Based on the acclaimed film of the same name, FX’s comedy series What We Do in the Shadows follows a coven of inept vampires who live in a house in the New York borough of Staten Island.
And while there are the traditional blood-suckers, a fan favorite from the series has become Colin Robinson, is an energy vampire, played by Mark Proksch. The nerdy character can literally sap the life from anyone he comes across via office high-fives, boring stories, and speeches at public hearings.
Robinson was created by movie and series co-creator Jermaine Clement, but Proksch’s take on him — and inspiration from his real life — landed him the job.
“…[U]ntil I was in my early 30s, I was doing a lot of temping, mostly in the Midwest,” he explains to ABC Audio. “And so when you’re temping at in the marketing department of a bank, you tend to meet these energy vampires and emotional vampires. And I’ve met my fair share, as we all have when working in offices. And so, yeah, there’s definitely inspiration that I’ve mined from there.”
The mockumentary series was nominated for eight Emmys its first season, including Outstanding Comedy Series, and its fan base continues to grow as its third season just premiered.
“It’s been really great,” Proksch explains. “You’re lucky when you’re on a show that it has any fan base at all. So many shows nowadays, it feels like you tune in for a little bit of it, and you can’t imagine who watches that show. And so to be on a show that is not only critically recognized but also recognized among people of all different generations has been really, really special.”
What We Do in the Shadows airs tonight at 10 p.m. on FX.
Morris Chestnut on “The Resident”; Guy D’Alema/FOX
Morris Chestnut has starred in the Fox medical drama series The Resident since 2019, and now he’s also featured in the new Fox series, Our Kind of People, executive-produced by Empire creator Lee Daniels. While promoting his new show, the 52-year-old actor said he’s undecided about his future with The Resident.
“I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen with The Resident,” Chestnut revealed during a Television Critics Association panel on Wednesday, according to Deadline. “I love the cast, I love everything about that show but I also love everything about this show.”
The NAACP Image Award winner, who launched his 30-year career in John Singleton‘s iconic 1991 film, Boyz n the Hood, has shifted to a recurring role as Dr. Barrett Cain in The Resident. He says he was immediately drawn to Our Kind of People and the plot about the life of the rich on the Martha’s Vineyard island in Massachusetts.
“I actually had an opportunity to go back to The Resident full time, but when the opportunity came to be on this show and I read the script…I wanted to be part of this world.” Chestnut says. “I felt that this story about affluent wealthy Black people who are not playing ball or in entertainment was something that the world needed to see and I wanted to be a part of that. It was a no-brainer for me to sign onto this show.”
The Resident returns on Tuesday, September 21 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on Fox, immediately followed by Our Kind Of People at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT.
With a cute announcement on Instagram that shows a winking pair of eyes drawn onto her very pregnant belly, Jennifer Love Hewitt announced that she and husband Brian Hallisay have had their third child.
“This l this is how my kids sent me to the hospital,” the 911 star said of her baby bump, on which was also penned “almost cooked” “It’s a boy,” and “9 months.”
“My belly was a big hit,” she contended.
Hewitt shared, “It is said that women leave their bodies in labor… they travel to the stars to collect the souls of their babies, and return to this world together,” before revealing the name of her new son.
“It was my greatest honor to go and collect you Aidan James,” Hewitt said, “Now back to snuggles and resting.”
Love’s two other children, 7-year-old daughter Autumn and 6-year-old son Atticus, share the same first initials and middle name as their new baby brother.
Last week, the MTV Video Music Awards announced that Lorde would no longer be performing at this year’s show, citing “a change in production elements.” Now, the “Royals” artist is explaining what exactly that means.
In the latest edition of her fan newsletter, obtained by Billboard, Lorde shares she was “planning this insanely amazing, many-bodied intimate dance performance, not fully understanding the (very necessary!) safety protocols that are in place, and the masking and distancing just meant it wasn’t gonna be what I dreamed.”
“You know I can’t make something less than outstanding for you guys. I hope you understand,” she adds. “There will be many more TV performances, don’t you worry.”
