proving that someone still cared about the story.
However likely or unlikely it may be, Hatcher hasn't closed the door on a movie. "If a script ever came across my lap, I would read it, hoping that it would work out," she says. Unfortunately for fans, it doesn't sound like it's in the cards for now. "I don't really see that happening," Hatcher admits.
Anything is possible, though. After all, they're making a "Veronica Mars" movie, and that show never reached "Desperate Housewives" lowest rating.
Yesterday, Us Weekly reported that the 52-year-old actor tried pursuing the 38-year-old beauty while he was still with his now ex-girlfriend Stacy Keibler. "George began pursuing Eva," a source told the mag. "He told her that he was still with Stacy, but had plans to break up with her and was interested in being with Eva."
However, Longoria took to Twitter earlier today to shoot down the Clooney romance rumors herself. "As interesting as the George Clooney rumors are, they aren't true. George and I have been friends for years," she shared.
We bet Longoria's new boyfriend Ernesto Argüello is glad to hear that. The former Desperate Housewives star dating the hunky Ready for Love bachelor in April and confirmed their new romance earlier this month. "I think that's why our relationship is so special—we truly started as friends," she told People, adding, "I guess we have the press to thank for pushing us to see something we didn't see!"
A source also recently told E! News of Longoria and Argüello 34, "She just got back from meeting his family. The two are very serious as he is crazy about her." The couple met last year on the reality dating show, which he starred on and Longoria produced.
Longoria and Argüello have been spotted out and about a lot recently. Last week, the cute couple got their PDA on with a handholding walk around Paris together. And not long before their Parisian getaway, Longoria and Argüello were all smiles while playing in the water together in Malibu. The actress and her super-sexy Latin hunk were snapped splashing around during some paddling boarding in the ocean.
As for Clooney, he and Keibler broke up earlier this month after two years together. It sounds like the twosome is still on good terms though. Keibler told E! News earlier this week, "I'm great [post-split], yeah," the upbeat TV star said. "George and I have always been friends and we always will be friends."
The new couple, who only confirmed their relationship status last week, held hands as they left the Georges V Hotel for a day of shopping in the City of Light.
The “Desperate Housewives” actress and the Miami-based entrepreneur met last year on “Ready For Love,” a matchmaking show Longoria executive produced for NBC.
Arguello, 34, chose Miss USA Shandi Finnessey as his date on the show but their relationship ended in 2012.
Longoria and Arguello were rumored to be dating for some time, but the beautiful brunette only recently confirmed their romance.
"I think that's why our relationship is so special – we truly started as friends," Longoria, 38, told People last week.
In court documents obtained by The National Enquirer, the 34-year-old Miami-based entrepreneur allegedly filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last year, listing $1,555 in assets and $4.1 million in total liabilities. According the report, he allegedly claimed he had just $5 cash on hand at the time.
The new couple, who only confirmed their relationship status last week, met last year on “Ready For Love,” a reality matchmaking show Longoria, 38, executive produced for NBC. The two were recently seen hand-in-hand while out in Paris.
According to the Enquirer, the “Desperate Housewives” star is worth an estimated $35 million.
"I think that's why our relationship is so special – we truly started as friends,” says Longoria, 38, who met Arguello, 34, last year when he was cast in Ready For Love, the reality dating show she produced. (Arguello's romance with his pick, former Miss USA Shandi Finnessey, ended in 2012.)
While the show aired this spring, buzz swept Hollywood that the two were an item. However, it wasn't until recently that their friendship turned romantic.
“I guess we have the press to thank for pushing us to see something we didn't see!" jokes Longoria, who just returned home from a trip to Nicaragua where she was introduced to his entire family.
“Eva and Ernesto are a perfect match," a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE. "They both speak Spanish, have the same religion and the same cultural background."
And both have a passion for philanthropy. Longoria recently accompanied Arguello to his native country of Honduras to visit the school he built in his community, and to see the homes he has built for impoverished families.
"Their friendship and their similar philanthropic interests laid the foundation for their new romance," the source adds. "They're very much in love."
Jesse Metcalfe planted a big smooch on fiancée Cara Santana during a romantic trip to Monaco over the weekend.
The smitten twosome couldn't keep their hands off of each other as they strolled through the coastal city.
Metcalfe looked dapper in a blue dress shirt and khakis, while Santana stunned in a sundress and sky-high white heels.
The couple were in town for the 53rd Annual Monte Carlo Television Festival and made sure to find some time to see the sights during their down time.
Both Santana and Metcalfe shared pics on their Instagram of them riding Jet-Skis in the ocean and working on their summer tans.
What a lovely vacation!
"I play Isabel, a new student who is finally Lisa's intellectual equal," Longoria says. "They become fast friends, and then things take a left turn when they realize they have different political views. This is a big stretch for me not only because it's voice work, which I rarely do, but also [because] I'm playing a Republican and I'm obviously a Democrat."
The former Desperate Housewives star was spotted Thursday in Los Angeles with Ernesto Arguello, where the twosome was snapped art shopping on La Brea together.
Longoria has shot down multiple reports claiming she's dating the former Ready for Love contestant (Eva produced the NBC show), but the pair continue to be seen together, only further fueling the romance reports.
The brunette beauty looked white-hot in her chic ensemble for the afternoon out, sporting skinny jeans, aviator shades and studded pointed-toe pumps. He was also dressed casual in jeans, trendy glasses and a gray sport jacket, looking handsome as he strolled behind the TV star.
Last night, Longoria took to Twitter to cheer on her ex-husband's team in the NBA finals (the 38-year-old star hails from Corpus Cristi and attended Texas A&M University).
"Go Spurs Go! I say Spurs in 5!!!!" she wrote, proving she has no hard feelings towards her former spouse (or at least his team).
We're sure her possible hot BF certainly helps.
The Desperate Housewives star received her Master's Degree in Chicano Studies yesterday from Cal State Northridge. As you can see, the 38-year-old actress was pretty proud of her latest academic accomplishment.
Longoria had lots of support from her family, friends and fellow stars, but don't think for a second she thought she was too cool for school: She posted a smiling WhoSay picture of herself with her "Chicano studies cohorts at CSUN," where she fit right in with her fellow new grads.
And her message for anyone considering going back to school or studying something new? You can make it work!
"Very excited to graduate for my Master's degree in Chicano Studies!" she wrote on WhoSay just before her ceremony. "You're never too old or too busy to continue your education!"
Smart cookie, that one is!
The actress announced on Twitter that she's graduating with her master's degree in Chicano studies from California State University, Northridge.
She revealed to E! News earlier this month that she'd been working on her thesis up until the very last minute to ensure that she graduated on time.
She shared with fans, "You're never too old or too busy to continue your education!"
Fellow actresses Garcelle Beauvais and Marcia Cross sent their well-wishes to the actress turned activist via Twitter.
Beauvais wrote, "Proud of you Eva."
Meanwhile her former Desperate Housewives costar tweeted, "Huge congratulations on your graduation today!!!! From Canne to Cap and Gown. You are really something. Xoxo m."
Congratulations, Eva, on your inspirational achievement!
The former Desperate Housewives actress gave onlookers an eyeful as she lifted up her glamorous green gown to avoid rain puddles while making her way into the premiere of Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) at the star-studded movie event.
In photos of the incident, Longoria’s crotch area is visible but it is unclear whether she was wearing flesh-coloured underwear beneath her dress.
Longoria appeared to be completely unaware of her fashion faux pas and proceeded to pose for photos alongside her fellow L’Oreal brand ambassadors including Doutzen Kroes, Cheryl Cole and Jane Fonda.
The celeb attended a Senate committee hearing today in Washington entitled "Strengthening the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for Minority Women," where Longoria—who is an entrepreneur herself as she own two restaurants: Beso and SHe, and a production company, UnbeliEVAble—testified to encourage more support for Latina business owners.
"Diversity breeds innovation, and that is what our country needs right now," the actress stated. "Latinas are one of our nation's greatest natural resources, and we have to treat them as such. If we invest in giving Latinas the tools to unlock their potential today, we can create a brighter economic future for our country."
So what is the star going to do to help bring her testimony to life?
The Eva Longoria Foundation has teamed up with philanthropist Howard Buffett to launch a program, starting in Texas and expanding to California, which will provide business training and $2 million in micro loans to Latina businesswomen.
Longoria tweeted, "It was an honor to testify at Senate hearing today about Minority Woman Owned Businesses!"
Way to help make a difference, Eva.
In a Huffington Post op-ed published Tuesday, she defended Devious Maids, which she executive produces, against criticism it's a "wasted opportunity" to bring diversity to TV.
"Devious Maids is a show that centers on five (count 'em), five Latinas who are bonded together by their jobs, their ambitions, their dreams and their life struggles," she explained. "The five women are maids by occupation only; it is what they do, not who they are."
"Are maids a realistic reflection of Latinas in America today??" she mused. "Yes, but they are not a reflection of every Latina."
"Stereotypes are constructed and perpetuated by those who believe in them. I choose not to," she wrote. "The only way to break a stereotype is to not ignore it. The stereotype we are grappling with here is that as Latinas, all we are is maids. And yet, this is a show that deconstructs the stereotype by showing us that maids are so much more."
"I take pride in the fact that this is the first show to feature an all-Latina lead cast," she added. "I take pride in the fact that these characters are not one-dimensional or limited to their job title."
"Are Latinas teachers, and doctors and lawyers in America today? Yes." she continued. "Should their stories be told as well? Absolutely. But, this show is called Devious Maids, not 'Latinas in America.'"
Eva concluded by reiterating that Devious Maids is not "a wasted opportunity; it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't tell the stories that haven't been told."
Preach!
The mom-of-four (Melanie, 25, Jillian, 23, Devin, 20, and Sasha, 13) is marking the holiday from her spot on stage in Broadway's The Trip to Bountiful. "I have a 3 o'clock matinee. No rest for the weary," Williams, 50, tells PEOPLE, adding, "Maybe my kids will surprise me with a dinner afterward."
Beyond the theater, she's also taking time to honor her late grandmothers, who both died after struggling with heart disease. (Her maternal grandmother died at 64 after having a massive heart attack, and her paternal grandmother died at 28.) And that's why she's partnered with Bayer Aspirin on its Handbags & Hearts campaign in the hopes of helping women understand the signs and symptoms of a heart attack.
"I'm very, very aware of heart health," she says. "I'm very mindful of my diet and exercise, and I think being a woman, you have to be."
She adds: "I'm a mother of four, I just turned 50 this year, and I want to be around for a long time."
For those who aren't mothers quite yet – we're looking at you Duchess of Cambridge – Williams has a few words of wisdom straight from her own heart.
"Motherhood is one of the greatest gifts and surprises in life," she says. "You always have to be prepared for the unexpected. You have to be able to surrender to whatever situation it is and do the best you can at any moment."
Of mom-to-be Kate, she adds: "I'm sure she'll be a terrific mom."
"I didn't know I was depressed," the actress tells Dr. Oz on his talk show in an interview airing Friday. "I mean, I knew it was a sad moment in my life, but I wouldn't categorize myself as depressed. I'm not that, I'm an optimist about life. Life didn't work, moving on. I'm fine."
