Audra McDonald joins ‘The Good Fight’ (Photo Courtesy of CBS All Access)
Award-winning actress Audra McDonald has joined the cast of CBS All Access’ The Good Fight for the show’s second season. McDonald will be reprising her role as United States Attorney Liz Lawrence, the character she played on CBS’ The Good Wife. Per CBS All Access, it’s revealed in The Good Fight “that she is the ex-wife of Adrian Boseman (Delroy Lindo), and over the course of the season, the two will have to deal with many of their unresolved issues.”
The cast is led by Emmy Award-winner Christine Baranski and features Cush Jumbo, Rose Leslie, Delroy Lindo, Sarah Steele and Justin Bartha. The Good Fight was created by The Good Wife‘s Robert and Michelle King who serve as showrunners and executive producers. Ridley Scott, David Zucker, Liz Glotzer and Brooke Kennedy are also involved as executive producers. Season two will premiere in early 2018.
“We’re thrilled that Audra McDonald will return to the fictional Chicago of The Good Fight,” stated executive producers Robert and Michelle King. “After seeing her facility with both comedy and drama, we were dying for the chance to work with her again. Audra brings intelligence, strength, and wit to Liz Lawrence, the character she developed in the fourth season of The Good Wife.”
McDonald has earned six Tony Awards and holds the record as Broadway’s most decorated actor. She recently starred in Disney’s live-action musical Beauty and the Beast, playing Madame Garderobe, and will soon be seen in Hello Again with Sam Underwood, Martha Plimpton and Rumer Willis.
Fox’s The Gifted star Stephen Moyer talked about his Comic Con experience during our roundtable interview at the event, saying it was great to be back after taking a few years off. The 2017 sold-out convention was his ninth trip to the San Diego Comic Con and Moyer, who was in town with his co-stars to chat about the new X-Men series, thought it was interesting to be there with a young cast who hadn’t experienced the madness of the Con before.
“When we did True Blood, the very first one, we’d only just started and nobody knew what the show was. There was this kind of lovely innocence about that very first one that was really special. And it kind of feels a little bit like that with this, where some of these guys haven’t done this before. We can walk around without having the kind of mania. If the show is a success, next year will be very different.”
Moyer discussed his character, mutants vs. vampires, and the world of X-Men in our interview at the Con. The Gifted is set to premiere on October 2, 2017.
How do mutants compare to vampires?
Stephen Moyer: “I think one of the things that I always wanted to be able to do was fly, and I was always really gutted that (Alexander) Skarsgard got to fly. Apart from the fact that he was 6’4”, he got to fly. And of course, Polaris can do that. But there’s some things that these mutants can do like shifting metal or bringing buildings down, there’s a character – Proteus – who can turn back time which I think would be pretty awesome. There’s some things the X gang can do that we couldn’t as vampires which are pretty awesome.”
Social commentary has always been an important part of the X-Men universe. Does that hold true for the series?
Stephen Moyer: “Yeah, I think it would be quite difficult to live in the 2017 that we’re living in and not comment on what’s going on in the world. In the same way that True Blood dealt with disenfranchised and marginalized or ‘otherness,’ one of the things that drew me to this is the idea that the kids in our story – and the mutants who have become mutants previously – the gene gets activated by persecution or some kind of bullying or some kind of moment of terror. I love the idea that my children would be able to turn on people who are awful in society. I think there are certain aspects in the script that Matt (Nix) wrote over a year ago that will have quite a prescient effect that will be quite interesting given the government we’ve got.”
How does your character in the series compare to the characters in the comics?
Stephen Moyer: “My character doesn’t exist in the comics. He’s an ordinary man. My character is the sort of ordinary man in this. […] I think myself and (Amy Acker’s) characters end up being the reality, the ordinary in the extraordinary. So, the audience gets to sort of visit this world through their eyes.”
How into the X-Men franchise were you before you got cast?
