Entertainment

Impeachment: American Crime Story debuts tonight on FX.  The series turns its lens toward the affairs and scandals of former president Bill Clinton, as told through the eyes of the women, including Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp and Paula Jones.

Annaleigh Ashford, who plays Jones, tells ABC Audio that the series will tackle the well-known scandal from a different angle.

“We’re really focusing on the narrative of the women and the point of view of the women in the story, which was so ignored, overlooked and taken away from these women during that time in history,” she says, adding the women were “brutalized” in the media and late night comedy.

“That’s sort of the interesting thing about this time in American history…it was such a salacious media event,” adds the 36-year-old actress.  “Even as a kid, I was super aware of what was happening and super aware that it was extremely controversial and very sexual.  And really, my window into this time was through late night comedy, which I think sort of says it all.”

Ashford believes the series also offers some insight into how the country became so divided.

“I feel like if we could find the root cause for the sickness we have now, it would stem back to this moment in the mid 90s where it just became my team, your team, and it was the beginning of bullying on the Internet,” she suggests.  “Monica Lewinsky was the first person to be bullied on the Internet. And it was truly the beginning of sort of the Fox News [versus] CNN battle.” 

The third installment of Ryan Murphy‘s American Crime Story franchise also stars Beanie Feldstein, Sarah Paulson, Clive Owen, Edie Falco, Billy Eichner, Cobie Smulders and Betty Gilpin.

(Trailer contains uncensored profanity.)

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The Wire and Lovecraft Country actor Michael K. Williams was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment Monday, ABC News has confirmed. He was 54.

“It is with deep sorrow that the family announces the passing of Emmy-nominated actor Michael Kenneth Williams,” his rep says in a statement. “They ask for your privacy while grieving this unsurmountable loss.”

WABC-TV reports that drug paraphernalia was found at the scene. Police say the investigation is ongoing and the medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

Williams starred as Omar Little in The Wire and as Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire. He was most recently nominated for a 2021 Emmy for his role as Montrose Freeman in HBO’s Lovecraft Country.

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) NBC’s sitcom AP Bio just returned for a fourth season on Peacock.

The series stars It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia lead and co-creator Glenn Howerton as Jack Griffin, a former Harvard philosophy professor begrudgingly tasked with teaching at his hometown high school in Ohio.

Instead of teaching, however, he sets his students on a series of missions to get back at a fellow academic who stole his dream job. 

The series was never a ratings hit for NBC, but it developed a dedicated core audience who successfully fought to save it season after season.

Howerton explains to ABC Audio that AP‘s creative trajectory is a blessing in disguise. “There is this little bit of sort of like a kamikaze pilot mentality where you’re like, ‘This might be it…So I’m just f***ing going for it, man.”

He adds, “You know…look, I experienced it on Sunny…in those early seasons especially, we were like ‘Nobody’s going [to watch] this. I don’t know if anybody’s really even getting what we’re doing. So let’s just do it.’ It’s like it’s almost like we’re doing it for ourselves, you know?…And then you find out that, like, lots of people are watching and lots of people do love it.”

Stand-up and actor Patton Oswalt, who plays the school’s hysterically powerless Principal Durbin, agrees that this season, they’re going for broke.

“We know our writing staff, we know how willing to push the envelope they are,” he says. “And so knowing that they have yet another season — on a streaming platform where they get even more wiggle room — it was just that anticipation of, ‘Oh, God, what are they going to send us? I cannot wait to read these scripts!'” 

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When the $482 million Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opens on September 30 in Los Angeles, it will pay tribute to one of the greatest actors of all time, Sidney Poitier.

The entrance to the new venue, the Grand Lobby, is being named after the iconic Oscar winner.

“It is an incredible honor to name our grand lobby — the nucleus of the Academy Museum — in celebration of Sir Sidney Poitier, whose legacy of humanitarian efforts and groundbreaking artistry continues to inspire us all,” Academy Museum director Bill Kramer said in a statement. 

The trailblazing 94-year-old actor’s film credits include Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again and Lilies of the Field, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1964, the first Black performer ever to win the award. Poitier has received numerous honors in his distinguished career, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2009.

