Kathryn Morris UK

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – April 2017

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Let us take a walk down ‘It’s not her, it’s them’ Road in the April 2017 Cold Case Cast Catch-up. What have the other major cast members been up to since our stroll this way in March?

There is always the danger that the CCCC-up could just turn into the Tracie Thoms Show. We make no apologies for that. She’s a very hard working and talented lady. This month is no exception, it is exceptional though.

Where to start? How about Wednesday the 26th of April? No objections, so I’ll begin. That day saw Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) appear as a guest star in the long-running CBS (them again!) drama series Criminal Minds. Tracie recently let it be known that she had been working in Vancouver (much talked about around these parts of late). Presumably this is what it was about as Criminal Minds is mostly filmed there these days. Tracie played the wife of new comer to the show Stephen Walker (Damon Gupton), giving more background to his character. The show is nearing the end of its 12th season and has already been given a renewal for number thirteen. Now Ms Thoms is in the CM universe as Mrs Walker you never know when she might be called upon to reprise the role.

Sticking with the Tracie and TV theme: she has also booked a recurring role on Lifetime network’s UnREAL. Tracie is going with the theme-sticking too as her character, Fiona, is an executive within the entertainment industry (as she was on Love) and close friend of main character Quinn King (Constance Zimmer). Fiona is said to be “fun-loving, gorgeous gay woman with swagger”. Two out of three for Tracie there. UnREAL was co-created by Marti Noxon (probably best know for her work on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, now 20 years old!) and is set behind the scenes of a TV dating show.

From dating to The Drowing, but staying with Tracie and adding the month of May to the theme. I’ve previously mentioned the movie based on a Pat Barker novel about a psychiatrist who saves a young man trying to kill himself. Julia Stiles (Dexter) and Josh Charles (The Good Wife) star. A trailer has been published for the oft-delayed film and you can watch it on YouTube here. In other news a US release date has been given as the 10th of May.

Speaking of suicide but staying with Tracie (I don’t just throw this together, no matter how it looks ). No more talk of Canada, Tracie was back working very close to home last week. Very, very close to home. In her own home in fact. I’m not sure of the nature of the project (possibly a short film) but Tracie filmed something apparently called Career Suicide. She worked with a number of her friends, including a certain…

Thom Barry (Will Jeffries in CC), yes our old friend was back on camera with his squad-mate Tracie. We get to see so little of Thom, he seems to take a very laid back approach in total contrast to Tracie, so it is good to see him working on a new project again.

Last month’s CCCC-up included news of Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera in CC) guest starring in a NCIS: New Orleans episode at the beginning of April. I ended that piece not sure whether his character, Richard Marino, was a cop or a mobster. It wasn’t obvious. The opening scene of the show didn’t exactly clear that up. Turned out to be a little from column A and a little from column B. Marino was an old-school copper working under cover on a drug deal that goes pear-shaped. Speaking of crimes, the movie Small Time Crime, in which Jeremy has a small role, had a premiere in the SXSW event back in March. Since then the film which co-stars John Hawkes (The Sessions) and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures) has been purchased for North American distribution, which increases the chances of a general release in the near future.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – March 2017

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You know the drill. It’s very late in the month so it must be time for the latest Cold Case Cast Catch-up. The on-going careers of the main Cold Cast cast that aren’t Kathryn are worth keeping an eye on since the show ended.

It’s not often we get the chance to back-to-back lead-off with John Finn (John Stillman in CC). Last month it was as a guest star the new CBS legal drama Doubt. The role was minuscule, little more than an extra, presumably a victim of the many changes made to the show during a long and complicated gestation period. John’s latest guest role was not dissimilar. He was the supportive father of a more significant character in an episode of long-running powerhouse NCIS. It was actually a reprise of a role John played in two-parter six years ago. The now retired Marine Commandant Ellison’s daughter was a terminal cancer patient looking for justice for a dead colleague.

Speaking of NCIS, it looks like Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera in CC) will be in the spin-off New Orleans series episode next week (4th April). It involved a drug running ring and possible corruption within the local police force. Jezza plays Richard Marino. Could be cop, could be mob. Can’t tell.