Meanwhile, the people around Longoria, 38, were telling her how well she looked. "That's probably the time I got the most compliments because I was so skinny. I was not eating. I was depressed. I was sad. My diet was coffee. So people kept saying, 'You look amazing. Divorce agrees with you,' " she says. "And I was like, I don't feel good. I have no energy."
It wasn't until a doctor's visit that she realized her depression was hurting her health. "It was like all these things were physically wrong with my body, so I had to saturate with vitamins and kind of get back on this track," she says.
Part of getting back on track, she tells Dr. Oz, was cutting sugar completely out of her diet.
"For about three months, I did a really strict no-sugar diet, and I had more energy than I've ever had," she says. "My palate was different. Things tasted better."
"WHAT?! AGAIN? Sorry guys, still not dating @ernestoarguello Who are these 'sources'??" the former Desperate Housewives star tweeted today, shooting down a report that she is dating Miami Beach entrepreneur Ernesto Argüello, one of the eligible bachelors from Ready for Love.
Longoria is one of executive producers of the NBC show, which features three gents looking for the real thing among 36 single women.
Longoria's rep had also denied the report to E! News, saying, "Eva is not dating Ernesto. She is friends with all of the guys and matchmakers from the show, but nothing further."
Longoria further tweeted: "Sorry @ernestoarguello is NOT dating me, but u can see who he is dating on #ReadyForLove tomorrow night on NBC after #TheVoice!"
The dating rumors went into overdrive after they were spotted going for a drive together in Longoria's Bentley convertible on Sunday in L.A.—after, we're told, Argüello stayed overnight at her house.
An eyewitness tells E! News that the pair didn't make any stops, they just drove around the city with the top down, "talking and laughing together. Eva seemed really happy. At one point she was resting her head on his shoulder, it was very sweet. After a little while of driving around, they went back to her house and spent the rest of the day together there."
"They hang out a lot and have a great time together," a source tells us. "The two have been fond of each other for a long time and are always laughing together. They have a similar sense of humor." Argüello, who is based in Miami, stays at Longoria's house when he's in L.A., the insider says.
Meanwhile, Longoria dined with Argüello, celeb chef Bobby Flay and stylist Robert Verdi last Thursday in New York City. "Good friends, good times," she wrote on WhoSay alongside a pic of the happy-looking foursome.
A hearing on a retrial was scheduled for September 10 but then taken off the calendar in June last year when Touchstone sought a ruling through the Appeals Court on its contention that it is not wrongful termination under state law when a contract renewal is not exercised. Subsequent appeals hearings did not go in the actress’ favor. However, The judges ruling in August did provide an opening for Sheridan to move forward again under a different avenue. In the case that will now begin at the end of the year, Sheridan’s damages would be limited to loss of wages and benefits, a far less than the $20 million she originally filed for in April 2010. Sheridan was represented, as she was in the first trial, by Mark Baute of LA firm Baute Crochetiere & Wang. He was joined by the firm’s David Crochetiere. Touchstone were represented by Adam Levin of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp. Levin represented the defendants in the first trial.
The actress will star in Mother Up — a new half-hour animated comedy set to debut on Hulu and Canada's City Television this fall, Ad Age reports.
Longoria, 38, will voice the main character, Rudi Wilson, a disgraced former record executive who moves to the suburbs to try her hand at motherhood — with mixed results. Mother Up will spotlight Rudi's hard-partying lifestyles in the 'burbs, including her frequent drinking and swearing.
Since exiting Wisteria Lane almost a year ago, Longoria has kept plenty busy but primarily with behind-the-scenes gigs. She serves as an executive producer on NBC's new dating show, Ready for Love, as well as Lifetime's upcoming drama Devious Maids, which was created by Housewives mastermind Marc Cherry. Longoria will also executive-produce Mother Up, along with Sony Pictures Chief Yair Landau and Family Guy co-producer Michael Shipley.
Landau said there are also plans to sell Mother Up to outlets such as iTunes and Netflix.
Will you watch Mother Up?
Despite being identified as his fiancée by some outlets, a source tells E! News that Metcalfe and Santana are happily dating, but the two have never been engaged.
Regardless, this duo lit up the basketball court with their sweet public displays of affection while rooting for the Los Angeles Lakers as they played the New Orleans Hornets last night at the Staples Center in L.A.
Metcalfe and Santana couldn't keep their arms off of each other—unless there was an awesome play that required a quick stand-up cheer—and even shared a smooch for the camera. "Omg! Kiss-Cam at Lakers game! #redfaced#embarrassed," Santana tweeted.
And although the constantly smiling pair seemed very interested in the game (when they weren't focusing on each other or the other courtside sights), Jesse made sure to point out that his loyalties lie elsewhere.
"But don't get it twisted. #knicksfanforlife," he tweeted.
The "Desperate Housewives" alum is an executive producer of the unscripted NBC show that premieres Tuesday, April 9. As Giuliana and Bill Rancic host, each of the bachelors -- Tim Lopez of music's Plain White T's, plus a financier and an entrepreneur -- is coached by a relationship expert in selecting one of the four women presented to each man.
"I've been producing for four or five years," Longoria tells Zap2it. "It's definitely exciting to be behind the camera. I like putting pieces together, and I've always been a fan of dating shows, but I'd kind of gotten burned out on them because I thought they weren't reflecting how people date today. That's done through the Internet and matchmakers, so we're incorporating a lot of things into the show that contemporize that space in TV."
Longoria believes such programs as ABC's "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" are "very, very produced, and I definitely wanted to put my name on something that was a little more authentic. I didn't want people who want to be reality stars.
"The three guys we picked, we had to really get them to come on. They were all skeptical of a reality show that has to do with dating, but that's who I want ... someone who is in it not because they want exposure and fame but because they actually think the process might work. And they've exhausted everything else, so why not?"
Having the stars of "Giuliana & Bill" on board helps, in Longoria's view. She reports, "When their names were thrown into the hat, we were like, 'That is genius!' They're really funny, and they bring this element of banter to the show that just makes you laugh at the whole institution of marriage."
Back to her usual business after co-chairing January's presidential inauguration, Longoria vows "Ready for Love" works: "We are confident in this format. It will not disappoint in the way other shows have."
Eva Longoria had quite the wardrobe malfunction on Saturday when she inadvertently busted out of her string bikini while soaking up some sun.
Wearing a sizzling orange two-piece and sunglasses, the 38-year-old actress could be seen standing and stretching before relaxing into a beach chair that she had draped with a towel.
From there, things went awry: As the actress sat and loosened her bikini top, she ended up revealing much more than she had hoped, popping out of her bikini and accidentally flashing bystanders.
Hey, if you're gonna have a mega nip slip on the beach, it helps to having a killer bikini bod like Eva's, yes?
Facebook!
Celebrities have joined marriage equality supporters by posting red versions of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) logo on their Facebook pages. The HRC is Washington's leading gay rights advocacy group.
We already told you about Beyoncé's Facebook messages, but other straight allies going red on Facebook include Padma Lakshmi, Kate Walsh, Felicity Huffman and Jessica Seinfeld.
Of course, many openly gay celebs including Ellen DeGeneres, Lance Bass and George Takei have gone red, too. "Today I'm thinking of the Supreme Court," DeGeneres wrote on her Facebook page. "I hope they remember what makes our country great, and support equality for all."
While Madonna didn't use HRC's logo, she did post a handwritten note on lined paper that reads, "Marriage Equality! Let's Start a Revolution."
The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday about California's ban on same-sex marriage Prop 8. Today, they are doing the same on the Defense of Marriage Act, which limits the federal government in only recognizing marriages between a man and woman.
The field of racers will navigate the new 210-horsepower Scion FR-S race vehicles through high speed turns to benefit “Racing for Kids,” a national fundraising program supporting children’s hospitals throughout the United States. This year’s field of popular celebrity racers includes:
· Cristian Castro (@CristianCastro): Grammy Award-nominated and best-selling Mexican pop singer. Famous from a young age, one of his best known albums is “Mi Vida Sin Tu Amor,” with four singles in the top ten of Billboard's Hot Latin tracks. In April, he will release a new album “Primera Fila,” celebrating 20 years as a singer.
· Kate del Castillo (@katedelcastillo): Mexico’s most acclaimed actress, best known for her starring role in long-running mini-series “La Reina del Sur.” Other credits include “Under the Same Moon,” “Trade” and a guest appearance on the Showtime series “Weeds."
· Brett Davern (@BDavv): Actor who stars as Jake Rosati in MTV's hit series “Awkward.” Other credits include the film, “Beautiful Ohio” and appearances in “Cold Case,” “CSI: Miami,” “In Plain Sight,” and “Medium.”
· Jenna Elfman (@JennaElfman): Actress known for her quirky role on the TV series “Dharma & Greg,” which earned her a Golden Globe Award. She now stars as the first lady in the family comedy “1600 Penn.” Film credits include “Friends with Benefits” and “Keeping the Faith.”
· Jessica Hardy (@swimhardy): A multiple world record-holder in swimming and a 2012 Olympic medalist. A Long Beach, Calif. native, she also does motivational speaking and served as an ambassador for the United States Olympic Committee Team For Tomorrow.
· Jesse Metcalfe (@JesseMetcalfe): Actor best known for his role as a teen gardener on “Desperate Housewives” and who currently stars in the TNT continuation of “Dallas,” based on the 1978 series of the same name. Film credits include “John Tucker Must Die” and “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.”
· Dakota Meyer (@Dakota_Meyer): Former U.S. Marine who received the Medal of Honor for his 2009 actions in Afghanistan. He wrote, Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War, fundraises with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, and has partnered with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for the Hiring Our Heroes program.
· Jackson Rathbone (@JacksonRathbone): Actor best known for playing Jasper Hale in the hit “Twilight” movie series. Other film credits include “The Last Airbender.”
· Michelle Rodriguez (@MRodOfficial): Film actress best known for her tough girl physical roles, including starring in the record-breaking sci-fi film “Avatar,” the successful “Fast & Furious” franchise, the 2012 hit “Resident Evil: Retribution” and as a tough LAPD cop in TV’s “Lost.”
· Jeremy Sisto (@JeremySisto): Actor best known for playing Billy Chenowith on the series “Six Feet Under.” He also played Detective Cyrus Lupo on “Law & Order” and currently stars in the series “Suburgatory.”
· Mark Steines (@MarkSteines): Emmy award-winning journalist and host of the Hallmark Channel’s new how-to show, “Home & Family.” He spent more than 17 years on “Entertainment Tonight,” establishing himself as a trusted and charismatic figure in entertainment news.
· Wanda Sykes (@iamwandasykes): Emmy award-winning comedian, writer and actress who ranks among Entertainment Weekly's 25 Funniest People in America. She has hosted her own late night talk show, “The Wanda Sykes Show” and has appeared on TV shows including, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and films such as “Evan Almighty.”
· Michael Trucco (@MichaelTrucco): Actor best known for playing Samuel Anders on SyFy's acclaimed series "Battlestar Galactica" and Justin Patrick on the USA Network series “Fairly Legal.” Other credits include appearances on “Revenge,” “How I Met Your Mother” and “One Tree Hill.”