“Sidney’s tremendous impact on the motion picture industry, and on audiences around the world, is inseparable from the story of his longstanding, collegial relationship with the Academy, said Poitier’s wife, Joanna Shimkus Poitier. “To be honored now as the namesake of the Academy Museum’s lobby, the place of access to everything that lies within, is almost like receiving a second Oscar, for lifetime achievement.”

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures features six floors of exhibitions covering the history of filmmaking. On Tuesday, September 7, Spike Lee will be featured in a special conversation with Shaka King, director of Judas and the Black Messiah starring Oscar nominee Daniel Kaluuya. The event will be livestreamed at 6 p.m. PT.

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Another familiar face is making her grand return to Grey’s Anatomy.  Kate Walsh, who played Dr. Addison Montgomery, broke the news that everyone’s favorite red head is back.

“It’s really happening. Dr. Addison Montgomery will see you shortly,” Walsh shared Thursday in a celebratory Instagram video.

She further teased fans on the Grey’s Anatomy Instagram by declaring in another video, “Well, well, well, would you look who it is? That’s right, my loves, Dr. Addison Montgomery is coming back to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. I’m so excited to be coming home again, joining Shonda [Rhimes], Ellen [Pompeo] and the rest of the incredible cast. This season — 18, wow! — just wait until you see what she has in store for you.”

Walsh will star in multiple episodes, but it is unclear what role she will play in the upcoming season.

Dr. Montgomery first appeared in the season 1 finale of Grey‘s, iconically introducing herself as the wife of Patrick Dempsey‘s Derek Shepherd before telling Pompeo’s Meredith Grey, “And you must be the woman who’s been screwing my husband.”

Walsh departed after Grey‘s third season to star on Private Practice, which ran for six seasons.

In May, ABC Audio caught up with Walsh and asked if she’d ever return to Grey‘s following the surprise return of Dempsey, T.R. Knight and Chyler Leigh during the 17th season.

Saying at the time she “honestly would” come back to the franchise if asked, the actress added she “doesn’t know” if the character she spent nearly a decade bringing to life could make a grand return, confessing, “No one’s reached out.”

Added Walsh, “There was talk a long time ago of me going back… But it was conflicted with the shooting of Umbrella Academy, so I couldn’t do it.”  

Grey‘s 18th season premieres September 30 on ABC.

 

 

 

 

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Kaley Cuoco has split from her second husband, equestrian Karl Cook, the couple confirmed in a statement to People. 

“Despite a deep love and respect for one another, we have realized that our current paths have taken us in opposite directions,” the statement began. “We have both shared so much of our journey publicly so while we would prefer to keep this aspect of our personal life private, we wanted to be forthcoming in our truth together. There is no anger or animosity, quite the contrary.”

The pair noted their decision came “through an immense amount of respect and consideration for one another,” and say they “request that you do the same in understanding that we will not be sharing any additional details or commenting further.”

The Flight Attendant star, 35, married 30-year-old Cook on June 30, 2018.

Cuoco was previously married to former tennis pro Ryan Sweeting from 2013 to 2016. She started dating Cook in that latter year as well, before he popped the question in 2017.

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Director Pablo Larraín‘s movie Spencer just debuted at the Venice Film Festival, and Kristen Stewart is already winning raves for her portrayal as Princess Diana. 

The Hollywood Reporter, for example, piled on the superlatives for the film, calling Stewart “incandescent,” and declares that the actress “has seldom been more magnetic, or more heartbreakingly fragile.”

Variety also praised the Oscar-nominated Jackie director’s new film as “masterly” and “enthralling,” and Stewart a “superb” in the story, which takes place over a Christmas weekend in the 1990s in which Diana’s rocky marriage to Prince Charles finally comes apart at the seams.

For her part, Stewart spoke about the role after the screening, saying she, “took more pleasure into my physicality making this movie than I have on anything.” According to Deadline, she continued, “I felt more free and alive and able to move, and taller even. Now put a leash on that.”

Stewart praised Diana, who eventually divorced Charles and remained an icon of fashion and a tireless humanitarian before her tragic death in a car accident in 1997. “There are some people that are endowed with an undeniable penetrating energy,” the actress explained. “I think it’s just something she was born with.”

