Entertainment

If you can’t get enough Hallmark Channel Christmas movies — even with its Christmas In July line-up — help is on the way.

The network in conjunction with Sixthman, the company behind the KISS Kruise as well as land-based concerts, has announced its first-ever Christmas-themed cruise.

The Hallmark Channel Christmas Cruise will set sail November 5-9, 2024 from Miami, Florida to Nassau, Bahamas aboard the Norwegian Gem.

The luxury liner will be transformed into “a floating winter wonderland,” complete with “Christmas crafts, interactive activities with Hallmark talent, an exclusive world premiere of a new Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas movie from the comfort of a world-class theater on board.”

To boot, there will be photo ops and panels with Hallmark Channel stars, a Christmas tree lighting, holiday cookie bake-offs, an ugly holiday sweater contest, and more.

Find out all the details here.

And who knows? Maybe you’ll take time from your busy advertising company for a much-needed vacation, and meet-cute with that guy from high school who was a jerk, but had a major glow-up and now runs a successful non-profit.

Or maybe your mom will take you, Ms. “I hate holidays” fussypants, as your Christmas gift to her, only for you to rediscover the magic of Christmas — and that guy from high school who was a jerk, but had a major glow-up and now runs a successful non-profit.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Claire Danes and husband Hugh Dancy welcomed their third child, a daughter, a rep for the Homeland actress tells People.

Danes, 43, and Dancy, 47, announced the pregnancy back in January of 2023. The baby’s name and date of birth have not been revealed.

The couple, who met in 2006 and tied the knot in 2009, are already parents to sons Rowan, 4, and 10-year-old Cyrus.

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On Wednesday, July 12, the nominations for the 75th Emmy Awards will be announced live at 11:30 a.m. ET. Community co-star Yvette Nicole Brown will do the honors, alongside Television Academy chair Frank Scherma, at the event streaming live on Emmys.com/nominations.

But which shows and stars will get the nod? 

HBO’s trophy magnet Succession wrapped up its run with its season 4 finale in May, and many prognosticators believe the Roy family will be well represented in the Drama category. In fact, HBO is expected to lead the nominations. 

The pay network’s The White Lotus — a big winner last year in the Limited Series category — has moved to the Drama category for its sophomore season; The Last of Us, also from the network, could get the nom nod. 

Outside of those, Paramount+’s Yellowstone prequel 1923 could see some love, as could Netflix’s The Crown and fellow Emmy winner Yellowjackets on Showtime.

On the comedy side of things, Abbott Elementary could very well be on the road to repeat its Emmys performance last year, facing competition from the likes of another Emmys darling, the apparently exiting Ted Lasso.

FX’s heralded The Bear could serve up some nominations this year — though Jamie Lee Curtis‘ gutting performance as a season 2 guest star won’t be eligible until next year. Netflix’s Wednesday became a viral sensation, but it remains to be seen if that translates into nominations.

In the Limited Series category, it’s a pretty sure bet you’ll see Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and hear the name of its lead, Evan Peters, called on Wednesday morning. The late Ray Liotta could also snag some attention in the Supporting Actor category for one of his final performances, in Apple TV+’s Black Bird. 

As they used to say before streaming, stay tuned! 

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Another party, another murder! Apple TV+’s critically acclaimed comedy The Afterparty returns Wednesday, July 12 for season 2, and there’s another murder mystery to figure out.

Several of the original cast members are back, including Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson and Zoe Chao, and Chao tells ABC Audio that season 2 will have “a bigger cast [and] two more episodes.”

“We get to go deeper into these genres. We’re not confined to one night in one room. We really get to explore origin stories. Introducing two families brings a host of new themes to the show,” she continues.

What hasn’t changed from the first season, according to Richardson, is that each episode mimics the styles of Alfred Hitchcock, Wes Anderson, film noir and Ocean’s 11, creating a “sweeping romance, epic, epic romance.”

Zach Woods joins the cast this season, though he admits figuring things out has never been his strong suit.