Stephen Moyer: “When I was a kid I was really into Spider-Man. X-Men wasn’t my bag. I did read comic books but the X world wasn’t my sort of growing up thing. But obviously the X-Men are part of my family because my wife’s been in four of them. So, it was a bit difficult to avoid. I knew of the world; I knew about the mutant gene. I obviously knew how that gets activated and how the upper echelons of society are frightened by it, which I really like.”
Did Anna Paquin give you any sort of idea about your entry into the X world?
Stephen Moyer: “She’s done three films with Bryan Singer, and Bryan directed our pilot so that was great. She loves Bryan and Bryan has an encyclopedic knowledge of what the world is. And, so it was fantastic coming in and being able to just mine that. She led me down the rabbit hole in terms of some interesting places to go to to look at stuff. Also, Marvel gave us passwords on our iPads… You know that Marvel Unlimited? Unbelievable! It’s almost as if the iPad was invented for comic books. It’s an unbelievable thing. So, that’s been great as well just being able to go back through old editions from the ‘60s and delve. It’s amazing. Not even just the X-Men stuff.”
Watch the full Stephen Moyer The Gifted interview:
(Interview by Fred Topel. Article by Rebecca Murray.)
ABC’s Once Upon a Time veteran Lana Parrilla was teamed up with series newcomer Gabrielle Anwar for roundtable interviews at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con. Parrilla, who’s one of the few returning Once Upon a Time stars, wouldn’t give away any hints as to what’s in store for Regina in the upcoming seventh season. However, Parrilla did discuss what it was like saying goodbye to Jared Gilmore who played her son, Henry, for six seasons on the popular series. Parrilla and Gabrielle Anwar also talked about the freedom of playing ‘evil.’
What can you tell us about the Regina/The Evil Queen we’re going to see this season? What are you excited about diving into this coming season?
Lana Parrilla: (Laughing) “She shaves her head in the first episode. You know, there isn’t really much I can say other than, ‘Goodbye, pantsuits. Hello, denim.’ Basically, she is a more sort of down-to-earth, more rugged, not as severe looking. She was always very well-coiffed and her hair was always (perfect). She’s a little more relaxed. Her hair’s curly, kind of like when you saw Regina at the bar. She was a little more done up then, but her hair’s more natural, more relaxed. She likes jeans.”
Henry’s been such a crucial part of Regina’s storyline. How is it going forward not having Henry anymore and saying goodbye to Jared Gilmore?
Lana Parrilla: “I cry all the time about Jared, just because I’m so attached to him. You know, we watched the season finale together and he was holding my hand and he would squeeze it every time we were getting closer to the end. I love that kid. He’s become like my son. I’ve seen him grow up before my eyes. And watching the scene that we shot a couple of weeks ago today, it brought tears to my eyes. Not so much because I miss him, because he’ll always be in my life, but just because he’s so big. He just looked like such a young man and it was just so crazy to see. And then to see that flashback of him, the black and white clip that they showed, of him when he was 10 years-old knocking on that door going, ‘I’m your son.’ It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s the same kid!’
Today I looked at Andrew (J. West) and all of a sudden I felt that sort of affinity for him in the same ways that I do feel for Jared. I don’t know what it was…maybe it was just this magical moment, but I looked at Andrew and I thought, ‘This is going to work. This is really going to work.’ I asked him if he was comfortable with me touching his face and kind of doing the things I would do with Jared that I don’t have to ask, you know? I can just touch Jared and kiss him, it’s like not even a question. He kisses me goodbye and makes sure he says bye to me every day, tells me he loves me. So, Andrew has a lot to (live up to). I want to hear, ‘I love you, Lana!’ when he leaves. And, I want big hugs and kisses. But, I think it’s a new relationship and it’s slowly developing. I’m very excited. I think it’s great casting.”
They aged Henry. Are they going to age Regina?
Lana Parrilla: “I don’t know. Maybe I take a potion and I’m younger! We’ll see. We’ll see what they do.”