This is the second time that Lorde’s VMA performance has been unexpectedly impacted. In 2017, she was so ill with the flu that she wasn’t able to sing, and instead performed an interpretive dance to “Homemade Dynamite.”
Artists who will be performing at the 2021 VMAs include Machine Gun Kelly, Twenty One Pilots and Foo Fighters. The ceremony airs this Sunday, September 12.
Who says TikTok is just for teens? Michael Buble is celebrating his 46th birthday by making his debut on the wildly popular social media platform.
Michael’s first video is captioned, “My wife gave me Tik Tok for my birthday — tell me what I’m supposed to do with this?” It shows Michael lip-syncing to audio of a laughing, giggling baby and clapping his hands in delight at a cupcake that’s sitting in front of him, which is topped with a candle in the shape of the number six.
When someone off screen pushes another cupcake into the frame with a “four” candle — spelling out Michael’s actual age, 46 — he looks at in horror, pushes it away and lip-syncs to the baby saying “No!” You can also watch it on his Instagram Story.
Michael’s celebrating his birthday today in a big way: He’s kicking off his long-delayed An Evening with Michael Buble tour in Allentown, PA. All attendees need to present proof of vaccination or the results of a negative COVID-19 test to attend.
CBS is throwing a country music-filled New Year’s Eve bash.
To ring in 2022, CBS is presenting New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash featuring performances by Luke Bryan, Dan + Shay, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, Kelsea Ballerini,Jimmie Allen and Gabby Barrett. Dierks Bentley, Darius Rucker, Brooks & Dunn, Elle King, Cole Swindell and Zac Brown Band also slated to perform.
The five-hour show will see the stars taking the stage at multiple locations across Music City in nearly 50 performances, including Dan + Shay, Dierks and Zac Brown Band headlining at Bicentennial Capitol Mall.
The new year will officially be rung in when Nashville’s signature music note drops at midnight.
Additional artists will be announced in the coming days. The star-studded event airs at 8 p.m. ET on December 31 on CBS and will be available to stream on Paramount+.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday that federal government employees and contractors will now be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will create a rule for private businesses with 100 or more employees to require their employees to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing, according to senior administration officials.
Biden will lay out his new six-part strategy to combat the delta variant in remarks at 5 p.m. ET.
A senior administration official estimated that this new OSHA requirement will cover about 80 million workers and businesses that do not comply with the agency’s rule can face substantial fees — up to $14,000. OSHA will require these employers to offer paid time off for vaccination.
As part of his effort to vaccinate the federal executive branch, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service and the National Institutes of Health will complete implementation of their previously announced vaccination requirements that cover 2.5 million people, a source familiar with the plans said.
This is an escalation of the president’s action in July calling for federal workers to attest to their vaccination status and submit to mitigation efforts if they are not vaccinated, such as mask usage and regular testing.
The president is also expected to announce that the Transportation Security Administration and interstate travel mask mandate will be extended through Jan. 18, the fine for noncompliance will double and health care facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement must require their employees to be vaccinated. This will cover about 17 million health care workers across the country.
“In total, the new vaccination requirements in the president’s plan cover about 100 million workers, that’s two thirds of all workers in the United States,” a senior administration official said on a briefing call with reporters Thursday afternoon.
Speaking at her daily briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Biden would “outline the next phase in the fight against the virus and what that looks like, including measures to work with the public and private sector.”
She said he would be “building on the steps that we’ve already announced, the steps we’ve taken over the last few months, requiring more vaccinations, boosting important testing measures and more, making it safer for kids to go to school, all at a time when the American people are listening. Again, this will be six steps that we’ll work to be implementing over the months ahead.”
According to a White House official, the president’s plan will include six areas of focus: vaccinating the unvaccinated; furthering protection for the vaccinated; keeping schools safely open; increasing testing and requiring masking; protecting the economy’s recovery; and improving care for those with COVID-19.
Psaki confirmed there will be new components as part of the president’s announcement but wouldn’t go much beyond general comments about testing access, mandates and making sure kids are protected from the highly transmissible virus as they return to school and Americans return from summer vacations.
