Tony Danza by Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com
Tony Danza, who over the past few years has transformed himself from has-been to sought-after song-and-dance man, will star as Max Bialystock in the Las Vegas production of The Producers, says Extra. The Who's the Boss hunk previously played the role on Broadway.... A few weeks after announcing that Annette Bening would star in the upcoming L.A. staging of The Female of the Species, Playbill says the three-time Oscar nominee will subsequently travel with the play to Broadway next spring — the first time in 20 years Bening has graced the Great White Way.... In case you missed it, Doogie won't be seen roller-boogying in Xanadu. The producers of the problem-plagued production tapped Cheyenne Jackson to replace the musical's injured male lead. — Reporting by Raven Snook
read more
Neil Patrick Harris by Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com
UPDATE: Cheyenne Jackson has accepted the role in the (thus far ill-fated) musical. In a statement almost as adorable as he is, the actor states: "I'm excited to join the cast of Xanadu while James Carpinello recovers. My heart goes out to him, as he spent months working on this project, only to be injured so close to opening night. I owe a lot to [director] Christopher Ashley and [writer] Douglas Carter Beane and would gladly paint their apartments if they called and asked." Sadly, he has yet to offer to paint my pad. — RavenAs reported earlier, the Broadway musicalization of the camp classic Xanadu has had to delay its opening night indefinitely after star James Carpinello injured his foot. According to the New York Post, producers are desperate to find a replacement and have their eyes on two actors to play opposite Kerry Butler: How I Met Your Mother's Neil Patrick Harris and All Shook Up hottie Cheyenne Jackson, who starred in the Xanadu workshop but turned down the actua...
read more
For the second year in a row, CBS' broadcast of the Tony Awards will be host-free, Playbill.com reports. Instead, a cavalcade of big-name actors will engage in awkward banter before bestowing the awards on June 10. Presenters include Liev Schreiber, David Hyde Pierce and Kevin Spacey, all of whom are currently gracing the Great White Way, as well as past Broadway babies like Vanessa Williams, Neil Patrick Harris, Rainn Wilson and William Petersen. Marg Helgenberger will be there, too. (We hear she attended a Broadway show once.) — Reporting by Raven Snook
read more
So we're all on the New York street on the CBS Radford lot in Studio City shooting a How I Met Your Mother promo that's a parody of CSI, which they tell me is a popular show. We're all exhausted and not quite sure what we're doing. My sense is that on an hourlong procedural show, the hours are much worse but your face never has to change its expression. So that's a big up. Changing facial expressions is exhausting and overrated. They're setting up a shot of a corpse's feet right now. We're all pretty exhausted — the night's supposed to go very late and we have an early call. We haven't been officially picked up for a third season yet, but we're all seeing it as a good sign that CBS is having us do this. I'm going to have each cast member say something... get a little guest-blogging going.Me: Hey, guys. Give me a quote for my TVGuide.com blog.[Everybody thinks]Neil Patrick Harris: "I'm in a constant state of squint. And I like it. I like it a lot. It feels right, you know?"Alyso...
read more
How I Met Your Mother
How I Met Your Mother: At its best, it's one of TV's tangiest, highest laugh-per-minute ratio comedies, populated by one of the brightest and most crackling casts out there. In its less-than-two years on our screens, it has taught us to "Suit up," fear the slap bet and never, ever call Lily a, um, "grinch." It gave TV back Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan, and treated us to the arrival of relative newbies Josh Radnor, Jason Segel and Cobie Smulders. To celebrate the CBS sitcom's funnily serious litany of accomplishments, TVGuide.com invited cocre
read more
Talks are underway to serve up a follow-up to Martin Scorsese's The Departed, which to date has earned much acclaim (including five Oscar nods) and $125.2 million in box office. Sources tell Reuters that Departed scribe William Monahan is at work on a take that would involve Mark Wahlberg's Dignam, and introduce a new character to be played by Robert De Niro.... Teri Polo is set to reprise her role as Ben Stiller's wife in Meet the Little Focker.... Harold & Kumar 2 — which will pick up where the original left off, with Harold hot to follow Maria (Paula Garcés) to Amsterdam, but is thwarted when Kumar is mistaken at the airport for a terrorist — also has Neil Patrick Harris, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Rob Corddry, Christopher Meloni and Roger Bart on board.
read more
Just getting back from CBS' press-tour bash, where Neil Patrick Harris weighed in on — what else? — Grey's-gate. "T.R. has proven himself to be an incredibly classy, dignified guy," he told me. "I'm impressed that Katherine Heigl said what she said. I was shocked that it all reared its ugly head again."Harris — who came out just weeks after Knight — wouldn't comment on what form Washington's "punishment" should take. "It's impossible for me to make any kind of comment about that because I wasn't there when it happened. It's just disappointing that it's... cyclical." Meanwhile, the word from the Grey's set is that Washington's problems extend far beyond his affinity for a certain derogatory F-word. Per a source, his behavior has been so "inappropriate and offensive" for so long that producers have often been forced to intervene. And Washington's mea culpa may be too little, too late. A separate source at Grey's suggests that while Washington is sure to receive the...
read more
Does Melissa Etheridge have it all over Ellen? Does Doogie put Lance to shame? Bravo's OUTzoneTV.com broadband channel is launching a poll on Friday, Dec. 8, seeking to crown the "Sexiest Gay Celebrity of 2007." In addition to the aforementioned foursome, nominees include Project Runway's Tim Gunn, filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears, Shortbus driver John Cameron Mitchell, decorator-to-Oprah Nate Berkus, former Bassmaster Reichen Lehmkuhl, Portia de Rossi, and singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright. Apparently, T.R. Knight will have to rely on the write-in vote.
read more
Question: Whenever I see questions about whether the newly "out" Neil Patrick Harris will continue to be believed in his role as Barney in How I Met Your Mother, I have to laugh. Neil brilliantly plays Barney as an impeccably dressed, polished, sexual-conquest-obsessed, bar-cruising, relationship-adverse emotionally hollow man. In other words, he's playing a gay stereotype, who just happens to be interested in women rather than men. I can't see that it will take the audience much to cover that little alteration. And given that this best new sitcom of last year has actually gained creative steam with this season, I hope we'll see him in this role for a long time to come.
Answer: Agreed on the last point. But I'm not sure that he's playing a gay stereotype as much as a twist on the yuppie metrosexual stereotype, the thing so brilliantly portrayed a while back on Sex and the City as the "straight gay guy" syndrome. Blurring the lines can be fun, and I thought this week's Mother episod ...
read more
Question: What is all the hubbub about Harriet on Studio 60 bashing gays, when Sarah Paulson is gay? Not that I knew that before I saw some info about her today on the Internet, but I'm surprised 1) that she would play so much against type and even tackle the big issues the actress tends to avoid in her personal life, and 2) that more people don't know this fact about her. Is this the reason why there is a spark lacking between Harriet and Matt Albie, or why we have been left without a kiss between the two of them? Will NBC go through all the motions on their show-within-a-show to address the issues, but literally gag her when it comes to talking to the public? Since we have seen T.R. Knight and Neil Patrick Harris recently outing themselves, should we expect "NBS" to get on the train and make one of their stars officially come out so they can stay in the headlines? I mean, CBS and ABC have already jumped on the bandwagon, NBC can't be that far behind!
Answer: Can't really tell if
...
read more