What can you say about Lady Tremaine?
Gabrielle Anwar: “Lady Tremaine is very unpleasant. I haven’t yet found much of a redeeming quality to her in the first two episodes. So far, she’s been notoriously outrageous and very British. There are plenty of people I can think of to draw from for a character study. I think she resents just about everything. Everybody, everything, every sound, every sniff – you name it. It’s really fun to tap into that side of myself personally, because there’s so much shame around being bad and being dark. It’s in all of us. It’s a beautiful thing to acknowledge and not shy away from. So, it will be very therapeutic for me. It’ll save me a pretty penny in therapy.”
Lana Parrilla: “I used to say that all the time. They used to say, ‘What do you love about her?’ and I said, ‘I love that I can get away with whatever I’m doing.’ Because if I did any of what Regina did in life, I’d be locked up for 120 years.”
Gabrielle Anwar: “It’s true. It’s so true. We get to do something that’s abhorrent.”
Filming has begun on the Ant-Man sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, starring Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly. Ant-Man director Peyton Reed returns to the director’s chair for the sequel, working from a script by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, and Paul Rudd. Per Marvel Studios, filming will take place in Atlanta and San Francisco.
In addition to Rudd and Lilly, the cast includes Michael Pena, Michael Douglas, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tip T.I. Harris, David Dastmalchian, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Hannah John-Kamen, Walton Goggins, and Randall Park. Kevin Feige produces, and Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Stephen Broussard, Charles Newirth and Stan Lee are executive producing. Dante Spinotti (L.A. Confidential) is the director of photography, Shepherd Frankel (Ant-Man) is the production designer, and Louise Frogley (Spider-Man: Homecoming) is the costume designer. The visuals effects supervisor is Stephane Ceretti (Doctor Strange) and Dan Sudick (Captain America: Civil War) is the special effects supervisor.
Ant-Man and the Wasp is set to open in theaters on July 6, 2018.
The Plot: From the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes a new chapter featuring heroes with the astonishing ability to shrink: Ant-Man and The Wasp. In the aftermath of Captain America: Civil War, Scott Lang (Rudd) grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father. As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne (Lilly) and Dr. Hank Pym (Douglas) with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from their past.
A scene from Netflix’s drama series, ‘Mindhunter.’
Netflix has just unveiled the first full official trailer along with new photos from the drama series, Mindhunter. Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany star in the crime drama executive produced by David Fincher, Joshua Donen, Charlize Theron, and Cean Chaffin. Fincher (Gone Girl), Asif Kapadia (Amy), Tobias Lindholm (A Hijacking), and Andrew Douglas (The Amityville Horror) directed episodes of season one.
The first season of Mindhunter will premiere on October 13, 2017.
The Plot: How do we get ahead of crazy if we don’t know how crazy thinks? Two FBI agents (Jonathan Groff & Holt McCallany) set out on a sinister investigative odyssey to discover the brutal answers.
Peter Capaldi stars in ‘Doctor Who’ (Photo by Simon Ridgway/BBC America)
Peter Capaldi was joined by his Doctor Who co-stars Pearl Mackie (‘Bill’), Matt Lucas (‘Nardole’), and Michelle Gomez (‘Missy’) for his final appearance at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con as the Doctor. In addition to the packed panel in the convention center’s Hall H, the Doctor Who cast participated in roundtable interviews in which they discussed Capaldi’s last outing as the Doctor.
During our roundtable interview, Capaldi was asked how emotional we can expect the upcoming Christmas episode to be for him and for Doctor Who fans. “I don’t know how it will be for the audience but it was very emotional for me, because often what happens – and maybe this happens with TV shows generally, I don’t know because I’ve never really done a series before where you’ve worked with the same crew and the same people every day for four years and you get very close to people. So, I find that what happens is in the script when the characters say goodbye, they often articulate that better than the human beings do. You often find when you do those scenes, the scenes become quite emotional because it’s like saying goodbye to Jenna (Coleman) or whatever, it’s because they are more articulate than we are. So, it was therefore emotional saying goodbye to Doctor Who but he said it in a better way than I can say it,” explained Capaldi.