She said plans were still being finalized as Biden met with with his COVID-19 response team Wednesday afternoon.
“Will any of those new steps influence the average American’s day-to-day life? Should we expect any new mitigation recommendations, as an example?” a reporter asked.
“It depends on if you’re vaccinated or not,” Psaki replied, but gave no further details.
She highlighted efforts the administration already has taken to try and get the delta variant under control.
“We’ve been at war with the delta variant over the course of the last couple of months. And just to remind you of some of the steps that we have announced, we have announced new government mandates on DOD, our military forces, NIH, other — the VA, the Veterans Affairs — Department of Veterans Affairs, folks who are serving on the front lines on the health — on health — in health roles in that department. We’ve also incentivized additional mandates, whether it is in home — in health care facilities, nursing homes, and others,” Psaki said.
“And we’ve also lifted up and — and incentivized private sector — private sector mandates, because we’ve seen that they have been effective. We’ve also deployed over 700 surge response teams across the country and work closely, again, with the private sector to institute more requirements on vaccinations,” she continued.
“We have more work to do, and we are still at war with the virus and with the delta variant,” she added. “So, we’re going to build on that work. And he’s speaking to it now, because this issue, of course, is on front of mind, top of mind to Americans across the country. People are returning to schools. Workplaces are either reopening, some brick and mortar, or some people are just returning to work after spending some time with family or loved ones over the summer.”
But besides ordering the nation’s 2.1 million federal employees and 1.3 million active duty service members get vaccinated, Biden has limited legal authority to institute a broad vaccine mandate for most Americans.
About 75% of the adult U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose and 64.4% of the adult U.S. population is fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Tuesday, Psaki did seem to suggest that Biden will call on the private sector to institute more vaccine mandates. Major corporations such as Facebook, Google and Citigroup have already announced vaccination requirements.
“I will note that we’ve seen that there are a range of ways that we have increased vaccinations across the country, or vaccinations have increased, I should say. One of them is private sector companies mandating in different capacities that their employees get vaccinated. Or certain school districts mandate,” Psaki said.
Biden previewed some of what he planned to say when he spoke about the August jobs numbers, which were much lower than predicted.
“There’s no question the delta variant is why today’s jobs report isn’t stronger. I know people were looking, and I was hoping, for a higher number. But next week, I’ll lay out the next steps that are going to — we’re going to need to combat the delta variant, to address some of those fears and concerns,” Biden said Friday.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Americans in August souring on Biden’s handling of the pandemic, with his approval rating for his handling or the response dropping 10 points from June, down to 52%
Biden’s remarks are scheduled for just 11 days before the administration is set to begin widely rolling out booster shots of Pfizer on Sept. 20, a process mired by confusion as some public health experts say the data doesn’t yet support the need for boosters.
Lil Nas X is really taking this whole “I’m pregnant with my debut album” concept seriously: He’s posted a baby registry online.
The “Industry Baby” artist has been posting photos and videos of himself sporting a fake pregnant belly in advance of the September 17 release of his album, Montero. But the baby registry isn’t a joke: It’s actually for a good cause.
Instead of gifts like onesies and baby monitors, the registry, which you can find at WelcometoMontero.com, encourages fans to make donations to charities that support various social justice and LGBTQ causes. A different charity is listed for each track on the album.
For example, next to the song title “Am I Dreaming,” which features Miley Cyrus, there’s a link to her Happy Hippie Foundation charity, which works with homeless and LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations. The song title “Industry Baby” includes a link to The Bail Project, which works for criminal justice reform.
On the Bail Project page, Lil Nas X notes, “Music is the way I fight for liberation. It’s my act of resistance.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has filed suit against the state of Texas to block its restrictive law against abortions, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Thursday, setting up a high-stakes legal battle after the Supreme Court allowed the law to go into effect earlier this month.
“That act is clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent,” Garland said at a news conference. “Those precedents hold, in the words of Planned Parenthood versus Casey, that ‘regardless of whether exceptions are made for particular circumstances, a state may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.'”