· Rutledge Wood (@RutledgeWood): Auto racing analyst on Fox Sports/SPEED and co-host of “Top Gear USA.”
Pro drivers competing against the stars for the title include motocross champion and MTV’s “Nitro Circus” star Andy Bell (@AndyBell), 2012 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race winner and comedian Adam Carolla (@AdamCarolla), Olympic gold medalist swimmer Tyler Clary (@TylerClary) and National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) driver Melanie Troxel (@MelanieTroxel).
“This talented and inspiring celebrity group will not only help Toyota share the story of this long-running charity event, but they also will feel the rush behind the wheel on the famous Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach track,” said Les Unger, Toyota national motorsports manager. “The Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race thrills both the participants and the crowds while giving back to kids in our communities through donations to Children's Hospital of Orange County and Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach.”
Rounding out the field is Glenn Faber, partner and general manager of Los Angeles area Keyes Toyota, as well as two charity auction winners: Dave Pasant, a retired insurance executive, and Carter Lay (@CarterLay), philanthropist and LAY'S chips heir.
The Toyota Pro/Celebrity race is one of the longest-running, corporate sponsored events of its kind. Since 1991, Toyota has donated more than $2 million to the Racing for Kids organization, on behalf of this race and its participants. In addition to Toyota’s contributions, a $15,000 donation will be made in conjunction with the 16th annual “People Pole Award.” Sponsored by People magazine, the award honors the pole-position winner of the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race qualifying session on April 19.
To learn more about the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, visit toyotaracing.com.
"There are days when I relax but it won't be a full day. It usually means I'm gonna clean out my closet. That's relaxing for me. Or I'm gonna cook a full meal for my family and friends," Longoria, who will be 38 on Friday, said in a recent interview.
Longoria said she has no problem juggling various projects.
"I always say there's more time in the day than you think. You waste a lot of time that you don't realize," she said. "When I was on 'Desperate Housewives,' I learned two languages. I went back to school for my master's degree, I was married (to San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker) and flying back and forth (between Los Angeles and Texas). You have time."
Her passions also include philanthropy and politics. She's committed to encouraging Latin women to further their education and start entrepreneurial programs. She also founded Eva's Heroes, dedicated to teens and young adults with special needs.
She just wrapped up filming on "Frontera," alongside Ed Harris and Michael Pena, and has endorsement deals with L'Oreal, Frito-Lay and Sheba.
Longoria is also an executive producer on two upcoming TV shows.
On "Ready for Love," a reality dating show that will air on NBC, three matchmakers help three men find love.
Longoria says she handpicked each of the three eligible guys.
They're "not only handsome and successful, but generous, kind and sweet human beings. ... They'll forever be friends in my life," she said.
She's also one of the executive producers of "Devious Maids," alongside "Desperate Housewives" creator Mark Cherry. Based on a Mexican series, it follows four maids who work in Beverly Hills but dream of their own success. The show will air on Lifetime.
While she's enjoying TV production, Longoria said, "I love the medium of television. I'll definitely be back. I'll definitely come back one day."
Decked out in a colorful two-piece, Eva Longoria showed off her bikini bod while vacationing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sunday.
The 37-year-old hottie was spotted relaxing on a lounge chair as she hit the sands of Copacabana Beach with friends.
Earlier in the day, the actress reportedly checked out some of the city's popular landmarks.
Although, one could argue that Longoria herself is quite the sightseeing attraction herself!
While the former Desperate Housewives star is too busy to parent one right now, she tells PEOPLE, "I always found that I identified with them. Cats are feminine and independent and playful, much like a woman."
Her affinity for felines is why she's partnered with Sheba cat food to kick off the Feed Your Passion campaign, in which cat lovers are encouraged to visit the brand's website and share a photo of themselves and their pet, or a video of their greatest passion.
"It's great because cat lovers are pretty passionate about their cats and about life, so we thought we'd engage them," says Longoria of the contest, which will award $5,000 to a winner every month until May.
For the star, who is also executive producing a new dating show called Ready for Love, it was one cat in particular that stirred her own fandom.
"I grew up with a lot of cats, but one in particular, her name was Cindy," Longoria says. "She was like a member of our family. I swear she lived for 20, 25 years because every childhood photo, she's in it with all my sisters and me."
In fact, so close was Longoria to the pet that when Cindy passed away, her mom shielded her from the truth.
"That was in college," she says. "My mom didn't even tell me she died. She told me she ran away ... I believed her in college."
The project focuses on an unlikely relationship between a gifted young girl (newcomer Johnny Sequoyah) and a man (Savages‘ Jake McLaughlin) sprung from prison who has been tasked with protecting her from the evil elements that hunt her power.
Twin Peaks and Desperate Housewives alum MacLachlan — who’s currently recurring on CBS’ The Good Wife — will play Skouras, a mysterious billionaire with an even more mysterious agenda.
The cast also includes Delroy Lindo, Jamie Chung and Sienna Guillory.
Alfonso Cuaron penned the script and will serve as an EP alongside Abrams and Bryan Burk.
Metcalfe — who clocked 120 mph and will compete in a Toyota-sponsored celebrity event in April — says, "It's a really big deal that Christopher win, because it would mean stopping the pumping of oil at Southfork."
Off the track, Christopher's long-absent uncle, Gary Ewing (Ted Shackelford), returns to town to help Bobby (Patrick Duffy) — and the episode ends with some troubling news about J.R. (Larry Hagman). His death the following week will lead to a shocking reveal that J.R. is behind the disappearance of Chris' mother, Pam (Victoria Principal, who last played the role in 1987).
"All hell breaks loose," Metcalfe teases. "As we peel back the layers of the onion, a lot of things come to light. J.R. was attempting to set something in motion, and that involved Pam. I can't reveal more, but I'm excited about the possibility of Victoria Principal coming back to the show."
Huffman will play Margie, the matriarch of a family of assassins who can kill and dispose of a suspected terrorist in the afternoon and then switch to wife-and-mother mode without a hitch.
The one-hour drama will be directed by Hustle & Flow's Craig Brewster, who will also executive-produce the pilot.
Huffman's previous credits include Desperate Housewives, Sports Night and Transamerica.
Longoria, Kevin Spacey, John Goodman and other top Hollywood actors are being wooed by the growing number of Silicon Valley companies rushing to get a foothold in consumers' living rooms with exclusive shows that feature big names and hefty budgets.
As video streaming technology makes watching videos on laptops and mobile devices as easy as flicking on a TV set, Amazon.com Inc, Google Inc's YouTube, Yahoo and Microsoft Corp are setting up shop in Hollywood to produce or license their own series.
Their models are pay TV channels like HBO and Showtime that built their subscriber rolls by creating shows like HBO's "Sopranos" or Showtime's "Homeland" that a TV viewer couldn't get anywhere else.
"Content creators think they've hit the lottery," said Bernard Gershon, head of digital consultancy Gershon Media and a former Walt Disney Co executive. "Those companies are throwing a lot of dollars for content they can use to create a following."
With 33 million global subscribers to its streaming service, Netflix can afford to plunk down what analysts estimate was up to $100 million for the rights to "House of Cards," a slickly produced political drama starring two-time Oscar winner Spacey and produced by "The Social Network" film director David Fincher.
Upcoming only-on-Netflix series include the revival of one-time Fox comedy "Arrested Development" starring Will Arnett, and murder mystery "Hemlock Grove," directed by horror movie producer Eli Roth.
On Tuesday, the Los Gatos, California-based company announced the December release of its first original children's series, a show based on DreamWorks Animation's coming summer movie "Turbo" about a fast-moving snail.
The companies have different business models -- Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft have subscription services, YouTube sells advertising, while Intel Corp and Apple Inc may introduce cable-like services that offer channels online.
But they all sense an opening as consumers increasingly chafe at their mounting cable and satellite TV bills. A small, but increasing, number are starting to "cut the cord," or drop their service, say analysts.
"We may be sowing the seeds of our own destruction," Charlie Ergen, chairman of satellite operator Dish Network Corp, said at the AllThingsD "Dive into Media" conference on February 12. "A lot of people can live with Netflix and be perfectly happy."
Netflix has won fans in Hollywood by giving writers and directors a "high level of autonomy as well as an increasingly global distribution platform," Morgan Stanley analyst Scott Devitt said in a note to clients.
"There is plenty of room for multiple producers and licensors of original content," Devitt added.
Amazon.com's Prime subscription, which combines a video streaming service with free shipping for products it sells online, stepped up its Hollywood dealmaking in the last month with pacts to be the exclusive online home for popular PBS drama "Downton Abbey" and upcoming CBS show "Under the Dome," a series based on a Stephen King novel.
The Seattle-based company, seen by some analysts as Netflix's biggest threat, said last month it plans to air 11 original pilot episodes before deciding which to produce as ongoing series.
One of the pilots, "Alpha House," follows four senators who live together in a rented house. "Roseanne" and "Argo" actor John Goodman will star, according to a person close to the situation.
Overall, Amazon Studios has 48 movie and TV shows in development, an Amazon spokeswoman said.
Hulu, owned by media giants Disney, News Corp and Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal, is beefing up its own original and exclusive content for its free, ad-supported service and its monthly subscription plan. Hulu already has distributed than two dozen exclusive or original shows, including Morgan Spurlock documentary series "A Day in the Life."
Upcoming Hulu programs include Longoria's "Mother Up!" about a former music executive navigating life as a suburban mom.
Microsoft, which offers services such as Netflix on its XBox video game console, intends to produce its own content later this year for its 40 million subscribers, said Nancy Tellem, a former CBS entertainment president who joined Microsoft last year to run its fledging Hollywood production studio.
"We're not as constrained as other content creators," Tellem said at the AllThingsD conference. "We can produce something that's 10 minutes or an hour."
The XBox's benefit, Tellem said, is its interactivity. To generate added revenue, the service can sell tickets to concerts by stars of its comedies, or copies of the clothes worn by stars on red carpet events.
Deep-pocketed Apple Inc could also step into the entertainment production game. Industry insiders continue to believe that Apple intends to unveil a TV-based device that has the potential to shake up the television content and distribution industry the way the iPod and iPhone disrupted music and mobile content.
Sources say Apple, which already sells a $99 set top box called Apple TV that streams Netflix and other content, has opened discussions with providers, though its progress with the cozy club of Hollywood producers and distributors is unknown.
Chip maker Intel plans to launch an Internet television service this year with live and on-demand content, said Erik Huggers, vice president and general manager of Intel Media, who said he is negotiating with content providers.
The Silicon Valley newcomers may be taking aim at siphoning off cable subscribers, but executives at Time Warner's HBO premium service, don't seem particularly worried.
"Hulu and Amazon will be just another 200 hours on top of the 145,000 hours that are already available to the consumer," said HBO president Eric Kessler. "What matters is that our content is exclusive. If you want 'Game of Thrones,' there is only one place you can get it."
The actress visited the new restaurant and nightclub, She by Morton's, in Las Vegas – in which she is a part owner – on Saturday night, and revealed what's on her agenda for the heartfelt holiday.
"Eva said she would be spending Valentine's Day with her girlfriends – like she always does," a source tells PEOPLE. But that's not the only thing on her agenda. The former Desperate Housewives star also said she's also made plans for her March birthday.