Peter Capaldi Doctor Who Interview:
Director Rachel Talalay has been a big part of this era of Doctor Who. Can you talk about what it’s been like to work with her and what she’s meant to the Doctor Who legacy?
Peter Capaldi: “She’s an artist. I asked her to come and do my last one. I was so grateful that she did come and do it because I wanted it to be in the hands of somebody who was a visionary and who has a cinematic thing about her. It’s a tough world – the world of episodic television – because it’s very easy to just deliver the material which is just to do a wide shot, a couple close-ups, a couple medium shots. Some directors do that and that works, but it’s better to have someone who is an artist and has a visual understanding and a cinematic understanding, and comes up with a cinematic expression of the story.
She’s also a big Doctor Who fan. She’s also incredibly smart. And, for me, it means I’m with someone I can trust. I don’t have to ask Rachel why. I never asked Rachel why. She tells me to do something or asks me to do something and I’ll just do it because I know she’s brilliant. And she pushed Doctor Who, our Doctor Who, into a different league, I think, visually and aesthetically and intellectually.
Steven (Moffatt’s) incredibly clever and Rachel’s incredibly clever, and them working together was a great benefit to the show. I love her; she’s fabulous. She’s the real thing and that’s what I’m always looking for is the real thing…real artist, real director, real writer. She’s absolutely a bona fide, 24-carat filmmaker.”
Doctor Who is very much about change over the years. How do you think you’ve changed the character of the Doctor?
Peter Capaldi: “My version of the Doctor, I don’t think he’s changed very much. People says there’s a variation in the way that we go from the first season to the middle season to the last season. I think what happened was the writers became more comfortable with me. I always wanted to make a very clean break from what had gone before. I love Matt (Smith) and David (Tennant) and Chris Eccleston, but I think there had been a tendency for the Doctor to be quite user-friendly. I wanted him to be more distant, more difficult to be around because I thought he was an alien. I didn’t think he was a guy. I didn’t think he was just someone you would meet somewhere. Because when I grew up, Doctor Who wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a person you would meet in the street. He was a weird alien creature. So, I think it took them a while to do that and then figure out you could do that and also be funny and be affectionate and witty and clever and all that.
So, for me he’s the same but I get why people think he’s different. I love what we did in my first season. When I look at those now, he’s really tough. And without that, the rest of them wouldn’t have existed. We couldn’t just come in and be light and friendly and all that. We had to come in and be stranger.”
You’ve been a rocker for years. Whose idea was it to have the Doctor play the guitar?
Peter Capaldi: “I just thought it would be fun if he played. I thought he should be like a teenager. I just wanted him to have a big old Marshall amp with valves that he’d stuck all over it. I just thought it would be funny if the TARDIS was spinning through space and you heard like these power chords coming out. I thought he should just not be very good, but he’s much better than I actually am because someone else comes along and does all kind of shredding and stuff like that. Yeah, it’s fun! But, you know, I came up with that.”
Is there an episode you think defines your Doctor?
Peter Capaldi: “I think probably ‘Listen’ in the first season because it’s the first time where we clearly see this kind of obsessive quality about him. Because in that episode, he has a compulsion that there’s a creature that exists that you can’t see and he sets off to find it – even though you can’t see it and there’s no evidence for it. He’s absolutely committed to that idea. And also he looks a little more Gothic-y, a kind of slightly more Cabinet of Dr. Caligari than he is now. I liked all the candles in the TARDIS and all that stuff. I liked all that. And so for me, that was really one of the first points where you knew who this Doctor is. And he was quite brutal with people, but he was also kind and he was also funny and acidic. So, I think that was the first one where he really sort of first appeared.”
