Amy Ryan in The Office by Chris Haston/NBC Photo
Amy Ryan, who had a small role in The Office's season finale as new HR manager Holly, will be back in the fall. Ryan has signed on for five episodes, perhaps indicating that Michael's unrequited (as well as immediate and inappropriate) love for Holly will not end well, despite his attempts to "take it slow."Prior to appearing on The Office, Ryan was best known for her dark turn on HBO's The Wire and her Oscar-nominated performance as a drug-addicted mother who loses her child in Gone Baby Gone. As a result, Ryan says she's relieved to be doing a sitcom. "It's a funny thing to enter a show that you're a great fan of — and it's nice to tell lighter stories," she tells Variety. "I love the dark, grittier side of life, but it's nice to take a break from that, put a skirt on and brush your hair."We couldn't be more excited because we think she's special. (Not like Holly thinks Kevin is special, but still.) What do you think about the return of Holly? Are you rooting for a Michael-Ho...
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Amy Ryan in The Office by Chris Haston/NBC Photo
Cheers to The Office for hiring Amy Ryan. The beguiling Wire alum should've won an Oscar for her raw performance as the mother of a missing child in Gone Baby Gone , but she earned a different kind of prize with her plum role as Holly. A hand-picked HR successor to Toby (Paul Lieberstein, who cowrote the jam-packed finale), she seems the perfect match for Michael (Steve Carell), sharing his love of Yoda and Jon Lovitz. Too bad Michael's hung up on Jan (Melora Hardin), who's pregnant with a sperm donor's baby. Maybe Michael and Holly will realize their romantic destiny next season. After all, it's not any woman who can get Michael to suppress a "That's what she said!"• Share your own raves and rants about other shows on the Reader Cheers & Jeers discussion board.• We may feature your Cheer or Jeer on TVGuide.com or in TV Guide magazine!
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Amy Ryan and Ed Harris, Gone Baby Gone
Tony-nominated actor Amy Ryan's first love may be the theater, but she's reached a bigger audience — and gained wider acclaim, including a richly deserved Oscar nomination — for her role as the grieving mother of a child who's been kidnapped in the 2007 film Gone Baby Gone. Among numerous TV roles, she's also impressed as The Wire's "Beadie" Russell, an iron-willed Port of Baltimore police officer who was the woman to finally put a leash on notorious tomcat Jimmy McNulty — until the current season. We caught up with Ryan on the eve of the DVD release of Gone Baby Gone, which is slated for today.
TVGuide.com: You've already won a number of prestigious critics' awards for Gone Baby Gone. How has the Oscar nomination changed your life?Amy Ry
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No Country for Old Men and Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan are the ones to beat this awards season. Take a look at the accolades issued this weekend:The Boston Society of Film CriticsBest picture: No Country for Old Men (edging out The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by just a single vote)Best director: Diving Bell's Julian Schnabel Best actors: Frank Langella (Starting Out in the Evening) and Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) Best supporting actors: Javier Bardem (Old Men) and Amy RyanThe D.C. Area Film Critics AssociationBest picture: No Country for Old MenBest director: The Coen brothers (Old Men)Best actors: George Clooney (Michael Clayton) and Julie Christie (Away from Her)Best supporting actors: Bardem and RyanLos Angeles Film Critics AssociationBest picture: There Will Be Blood (which I am told is not based on the Saw movie tagline but some Upton Sinclair novel)Best director: Paul Thomas Anderson (Blood) Best actors: Daniel Day-Lewis (Blood) and Cotillard Best supporting actors: Val...
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George Clooney in Michael Clayton courtesy Warner Bros.
Set the red carpets loose! The Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men is the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures' pick for the best film of 2007. "I think it is one of the purest adaptations of a book," board president Annie Schulhof tells the AP. "The ensemble performances were absolutely extraordinary and it really talks about what happens when evil overrides good."In other categories, George Clooney (Michael Clayton) and Julie Christie (Away from Her) were named best actor and actress, Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) topped the supporting slots, and Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) and Ellen Page (Juno) won the young-actor contests.
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Law & Order: Criminal Intent guest stars Tate Donovan and Charissa Chamorro
Tonight's episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (9 pm/ET, on NBC) got its inspiration from the recent bizarre love triangle involving NASA astronauts. For a preview of this stranger-than-fiction tale, we talked to executive producer Warren Leight, who also wrote the episode.
TV Guide: I guess doing a ripped-from-the-headlines story on the astronaut scandal was a no-brainer, right? Warren Leight: We were 18 episodes into the season and banging our heads against the walls, so it seemed like a gift. I saw the [New York] Post and the Daily News staring me in the face and thought it was divine intervention.
TV Guide: How much research did you do about Lisa Nowak and the real astronaut scandal before writing this epis
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Question: I'm so excited for The Wire to start, I can barely stand it. I'd cancel my own wedding if it conflicted. Any scoop?
Answer: The first four episodes are better than ever (or so TV Guide's Bruce Fretts tells me). Here's some scoop: Dominic West's Jimmy (who is still working as a beat cop) has settled down and is living with Beadie (Amy Ryan) and her two kids. Prez (Jim True-Frost) takes a job teaching at a rough inner-city middle school. Herc (Domenick Lombardozzi) is working as a driver for the mayor and walks in on Hizzoner in a very compromising (and very explicitly depicted) position. And Michael K. Williams (Omar) goes full-frontal in the opening minutes of Episode 3. BTW, if you have yet to jump on The Wire, now's the time. Per Fretts, the new season — beginning Sept. 10 —
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