We love Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) here on the CCCC-up. She keeps us supplied with regular new work to report on. Plus, she’s a talented actor and singer. What’s not to love? This month has been a bit quieter than some but that’s on the Tracie scale, which is differently calibrated from everyone elses. Mere hours after the last CCCC-up was posted (so often the way) Tracie posted about a new crowd funding scheme to raise money for a film project she’s involved with called Say Goodnight And Go. Karri Bowman (writer/director/actor Bandwagon), Lynn Wactor (Bandwagon) and Tracie (Bandwagon) have re-teamed to make the film. The money raising is to cover the costs of a 3 minute trailer to help promote the project. You can see the GoFundMe page HERE. A finished project of Tracie’s is Love. The whole 12 episode season of the Netflix series Love dropped early in the month. Tracie guest starred again as Susan Cheryl, the producer of a fictional show-within-the-show. This time she was only in a couple of episodes as that aspect of one of the main character’s lives was reduced in comparison to season 1.

In the CCCC-up from May last year I mentioned that a film starring Tracie was in post-production. That film was The Drowning. A bit of digging, or maybe splashing about a bit, showed that I’d actually made reference to the project a whole year before as it was being developed under the name Border Crossing. It is based on a book of that earlier name by Pat Barker. Now it looks like the film will get a release in mid-May having been recently acquired for distribution. Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You) and Josh Charles (The Good Wife) star in the drama about child violence.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – January 2017

Wow! It’s the end of January already. 1/12th of the year has gone. Somehow it simultaneously feels like it’s passed so quickly and yet taken so very long. Has it been long enough to get some new news about the on going careers of the wider Cold Cast cast. Welcome to the first CCCC-up of 2017.

Let’s start the year with some great news.

We don’t often get to headline with Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera on CC) but it wasn’t long ago (November in fact) that we last did so. Then it was do with a guest starring role in the TV series Chicago P.D. This time it is because of the movie Small Town Crime. Previously we mentioned STC last May as Jeremy found himself cast amongst such luminaries as John Hawkes (Deadwood) and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures). Early in the new year STC was one of the first films announced to première at the 2017 SXSW (South By Southwest) film festival which takes place in Austin, Texas in March. SXSW is a big event that gets a lot of media attention. STC is thriller involving the murder of a young woman and an alcholic ex-cop (Hawkes).

Jeremy’s movie premiering in a few months has pushed Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) in to second place in our run-down this month. That doesn’t mean she has been anything other than incredibly busy as always though. No sir. But where to start? First up there was promotion for the release of the CD soundtrack of stage musical Falsettos that Tracie has been a part of. The 2 disc set of over 30 songs is not an audio recording of one of the regular performances. They were studio recordings done especially for the CDs. It is available from all good (and probably some not so good) retailers (including outside the US) now. As well as that one of the stage performances was filmed for broadcast at a later date on the American PBS network.

Speaking of stage shows, Tracie did two nights (11th and 14th) of her one woman show in the 54 Below club. I’m sure the crowd loved it. Speaking of love, Tracie also let it be known that production has begun on the second season of the Netflix romdramedy (I just made that up: romance, drama, comedy) Love. The show stars Community alum Gillian Jacobs and Comedy Bang! Bang! star and writer Paul Rust, who also created and wrote Love along with Judd Apatow (so many comedies) and Leslie Arfin (Brooklyn Nine-Nine). Love season one was released last February and is available on Netflix. The new run lands in early March, just as the SXSW festival starts in fact.

Barely pausing for breath after returning to Los Angeles, and before we saw Love back in her life, Tracie was working on a short film called Top Ramen by Rebecca Hertz. It appears that Tracie plays the mother of two girls. Beyond that we don’t know much.

A film we do know more about is C.R.E.A.M: The American Dream. Tracie will have to spend some time in Florida to make this drama centred around the gangs of the criminal underworld in Miami. The story is said to be based on a housing project specifically built for low-income African-Americans which suffered a drug wars problem in the late 1990s. To answer the question I had as well, it stands for Cash Rules Everything Around Me. The film written by Juan William Jackson and David Haynes is still in the pre-production stages so we’re a way of seeing any release date.

