Entertainment

Courtney B. Vance is headed back to the courtroom for a brand new role.

AMC has announced that Vance will play a public defender in the upcoming courtroom drama 61st Street. The series, which comes from BAFTA winner Peter Moffat, follows Tosin Cole as Moses Johnson, a “promising Black high school athlete who is swept up into the infamously corrupt Chicago criminal justice system.” Vance will play Franklin Roberts, the attorney who takes up Johnson’s case and hopes to “upend the entire Chicago judicial system.” A premiere date for 61st Street has not been announced.

In other news, Morgan Freeman is staying booked and busy. The History Channel has unveiled the first trailer for Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman, a new series hosted and executive produced by the Academy Award-winning actor. The eight-episode series profiles some of history’s greatest prison escapes, including escapes from Alcatraz; Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York; and the HM Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman premieres Tuesday, November 9, at 10 p.m. ET.

Meanwhile, Freeman has landed a role opposite Cole Hauser in the upcoming action-thriller Muti, Deadline has learned. The film follows Hauser as Detective Boyd, a man still processing the death of his daughter while embarking “on a hunt for a serial killer who murders according to a brutal tribal ritual: Muti.” Freeman will play Professor Mackles, the “only man who can help Boyd.” A release date for Muti hasn’t been announced.

Finally, Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance’s Bassett Vance Productions have teamed up with MTV Entertainment Studios for One Thousand Years of Slavery, a new docu-series exploring the “legacy of slavery” that centers on personal Black experiences. The four-part series will air at a later date on the Smithsonian Channel. 

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Just days after Colin Jost confirmed that he and wife Scarlett Johansson were expecting a baby, the baby’s apparently here. 

On Instagram, Jost posted a blue-text message on a black background, noting simply, “Ok ok we had a baby. His name is Cosmo We love him very much.”

Officially, a rep for the Black Widow star told People she had given birth, but the flack added no other details, like the baby’s name.

On Saturday evening, the Saturday Night Live star, who was performing two sold out shows at the Ridgefield Playhouse in Connecticut, told the audience that he and Avenger wife were about to become parents.

The child is Jost’s first and Johansson’s second. The actress shares six-year-old daughter Rose Dorothy with ex-husband Romain Dauriac.

Johansson, 36, and Jost, 39, confirmed their engagement in 2017 after two years of dating and tied the knot in October 2020.

 

 

 

 

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Ryan Reynolds‘ new action comedy Free Guy is the number-one movie in America, but for director Shawn Levy, it posed a challenge. He had to thread the needle between movie-going gamers who are familiar with elements like power-ups and non-player-characters like Reynolds’ Guy, and audience members who have never held a controller.

“I spoke with a lot of game publishers, coders, game designers, and played and watched a lot of games in preproduction, so getting that right was really important,” Levy said at a recent press event. “But it was also important to make a movie that required no gaming fluency from a viewer who wasn’t a gamer,” he added, “So kind of trying to tick both boxes was always part of the goal.”

For her part, Killing Eve Emmy-winner Comer, who plays a duel role as Mille and her avatar, Molotov Girl, is happy people are finding Free Guy is more than just a quote-unquote video game movie.

“You know…you see it written down a lot…’it’s an action comedy.’ But I just feel like there is so much more to that,” said Comer. “You know, there is actually…so much emotion and, you know, it provokes so much emotion in you.”

For the actress, a big draw was developing her characters with Levy and Reynolds. “There was so much for me to play with,” she explained. “From the moment I got the first draft…to…when we were on set, and we were playing around, and we were changing things…It was such a great experience to be able to also bring my own…ideas to play.”

Free Guy was released by 20th Century Studios, which is owned by ABC News’ parent company, Disney.

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A TikTok user’s impassioned man-crush confession about Jeffrey Dean Morgan has gone viral, and even got a response from the Walking Dead star himself — as well as from his wife, actress Hilarie Burton Morgan. 

“Have you seen this guy speak, and the twinkle in his eye?” the poster, who ABC Audio discovered is Utah’s Chance Terry, says at the beginning of the video. “It makes me sick to think of growing old and not looking like this man.”

Terry then riffs, “It’s like Matthew McConaughey and Sean Connery somehow fused together and now you have the perfect old Southern gentleman — who’s also a f***ing badass.”

Terry continues, “If anyone in this world would have a pet shark that was tamed and would let you pet him, it would be Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He just strikes me as the type of guy who would take dangerous things and make them love him.”

