From the outside, soundstage No. 7 at Los Angeles's Culver Studios looks like an unremarkable airplane hangar. Inside? The fourth-season resurrection of the cult comedy Arrested Development rages in full eccentric swing as Cinco de Quatro — a fictional holiday meant to upstage the May 5 Mexican fiesta — is being celebrated noisily.
Last December, Kyra Sedgwick could be found conducting one of her hissing interrogations, the kind riveting enough to win her a Lead Actress Emmy; the kind she usually performs in a tiny, unadorned room at LAPD headquarters. Only, for "The Last Word," the 109th and final episode ever of TNT's hit procedural The Closer, Sedgwick's Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson is prying information out of a terrified witness while standing in a puffy black parka and thick beige scarf in a remote, windy part of Griffith Park. Since The Closer debuted in 2005, it's been...
Tonight's bracing premiere of the seventh and final season of TNT's top-rated basic-cable series The Closer involves a chest-thumping rap star, lifeless bodies by the handful and an interrogation scene like no other. Viewers are also introduced to the season's ongoing plotline, which hovers over the show's various murder cases: a wrongful-death lawsuit against the LAPD's Major Crimes deputy chief Brenda Leigh Johnson that threatens to take her whole team down with her."I've always said the way she ...
We grill the executive producer and stars of AMC's tantalizing thriller The Killing for answers to our burning questions. Detective Holder, Sarah Linden's hoodie-loving, hygiene-hating partner, has a hard-to-place accent. Where is he from?Joel Kinnaman, the lanky 31-year-old who plays Holder, speaks the way he does partly because he's half-American, half-Swedish and lives in Stockholm. But Holder also sounds like that, says...
Season 1 of Justified ended with blazing gunfire and a staggeringly large body count. So the big question is: Can this season's finale — promisingly titled "Bloody Harlan" — provide the same nail-biting action, shoot 'em ups and who's-hurt aftermath? "It matches it in terms of drama and shock," says Joelle Carter, who plays plucky widow Ava on the gripping neo-Western. "While I was reading the script, I was screaming." According to Carter...
When Kirstie Alley stepped into the lead female spot on the hit sitcom Cheers, her fearless, bawdy, neurotic energy thwarted all predictions that she'd never fill Shelley Long's shoes. She even earned an Emmy. Since then, Alley has continued to catch the world off guard by segueing into feature films, both arty and mainstream (Deconstructing Harry, the Look Who's Talking movies), headlining popular post-Cheers series Veronica's Closet and making a name for herself as one of the most unapologetic of Scientology's brethren. Then, when her weight ballooned at age 53, she used her indomitable spirit to turn her bathroom-scale struggles into a new branch of her career: She's been a Jenny Craig spokesperson; invented her own weight-loss program, Organic Liaison; starred in a semiautobiographical Showtime sitcom, Fat Actress; and to show what it's like to be an overweight celebrity single mom of two teenagers — William True and Lillie Price — she welcomed a reality-TV crew into her hectic home for A&E's Kirstie Alley's Big Life.
On Justified, when two hillbilly thugs walk into a room with an ominous-looking bag, you know they're not toting the makings of a picnic. Anything might be inside: explosives, guns, a bear trap. For Timothy Olyphant, who stars on FX's crime drama as the low-key but deadly deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens and is now a producer, the secret to the show's rich yet unhurried storytelling is how it triggers the imagination.
Ten years ago, New York actress Debi Mazar (Entourage) vacationed in Florence, Italy, where she met Gabriele Corcos, a gifted jazz drummer with a lilting Italian accent and a head full of old-school Tuscan recipes passed down by his mother and grandmother. Soon they were married, living in L.A. with two daughters, Evelina and Giulia. Somewhere along the way, the couple got the idea of translating their passion for cooking into a popular online vlog, the five-year-old "Under the Tuscan Gun" (underthetuscangun.com).