"She's taking a charity trip to South America, which she is really excited about," the source says. "She joked that you shouldn't celebrate birthdays after a certain age because we don't want to remind people how old we are!"
It's not one of his exes, but it is someone who used to be involved with one of them: The Captain (Kyle MacLachlan), last seen in Season 6. Vulture reports he'll make his guest appearance on Feb. 18.
The circumstances of The Captain's return aren't being revealed, although it seems unlikely that Zoey (Jennifer Morrison), The Captain's wife-turned-Ted's (Josh Radnor) girlfriend, will return as well. Morrison is busy working on "Once Upon a Time," and most "HIMYM" fans would be happy not to see Zoey again.
February is shaping up to be something of a guest-star bonanza for "How I Met Your Mother." Monday's (Feb. 4) episode features another look at Robin Sparkles, Robin's (Cobie Smulders) pop-star alter ego, and a host of fellow Canadian guest stars, plus James Van Der Beek as Robin's former boyfriend Simon.
MacLachlan plays the mayor on "Portlandia" and co-starred in CBS' short-lived "Made in Jersey" earlier this season.
The Desperate Housewives star and Penélope Cruz's brother broke up in March 2012, rekindled, then split again in June 2012. But Wednesday morning, they were both spotted leaving Eva's L.A. home—albeit separately.
So is the third time the time for Eva and Eduardo? Can't say, but a source told E! News when twosome split there were "no harsh feelings" and the duo remained friends. As well, a source tells E! News that he's still friends with her roommates.
A rep for Eva declined to comment on the actress's personal life.
Longoria is credited with helping bring Hispanic support to President Barack Obama. She says everyone should be, quote, "engaged in a level that would affect policy" because "that's how our government is set up."
Hispanics voted 7 to 1 for Obama over his challenger, Republican Mitt Romney. Analysts say that while immigration is not the top issue for Hispanic voters, many were turned off by Republicans' hard-line stance on the issue.
During the GOP primary, Romney touted self-deportation as a solution to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. And he said he would not let immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay.
Longoria spoke on ABC's "This Week."
Moses will play Curtis Swint, a racist, xenophobic talk-radio host who visits New York for a live broadcast of his show. His outspoken views will force police commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) to choose between his sworn duty to ensure Swint's rights to free speech and assembly, and his own personal creed of tolerance and equality.
Besides his work as the mysterious Paul Young on Housewives and drunken adman Duck Phillips on Mad Men, Moses also recently recurred on the second season of The Killing. His other recent TV credits include Elementary, CSI, Criminal Minds, The Closer and Covert Affairs.
Blue Bloods airs Fridays at 10/9c on CBS. Moses' episode, entitled "Inside Jobs," is slated to air Feb. 1.
Eva Longoria, George Lopez, Mario Lopez, Chita Rivera and Rita Moreno are among a group of prominent performers who will gather Sunday, Jan. 20 for "Latino Inaugural 2013: In Performance at the Kennedy Center." Details of the tribute performance were announced Tuesday.
Longoria, a co-chair of Obama's inauguration festivities, is hosting the event. Additional performers will include Jose Feliciano, Melanie Griffith, New York City's Ballet Hispanico, Coro de Ninos de San Juan (the San Juan Children's Choir) and others.
In a statement, the former "Desperate Housewives" star said the inaugural events will foster more Latino engagement in Washington.
"Latinos played a critical role in this year's elections and helped tip the scales in President Obama's victory. But we are not waiting another four years to make an impact on our country's future," she said. "What better way to establish our presence at these inaugural celebrations than by showcasing the beauty and diversity of our culture at the nation's premier performing arts center."
The Latino inaugural gathering is driven in part by organizers of The Futuro Fund, which helped mobilize Latino support for the Obama-Biden re-election campaign. Millions of Hispanic voters turned out with 71 percent support for Obama. Republican candidate Mitt Romney's 27 percent Hispanic support was less than any presidential candidate in 16 years, drawing calls for Republicans to rethink their approach to Latinos.
Andres Lopez, a San Juan, Puerto Rico attorney and activist who was a national chairman of the election effort, said Latinos represent the nation's future.
"The story of Latinos is the story of America," he said. "Latinos made history in a big way this presidential election, and we look forward to writing the next chapter of this amazing story over the next four years."
The Kennedy Center is presenting the event with no charge to the organizers in two of its large theaters. The events come as the cultural center has been criticized for excluding Latinos from its high-profile Kennedy Center Honors.
Tickets went on sale Tuesday at the Kennedy Center box office, starting at $300 for the live performance in the center's Opera House and $150 for a simulcast in the center's Eisenhower Theater. A party will follow the show on the eve of Obama's public swearing in. It was not clear whether Obama would attend.
It's part of a three-day series of lectures and events focused on Latino issues. Coordinators include the National Council of La Raza and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
San Antonio philanthropist and business leader Henry Munoz III, who is coordinating the entertainment event with Longoria and Andres Lopez, said Latinos deserve a place at the center of U.S. culture.
"The Kennedy Center is our nation's theater," he said. "As we inaugurate President Barack Obama, it is important to recall what President John F. Kennedy knew: that beyond the battles of politics 'we will be remembered for our contributions to the human spirit.'"
Rumors swirled after Star magazine’s source claimed the two were “holding hands and sneaking into a late-night showing of 'Lincoln'” in LA.
The “Desperate Housewives” star, who split with Jets QB Mark Sanchez in October, explicitly told her friend Mario Lopez on “Extra” that she is not dating the divorced Villaraigosa.
Longoria surmised to Lopez that her heavy involvement during the Obama campaign sparked her (false) romantic connection to the politician.
GossipCop checked in Longoria’s rep, who laughed off the rumor. “This is not true. Eva is not dating Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Anna Deavere Smith - "Nurse Jackie"
Gabourey Sidibe - "The Big C"
Gladys Knight - "The First Family"
Rashida Jones - "Parks and Recreation"
Vanessa Williams - "Desperate Housewives"
The former Desperate Housewives star tirelessly campaigned for the leader's re-election prior to America's vote last month, even speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
It has now been announced that Longoria will serve as a co-chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which oversees the planning of the official inauguration ball and other celebratory events honouring the newly re-elected president.
In a post on her Twitter.com page, the thrilled star writes, "Excited and honoured to co-chair the Obama inaugural in 2013! Will I see you in DC?"
Obama's public inauguration ceremony will take place in Washington, D.C. on 21 January (13) and marks the official start of the President's second term in office.
The 37-year-old former Desperate Housewives star looks stunning on GQ Mexico's December cover, baring her assets in white-hot lingerie.
The smoky-eyed star sported sexy, tousled hair for the shoot, posing seductively with her arm wrapped around her toned bod.
While Longoria may be absent from the small screen for now, she's set to heat up the big screen in January 2013 with her upcoming action flick, The Baytown Outlaws, which also stars Paul Wesley and Billy Bob Thornton.
In the film, Longoria plays a woman who relies on three brothers to help save her son from an abusive father.
Hagman (ex-Curt, Search For Tomorrow/ex-Ed, The Edge Of Night/ex-Johnny, The Edge Of Night), who played the dastardly oilman on Dallas, and, as such, became TV's highest-paid actor and the focal point of one of the most-watched shows ever.
He died Friday afternoon at Medical City Dallas Hospital from complications of his recent battle with cancer, according to the Dallas Morning News. He was 81.
"Larry was back in his beloved Dallas, re-enacting the iconic role he loved most," Hagman's family said in a statement to the paper. "Larry's family and close friends had joined him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving holiday. When he passed, he was surrounded by loved ones. It was a peaceful passing, just as he had wished for. The family requests privacy at this time."
In October 2011, Hagman revealed he was being treated for an unspecified form of cancer. At the time, he was preparing to saddle back up as Ewing in a Dallas reboot for TNT.
The original Dallas ran from 1979-1991, dominating the Nielsen ratings, inspiring a prime-time soap craze, and giving rise to "Who Shot J.R.?" mania.
At the center of it all was Hagman, maybe the one American in the summer of 1980 who didn't care who'd stalked the Ewing Oil headquarters, and fired bullets into ol' J.R.
"After all, I'm J.R.," Hagman told the Associated Press back in the day, "so it wasn't me."
The son of Broadway musical legend Mary Martin (South Pacific), Hagman was born Sept. 21, 1931, in J.R. Ewing territory—Fort Worth, Texas.
Hagman became a star in his own right in 1965 as straight-man Major Tony Nelson to Barbara Eden's mischievous genie on I Dream of Jeannie. The sitcom ran for five seasons, and for forever in reruns—the latter-day Hagman would remark he was more recognized as astronaut Tony than bad-guy J.R.
By the late 1970s, Hagman was a familiar face but not a big name when he was given the script for a planned series about a wealthy Texas family that lived communally on a ranch called Southfork.
From the start, Hagman said, he knew there was something special about Dallas: "There wasn't one redeeming person in it," he once said. "Even the mother was bad."
Dallas started slowly in the ratings. But by its third season, it was in the Top 10—and about to explode.
On Mar. 21, 1980, on the occasion of the series' third-season closer, Hagman's J.R. was felled by gunfire. The identity of the assailant was not revealed. The season-ending cliffhanger was, if not invented, then invigorated.
All through the summer, the press and public ran through the list of suspects. The suspense only ratcheted up in the fall, when new episode after new episode went by with still no answer. Finally, on Nov. 21, 1980, J.R.'s spurned sister-in-law Kristin Shepard (played by Mary Crosby) confessed to the shooting. The episode, "Who Done It?," became the highest-rated prime-time program of its time. Though subsequently outdrawn by the M*A*S*H* finale and various Super Bowls, it still ranks among the elite.
"When the 'Who Shot J.R.?' episodes came along," Hagman once remembered to CNN, "I knew we were set for a long time."
Dallas was TV's No. 1 show from 1980-82, and again from 1983-84. The show's series finale ended with yet another bang—except this time, J.R., egged on by no less than Satan, shot himself. Or so it seemed.
J.R. and Hagman, a reformed heavy drinker who underwent a liver transplant in 1995, survived for two Dallas reunion movies in the 1990s.
Though best known for TV, Hagman had featured big-screen roles in the Cold War classic, Fail Safe, and the Clintonesque comedy-drama, Primary Colors.
With his wife of nearly 60 years under 24-hour care for Alzheimer's disease, Hagman said in 2011 that he looked forwarded to returning to Dallas for a next-generation take.
"It made my name the first time around," Hagman said of the franchise to the Daily Mirror. "Now I believe it will save me, by keeping me busy and working."
The now 2 year old lawsuit stemmed from the former housewife claiming she was wrongfully fired after complaining about being struck in the head during an argument by the ABC hit show's creator Marc Cherry.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the court's chief justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye ruled on Friday: "The petition for review is denied. The request for an order requesting depublication of the opinion is denied."
The ruling marks another loss for Sheridan, as her initial claims against Cherry were eventually dismissed, and Sheridan's case against ABC and its producers ended in a mistrial. Her request for a rehearing was subsequently rejected, which then lead the actress to appeal to the state's Supreme Court.