Continuing an olfactory theme featured on some of his other posts, Terry adds, “Jeffrey Dean Morgan smells like you just woke up to a fresh cup of coffee — in the f***ing wilderness. And you swear you hear birds singing, but it’s just Jeffrey Dean Morgan.”

Morgan himself retweeted the video he was sent by a follower, asking fans to help identify his admirer.

Calling the man crush “mutual,” Morgan posted, “I’ve not laughed this much in a while,” adding, “I’m not afraid to say it…he’s a handsome YOUNG buck.”

He also noted, “that’s EXACTLY what I smell like.” 

Hilarie Burton Morgan replied, “@JDMorgan is exactly as you describe! The shark lives in the pool and JD smells amazing.”

Terry later revealed on Instagram that he was personally messaged by Morgan, telling followers “that he is one of the nicest people.”

(Video contains uncensored profanity.)

Ok. Well? Man crush is mutual. pic.twitter.com/ViFVtI3mjk

— Jeffrey Dean Morgan (@JDMorgan) August 18, 2021

Can’t tell you how humbling it is to actually have you see that! And yes sir this is a series I do on my tik tok channel!

— Chance Terry (@ChancejTerry) August 18, 2021

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Zuri Adele stars as Malika in Freeform’s Good Trouble, a spin-off of The Fosters, and like most characters, hers has come a long way since the first season. Now in season three, fans are watching as Malika explores the idea of polyamory, which is something Adele says she was “really excited about.”

“Polyamory is something I’ve wanted to continue to learn so much about,” she tells ABC Audio. “I was excited, but I was also nervous because it’s a big responsibility. I want to do it right and I want to do it authentically.”

Polyamory, or consensual nonmonogamy, is described by Psychology Today as “the practice of having multiple intimate relationships.” It’s something that Adele says she gets to gain an understanding of, alongside her character.  

“I get to learn with Malika and takes so much pressure off. It also allows me to be authentic in my learning process,” she explains, adding that she’s been able to learn from friends and members of the LGBTQA+ community as well. 

As for what’s next for Malika’s love life, Adele teases that there’s a new work crush on the horizon.  

“This potential crush at work is… what’s really amazing is that this is a woman,” she spills. “Malika has never dated a woman before. And so she’s starting ask herself like ‘Oh am I interested in dating women too? Am I interested in polyamory as well?'”

Don’t try to put Malika in a box when it comes to her sexuality, though. Adele says, “[Malika’s] not necessarily putting a label on anything with her sexuality just yet as much as just exploring romantic energy with amazing people who are in her space.”

Good Trouble airs Wednesday at 10 pm on Freeform, and the next day on Hulu. 

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The healthy stream of newly announced reboots and revivals of beloved 90s shows begs the question: is Sister, Sister also returning to television?

Leave it to original star Tia Mowry-Hardrict, who starred opposite twin sister Tamera Mowry in the ABC sitcom, to put the rumors to bed once and for all.

Taking to TikTok on Monday, Tia hilariously responded to several “questions I get asked all the time” and confirmed that Tia Landry and Tamera Campbell’s story is finished.

When asked if there will be a Sister, Sister reboot, the 43-year-old actress simply answered, “No, sorry.”

Fans also wanted to know if there will be a revival of The Game, which Tia also denied in the video.

Sister, Sister ran for six seasons between 1994 and 1999 and was nominated for four Emmys, winning one in 1995.

Tia’s confirmation comes a few months after she told People in March that plans for a Sister, Sister revival were “put on hold.”

“What’s in the way is the rights,” she said at the time. “We ended up moving forward with it and we didn’t have all of the rights in place — I guess there were still some legalities that needed to come into place that put it on hold.”

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Yet another celebrity has weighed in on the great bathing debate — this time, it’s Drew Barrymore.

Barrymore, 46, is mom to two daughters, Olive, eight, and Frankie, seven, and in a recent chat with Entertainment Tonight, she dished “the truth” about how often she bathes her children. 

“I’ve got two girls. The shoes, I’ve got some odor eaters, [the smell] can get real,” she admitted before revealing that her kids “absolutely” take a bath every day during the week. 

“I’m just looking for balance,” the actress and talk show host explained. “For me, I’m like, ‘You were at school all day.’ Not in the last two years [because of quarantine], but when they were, I’m like, ‘Bath every night.’ Absolutely. On the weekends, it’s like, ‘You’re in the salty ocean. Who cares? You’re fine.'”

“I guess I’m a five-day-a-weeker with a possible sixth day,” she added. “Five to six days a week.”