Stewart continued, “I think the really sad thing about her is that as normal and casual and disarming her air is immediately, she also felt so isolated and lonely she made everyone else feel accompanied and bolstered by this beautiful light and all she wanted was to have it back.”

Spencer opens in theaters November 5.

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In the classic version of Cinderella, a handsome prince rescues Cinderella from her evil stepmother.  But when those parts are played by Camilla Cabello and Idina Menzel — aka Frozen‘s Queen Elsa — there’s going to be a twist to the story.

In the new musical version of Cinderella, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Cinderella dreams, not of a prince, but of owning her own successful business.  And while her stepmother is still wicked, we learn that it’s a result of past trauma.

The new, original songs also have a feminist twist. Idina says her big number, “Dream, Girl,” is “sort of the flip side of the ‘Let It Go’s and the ‘Defying Gravity’s” — two of the songs she’s most identified with.

“It harnesses the frustration and the anger a little bit, and gives voice to all of women or anyone in the world who feels oppressed, or as though someone’s not hearing or seeing them or realizing their dreams with them,” Idina, explains, adding that all the women in the film sing the song with her.

Idina is excited for viewers to see Camila in her big acting debut, telling ABC Audio, “She’s a rock star and she’s gorgeous and funny, and I think we have some great scenes together.”  However, she finds it hard to get used to the way young stars like Camila react to her.

“That’s the one thing about getting older,” she laughs. “It’s nice, but you also realize that when they say ‘I’ve been listening to you since I was three’….I think, ‘Ohhhkay!'”

But once she gets over that, the star of Frozen and Wicked says she realizes, “just how lucky I am to have been a part of some really important projects that have been sort of a zeitgeist for their generation, and I don’t take that lightly.”

Idina adds, “I know how cool that is. And so once I get over turning 50,” she laughs, “then I can take in the fact that these girls think I’m cool still, and um, and take that in and be proud of it.

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In a twist of life imitating art that would be right at home in the multiverse-twisting world of Rick and Morty, Adult Swim has released a promo for Sunday’s season finale, starring Christopher Lloyd as Rick Sanchez. 

After all, Lloyd’s Back to the Future character Dr. Emmett Brown was the inspiration for the mad scientist from Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon‘s Emmy-winning animated series — which began as a toon called The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharty. The latter, obviously, referred to Michael J. Fox‘s Marty McFly, which underwent a name change for obvious legal reasons.

Unlike Doc Brown, however, Harmon and Roiland’s Rick is not only the universe’s smartest man, he’s also a sociopath with unrepentant addiction issues, who drags his awkward teen grandson on adventures through space and time. In the short live-action promo, actor Jaeden Lieberher plays Morty, who follows Lloyd’s Rick through one of Rick’s green dimension portals into his garage workshop.

Lloyd, in costume as the character, says, “Morty, we’re home,” belching some of his dialog, in perfect Rick Sanchez fashion. 

“Aw, geez,” Morty says, nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

The clip is not only wish fulfillment for fans and the show’s creators, but also for Lloyd. He told the Phoenix New Times in 2018 that he’d love to participate in Rick and Morty in some capacity. “It is a lot of fun,” he said of the animated series. 

Rick and Morty wraps up its fifth season on Sunday at 11 p.m. on Adult Swim.

 

 

 

 

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A day after Gregg Leakes lost his battle with colon cancer, NeNe Leakes honored his memory by sharing a tender video of the two dancing.

Taking to Instagram, the Real Housewives of Atlanta star captioned her tribute with alternating red heart and broken heart emojis.

The video, which is NeNe’s first post following Gregg’s passing, shows the two slow dancing and flirting while Johnny Gill‘s “It Would Be You” thrums in the background.  The couple is all smiles as they point at each other and sway to the music.  The video ends with Gregg wrapping his arms around the Glee alum, who leans against his chest.

On Wednesday, a representative for the couple told ABC News that Gregg “passed away peacefully in his home surrounded by all of his children, very close loved ones and wife NeNe Leakes.” The family is asking for privacy at this time.

Gregg, 66, had been diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2018.  He underwent treatment and the cancer went into remission. NeNe announced in June that his cancer had returned and that Gregg had undergone surgery.  

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