“I can’t stand it — like escape rooms, I hate them so much. Like puzzles, I can’t stand it,” he shares. “I just feel like life is bewildering enough without paying someone to bewilder you more. And even when I finished the last episode, I still had to take it a minute and be like, okay, so it’s this guy? It’s this girl?”

Writing the show, on the other hand, is a fairly straightforward process for series co-creator Chris Miller.

“You figure out what the murder is and how to hide the how and the why of the murder, and then how to hide what happened,” he says. “And then you start building characters around it. And then you’re trying to find other people who could be potential suspects, who have motives and have their own secrets and have their own stories.” 

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Krapopolis, the new animated series from Emmy winning Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon is launching on Fox in a two-episode preview premiere event on Sunday, September 24.

Set in Ancient Greece, the show stars the voices of Ted Lasso Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham, What We Do in the Shadows’ Matt Berry, and Richard Ayoade from The IT Crowd, and “tells the story of a dysfunctional family of humans, gods and monsters trying to run one of the world’s first cities, while also trying their best to not kill each other in the process.”

Ayoade voices Tyrannis, the self-involved mortal son of the goddess Deliria, played by Waddingham, and the ruler of the titular city. While Deliria is the “goddess of self-destruction and questionable choices,” Berry plays Tyrannis’ dad Shulb, a mish-mash of various Greek creatures described as “the life of the orgy.”

The show will later take its regular time slot with a third episode as part of Fox’s Animation Domination block that gets underway on Sunday, October 1, along with new episodes of The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, and Family Guy.

The show, billed as Fox’s first wholly owned animated series, was renewed for a second and third season in 2022 — even before it premiered.

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Chef and season 10 winner Kristen Kish will be succeeding Padma Lakshmi as the host of Bravo’s Top Chef.

Lakshmi recently pushed her seat at the judges table aside after 19 years on the hit show.

Kish will join head judge Tom Colicchio and judge Gail Simmons — both executive producers of the show — for the 21st season of award-winning series.
 
Bravo teases of the forthcoming installment, “The culinary competition lands in the heart of Wisconsin … as a new batch of talented chefs from across the country battle it out for the coveted title in the energetic and unique culinary scenes in Milwaukee and Madison.”

The network adds, “With a backdrop of picturesque landscapes, acres of farmland, miles of shoreline and vibrant urban communities, the cheftestants will explore the fresh flavors and local bounty of this rising culinary destination. ”

In a statement, Kish enthused, “Top Chef is where I started my journey – first as a competing chef, then a guest judge, and now as host I have the honor of helping to continue to build this brand.” She adds, “I’m thrilled to sit alongside Gail and Tom as we get to know new incredible chefs and see what they cook up. It feels like coming home.”

Ryan Flynn, one of the heads of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, says Kish embodies “everything that makes Top Chef incredibly special. She’s an acclaimed chef and her experience as a cheftestant, winner and judge, alongside her culinary curiosity, makes Kristen the perfect host for the next chapter of Top Chef.”

That next chapter will air next year on Bravo.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

As part of its summer of true crime stories, ABC News Studios’ Betrayal: The Perfect Husband is now streaming on Hulu.

Based on ABC Studios’ popular podcast, the three-part series centers on high school teacher Spencer Herron‘s sexual assaults against his high school students — and how his wife’s vision of their perfect marriage was anything but.

For over seven years, Jenifer Faison thought she was living in a fairytale romance with her college sweetheart, Spencer, until one afternoon in June 2018, when police turned up at their Georgia home.

Faison would come to learn that the man she knew and loved was living a double life. Behind that fairytale romance was a web of lies, affairs and criminal sexual assault perpetrated by Herron against one of his high school students.

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Warner Bros. Pictures has released the first official trailer for Wonka, with Oscar-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet portraying young Willy Wonka in the upcoming origin story.