Are you looking forward to being a fan again? What are you hoping to see in the new Doctor?
Peter Capaldi: “Yeah! I think Jodie (Whittaker’s) great. I spoke to her last week. She’s very excited, obviously, about it all. I think she’ll be amazing. It was just great talking to her because she had so much energy and so much enthusiasm, so much passion for the show which was nice. And I think she’s a great actress. I’ll just be excited to see what happens. (Laughing) I enjoy watching Doctor Who and it’ll be fun just to be able to watch it without worrying, ‘Oh, I was terrible in that.’”
The CW’s Supernatural is heading into its 13 season and at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con series star Jensen Ackles (‘Dean Winchester’) was asked what it feels like to be a part of the long-running series. “13 … it’s not even a dream come true because I could have never dreamed this,” replied Ackles. Ackles also talked about where we pick up with Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester when season 13 premieres on Thursday, October 12th at 8pm ET/PT.
Where do we catch up with the Winchester Brothers when season 13 begins?
Jensen Ackles: “The exact moment we left off – literally with Cas at Dean’s feet is where we show up. It’s interesting because mom is gone, presumably dead. Crowley just killed himself. Cas is now lying dead at Dean’s feet. Kelly’s gone. There’s too much…where we pick up, in my opinion because we’ve already filmed this, there’s too much for Dean to process at that moment. So, he does the thing that he knows how to do best and that is neutralize the threat. There’s a threat behind him as in Lucifer’s son so he’s just going to do that. That’s something that he can hit, you know?
There’s too much emotion; he doesn’t know how to process the fact that he’s lost this one, that one, that one. So he’s just going to do what he knows and that’s hit something hard. And then luckily Sam stops him and tries to talk sense into him, and then there’s a bit of a struggle there. That’s kind of where we start off is the struggle of, ‘This is too much. I can’t deal with this so I’m going to do something that I know I can do that is physical and tactile. That, I can do.’ I haven’t read ahead so I know that at some point he’s going to have to deal with it and that’s going to probably be a pretty hard episode.”
It sounds like the brothers aren’t on the same page when they start off the season, and they definitely were last season. Does it feel different this season?
Jensen Ackles: “Well, it’s certainly not going back to seasons when they were really at odds. It’s more of, ‘Let’s figure out how to handle this situation.’ Sam wants to deal with it one way, Dean wants to deal with it another. They’re not going to argue about it. They’re going to eventually get to the same place, it’s just how they get there is a little different.”
Are you going to direct this season?
Jensen Ackles: “I’m not. I declined the offer this year because I have two new children at home. I was trying to get as much time with them as I could.”
How much can you say about the Scooby-Doo episode?
Jensen Ackles: “Everybody is super excited about it. We’ve already done all the voice-over. We did that back in February and seen some renderings. I don’t want to give away too much but it will be the majority of the show. You’ll get a little live-action at the beginning and then that gets us into Scooby land, and it’s pretty cool.”
If Sam or Dean had been able to talk to Crowley one last time, what would they have said to him?
Jensen Ackles: “Dean decides to, once he starts to realize the severity of the situation, he tries to reach out to God, which is as we all know he’s gone. But he figures he’ll take a stab at it and he does mention, ‘Bring Crowley back. Bring them all back.’ So even though Crowley was obviously a bad guy and had his own agenda and stuff, I think what he did was not something that they ever expected to happen. Certainly it was self-serving, but there was an ounce in there that maybe gave a crap about them. I think Dean always…I think maybe he had an idea that that was there. If there was dialogue written, I’m not sure what it would be but I would imagine there’d be a slight bit of gratitude. Very slight.”
Do you think more hunters will be introduced?
Jensen Ackles: “I hope so. I always like it when we kind of flesh out that world a little bit and we get to see people that live similar lifestyles as the brothers. I don’t know, though. I haven’t read ahead but that’s certainly something that I enjoy as well, so I hope so.”
