It wasn't the swords. It wasn't the sandals. For Rufus Sewell, the tough part was all the stinkin' mud. Playing a 12th-century stonemason in mega miniseries The Pillars of the Earth, premiering tonight on Starz at 10/9c, meant maintaining "a level of grime on my neck consistent with that of your typical farm animal," he says.
A small price, indeed, for what's shaping up to be the armor-clanking, leech-sucking, monks-a-poppin' drama of the summer. Pillars, based on Ken Follett's doorstop of a best-seller (all 973 pages of it), about the quest to build a Gothic cathedral in a fictional England of yore, runs eight hours over six Friday nights...
read more
They really don't make them like this anymore. And we're not talking about 12th-century Gothic cathedrals. The Pillars of the Earth, a sprawling historical melodrama based on Ken Follett's mammoth bestseller, conjures nostalgic memories of the days of yore, way back in the 20th century, when networks devoted entire weeks to "event" miniseries like Shogun, The Winds of War, The Thorn Birds, Lonesome Dove, to name a memorable few—although in this case, North and South is the best comparison...
read more
Lifetime this summer will premiere Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal, a true-story-inspired movie about a group of out-of-control teen girls who taunt their teachers. Tatum O'Neal plays the principal, Jenna Dewan (Step Up) a young teach who alerts the media to the goings-on.... Rufus Sewell is the lead in Jerry Bruckheimer's CBS drama pilot Eleventh Hour, based on a British series about a government adviser who saves people from abuses of science.... Jacqueline Bisset will have An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving in a Hallmark movie airing in November.Related:• Bruckheimer, CBS Eye Big-bucks Eleventh Hour Deal
read more
Question: Has Julian McMahon ever been in the running to be the next Bond? He's the only actor I can think of who'd be as perfect a fit for the role as Pierce Brosnan.Answer: The legendary search for Scarlett O'Hara has nothing on the quest for Bond, James Bond. Julian McMahon, the charismatic, Australian-born star of TV's Nip/Tuck has been mentioned as a candidate for the role in the upcoming Casino Royale and, presumably, the next several entries in the 007 franchise. But as far as I can tell, just about every handsome, athletic English/New Zealand/Scottish/Welsh/Australian actor in the 30-40ish age range has been proposed for the part. The candidates have included Australians Hugh Jackman
read more