Barrymore’s commentary comes after Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis appeared on the Armchair Expert podcast last month and admitted to only bathing their two children — Wyatt, 6, and Dimitri, 4, — when they’re visibly dirty.

“When I had children, I also didn’t wash them every day,” Kunis said candidly. “I wasn’t that parent that bathed my newborns — ever.”

“If you can see the dirt on them, clean them. Otherwise, there’s no point,” Kutcher added.

Since their admission, multiple celebrities have come out to share their thoughts on the matter. Dax Shepard, Kristin Bell, and Jake Gyllenhaal all mirrored the same sentiment, while Cardi B and Dwayne Johnson were on the other end of the spectrum. 

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Fans of James Cameron‘s sci-fi classic Aliens will soon have the chance to own a replica of one of the movie’s most iconic props — but you might have to scan the toy section for it. 

Nerf has announced a limited-edition replica of the M41A Pulse Rifle, the weapon carried by the Colonial Marines in the film, and of course by Sigourney Weaver‘s bug-stomping heroine, Ellen Ripley. 

Just like Hasbro Pulse’s take on the Spenger Neutrona Wand — one of the Ghostbusters‘ tools of the trade — the designers of the Nerf M41A painstakingly recreated the original Aliens prop.

Unlike previous Nerf collaborations with licensees like Star Wars, the Aliens rifle is hyper-accurate to the real McCoy, right down to sound effects and the red LED ammo counter on the side. In this case, the counter keeps track of the Nerf darts in the automatic rifle’s magazine.

And just like its sci-fi counterpart, the offering has a shotgun-style pump-action secondary fire feature, which in this case flings the fatter Nerf Mega Darts.

For safety reasons, the Nerf Pulse Rifle is colored to match the yellow and white color scheme of the Power Loader Ripley uses to bash the queen in Aliens‘ climax, though that paint scheme likely is nothing crafty cosplayers won’t be fixing to match the movie’s prop.

The Pulse Rifle will be released October 2022, but they’re available for pre-order on Hasbro Pulse’s website and GameStop for $94.99.

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Colman Domingo knew he had to dig deep when he took on the role of William Burke, a resident of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood, who relays the Candyman legend to the main character in the Nia DaCosta-directed supernatural horror flick Candyman.

Domingo tells ABC Audio that his “complex” character came from a simple conversation with the film’s producer.

“The beautiful thing is that Jordan Peele wrote this role for me,” he says. “I met up with him for like 45 minutes and we just talked about everything under the sun — art, culture, society, Blackness, horror. And he wrote this role for me about this storyteller, this guy who was the keeper of this beast [and] this…generational trauma in this neighborhood.”

Colman says his candid conversation with Peele helped him find an authentic backstory for William, whom he describes as a “complex human being, who possibly had a mental illness.”

“He was also triggered by so much,” Colman explains. “And he felt responsible.”

While the actor calls William an “ordinary brother in the community,” who “most people” walk by and “don’t even see,” Colman notes that William is someone who has “always been there.”

“The examination of these men who are always there and are holding our stories,” he says. “They’re the griots. They also have suffered a lot of emotional, psychological trauma…And they’re living with it.”

Still, Colman believes that the real challenge in portraying the “tricky character” of William was showing his vulnerable side.

“I want to make sure that we still found his heart and soul,” he says. “And even as he went and did some off-the-wall stuff, you still understood that he was human.”

Candyman, also starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, hits theaters Friday, August 27.

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While ABC Audio previously reported Halle Berry broke two ribs trying to get her directorial debut Bruised to Netflix, the mixed martial arts film has now given her a headache — legally speaking.

Variety reports Cat Zingano, a 39-year-old former UFC fighter, claims to have been asked by Berry to appear in the film, but the 2019 shooting schedule conflicted with Zingano’s off-screen career.

“Zingano was torn between the significantly valuable career-advancing opportunity to fight for title contention, and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be involved with Defendant Berry in a feature film about a character whose story so closely mirrored Zingano’s own life story,” the trade quotes the suit. 

The fighter informed UFC she chose the film over the fight, and was cut from the league — and then the film. The suit claims Berry allegedly told Zingano that she could not appear in the film because only UFC fighters could participate.

Zingano alleges Berry then “cut off communication” with the fighter, according to the legal filing, which claims “promissory estoppel” — legalese for Berry allegedly going back on her word.

Reps for the Oscar-winning actress reportedly didn’t respond to Variety‘s request for comment. 

Bruised streams on Netflix in November.

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