Watch the full Jensen Ackles Supernatural interview:
DC Comics and The CW announced Hartley Sawyer has been cast in a recurring role in the upcoming fourth season of the comic book-inspired series, The Flash. Sawyer will be taking on the role of Ralph Dibney, also known as the Elongated Man. He joins The Flash cast which is led by Grant Gustin in the title role and features Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Tom Cavanagh, Jesse L Martin, Candice Patton, and Keiynan Lonsdale.
The Flash season four is set to premiere on October 10, 2017.
Per DC Comics: “Described as one of the Flash’s most iconic allies, Ralph Dibny – a.k.a. The Elongated Man – is a fast-talking private investigator with investigative skills that rival those of Batman. Upon discovering he has the power to stretch his body to any shape or form, Dibny uses his new abilities to help Team Flash solve one of Central City’s greatest mysteries.
In the comics, Dibny developed as a private eye after he struck out on his own, but it’s fitting that he’s making his live-action debut on The Flash. The character first debuted in 1960’s THE FLASH #112, where he became a supporting character in the comic before later appearing in DETECTIVE COMICS and eventually joining the big league as a member of the JLA. He also played a key role (along with his wife, Sue Dibny) in 2004’s impactful IDENTITY CRISIS.
The Elongated Man’s abilities are all in his name – he can alter and contort the shape of his body to make it longer, larger, flatter, or just about any other shape imaginable. Combine that with his brilliant detective skills and he’s likely to become a powerful new ally to the Scarlet Speedster.”
Sawyer’s credits include Glory Daze, The Young and the Restless, Caper, Miss 2059, and Saving the Human Race: Webisodes.
Starz, Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, and author Stephanie Danler are working on a dramatic series based on Danler’s novel, Sweetbitter. The half-hour series has Danler on board as an executive producer and she also wrote the first episode’s script. Plan B’s Stu Zicherman (The Americans) is developing the series and will also executive produce the project set up at Starz.
Danler’s Sweetbitter made the NPR Best Book of 2016 list and reached the #10 spot on the New York Times’ Hardcover Ficton Best-Seller list. It made it to the #2 spot on the LA Times’ Best Seller list as well as the #6 spot on their Paperback Fiction list. In addition, Sweetbitter held a spot in top 10 on Publishers Weekly’s Hardcover Fiction list.
The Plot: Sweetbitter follows 22-year-old Tess who, shortly after arriving in New York City, lands a job at a celebrated downtown restaurant. Swiftly introduced to the world of drugs, alcohol, love, lust, dive bars, and fine dining, she learns to navigate the chaotically alluring, yet punishing life she has stumbled upon. This is the story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, set against the rich and grimy backdrop of exclusive restaurants, conjuring a nonstop and high-adrenaline world evoking the possibility, beauty, and fragility of being young and adrift.
Paramount Pictures is wasting no time getting to work on the Transformers spinoff, Bumblebee, now that Michael Bay has finished up his take on the franchise. Filming is now underway on Bumblebee directed by Kubo and the Two String‘s Travis Knight from a script by Unforgettable‘s Christina Hodson. Hailee Steinfeld (Edge of Seventeen), Pamela Adlon (Better Things), John Cena (Trainwreck), Stephen Schneider (Broad City), Jorge Lendeborg Jr. (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Jason Drucker (Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul), Kenneth Choi (American Crime Story), Ricardo Hoyos (DeGrassi: Next Class), Abby Quinn (The Sisterhood of the Night), Rachel Crow (Deidra & Laney Rob a Train), and Grace Dzienny (Zoo) are confirmed to star in the action movie inspired by the Hasbro toys.
Per the studio, this Transformer‘s spinoff will be shot in California. Michael Bay and Lorenzo di Bonaventura are producing, with Steven Spielberg, Brian Goldner, Chris Brigham, and Mark Vahradian executive producing. Expect to see Bumblebee in theaters on December 21, 2018.
The Plot: On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug.