A new promo video for the new CBS legal drama Doubt removes some of the… er… doubt I had about seeing John Finn (John Stillman in CC) in an earlier video. I’m even more convinced it is him but there is still a question mark. John has been listed in the show’s cast for a long time but there have been many changes and delays since then and he has not been mentioned in the official press release which has an extensive set of credits for the guest cast. The new series starring Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy), Elliott Gould (Ocean’s Eleven), Dulé Hill (Psych), Laverne Cox (Orange Is The New Black), and Dreama Walker (The Good Wife), is due to première on the 15th of February (a Wednesday).

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – December 2016

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Predictably enough this is going to be a round-up of round-ups, with anything new we can find added as well of course. Let us take a look at the careers of the wider Cold Case cast in 2016,

It is almost a cliché that Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) goes first. It would be wrong not to though most of the time. She makes the word prolific look like it isn’t trying hard enough. Tracey featured in every one of these CCCC-ups in 2016. There has been films (both short and long) and series (TV and web-based), as well as stage shows and one-woman events. There are 18 items alone in Tracie’s IMDb actress category with ‘2016’ against them. Some of them won’t be seen until next year. Some the 2015 dated items crossed over in to this year. It is hard to keep track of them all but I tried.

The most obvious to mention about are Tracie’s guest starring roles in various TV shows. Netflix dramedy Love, Hulu-bound The Mindy Project, and CBS’s BrainDead (more on that later) all benefited from her presence. Tracie was a regular in Love and had single episode roles in the other two.

Film-wise there was Equity (female-led drama set around high-finance) and The Watcher, which after a lengthy post-production period fetched up on the Lifetime network and then Netflix. Horror flick The Basement starring Mischa Barton (remember her?) is a notable entry for next year. No doubt there will be plenty more besides that.

Currently Tracie is appearing in the Falsettos musical, a sound-track CD was recently released for those unable to attend in person, and is gearing up for a couple of nights in her one-woman show in mid-January when the run ends.

As Lilly’s partner in anti-crime Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC) is probably the next most recognised character from CBS’s Cold Case so we’ll look at his 2016 next. After CC Danny fetched up in another cop drama, this time NBC’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He did three seasons as Nick Amaro until they just decided the role should end. 2016 saw Danny ‘do a Tracie’ by having a recurring guest starring role in ABC’s Scandal. He was really doing the network rounds. Scandal is set in the world of politics and Danny’s Alex Vargas was a campaign manager involved in four episodes towards the end of the show’s 5th season.

Danny then returned to CBS and crossed the swamp to head the sci-fi-ish-comedy-drama BrainDead. This time as Luke Healy, a not entirely honourable Senator from a family with political history. The show told of an alien parasite taking control of leading political figures. Luckily it is all fiction. Politicians could never become mindless idiots with no thought for their electorate… It was a funny, clever, and entertaining show so of course it was cancelled after just one short (13 episodes) season. It was worth watching for the opening titles which combined the ‘previously on…’ element with a humorous song. Look out for Danny’s co-star the great Mary Elizabeth Winstead (10 Cloverfield Lane) in the upcoming 3rd season of Fargo.

There is no word yet on any upcoming projects for Danny to take us into 2017.

Heading back to the top in CC squad seniority stakes brings us to John Finn (John Stillman in CC). 2016 primarily consisted of a couple of guest starring roles in TV dramas Elementary (the US Sherlock show) and The Good Wife (which ended in the summer). Unlike network hopper Danny all these shows have been on CBS. Nearly on CBS in 2016 was another drama called Doubt. After various re-thinks they’ve finally decided air the legal drama Doubt from mid-February 2017. What is still very much in doubt is John’s presence in the show. He was one of the original cast members, albeit in a likely small role, but the show has undergone significant changes since then with no further mention of John. However, a couple of weeks ago a lengthy promo video was released and John appeared very briefly towards the end. There is still a possibility that the footage used was from the first pilot and won’t be broadcast so we’re none the wiser. Doubt stars Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy), Dulé Hill (Psych) and Laverne Cox (OITNB).

