Casting Couch: SVU Switcheroo; Carter’s Post-Files Flick; Leo’s Gal-Pal’s New Gig
The Law & Order revolving door has just opened up a big opportunity for Michaela McManus.
As originally reported by Online’s Watch With Kristin TV blog, the actress is joining the cast of NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as the newest assistant district attorney.
McManus recently had a recurring role as book editor Lindsey Strauss on the CW’s One Tree Hill. On SVU’s upcoming 10th season, she’ll replace departing ADA Diane Neal, who began her stint on the elite squad in 2001 and shared screen time with Stephanie March, the show’s other tough-as-nails prosecutor, who left in 2005.
As WWK also noted, Rosie Perez is joining ABC’s Lipstick Jungle for a guest stint next season. She’ll play a publicist for Lindsay Price’s character, Victory Ford. Also coming aboard as a possible Victory prize, Puerto Rican singing sensation Carlos Ponce, who will play a beefcake contractor. The new season premieres Sept. 24.
Meanwhile, after revisiting The X-Files for this summer’s big-screen spookfest, franchise mastermind Chris Carter has been quietly shooting a new film, a passion project starring several newcomers, per the Hollywood Reporter.
Titled Fencewalker, the flick stars Natalie Dormer of Showtime’s The Tudors, Katie Cassidy (daughter of Partridge Family star David Cassidy), rapper-actor Xzibit of MTV’s Pimp My Ride who also appears in the new X-Files movie, Derek Magyar and Meckah Brooks.
Carter cowrote and bankrolled the film but has been tightlipped about the story, which is thought to be a low-budget coming-of-age drama partly based on his own life. It’s currently shooting in L.A., but no word when it will hit theaters.
In other casting news:
- Tricia Helfer, who played Six on Sci Fi’s Battlestar Galactica, is set to costar with Lloyd Owen in Fox’s drama pilot Inseparable. The modern-day Jekyll and Hyde spin focuses on a partially paralyzed forensic psychiatrist whose dark side as a charismatic criminal occassionally gets the better of him and makes him commit horrible crimes.
- GSN has signed Kim Coles and stand-up comic Judy Gold to host pilots for new versions of classic ’70s TV staples The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game respectively.
- Fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger has sealed a deal with Bravo to air a one-off special called Tommy Hilfiger Presents Ironic Iconic America, based on the book cowritten by Hilfiger and George Lois. Leonardo DiCaprio’s gal-pal, Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli, will cohost the show, dubbed a roller-coaster ride through American pop culture, with Rives of Def Jam Poetry Jam.
The Tudors: Scoop on What's Next
The Tudors is over again. (Didn’t it just start up?) Sniff.
After last night’s heart-wrenching (not to mention neck-slicing) season-two finale, I had more than a few burning questions for executive producer and writer Michael Hirst, who kindly picked up the phone at his home in Oxford, England, to oblige.
Click in to get the goods…
It Ain’t Easy Being Queen: I don’t know you about you, but I was bowled over by Natalie Dormer’s Anne Boleyn in her final days. (And I bawled when she finally took her place on the executioner’s platform.) Anne seemed quite aware of her impending fate (although no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition English Reformation), and as her last-ditch efforts to survive failed, one by one, she handled the crisis with the utmost grace and dignity.
Hirst says that was entirely intentional. “Natalie was upset and stunned during the first series when a few—particularly American—journalists said she’s just a bit of fluff. [They thought she was] just manipulative, cold and heartless, and said, ’We want to see the end of this bitch.’ Natalie said that her reading of Anne was that she was a very intelligent woman who had a very profound effect on the future of England—not only giving birth to Elizabeth, but in person. And I said, ’I totally agree.’ Natalie said, ’I just want to prove them wrong—can you throw everything at me?’ So in the second series I very, very consciously threw everything at her, and she responded incredibly. That last episode, I think, if you had any lingering feelings against her, they’re completely washed away by the manner of her death, and you feel extraordinary sympathy with her, and her courage is fantastic. It was a great performance.”
Everything Old Is New Again: The Anne of The Tudors is very consciously modeled after another controversial royal of our own era. Says Hirst, “I think that [Anne]’s a conduit; she allows women to understand now that [queen] is a bad job. Katherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy)—that was a wonderful performance, too—was born to rule, so that’s a different deal. Anne had to learn on the job…There are parallels, too, between Anne Boleyn and Diana, Princess of Wales. There are deliberate connections, in fact. Diana had said, ’There can’t be three people in a marriage,’ and Anne Boleyn uses the same words.”
Neeext! Now that poor Anne is out of the way, it’s time to introduce Jane Seymour (Anita Briem), who was Henry VIII’s third wife and the mother of his only sons to survive infancy. In history, she doesn’t last too long, but on the show she will be around at least the midpoint of season three. And when she goes—dying from puerperal fever (a systemic infection subsequent to childbirth)—shortly after the birth of Edward VI, we ladies will make the proper genuflections to Alexander Fleming, he who discovered antibiotics.