Eek! Looks like for Sheridan, troubles follow her even out of Wisteria Lane!
Still, the case probably isn't finished yet as the actress is expected to return to court again to argue that her dismissal was the result of a labor-code violation.
After co-starring on the first casualty of the fall season — RIP Made in Jersey! — Kyle MacLachlan has rebounded with a multi-episode arc on CBS' other legal drama, The Good Wife, Entertainment Weekly reports.
Little is known about his character, but it is said he will interact with Eli (Alan Cumming). Could MacLachlan play the latest new candidate entering the gubernatorial race? Or maybe MacLachlan will play a manager for one of the rival campaigns? Start speculating now!
MacLachlan is just one of a plethora of guest stars for Good Wife's fourth season. Nathan Lane, Amanda Peet and Maura Tierney have already popped up, and T.R. Knight and Stockard Channing will appear on future episodes of the critically acclaimed legal drama.
MacLachlan, 53, is best known for his roles on cult classic Twin Peaks, as well as Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. He also recurs on Portlandia.
The Good Wife airs Sundays at 9/8c on CBS.
But on Tuesday the Desperate Housewives star posted a picture of herself with short, tousled hair to her WhoSay page.
"You guys like the new hairdo??" she teased. Hairstylist Ken Paves also hinted at a major cut, linking to a shot of shorn brunette locks on a set floor with "Ooops!!" as the caption.
While some fans poured out compliments for Eva's short-haired look, others tweetedabout "ALREADY [MISSING HER] LONG HAIR
"Ok I'm kidding," Longoria admitted. "its a wig!"
She clarified that it's actually "a @kenpaves hair piece! cool huh?"
Yes indeed, but we like her long hair best!
Longoria, who played Gaby Solis on Desperate Housewives for eight years, is an executive producer on the upcoming NBC matchmaking show Ready for Love, which follows three successful and attractive bachelors trying to find their soul mates . The reality series, hosted by Giuliana and Bill Rancic, is set to debut sometime this winter on NBC.
"Having Eva Longoria on our team is a huge advantage for our Alternative program development as we have pleasantly discovered in implementing her ideas for Ready for Love, which is shaping up as a terrific and upbeat series," NBC Entertainment's President of Alternative and Late Night Programming, Paul Telegdy, said in a statement. "She is passionate, fully engaged and has keen instincts for putting together a winning formula for her shows that always bear her imprint."
NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke added: "We know that this new agreement with Eva Longoria is significant in continuing what has already been a productive relationship. She has exceptional energy, vision, a prestigious name and the creative knack for finding compelling new concepts for our growing studio."
Longoria is also producing the upcoming Lifetime series Devious Maids, which comes from her former Desperate Housewives boss Marc Cherry.
"I am thrilled and excited to join Universal Television on what promises to be a wonderful and creative partnership, especially given all of the recent success at both the studio and the NBC network," Longoria said. "The collaboration between UTV and my production company, UnbeliEVAble Entertainment, on our Ready for Love project has been extraordinary. Looking ahead it will be fun to find and develop unique scripted and non-scripted shows that excite television audiences."
Sources connected to the former couple tell us ... they broke up because Mark was impossible for Eva to be around because he was in such a crappy mood over the NY Jets' horrible season.
As one source puts it, "It's hard to maintain a relationship when one person is upset all the time."
FYI -- the Jets are 3-4 and coming off another heartbreaking loss to Tom Brady's Patriots.
Despite the split, we're told the two are serious about remaining friends -- and have nothing but respect for each other.
The former Desperate Housewives star, 37, and New York Jets quarterback, Mark Sanchez, 25, have ended their brief relationship, a source confirms to PEOPLE.
"Eva and Mark split amicably and remain friends," the insider tells PEOPLE of the pair, who were spotted frequently together over the summer. "There is no drama."
A rep for Longoria is not commenting.
Longoria previously dated Eduardo Cruz, and Sanchez was linked earlier this year to supermodel Kate Upton.
Back in January, Longoria began laser treatments to erase 3 Tony Parker-inspired tats -- the "NINE" tattoo ... the wedding date tattoo on her wrist ... and Tony's initials (which were put on a very private, undisclosed location).
Tattoo removal doesn't happen overnight -- it takes multiple sessions, which have to be spaced out over several months.
But judging by the way her neck looked in Bev Hills yesterday, Eva's body is just a couple more months away from being a fresh canvas again.
CBS has pulled Made in Jersey from its Friday-night lineup and will replace it with new episodes of Undercover Boss beginning Nov. 2, the network announced Wednesday.
NCIS reruns will take over the show's time slot, Friday night at 8 p.m., this week and on Oct. 26. On Oct. 19, it will be replaced by a rerun of Hawaii Five-0. The revised schedule also moves CSI: NY to 9 p.m.
Made in Jersey, about a young attorney (Janet Montgomery) who tries to juggle her career at a high-powered Manhattan law firm with her brash Italian family back in New Jersey, struggled in its first two outings and was the lowest-rated new series of the fall.
A CBS spokesperson would not confirm that the lineup shuffle means the show has been definitively canceled, but it's a pretty safe bet.
Are you sorry to see Made in Jersey go?
The 25-year-old NFL hunk led his team to victory in overtime against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. And just two days before, Sanchez and his lovely girlfriend Eva Longoria were spotted holding hands in New York City.
Sanchez kept it cool and casual in a blue cotton shirt, swish pants and flip-flops. Longoria, 37, was also laid-back city chic, stunning in a white shirt, white jeans and gold sandals.
If it's Longoria that's bringing Sanchez luck, the Jets might want to find a lady for backup quarterback Tim Tebow. Sanchez fired a fastball at the handsome golden boy in Sunday's game, only it smacked Tebow's helmet and bounced off. Whoops.
Still, we know plenty of ladies who'd be happy to be his good-luck charm.
While appearing on Tuesday's Chelsea Lately, the topic naturally came up, and the actress couldn't have been more receptive to it.
"You've been dating awhile?" host Chelsea Handler inquired.
"For a second," replied Longoria with a smile. "He's focused right now on football."
But despite the fact that the relationship is still fairly new, Longoria obviously feels ready to play matchmaker between Handler and one of Sanchez's fellow teammates.
"We should set you up with [Tim] Tebow!" Longoria exclaimed after Handler expressed interest in dating an athlete.
"Tebow? Oh yeah, that would be a perfect match for me," joked Handler.
Not to mention we don't think Katy Perry's parents would approve.
Snapper Jork Weismann asked friends and Chateau regulars to recreate their sleeping attire and habits for his new book Asleep at the Chateau, and actress Longoria agreed to strip off for her sexy shot.
Taken as the former Desperate Housewives star sleeps with her back to the camera - a bed sheet pulled down to her thighs - the erotic shot exposes her buttocks and her back.
The book also features sleeping shots of punk poet Patti Smith, who likes to fall asleep while reading James Joyce, and rapper RZA, clutching a marijuana joint in his hand.
The freshly-minted couple left the Ritz-Carlton in NYC for a late night dinner at the uber-fancy French restaurant Daniel.
The New York Jets QB is 25 -- she's 37.
Having just divorced another professional athlete -- NBA star Tony Parker -- Eva's clearly got a thing. As for Sanchez, he was previously banging 20-year-old Kate Upton.
Strong and fellow "Everwood" alum Tom Amandes will guest-star in an episode of the ABC drama in the fall, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He'll play the governor of a state, with Strong as his wife. There's a chance both could extend their roles beyond one episode.
(A third "Everwood" veteran, Debra Mooney, will also recur on "Scandal" this season. There's no word on whether her appearances will overlap with those of Amandes and Strong.)
Just how they come into contact with Olivia (Kerry Washington) is being kept secret. But it's safe to assume it's not because everything is going swimmingly.
Amandes and Strong both appeared on The WB's "Everwood," though never together, as Strong -- who played Andy's (Treat Williams) late wife -- only showed up in flashbacks. She currently stars on TNT's "Dallas." Amandes has guested on "Scandal" creator Shonda Rhimes' other shows, "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice"; his other recent credits include "Parenthood," "Eli Stone" and "Big Love."
Season 2 of "Scandal" premieres at 10 p.m. ET Thursday, Sept. 27.
The Desperate Housewives star was recently rumoured to have moved on from her on/off relationship with Penelope Cruz's younger brother Eduardo after she was spotted stepping out on a number of low-key dates with New York Jets quarterback Sanchez.
The new couple even managed to get away for a brief vacation in the Caribbean, according to rumours.
And now the lovely Latina, who has been reluctant to share details about her personal life since splitting from basketball ace Tony Parker in 2010, has confirmed the new romance.
Asked about the relationship rumours by TV presenter pal Mario Lopez during an appearance on his U.S. news show Extra, she confessed, "Mark and I are, you know, fine. We're happy just dating."
"Life's so short," the actress, 37, told PEOPLE Monday. "You should be surrounded by people who make each other better people."
One of her favorite folks to work with, she says, is George Lopez, 51, who happens to be her co-host at the Latin community's ALMA Awards, airing Sept. 21.
"We're in a stage in our lives where we've done a lot in our careers and we work with people we want to work with," the former Desperate Housewives star says of herself and Lopez.
Now she's looking forward to hosting the awards show with her close pal for the third time.
"There's a mutual respect and a lot of love," Lopez tells PEOPLE of Longoria. "Also, I think Eva is, without question, one of the funniest, most spontaneous people I've ever met."
Echoes Longoria, "I love being George's sidekick for the night. I set up the jokes and he knocks them out of the park. He's the funniest guy around."
The show, which Lopez calls "the Emmys with curves," will feature presentations by stars including, Jake Gyllenhaal and Devious Maids cast members Ana Ortiz, Dania Ramirez, Edy Ganem and Judy Reyes. Christina Aguilera will be on hand to receive a special achievement award.
Hispanic cable network mun2 is presenting the Alma Awards red carpet special, and Telemundo is hosting the show's official website. The show airs Sept. 21 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.
Eva Longoria mixed and mingled with Democratic National Convention attendees at a Got Your 6 event in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday night.
The Desperate Housewives star posed for photos on the red carpet, sharing her political views with the press. She also spoke about the importance of supporting Got Your 6, which aims to bridge the gap between military personnel and citizens by aiding in the reintegration of returning veterans into society.
During the event, Flo Rida performed all of his hits, including "Whistle", for the crowd of celebrities, delegates and democratic supporters.
Longoria teased the rapper-singer about his patriotic attire and joked about borrowing his American flag scarf for her speech on Thursday.
Eva was the special guest at the Your Life Your Time Your Vote Event hosted by Got Your 6 and Lifetime Television and hit the stage to rile the crowd up for a performance by the "Whistle" rapper. But, naturally, she had today's impending speech on her mind.
"I'm excited! It's probably the most important speech I've ever done in my life, to this point," Eva, who wore a black and yellow dress, told us. "It's an important audience. It's going to be overwhelming, but I'm so honored that they asked me to do it. It's a privilege to be able to speak to the American public in this forum."
But nerves or not, she says she's ready: "There's no winging it!" she continued. "I think the preparation is really key. I'm definitely prepared and ready. I'm more worried about tripping or something, not about the speech."