“I’ve spent the past seven years traveling the world, perfecting my craft,” Chalamet, as Wonka, says in the trailer, which was released Tuesday. “You see, I’m something of a magician, inventor and chocolate maker. So quiet up and listen down. Nope. Scratch that, reverse it.”

The story will focus on a young Willy Wonka and how he became the famous chocolatier — and how he met the Oompa-Loompas on his earliest adventures, according to a synopsis of the film.

“Mark my words, this is gonna be the greatest chocolate shop the world have ever seen,” Wonka says in the preview.

It was announced in 2021 that Chalamet would be taking on the role of Willy Wonka and that Paul King would direct the film.

Wonka marks the third time Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” will be adapted for the big screen.

Gene Wilder portrayed Willy Wonka in the 1971 movie adaptation Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and Johnny Depp portrayed the eccentric chocolate factory owner in the 2005 version, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The 2005 film touched on the chocolatier’s candy ambitions as a result of being raised by a candy-hating father who was a dentist.

Wonka will be released December 15.

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On Tuesday, July 11, Lucasfilm dropped an action- and Easter egg-filled trailer to Ahsoka, the standalone Disney+ series starring Rosario Dawson in the title role. 

Along with Dawson reprising the character she first portrayed in live-action form in season 2 of The Mandalorian, the series picks up threads from the animated shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels.

The upcoming series will see a collection of fan-favorite characters who, like Ahsoka Tano, began as animated ones: Mary Elizabeth Winstead is seen in greater detail as the green-skinned alien pilot Hera Syndulla, who is seen pressing rebel leaders to fight a rising enemy. Natasha Liu Bordizzo plays Mandalorian warrior Sabine Wren, who faults Ahsoka for once abandoning her cause. Also, glimpsed in a hologram message, Eman Esfandi is the young Jedi Ezra Bridger. 

Ezra went missing in hyperspace in the climax of Rebels along with the empire’s genius tactician Grand Admiral Thrawn, who is being portrayed by the man who voiced him in animation, Lars Mikkelsen.

“I started hearing whispers of Thrawn’s return as heir to the Empire,” Ahsoka says in the coming attraction. Tano has vowed to hunt Thrawn down to avoid the rise of the empire after its fall in the climax of Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. 

Helping Thrawn are not only Darth Vader’s fearsome Inquisitors, but also a pair of fallen Jedi: The late Ray Stevenson plays Baylan Skoll and Ivanna Sakhno his fearsome ally Shin Hati. “War is inevitable,” he promises, noting Thrawn’s return will bring him “power such as you never dreamed.”

The series begins August 23 on Disney+.

Lucasfilm is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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After the death of his Tony Stark in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, Robert Downey, Jr. explains he was concerned about his acting muscles after they spent so many years, metaphorically, in an Iron Man suit.

“You start to wonder if a muscle you have hasn’t atrophied,” he tells The New York Times Magazine, explaining his turn in Oppenheimer for director Christopher Nolan was the ideal way to stretch.

“I knew there was a point where Chris Nolan was endorsing, let’s work those other muscles, but let’s do it while rendering you devoid of your usual go-to things,” which Downey defined as “the fast-talking, charming, unpredictable…” characters from previous films.

In Oppenheimer, Downey plays the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss, who butted heads in real life — as he does onscreen — with J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy.

RDJ says, “I don’t know why I can relate to Lewis Strauss so much, but I felt like I was meant to play this role, and I knew I’d be in capable hands.”

For his part, Nolan recently told the Los Angeles Times of Downey, “I wanted to get him to do something completely different, to lose himself in another human being. When was the last time we’ve seen that? Chaplin?”

He adds, “Directors are very aware of how talented Downey is, but because of his incredible energy that can punch through the screen, finding the right thing for him is difficult.”

The actor tells The New York Times Magazine of Oppenheimer, “Coming from that other place…the box-office-weekend-dominating place, then going into this spot now where I’m happy that I’m in this quality product — I’m happy that I regained my connection with a more purist approach to making movies.”

Oppenheimer opens July 21.

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