Dr. Erica Hahn, the head of cardiothoracic surgery at Seattle Grace Hospital, may be a breezily officious, raging workaholic. But the actress who plays her, Brooke Smith, isn’t entirely surprised when the escalating chemistry between Hahn and Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) leads to a liplock in the May 15 episode of Grey’s Anatomy (Thursday at 9 pm/ET, ABC). “She came to the wrong hospital if she thought she wasn’t going to have a personal life!” cracks Smith, who confesses to eavesdropping on a recent writers’ meeting in an attempt to find out where the relationship will go. “They won’t tell us anything, so I literally had my ear to the wall. I keep hearing this rumor about this big surprising kiss [in the finale]. Everybody’s thinking that it’s Meredith and Derek. But ho
Twittering birds. Aside from the whirring of a Cuisinart or the banging of pots, that's the loudest noise you'll hear on Jamie Oliver's cozy new series, Jamie at Home (Saturdays at 9:30 am/ET, Food Network). The quiet chirping begins and ends segments, and helps set the mood for a show that dispenses with catchphrases, guests and gimmicks and instead features the 32-year-old British cook — first introduced to U.S. audiences in 2000 as the Naked Chef — using vegetables and fruits plucked from his bountiful 13-acre organic home garden in Essex, England. There's an aura of spontaneity about the series. ("I haven't burnt [it]. Honestly," he assures us as the room fogs with smoke when dripping fruit juice caramelizes on the bottom of the oven while he's making a rustic blackberry-and-apple pie.) That's bec
In the Season 4 finale of The Biggest Loser, 18 contestants lost a staggering combined total of 2,207 pounds, Jillian Michaels' underdog Black Team dominated, and identical twins Bill and Jim Germanakos swept the competition, winning the $250,000 grand prize and $100,000 at-home prize, respectively. Here, five pound-droppers share diet and exercise tips that can help you slim down in 2008. Bill Germanakos$250,000 grand-prize winnerLost 164 pounds"Don't eat anything white. No white bread, no white rice, no white pasta. If you're going to eat carbs, eat something that's whole-grain or long-burning carbs, like sweet potatoes or yams. Blueberries are my addiction now. They're really good for you, low in calories. In my house, we call them the blue M&Ms." Julie HaddenFirst runner-upLost 97 pounds"American-size proportions are gigantic, so when I eat out, I cut my m
It's late afternoon on the mazelike Hollywood set of TNT's The Closer (special two-hour episode airing tonight at 8 pm/ET on TNT), and Kyra Sedgwick is filming a scene that would feel familiar to any fan of the show. As LAPD Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson, she stands in the office of Assistant Police Chief Will Pope (J.K. Simmons), telling half-truths to her boss to help cover the trail of her unorthodox crime-solving methods. In a crisply enunciated Southern accent, Sedgwick says, "This is a tactical.…" Then, silence. "Line?" Sedgwick politely asks The Closer's script supervisor, who then reads a piece of dialogue aloud to her. Sedgwick continues. "This is a tactical operation now, for which SIS and…" Sedgwick's voice trails off again. "Line?" she calls out, this time with a tiny crackle of frustration
"We're trying to make it so you never know what kind of show you're tuning in to," says The Closer creator (and TVGuide.com celebrity blogger) James Duff. And his formula — unexpected moments of comedy, plucked heartstrings and a dash of gore — is working: The Closer is the top-rated basic-cable series ever. For the two-part, two-night finale, the police procedural heads to the courtroom after a high-profile divorce attorney is found dead in his swimming pool and the crime-solving methods of LAPD deputy chief Brenda Johnson (Emmy-nominated Kyra Sedgwick) are called into question. Keep an eye out for real-life law-and-order pundits
America's perennial sweetheart, Valerie Bertinelli, opens up to TV Guide about her new TV-movie, her dramatic weight loss, her new love and the advice she has for Lindsay and Paris. TV Guide: In your new TV-movie, Claire, you play a mother with psychic powers. What was it about the role that called to you? Valerie Bertinelli: I love Medium. It's such a believable relationship. This script had a lot of that in there — the husband, the wife, the way they move around the kitchen, how the children are not just extras but an important part of life. But the main part for me was that it was going to be shooting in town. I didn't have to leave my son [16-year-old Wolfie Van Halen]. That's always
Call it a quest for Gracelessness. After eight years as the female half of the popular NBC sitcom Will & Grace, Debra Messing, 38, worried about involuntarily holding onto the traits that made her New York City-based interior decorator so ineffably lovable: the rapid-fire line delivery, the defiant tossing of her red mane and the aura of perpetual frazzle. So before production began on USA Network's The Starter Wife — a six-hour miniseries based on the best-selling novel by Gigi Levangie Grazer, in which Messing stars as jettisoned Hollywood spouse Molly Kagan — she went to executive producer and director Jon Avnet (Fried G