Eva has some tough acts to follow, though, after Michelle Obama's wow-worthy speech Tuesday night and President Bill Clinton's Wednesday night barnburner.
"Michelle is a great orator; she's extremely articulate," Eva gushed over the FLOTUS. "I just loved how she humanized her husband and the kind of man he is in moving the country forward, not because it's political but because it's personal. Which I love."
That said, the former Desperate Housewives actress (who says that Obama told her he did love her soapy ABC hit, though she claims "I'm sure he doesn't have a lot of time to watch it") isn't trying to model her speech off of anyone else's.
"Everybody has such a personal narrative in their speech, their stories, their American dream, the American story," Eva explained to us. "So I'm going to do a little of that tomorrow night, talk about my personal story, my American dream, specifically with education and my journey with education and my journey as an entrepreneur."
Eva is also ready for fans who might critique the actress for taking a strong political stance, saying, "There's things more important than acting and movie turnout, and that's being civically engaged and trying to make this country a better place for everybody. And I care deeply about this country, a lot more than any role I could do."
Desperate Housewives alum Brenda Strong has landed guest-starring role on the Shonda Rhimes' political fixer drama, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.
Strong, best known for being the voice of Wisteria Lane and for her recent turn on the Dallas reboot, will play Joan Reston, the wife of a governor.
The 52-year-old Emmy nominee, whose credits also include Everwood, 7th Heaven and Rizzoli & Isles, is slated to appear in at least one episode of the second season, which debuts Thursday, Sept. 27 at 10/9c on ABC.
Time-Slot Competition: The Mentalist (CBS), Revolution (NBC), Homeland (Showtime)
Cast: Terry O'Quinn, Vanessa Williams, Dave Annable, Rachael Taylor, Robert Buckley
Status: We've seen the pilot episode
O'Quinn and Williams are a match made in TV-marriage heaven as Gavin and Olivia, the owners of the show's ominous NYC apartment building The Drake; both actors clearly enjoy their slightly sinister roles. They are deliciously devious, the kind of evil where everything they say has another meaning. While O'Quinn is no-doubt-about-it evil with his whole soul-takin'/sellin' business (Is he the devil? The devil's middleman? We shall see!) Williams' has a touch of sadness to her from a past event, and is kind of like a mob wife when it comes to her husband's misdeeds.
Brothers & Sisters' Annable and Grey's Anatomy's Taylor play Henry and Jane, the new couple who move in the building as managers. Henry works in the mayor's office while Jane takes a special interest in the building's history (she likes architecture) and quickly becomes suspicious of the ruling couple. We were kind of hoping that there was something special about them, or even one of them, that brought them to The Drake, but that doesn't appear to be the case. But Jane's necklace should prove to be interesting to mythology-lovers.
Also of note: One Tree Hill's Rob Buckley wears hipster glasses. (Bless you, costume designer. Bless you.) He also uses a typewriter a lot while looking pensive. (Bless you, props department. Bless you.)
But is the supernatural show actually scary? We imagine the team behind 666 has a love-hate feeling toward American Horror Story. Love, because without it, we're not sure ABC would have been as likely to partake in the horror genre. Hate, because the FX hit can go there without having to worry about retaining ABC's mainstream audience. The scares are always going to be bigger and better.
Another win for AHS? The murder house featured in season one felt like a character. Throughout the pilot, we were hoping that the Drake would start to feel more like a character, especially since the show is named after the building, but it never quite got there. Here's hoping they can evoke that in the episodes to come.
We love the idea of an apartment building, as that means there are endless stories to tell, as tenants move in or out (or, you know, die). Hey, this is New York City. A deal with the Devil for a great apartment at a great price? You'd at least think about making that deal, admit it.
Verdict: With stellar lead-ins (Once Upon a Time and Revenge), we think 666 should be able to find an audience, but we're taking out a six-month lease space on our DVRs, for now.
Desperate Housewives' Steven Culp has landed a recurring role on Grey's Anatomy, Deadline reports. The actor will play "top dog" Dr. Parker on the ABC medical drama.
With many of the residents' futures still up in the air, it's unknown whether Parker will join the team at Seattle Grace or another hospital.
Culp is best known for playing Rex Van de Kamp on Housewives, which ended its eight-season run in May. His past credits include JAG, The West Wing, Drop Dead Diva, Longmire and Perception.
Who do you hope to see Culp's Dr. Parker working with?
Though the appeals court ruled that Sheridan was not fired from Desperate Housewives, rather the studio and network decided not to pick up the actress' contract between seasons, she can pursue claims that she was retaliated against after complaining that creator Marc Cherry allegedly struck her on the head while on set.
"The Court of Appeal correctly found that Ms. Sheridan was not terminated," Adam Levin, the attorney for ABC and Touchstone, said in a statement. "Instead, her employment ended because Touchstone elected not to renew her contract after her character, Edie Britt, died on the show. Her last remaining claim for wrongful termination is gone, and while she may seek to add an OSHA claim, we believe we will prevail on that claim as well."
However, Sheridan's attorney Marc Baute says they will continue to pursue the claims that Sheridan was fired in retaliation for her complaint. "We will prosecute Touchstone to the fullest extent of the law under Labor Code Section 6310," he said in a statement.
Maybe these folks are trying to spot the paparazzi before the paparazzi can spot them, or maybe they want heels that can double as chopsticks whenever they head over to Nobu. Whatever the reason, the average height of those shoes had been about six inches.
Until Eva Longoria came along.
Behold the pint-sized, 5-foot-2-inch stunner in a pair of seven-inch snakeskin platforms by Olcay Gulsen. Before you run out and try them on (best have $1,100 handy) know this: the shoes are part of a costume—Longoria was shooting a scene for a new, unknown project in Los Angeles when this photo was shot.
The point? Stumbling around on a set is one thing, but foraging around the streets of Los Angeles or navigating stairs without a production assistant? That's another kettle of snakes altogether.
Our advice to you rabid fashionistas? File these ankle-straps under the same category belonging to Alexander McQueen's deadly armadillo pumps: Better admired than worn.
Felicity and Bill are being sued by a woman named Lourdes Orozco ... who claims she went down hard on the stairway from hell back in April, 2011.
According to the lawsuit the stairs were "dirty and poorly maintained," and lacked "regulated handrails."
The suit further alleges WHM and his wife were negligent ... because they "knew or should have known" the stairway conditions "could easily cause anyone to slip and fall, as in [Orozco's] case, resulting in serious personal injury."
The lawsuit also accuses Macy and Huffman of willful failure to warn Orozco about the allegedly horrendous staircase.
It's unclear from the documents what Orozco's relationship is to Bill and Felicity. She's suing for damages in excess of $25,000 ... including lost wages and medical expenses.
TMZ broke the story ... Roman Gasparyan filed a suit against Longoria almost two years ago. He claimed the actress lost control of her BMW and crashed into him on Hollywood Blvd while sporting "red and bloodshot" eyes ... but Eva claimed the wreck was NOT her fault.
All that's behind them now ... the settlement was announced in L.A Superior Court on August 3 ... just 12 days before the case was supposed to go to trial.
The terms of the settlement are unclear at this time.
Lupe's "Desperate Housewives" co-star Eva Longoria was among the famous faces ... along with Wilmer Vaderrama and Edward James Olmos ... who appeared with Lupe in a Broadway play.
As we previously reported, Lupe -- who famously portrayed Selena's killer in the 1990 biopic -- passed away on July 26 ... after a battle with liver cancer.
She was 69 years old.
But the rocky pair seemed anything but lovey-dovey during the outing.
"They had little to no interaction at all with each other," an onlooker tells PEOPLE. "The lunch was far from romantic."
But still, they managed to share their dishes, which included yellowtail sashimi, a spicy yellowtail roll, shiitake mushroom and sea bass sashimi.
Her relationship with Cruz aside, the source says Longoria, who kept her sunglasses on the whole time, was "very cordial to the staff."
"'Twin Peaks' was meant to be backdoor two-hour pilot, but ABC -- for some reason we've not been able to understand why -- picked it up," he said while promoting his new CBS legal procedural, "Made in Jersey."
"It was the first time I'd done TV, and it had tremendous impact and set the tone for future roles -- that's where I made a mark," said the actor, who also worked with "TP" creator David Lynch on "Dune" and "Blue Velvet."
"I see David frequently when I'm in Los Angeles -- we don't live that far from each other," the actor told Zap2it. Unfortunately, he has "no plans at the moment" to collaborate again with Lynch. "I don't know what he's got up his sleeve," he said with a laugh.
In addition to acting, MacLachlan says he is "still making wine up in the Pacific Northwest, Walla Walla red wine with Denham Cellars" -- not far from his Yakima hometown and the fictional Twin Peaks.
We couldn't resist asking the erstwhile Agent Cooper -- famous for his love of the Double R Diner's damn fine coffee and a cherry pie that'll kill ya -- whether coffee and cherry are part of his vino's flavor profile.
"There are definitely components of coffee and cherry," he told us with a chuckle. "Particularly cherry. You can have my wine with cherry pie very easily -- absolutely."
Williams says that she looks at the moneyed, troublesome couple as a supernatural version of Bernie and Ruth Madoff. "It's a world that I wanted to explore. It's the Upper East Side. It's luxurious. It's a couple that are very powerful," she says. "I thought about the Madoffs immediately because they were extremely wealthy. They had incredible land holdings all over that people knew about and knew that they had a great amount of wealth. And then we all saw the dark side and what happened and how they created their empire."
They're not the only powerful people she studied when approaching the role. "Also a little bit of Donald Trump," she admits. "He's known to be the realtor worldwide, but also in Manhattan he is very well known, and the power and mystique of his buildings. So I saw that kind of power as part of Gavin and Olivia's world."
She would like to stress, of course, that while Gavin may well be the devil -- she doesn't mean to compare Donald Trump to Satan. "To clarify, when I mentioned Donald Trump, I mentioned that was the world," she jokes. "Everyone sees him as a real estate icon in Manhattan. That's what Gavin is. He owns The Drake, which is they use the exterior of the Ansonia, which is a landmark building on the Upper West Side which we're using for the East Side. So he's a mogul and that's the parallel. That's all I was saying."
Ontiveros was reportedly suffering from liver cancer.
Lupe's "Selena" co-star Jacob Vargas was at her bedside last night and tweeted, "My friend Lupe Ontiveros just passed away. May you rest in peace. Thank you for your great contribution to film and TV. You will be missed."
Some of Lupe's long list of other credits include "The Goonies," "As Good As it Gets," Hill Street Blues" and "Desperate Housewives" -- for which she was nominated for an Emmy.
Ontiveros is survived by her husband and three adult children.
"I was in L.A. [when Harper took her first steps]," Longoria, 37, told PEOPLE at Lay's "Do Us a Flavor" contest in New York Friday. "I saw the Tweet, but Victoria had emailed me a picture earlier."
Longoria also celebrated Harper's first birthday with the Beckhams in L.A. before they flew off to London.
As for the rumors that Longoria is dating New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, the Desperate Housewives star put to rest any gossip. "We're just friends," she said.
The two had been seen together on several date-like outings, including a supermarket trip near Sanchez's Bedminster, N.J., home. But, as Longoria puts it: "I am happy where I am in my life. Very happy."
