Queen Latifah's "new" movie, HBO's Bessie, actually has been on her radar for more than 20 years. Latifah was best known as a rap artist in the 1990s when producers Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck approached her about portraying the legendary Bessie Smith, "Empress of the Blues." The project already had gone…

Since winning a supporting actor Academy Award for 1980's Ordinary People, Timothy Hutton has worked regularly in film, theater and TV. His most recent turn as ex-gambler Russ Skokie in John Ridley's limited series for ABC, American Crime, squares him off against Emmy-winner Felicity Huffman, who portrays Russ's…

As the doomed Danny Rayburn in Netflix's Bloodline, Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn once again embodies a villain, only this time with a sympathetic twist. Known in recent years for a series of borderline-sociopathic criminal roles, starting with Animal Kingdom in 2010—and rumored to be circling a lead role in the Star…

Matt Walsh has been a staple of improv comedy going on 25 years. Starting out in Chicago, he would make his way to both New York and L.A., going on to cofound the Upright Citizens Brigade in the process. But before all that, Walsh was a psychology major who worked for a time in that industry before making the jump to…

There are two sides to every story and Showtime's The Affair uses this adage to great effect, telling a tale of infidelity from the perspectives of both Noah—a married-with-kids author, played by Dominic West—and Alison, a bereaved waitress. Wilson has received critical acclaim for her portrayal of the tortured…

You're shooting season two right now? Yeah, we have a big location shift. It's nice to be out in Big Sky Country. We moved to Texas. What can you tell us about what's coming up? We've decided to pull up stumps and leave Mapleton and there's a new place called Jarden, Texas. I guess the teaser does reveal that there…

In The Knick, Andre Holland plays the marginalized Dr. Algernon Edwards, battling prejudice in the Knickerbocker hospital in early-1900s New York. The Steven Soderbergh-directed period drama not only covers racial and societal issues, but also delves into drug addiction, the hit-and-miss gore of early medical practice…

After more than two decades of working in Hollywood, New Zealand-born actress Melanie Lynskey is in a really good place. Since her 1994 debut as a manipulated, murderous teen in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, she's built a diverse film and TV career that has included a role in 2009's Oscar-nominated Up in the Air…

Ellie Kemper is as charming as one of the heroines in a Woody Allen film–fast-talking, genuinely affable, quick on her feet with a deftness for physical comedy—not unlike the cutups that Mia Farrow portrayed in Radio Days and Broadway Danny Rose. The Princeton grad propelled herself through New York's Upright Citizens…

Except for one failed pilot for Amazon, Constance Wu never had tried TV comedy when Fresh Off the Boat came along. So it comes as a surprise to the 33-year-old actress to find herself a TV critics' darling and breakout star of the series about a Taiwanese immigrant couple and their all-American kids, based on the…

Between senior citizens and digital-brained teens, tweens and tots are the befuddled middle-agers trying to make sense of it all—while texting at the same time. Anthony Anderson, 44, takes this bafflement to new heights in Black-ish as Andre "Dre" Johnson, caught between his old-school "Pops" (Laurence Fishburne) from…

In 2014 Amy Landecker played a key role in a show that blew critics and audiences away – Transparent. After winning a 2015 Golden Globe for 'best television series,' Amazon's first original scripted drama will soon be back for its second season. Landecker is Sarah Pfefferman, the daughter of transgender Maura played…