"I have to tell you, I did meet my Prince Charming," reveals Tiffany "New York" Pollard, star of VH1's I Love New York (Mondays at 9 pm/ET), the raucous reality show in which the bachelorette who was twice rejected on Flavor of Love calls the shots. Pollard has already sent 16 bachelors packing — with the help of her mother, Sister Patterson. Now only four remain: Men she nicknamed Chance, Real, Tango and White Boy. Which one will she choose? Check out these odds. CHANCE (AKA Kamal Givens, 25) Hometown: Anaheim, California Why he has love for New York: "New York was sassy, real, true-witted. We had a connection from the jump." Why New York has love for him: "I wasn't just a thug. I could te
In a TV Guide interview, Chad Lowe reflects on his new gig as 24's resident evildoer, sobriety, his new girlfriend and playing hockey with Kiefer. TV Guide: What can you tell us about your character on 24, deputy chief of staff Reed Pollock? Lowe: I don't want to give too much away, but Reed has somewhat of an ulterior motive. He does things to further his agenda and the agenda of an organiza­tion of people he represents. What's interesting is that I don't even know who they are. TV Guide: Do you mean you, Chad Lowe? Or you, Reed Pollock? Lowe: I, Chad Lowe, don't know. When I got the role, I went in and met with the producers and writers and all they gave me was a broad stroke of where they're going with him. TV
In a candid TV Guide interview, former '80s teen star Justine Bateman opens up about making mayhem on ABC's Men in Trees (Thursdays at 10 pm/ET), her kids, and... knitting sweaters for Courtney Love?! TV Guide: How did you land the role of Lynn on Men in Trees? Justine Bateman: This is going to sound so made up, but I was on an airplane and [series creator] Jenny Bicks was also on the plane. We didn't have a conversation. She saw me, called my agents and said, "Oh, can she play Lynn?" TV Guide: Lynn was a character on the show before we even met her. She was discussed for months, right? Bateman: Yeah. Sometimes in theater, they'll talk about your character a lot before
Janice Dickinson knows a thing or two about modeling — just ask the self-proclaimed first supermodel — so it is no surprise that she's putting her skills to use on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (Tuesdays at 10 pm/ET on Oxygen). TV Guide talked to the loose-lipped ex-supermodel about her new show, getting dissed by Tyra Banks and her strong gay following. TV Guide: Tell us why you should have your own modeling age
Janice Dickinson knows a thing or two about modeling — just ask the self-proclaimed first supermodel — so it is no surprise that she's putting her skills to use on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (Tuesdays at 10 pm/ET on Oxygen). TV Guide talked to the loose-lipped ex-supermodel about her new show, getting dissed by Tyra Banks and her strong gay following. TV Guide: Tell us why you should have your own modeling agency and your own show about it. Janice Dickinson: I’m ready for anything because I’ve been there, done that. I can help these kids. I have credibility in the industry for over 32 years — over 3,000 covers in every magazine in every country in every language. I became a model because I love what I do. I love everything to do with the lighting, the fashion, the film, the photography, the clothes. It’s the only thing I can give back to an industry that fed me like a Vampirella.
Jaime Pressly, the trailer-park princess of NBC's My Name Is Earl (Thursdays at 9 pm/ET), talks to TV Guide about boys, bras and why she's been labeled another B-word. TV Guide: What is the secret to making Joy work: her accent, hair or clothes?Jaime Pressly: Honestly, you can't separate them. I mixed three or four accents together so she sounds like the biggest trailer-park queen in the country. Her hair is a character unto itself. Her ridiculous clothes are a nice little icing on the cake. TV Guide: Joy and Earl are often at odds. What are you guys really like on the set? Pressly:
With a brand new series, another X-Men movie and impending nuptials to Crossing Jordan's No. 1 hottie all on tap, Rebecca Romijn is walking on air. TV Guide invited the star of WB's Pepper Dennis (Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET) to comment on all the top stories going on in her life. TV Guide: On your comedy series Pepper Dennis, you play a TV news reporter who'll humiliate herself if it means getting her story. Share some memorable real-life press encounters. Rebecca Romijn: Once I went to Rome to do press for X-Men 2. I was sitting on a dais, answering questions, and this guy starts throwing roses at me from the sideline and shouting things in Italian. I don't speak Italian.