She also mentioned that she'll be rooting for good friend Serena Williams during the Summer Games, adding that watching tennis on TV is one of her favorite pastimes. Williams recently won her fifth women's singles title at Wimbledon, and is reportedly resting her back before competing in the London Olympics.
"I know she was smiling down on Hollywood this morning. I was up early to hear them and after I saw her name I broke down and was so full of joy for her and sadness that I couldn't reach out and call her this morning," publicist Nadine Jolson told E! News. "I do know that she was extremely proud of the work she did on Housewives this season. And It was quite brave of her to take on the storyline of her character's losing battle with lung cancer and so terribly sad for her to lose her own battle just three weeks later."
Joosten, who passed away on June 2 after a long battle with the disease, got a nod in the Outstanding Guest Actress in Comedy category—a category in which she twice won before. And if you saw her moving death scene on the Desperate Housewives series finale, then of course you are not surprised at all by this nomination.
Do you think anyone but Joosten will win that Emmy come Sept. 23?
"More sweet than bitter, for sure," Strong, who now stars on TNT's "Dallas," tells Zap2it of her nomination for outstanding voice-over performance for narrating the long-running ABC series. "Had I been honored in the beginning, the first two years, it wouldn't be the same. Having it come at the end makes it feel so much more important and special, because I know it's over."
She's also thrilled that her co-star Kathryn Joosten, who died in June, was nominated a final time. Joosten won two guest-acting Emmys on "Desperate Housewives" but got her first nomination in the supporting actress category on Thursday.
"She was so special," Strong says of Joosten. "... She loved her work so much -- that was her driving force. She loved being an actress. [During filming of the series finale] we were hugging, and she looked at me and said, 'Will you vote for me?' I said, 'Kathy, of course I'll vote for you.'"
Strong appeared on-camera as Mary Alice Young in the "Desperate Housewives" finale in addition to narrating, and she was on set when the final scene filmed. "I wouldn't have missed it for the world," she says. "We all sat around the kitchen table with [creator] Marc [Cherry] and reminisced. It was very special."
The voice-over Emmy is part of the Creative Arts ceremony on Sept. 15; the Primetime Emmys will air on ABC on Sept. 23.
Outstanding Supporting Actress In A Comedy Series
Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory
Kathryn Joosten, Desperate Housewives
Julie Bowen, Modern Family
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family
Merritt Wever, Nurse Jackie
Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live
Outstanding Voice-Over Performance
Brenda Strong, Desperate Housewives
Dan Povenmire, Phineas and Ferb
Rob Riggle, Prep & Landing: Naughty Vs. Nice
Maurice LaMarche, Futurama
Kristin Wiig, The Looney Tunes Show
Hank Azaria, The Simpsons
Burgi will play Councilman Anthony Russo, the powerful, wealthy chairman of the Committee on Public Saftey. He promises Police Commissioner Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck) that he will do his best to prevent NYPD budget cuts, but we're not so sure Frank should trust Russo's methods. Despite being a decorated former homicide cop, his private life is awfully checkered.
Besides his work as Karl Myer on Housewives, Burgi is also known for his roles on Days of Our Lives, The Sentinel, 24, Point Pleasant and Harper's Island. He most recently recurred on Chuck and One Tree Hill and is slated to guest-star this season on Burn Notice.
Blue Bloods returns Friday, Sept. 28 at 10/9c on CBS.
But who among them is earning more than all her small-screen sisters?
None other than Sofia Vergara!
The Modern Family star is believed to have pulled in a whopping $19 million over the past year, according to Forbes, which just released its list of 2012's highest-paid TV actresses.
That might at first come as a bit of surprise, until you consider that, in addition to her hit ABC sitcom, Vergara has also appeared in three films over the last 12 months in addition to scoring several lucrative endorsement deals in both English and Spanish. What's more, she also runs a media company she cofounded in 1996.
Right on Vergara's sexy heels, though, is Kim Kardashian. Between May 2011 and May 2012, the magazine estimates the E! star pocketed $18 million, thanks to the success of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a new fragrance and her clothing line with sisters Kourtney and Khloé, who landed in the No. 5 spot with $11 million in total earnings.
Rounding out the top 10?
Eva Longoria ($15 million), Bethenny Frankel ($12 million), Tina Fey ($11 million), Mariska Hargitay ($10 million) as well as Zooey Deschanel, Felicity Huffman and Ellen Pompeo ($9 million).
Favorite Movie Actress—Drama/Adventure
Salma Hayek, Savages
Eva Longoria, For Greater Glory
Eva Mendes, Girl in Progress
Roselyn Sanchez, Act of Valor
Zoë Saldana, Colombiana
Bledsoe is best known for her role as Vanessa on the long-running hit sitcom "The Cosby Show" and is trying her hand at another television comedy called "Guys With Kids" on NBC this fall. The show, produced by Jimmy Fallon, is about three 30-something new dads trying to hold on to their youth.
Singer and "Desperate Housewives" actress Williams isn't headed to Essence to sing but rather to talk about her relationship with her mom, Helen, during one of a series of free panel discussions on family, love and relationships at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Essence Fest is one of the premier music festivals celebrating black culture and music.
The two are doing their best to keep their budding romance under wraps, In Touch magazine said.
The 37-year-old Longoria, previously married to San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker, even went as far as donning a blonde wig last month when she, The Sanchize and pals dined at New York’s Hotel Griffou, the mag reported.
Weeks after the Griffou date, they pulled off a quiet island-hopping adventure in the Caribbean, In Touch said.
Longoria, who just wrapped her long run on “Desperate Housewives,” was married to the 30-year-old Parker for 3 ½ years before their divorce was finalized early last year.
The spitfire actress recently broke up with Spanish singer Eduardo Cruz, 27.
Sanchez, 25, has also been linked with Sports Illustrated model Kate Upton.
The Desperate Housewives star began dating Penelope Cruz's singer brother last February, several months after separating from her basketball star husband Tony Parker over reports of infidelity.
The couple was thought to have ended its relationship in March but put rumours to rest a month later by sharing a romantic meal in Hollywood and later jetting off to Seville, where they were spotted getting intimate on 17 June.
However according to a representative for Cruz, the two have now called it quits for good, reports UsMagazine.com.
At least for now.
The Desperate Housewives star showed off a decidedly shorter 'do while attending an opening night event at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday.
Instead of the lengthy brunette hairstyle she wore throughout the eight seasons of the ABC series, the 47-year-old actress was seen proudly sporting a chin-length cut with highlights.
So what do you think of Hatcher's hair?
Judge Elizabeth Allen White of Los Angeles Superior Court vacated the retrial date after admitting to being confused by wording in a writ issued by the court of appeals which put a temporary stay on the retrial.
The writ prevented Sheridan's team from going ahead with the wrongful termination claim, but allowed for Sheridan's team to amend its complaint and make claim under California Labor Code 6310 (b), which protects employees from being terminated or threatened with termination if they make a complaint about workplace safety.
"Frankly, I find the language puzzling," the judge said.
The judge also ordered attorneys for both sides to return to settlement talks to Judge Helen Bendix on July 20.
During Friday's hearing, Baute continued to try to make the case for a wrongful termination claim.
"To keep this simple, Ms. Sheridan was fired before her contract was up," Baute told the court.
"Mr. Baute has argued this nine times," Adam Levin, attorney for Touchstone, countered, adding, "The plaintiff is frankly ordering nonsense. The plaintiff is asking the court to violate the court of appeal."
Judge White concluded, "I am going to let the court of appeal sort it out ... I will do whatever the court of appeal asks me to do."
Sheridan originally sued Touchstone and ABC for $20 million for being improperly fired after she said she was slapped by Marc Cherry in a dispute. Cherry countered that he was merely attempting to give Sheridan stage direction, and that the decision to kill off her character, Edie Britt, was made months before the incident.
In March the case ended in mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict. A retrial had been set for September 10, before Judge White vacated the date.
On May 31, an appeals court issued the temporary stay, affirming an appeal by ABC lawyers that argued that Sheridan did not have the right to sue for wrongful termination.
Sheridan's attorney Mark Baute told TheWrap on Friday that he will focus on preserving the wrongful termination claim, despite the appeals court's writ.
"The trial court recognizes, as did the Court of Appeal, that the Section 6310 (b) claim must go forward and the complaint amended to include that claim," Baute told TheWrap after the hearing. "The trial court wishes to have the Court of Appeal resolve through the writ process whether the wrongful termination in violation of public policy will also go forward."
Levin had no comment for TheWrap.
The show, originally developed for ABC, is based on a popular Mexican telenovela and centers on the maids and housekeepers for rich and powerful Beverly Hills families. It stars soap icon Susan Lucci as wells as Scrubs' Judy Reyes, Ugly Betty's Ana Ortiz, Heroes' Dania Ramirez and Without a Trace's Roselyn Sanchez.
The large ensemble cast of Devious Maids also features True Blood's Mariano Klavano, Pretty Little Liars' Drew Van Acker and Melrose Place's Grant Show.
Devious Minds marks the second show this year that ABC has passed on to be saved by a cable network (TBS rescued Cougar Town from cancellation).
It's a good fit for Lifetime, since the network already has reruns of Marc Cherry's Desperate Housewives. Devious Maids will join Lifetime's increasingly big line-up of scripted shows in 2013.
"She was excited to come on and everyone was so excited to have her [that] they went ahead and condensed some storylines to get her there sooner," he tells Zap2it.
Hatcher will debut on Tuesday, June 19 as the absentee mother of 16-year-old Jane (Erica Dasher) and her older brother Ben (Rogers). Why she comes back is still unknown, Rogers says.
"Her exact reasoning is a little bit of a mystery, and she doesn't really open up to us for a while. The basic vibe she gives off is of that free spirit -- spend a little time here, spend a little time there, maybe I wanna go explore wine-making in Italy, oh look there's an ashram that I could go be the chef at for a week. We pretty quickly get that that's her vibe."
While Jane is happy to have her mom back in her life, "she was sort of too young to really be hurt by mom leaving, sand he's sort of idealized this mom figure from old photographs," Rogers says, Ben is not too pleased. Besides, he's been the de facto father for a while now, ever since their dad died. "Ben was definitely old enough to feel the rejection of a person saying 'I choose to be somewhere else than with you.'"
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The mama drama will spill into other parts of Ben's and Jane's lives. "We see Ben being rude to Rita for the first time because something bigger than everything else is on his mind," Rogers says. "As sort of a footloose, fancy-free guy, he's now really having to wrestle with the big picture things. It definitely affects Ben's life with others around him at school, and it affects Jane's life too -- for good and for bad."
Read: that delight in having her mom back in town won't last forever. "Mom is a handful, so it's not long after mom's return that she finds herself in the middle of Jane's school life, her internship. She's sort of trying to make up for lost time, and so she's inserting herself into Jane's life -- and Jane lives a very complicated life."
While Hatcher causes plenty of drama on screen, Rogers says she couldn't have been better to work with behind the scenes. "It was a lot of fun acting opposite her. It was kind of difficult because for the most part I'm pissed at her, but at the same time I'm going 'Hey, this is Teri Hatcher! This is pretty cool!'"