Mr Finn also has a couple of films lined up for release in 2017. Gifted (Chris Evans and Jenny Slate) and Finding Steve McQueen (Forest Whitaker and Rachael Taylor). Gifted is about a man bringing up his young niece who turns out to be genius. John’s role was not clear previously but a recent trailer shows him as a lawyer in a custody battle over the girl. It all looks very heart warming and life affirming. Release date is set for April. Finding Steve McQueen does not appear to involve Steve McQueen. Instead it is about a group of bank robbers in the 1970s who steal $30m of apparently illegal contributions to Nixon’s political campaign. John is FBI Deputy Director W Mark Felt. This is all based on real events.

Covering Thom Barry (Will Jeffries in CC) in 2016 was easy because there was little to it. The much delayed Eddie Murphy vehicle Mr Church finally hit cinemas in September. It didn’t hit very hard and limped along to some very small box office takings. Thom’s role was small.

Thom’s short film Casting got longer but not released. 2017 is possible. Another project Phoenix 454 was announced but little more heard since. Thom’s role does look more significant in this one.

Which leaves us with everybody’s favourite (unless you prefer one of the others) Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera on CC). We didn’t manage to squeeze much wordage from Jeremy’s career in 2016 either. Like most of the rest of the CC cast Jeremy did have some small guest starring roles though. Back in March it was on the comedy Workaholics. In November it was in cop drama Chicago P.D. There is a film on the horizon called Small Time Crime that is currently in the no-man’s-land of ‘post production’. It may see a 2017 release.

That’s it for the main cast but we do occasionally stretch our remit to include other significant figures connected with Cold Case. Chief amongst those are creator Meredith Stiehm and writer/producer Veena Sud.

Veena Sud had a movie she wrote and directed released in 2016. It was called The Salton Sea and involved a woman (Jamie Anne Allman, The Killing) blackmailed by a hitchhiker (Diarra Kilpatrick, Private Practice) over a possible hit-and-run. More recently it was announced that Veena would be taking the producer/writer reins again on a new Netflix drama called Seven Seconds. It is based on a Russian movie of all things about a senior police officer involved in the death of a child. Regina King (Southland) recently joined the cast. No news yet on a release date for the 10 episode drama.

Happy New Year to everyone connected to Cold Case.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – November 2016

Nearly done for the year. But before we get to December we have to close out November with the latest look at the on-going careers of the rest of the Cold Case cast. The ones that aren’t Kathryn that is.

We don’t often get to post about Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera on CC) so I try to give him top billing when the chance arrives. There he is above, eyes drilling in to you. Two weeks ago Jeremy had a guest starring role in the TV series Chicago P.D. The show is one of the more recent creations by the prolific Dick Wolf and his production company. Dick has been involved in crime-based TV since Hill Street Blues and was responsible for Law & Order and its various spin-offs. Now he his adding to his collection with the Chicago set. Chicago Fire has begat both Chicago Med and Chicago P.D. already there could well be another, Chicago Justice, on the way next year. Jeremy was Jim in episode 7 of season 4, titled ‘300,000 Likes’, of P.D. which aired on the 16th of November.

Another of our less regular regulars is Thom Barry (Will Jeffries in CC). Back in August I reported on Thom appearing in a short film called Casting. At the time I questioned whether a 20 minute film could be called a short. It’s more of a medium. IMDb is now reporting the film is 39 minutes long making it what? A medium plus? The film is about the horrific and all too common world of human trafficking. The official website now has an actually short trailer. No change to the vague 2017 release date beyond a claim of ‘coming soon’.

At this point I’d normally be quietly thanking Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller on CC) for being so active, giving me plenty to talk about and preventing more than a few of these posts saying just ‘nothing to report’. This month we need to be saying Get Well Soon instead. Tracie, as reported in the past two CCCC-ups, is busy starring in the musical Falsettos which must be curtailing her TV and film work. However, Tracie recently hurt both her ankles putting her out of action. Stephanie Umoh is standing (sorry Tracie!) in for her on the boards. In mid-January (the 11th & 14th to be precise) Tracie is doing one of her one woman shows at the Feinstein’s/54 Below venue in New York. Book early to avoid disappointment.

Also last month I mentioned a new Veena Sud (writer and producer on many episodes of CC) project called Seven Seconds for Netflix. Since then additional cast members have been announced. Raúl Castillo (Looking) and Zackary Momoh, a British actor currently to be seen in the movie A United Kingdom.