He accused Texas Republicans of crafting a “statutory scheme” through the law “to nullify the Constitution of the United States.”
“It does not rely on the state’s executive branch to enforce the law, as is the norm in Texas and everywhere else. Rather, the snatcher deputizes all private citizens without any showing a personal connection or injury to serve as bounty hunters authorized to recover at least $10,000 per claim from individuals who facilitate a woman’s exercise of our constitutional rights,” he said.
As part of its lawsuit, Garland said the DOJ is seeking an immediate court order preventing the enforcement of SB8 in Texas.
Garland also made clear that the department won’t hesitate to take similar legal action against other states who might pursue a similar route to restrict abortions in the state.
“The additional risk here is that other states will follow similar models,” Garland said, and he denied that the decision to file the suit now was in any way based on political pressure from Democrats or the White House.
The lawsuit accuses Texas lawmakers of enacting the law “in open defiance of the Constitution.”
“The United States has the authority and responsibility to ensure that Texas cannot evade its obligations under the Constitution and deprive individuals of their constitutional rights by adopting a statutory scheme designed specifically to evade traditional mechanisms of federal judicial review,” the lawsuit says. “The federal government therefore brings this suit directly against the State of Texas to obtain a declaration that S.B. 8 is invalid, to enjoin its enforcement, and to protect the rights that Texas has violated.”
The suit also alleges that the law conflicts with federal law by intending to prohibit federal agencies from carrying out their responsibilities related to abortion services.
“Because S.B. 8 does not contain an exception for cases of rape or incest, its terms purport to prohibit the federal government and its employees and agents from performing, funding, reimbursing, or facilitating abortions in such cases,” the lawsuit says.
Garland cautioned that the Texas law should concern all Americans, regardless of their politics.
“This kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans, whatever their politics or party, should fear. If it prevails, it may become a model for action in other areas by other states and with respect to other constitutional rights and judicial precedents,” he said. “Nor one need think hard or long to realize the damage that would be done to our society if states were allowed to implement laws that empower any private individual to infringe on another’s constitutionally protected rights in this way. The United States has the authority and the responsibility to ensure that no state can deprive individuals of their constitutional rights through a legislative scheme specifically designed to prevent the vindication of those rights.”
The Texas statute, which is the most restrictive abortion law in the country, bars physicians from providing abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, or as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy — often before a woman would even know they were pregnant. There is an exception for medical emergencies, but not in cases of rape or incest.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court formally rejected a request by Texas abortion providers to block the state’s severe new law as legal challenges continue.
The unsigned order from the court said the providers had “raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue,” but added “their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions” that they were unable to resolve.
The new law has triggered outrage from those who support a women’s right to an abortion nationwide. Companies like Uber and Lyft have offered to pay legal fees for any driver who is sued under the law and dating apps Match and Bumble, both headquartered in Texas, pledged to support women seeking abortions.
On the other side, many state lawmakers have said they intend to copy the wording of the Texas law in order to enact similar bans in their states.
Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee is assuring fans she’s “OK” after suffering a “bad sprain.”
In a recent radio interview, Lee shared that she had injured herself after falling during a hike. Addressing fan concerns in a tweet on Thursday afternoon, Lee writes, “Thank you for the well wishes, guys! I’m OK, just a bad sprain but it’s healed a lot already.”
“I would have posted a picture of the bruise but it was so gnarly I’m afraid it would have been flagged for like, graphic violence,” she adds, along with a crying-laughing emoji. “For real tho, I’m OK! See you soon! Get vaccinated!”
Lee and Evanescence have been prepping for their upcoming co-headlining tour with Halestorm, which is set to kick off in November. The “Bring Me to Life” rockers will be supporting their new album The Bitter Truth, their first all-original record in 10 years.
Thank you for the well wishes, guys! I’m ok, just a bad sprain but it’s healed a lot already. I would have posted a picture of the bruise but it was so gnarly I’m afraid it would have been flagged for like, graphic violence 😂 For real tho, I’m ok! See you soon! Get vaccinated!
