*
General Hospital and
True Blood alum
Nathan Parsons is set as the lead in
Point Of Honor, Amazon's Civil War family drama pilot from Carlton Cuse and Randall Wallace. Luke Benward (
Ravenswood) co-stars in the project, which centers on best friends and brothers-in-law, John Rodes (Parsons) and Robert Sumner, who find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict
*
Seana Kofoed has joined the cast of CBS soap opera
The Young and the Restless in the role of Madame Isadora, a psychic who has some predictions to share. She debuts Friday, October 17, and will appear in a few episodes.
 |
| Katherine Kelly Lang. Photo Credit: Chris McKeen |
*
The Bold and The Beautiful star Katherine Kelly Lang, who went to Australia to showcase her Katherine Kelly Lang Kaftans for TVSN, told
Confidential she was surprised by how carefree Aussies are. "I got here and I noticed every second word is, '
no worries,'" the 53-year-old soap star said. "Oh, you show up late to work? Oh, no worries. Everybody says 'no worries', and they really mean it, they are not just saying it."
*
Downton Abbey star Rob James-Collier says he is
having sleepless nights over a harrowing storyline that will push his character into an "abyss." James-Collier, 37, who plays scheming under-butler Thomas Barrow, reveals that his character’s tortured homosexuality will come to the fore in the new series of the hit ITV drama which begins next Sunday in the UK.
* As
Netflix adds six countries, the world's largest video-streaming service is getting a glimpse of what it's up against. Polls in Europe's biggest TV markets signal that local content — often available on free channels during prime time — consistently beats U.S. blockbusters.
* Fox has given a put pilot order to an untitled
project starring John Stamos as a longtime bachelor whose life is upended when he discovers he’s a father and a grandfather.
*
Orange is the New Black writer Lauren Morelli and her husband of two years, Steve Basilone, just filed for divorce. Morelli began writing for
OITNB five months after she got hitched. She says as she started writing for the main character -- who had once been in a lesbian relationship -- she
saw herself in the character. Morelli says she began to feel like a fraud ... married to a man but clearly gay.
* After improving slowly but surely for two decades, growth in the number of women working on primetime TV shows has
stalled during the past five years, according to the latest report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. The ranks of women working behind the scenes and on camera in primetime series during the 2013-14 season was essentially flat compared to 2012-13 and with the numbers from 2009-10, according to the report by Martha Lauzen, exec director of the center.
*
EastEnders actor Steve McFadden, best known for his role as Phil Mitchell in the long-running BBC soap opera, has settled his legal action against the Metropolitan police and the
News of the World after
receiving a public apology and substantial damages.
* Brittany Snow and Courtney Knowles co-founded Western Michigan University's Love is Louder organization, as part of the Jed Foundation. "I had similar experiences where I went through school where I felt different and alone and isolated," Snow recently told students. "I was on a soap opera at the time called
Guiding Light in New York and I went to school back in Florida. I didn’t have a stable atmosphere. I developed a lot of self esteem issues and insecurities, body issues, anxiety, and I didn’t know what was happening. I knew I couldn’t deal with it. It
made me very shameful."
* Gillian Anderson, who recurred in
Hannibal Seasons 1 and 2 as the title character's shrink, Bedelia du Maurier, has closed a deal to be a
series regular in Season 3.
* HBO is
not moving forward with Ryan Murphy's sex-and-relationships drama pilot,
Open, which starred Scott Speedman, Anna Torv, Wes Bentley, Michelle Monaghan and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
* Why was A&E's Longmire canceled? The
audience was too old.
* Eva
Longoria has a movie coming out this month: a drama about tensions at the Mexico border,
Frontera, with Michael Peña and Ed Harris. And she says she’s currently developing another TV series, which she will produce and star in.
* Sony said this week it may
lose upwards of $2 billion this year — five times more than it anticipated just a couple of months ago. It also will pay no dividend for the first time since the company went public in 1958.