Her character is a little hippy-dippy, which isn't necessarily what you think of when you picture the actress, but Rogers says it made sense. "The sort freewheeling, high-energy characteristic of that did seem to be a part of her. I was excited that she came to our show, and she seemed very happy to be there, so that sort of 'Hey, let's have fun, let's play,' was definitely a part of Teri that made sense with the Kate character."
Although Hatcher was supposed to direct an episode of the series, Rogers tells Zap2it exclusively that it's not happening in Season 1. "I don't think that there was time to really get involved with this round of episodes, to do the necessary prep and everything, but I think the plan is if we were to come back to do more episodes for a Season 2 that she would direct then," he says.
He continues: "She was great on set, and definitely made scenes more dynamic just with the simple thoughts of 'instead of just sitting here, what if I was going from here to here.' Some fundamental things that made scenes richer and better emotionally, [which is] a clear outcropping of her having spent years and years in front of the camera. So I would be very excited to have her direct one."
Jesse Metcalfe: The great thing about my character is that although Christopher was introduced in the first series, you really don't know that much about him, so our very capable writers were free to create a character that was very compelling and at the same time very conflicted. I think as an actor, that's the kind of character you really want to play.
Zap2it: What's your take on Christopher?
Jesse Metcalfe: Christopher is introduced as the anti-Ewing. He's adopted, and he's coming back to Southfork after studying abroad and developing his alternative energy patent in China. When he comes back to the family, he is very much driven by his need to prove himself to his father and also to assert his position in the Ewing hierarchy. I was drawn to the character because he is intelligent and ambitious, but at the same time he's a chip off the old block.
He's a very compassionate and loving character, but he also has this whole other side: He's very much the rancher, just as his father is.
Zap2it: Did you watch the old series to prepare?
Jesse Metcalfe: There's 350-some-odd episodes, so it would be quite a task to watch every one of them, but I watched about 35 of them -- and if this show runs as long as we hope and think it will, I'll have time to catch all of those episodes!
"Dallas" airs Wednesdays on TNT.
Luckily, we're being set up in that scene, because by the end of this two-hour premiere episode, Hagman's J.R. is a revitalized lion in winter, ready and eager to renew his long-running family feud with brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) over the future fortunes of the Ewing family ranch, Southfork.
Given the long list of failed attempts to revisit former TV hits -- here's looking at you, "Charlie's Angels," "Knight Rider," "Bionic Woman," "Fantasy Island" and countless others -- it's easy to see why so many people were skeptical when executive producer Cynthia Cidre undertook this project, which she conceived not as a reboot or a remake but a continuation of the Ewing saga.
"It just seemed natural to catch up with the Ewing family that we loved 20 years later and see where they were at this point in their lives and what had happened in the years since the show had gone off the air," she says. "It was a very natural transition."
Jesse Metcalfe, who stars as Bobby's adopted son Christopher Ewing and rotates top billing each week with Josh Henderson as J.R.'s son, John Ross, says he gets why so many eyebrows were raised at the news that "Dallas" was coming back.
"I think all of us had the same question: 'Was this a good idea?' " says Metcalfe, previously best known for playing Eva Longoria's young gardener/lover on "Desperate Housewives."
"We really didn't change the structure of the show, and the same compelling themes are in the new series: family dynamics, greed, ambition, love, loyalty, all of those things. My doubts about being a part of this project were quickly soothed after reading Cynthia's incredible script and seeing how well-defined and dynamic these characters were. I think we're all confident that we've done the original series justice, and fans of that series are going to be pleased."
The premiere finds the Ewing family gathering at Southfork for Christopher's wedding to Rebecca Sutter (Julie Gonzalo) in the aftermath of a previous romantic disappointment with Elena Ramos (Jordana Brewster), who now is dating John Ross. What few people know is that John Ross and Elena have been covertly drilling on Southfork, against the express wishes of the late Ewing matriarch, Miss Ellie, and they've just hit a gusher. That news immediately rekindles the old struggle for Southfork between J.R. and Bobby, who is determined to protect his mother's legacy.
Part of the success of this new "Dallas" lies in the skillful way that Cidre has devised strong storylines for young cast members Metcalfe, Henderson and Brewster while similarly keeping returning cast members Hagman, Duffy and Linda Gray, as J.R.'s ex-wife Sue Ellen, a vital part of the show, not mere tokens.
For his part, Hagman says he wasn't a hard sell when it came to the new "Dallas," which he even sees as an improvement in some respects over the old series.
"I was approached, and my friends Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray were included in the package," explains the actor, now 80. "We talked and decided, 'Hey, it would be fun just getting back together, us guys,' and when they came up with the scripts, I was even more impressed by it. I think we've got a good shot at it again.
"The only trepidation I have is that it goes with the speed of a fast Japanese train. They compress about five [of the old] shows into one. The original was really a stodgy old show, compared to this new one. But I think the attention spans of the American human being, and hopefully the world human being, have gotten a lot shorter, so you keep it shorter [on the show], I think."
Born in Panama, Brewster, who came to the United States as the original show was ending its run, says she never saw the original "Dallas," but she definitely was aware of it because -- well, really, how do you miss something that massive?
"I was very aware of the theme song and the whole 'Who shot J.R.?' thing, and I knew who Linda and Patrick were and Larry," she says. "I mean, they're kind of inescapable, and it's worldwide. I did watch several of the original episodes, which was valuable, because the original storylines are a part of the show, even though when you watch the show now, you can still follow if you didn't see the original show."
As for Hagman, he's thrilled with the episodes he's filmed and thinks fans both old and new will enjoy them, too.
"I hope to be on this show for another 13 years," he says with a chuckle. "This thing is going to drag me into my future. I'll be 94 by then!"
The ruling, according to The Hollywood Reporter, also overturns the trials judge's denial of Touchstone's motion for directed verdict -- meaning the appeals court believes Touchstone should have won the trial in the first place.
The appeals court went on to say, "It is further ordered that the retrial currently set for Sept. 10 is hereby stayed pending further order of the court."
Sheridan's lawsuit isn't completely dead ... but it is on its last legs.
Joosten died Saturday morning from lung cancer, and was surrounded by family and friends at the time of her passing, E! News has confirmed.
She was 72.
"Kathryn passed away this morning after a valiant fight against her cancer," Nadine Jolson, Joosten's rep, told E! News. "Her family was with her. Funeral arrangements are pending. This is a terrible loss, and she fought as hard as she could."
Her family released this statement to E! News: "The family of Kathryn Joosten, two-time Emmy winner, longtime Governor of The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, lung cancer advocate, and so much more, regrets to announce that Kathryn succumbed to her 11-year battle with lung cancer today, June 2, 2012, surrounded by love and humor til the end. Thanks to everyone for their love and support. We are laughing through our tears. We love you, Kathy, thanks for everything."
Joosten, who was a fixture on Housewives playing the trouble-causing, gossipy neighbor (she was originally introduced in season one as Lynette Scavo's nemesis), went on to win Emmys in 2005 and 2008 for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy for her role on the show.
In a statement to E! News, Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry remembered Joosten fondly:
"The character of Mrs. McCluskey was created for a single episode. We then cast Kathryn Joosten and she infused the part with so much feisty wit and curmudgeonly bravado, we knew we had to move her onto Wisteria Lane for the run of the series. I will forever miss her, as a co-worker and as a friend."
Before joining Housewives, Joosten scored roles on Dharma and Greg, My Name is Earl, Ally McBeal and more, and was well-known for her role as Mrs. Landingham, the President of the United States' secretary, on The West Wing.
Joosten, who spent many years working as a psychiatric nurse, kicked off her career as an actor at the age of 42.
Joosten, who won two Emmys for her portrayal of Mrs. McCluskey on Housewives, passed away in Westlake Village, Calif. She had first battled lung cancer back in 2001, but survived. She was diagnosed with the disease a second time in 2009, but after undergoing surgery and chemotherapy, she was declared cancer-free again in 2010. In recent years, she was an advocate for lung cancer awareness and research. Her guest-star turns on My Name is Earl and Grey's Anatomy centered on her character's attempts to quit smoking.
The Florida native worked as a psychiatric nurse in Chicago for many years before she started acting at the age of 42. She subsequently moved to Hollywood in the mid-'90s and guest-starred on Roseanne, Home Improvement, Seinfeld, ER, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Frasier, among others.
Joosten first rose to fame in 1999 for playing Mrs. Landingham, President Bartlet's secretary on The West Wing. She recurred on the NBC drama for two seasons until her character was killed in a car crash in 2001. She went on to appear in more series, including The X-Files, Will & Grace, Gilmore Girls, Scrubs and even played one incarnation of God on several episodes of Joan of Arcadia.
In 2004, Joosten won her most notable role, as Karen McCluskey on Desperate Housewives. She won the Emmy for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series twice, in 2005 and 2008, and was promoted to a series regular in Season 6. After her character's tragic end on The West Wing, Joosten famously made Housewives creator Marc Cherry promise not to kill her off the show. In a bittersweet moment, the ABC soap's series finale was largely built around her character's death from terminal lung cancer — to the tune of Johnny Mathis' "Wonderful! Wonderful!"
Felicity Huffman, who shared the most screen time with Joosten throughout Desperate Housewives' eight-year run, tweeted about her late co-star Saturday. "All my prayers and love to Kathryn Joosten's family. Rest in peace. She was an amazing woman and a wonderful actress."
Joosten, who had battled lung cancer for 11 years, died Saturday at her home in Los Angeles, her publicist Nadine Jolson said.
Joosten "was surrounded by love and humor 'til the end," her family said in a statement. "We are laughing through our tears."
Joosten won two Emmy awards for her portrayal of Mrs. McCluskey, who kept a close eye on her Wisteria Lane neighbors on "Desperate Housewives." The hit show ended its eight-year run on ABC last month with a series finale in which Joosten's character passed away. Her character's battle with cancer was a story line in the show.
Joosten's "Desperate Housewives" co-stars took to Twitter to express their condolences.
"Rest in peace, she was an amazing woman and a wonderful actress," Felicity Huffman wrote.
Brenda Strong said in a tweet: "Wisteria Lane won't be the same without you."
Joosten was a psychiatric nurse and single mother in suburban Chicago when she began her acting career at 42. She wrote on her website that she pursued her childhood dream of acting after getting involved with her hometown theater in Lake Forest, Ill.
She said she received her first break when she was hired to be a street performer at Disney World in Orlando. She worked odd jobs to make ends meet and moved to Hollywood in 1995. She said she landed her first small role within months on the comedy "Family Matters."
Over the years, she found steady work appearing in such popular shows as "Dharma & Greg," ''Ally McBeal" and "Scrubs." She became a familiar face to fans of NBC's "The West Wing" when she appeared as Dolores Landingham, President Jed Bartlet's trusted secretary.
"Some people in Hollywood think of me as a model for dramatic midlife transitions: suburban housewife to Emmy-winning actress," she wrote on her website. "But I never plotted a master plan for following my dreams."
Joosten was an advocate for lung cancer awareness and research and sat on the board of governors for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
She is survived by her sons, Jonathan and Timothy.
Plans for a memorial service were pending.