The Crazy Keeps Comin’: Henry’s going to get worse before he gets better. Well, actually, he won’t get any better. Says Hirst, “He did believe in the divine right of kings, and he did have absolute power, and like everyone else who gained absolute power, it turned him mad. By the end of his reign, he’s a psychopath—nobody is safe in his court. It was much better to be dead than to be around Henry…And the tragedy was he set off so idealistically and optimistically. He was a great guy when he was young, and he let it all go, and it was a tragedy for the country.” Raise your hand if you’re feeling pretty good right now about being a lowly peasant.
Thinking Dynastically: Hirst thinks the story of Henry proper could be told in five seasons, but he’s willing to plumb all branches of the family tree for stories. Says Hirst, “What I would like to do is go back to Henry VII, Henry VIII’s father, and show how the dynasty was set up, because that’s interesting, and then I’d kind of like to jump forward to his son Edward VI, with Seymour, as Lord Protector—and then Queen Mary, who tried to reintroduce Catholicism. Mary married the king of Spain, and then thought she was pregnant, but it was a tumor. And she nearly killed her own sister Elizabeth. That’s an amazing period.”
What did you think of The Tudors finale? And how about that new blond hussy Jane and her assorted ambitious brothers? Post your thoughts in the comments!
The Tudors’ Dynasty Continues
This news doesn't bode well for Anne Boleyn, but fans of The Tudors can bow down in thanks.
Considering King Henry VIII has four more wives to plow through, Showtime has renewed the lusty period drama for a third season. Production is set to begin in Ireland in June, with episodes to debut in 2009.
The series, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the heir-craving royal, is currently halfway through its second season.
Natalie Dormer's Anne, having given birth to daughter Elizabeth, is currently on the chopping block, a plot development that, as you history buffs out there know, will pave the way for the rise of the more reproductively successful yet equally doomed Jane Seymour (Anita Briem).
Nine Things to Know About the Tudors, on Showtime and Otherwise
It's back. The Tudors returns to Showtime this Sunday at 9 p.m. The beautiful people of Renaissance England don't disappoint in round two, serving up another helping of dirty sexy babymaking, fabulous outfits (ermine robes are the new black) and political violence.
I've seen the first five episodes of season two, so click in for my cheat sheet to the The Tudors…
1. As Cerie from 30 Rock once said, "You can have a career at any time. But you only have a short period where you can be a young hot mom." This might have been little comfort to Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) as history closed in on her, but unlike her no-good husband, who grew grossly obese as he aged and was reportedly covered with "supperating boils" in his last years, Anne was quite successful at living up to the credo of every gorgeous young adventuress: "Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse."
2. You know what's awesome? Representative democracy, civil rights, universal suffrage and freedom of religion. The Tudors is an excellent reminder that these things should not be taken for granted. Viva la American Revolution! (Maybe The Tudors should always be matched with a chaser of HBO's John Adams?)
3. Henry VIII was a jackass. There's no two ways about it, the man may have been a tolerably good head of state, but on a personal level the narcissism and egoism were abhorrent and devastating. Still, Jonathan Rhys Meyers backs the king's megalomania with deeply felt and entirely human feelings of desperation, petty jealousy and resentment. Every king is also a man, even if he's not a very good one.
4. If the king likes you, he will reduce your death sentence to…beheading. This is the good option, see, because the default option is to be tied to a cart, dragged through the streets, hung until you are only half-dead, pulled down, disemboweled, forced to watch your own intestines set on fire, and then lose your head and have your private parts cut off. After that, of course, you are cut into four quarters, and then your head gets put on a stake for a month until your daughter can pull together enough money to buy your rotting flesh back from the government so your head can have a decent burial. The ax alone is definitely a step up.
5. I imagine watching the persecution and imprisonment of Jeremy Northam's Sir Thomas More is a little like watching Bill Cosby being convicted of sedition and sent to the electric chair. Northam is outstanding in the part, and I think he could very well take home a trophy or two for his performance.
6. Your heart will break for Lady Mary (played here by Sarah Bolger and later known to history as Bloody Mary). The daughter of Henry's discarded first wife, Catherine of Aragon, she was just 16 when family and national politics had her exiled her from court, separated from her parents and demoted from crown princess to baby half-sister's lady-in-waiting. No wonder she was kind of cranky when she finally took the throne.
7. If you ever become a marquess, and your boyfriend gives you the crown jewels of the queens of England as a little precoronation gift, please note that the proper and correct thank-you for this involves reaching into the royal trousers.
8. Did you know there were giant scary spears made especially for boar hunting? Did you know Lambeth Castle is the historic seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury? Did you know Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling at the same time Henry VIII was throwing his whole English Reformation hissy? You will know these and many other factoids by the end of the first five episodes of The Tudors. This year's AP European History exam will be administered May 9. Good luck.
9. If you wear a silly gold crown, yell a lot and are not careful, you might remind people of Mr. Rogers' King Friday puppet. Just watch out for that.
Intrigued? You should be. Tune in Sunday, or go to Showtime's website to check out a preview of the premiere.
And if you need a little help on the test, just remember: three Catherines, two Annes and a Jane; divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived!