Kathryn Morris UK

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – June 2018

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It’s that time again when we reach the end of the month and take a look back at recent news about the other cast members of Cold Case.

To begin with we go to Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC). On several occasions we’ve had reason to mention Mayans MC (motorcycle club). This is a TV show on the FX channel in America which is a spin-off of the popular Sons Of Anarchy. Mayans is set in the same ‘universe’ as SOA but is largely separate. It starts a few years after the end of the original show and apparently makes references to the events that happened at its close. At the beginning of June a panel of the cast and crew attended the ATX Television Festival in Austin, Texas. Danny was there along with the creator Kurt Sutter. A clip of the new programme was shown, followed by a discussion about the series by those assembled. Just a couple of days ago it was announced that FX will begin broadcasting Mayans MC on the 4th of September after a debut at the San Diego Comic-Con in late July. Expect another discussion panel there. Of note is that Kurt and Danny crossed paths during Danny’s brief stint on The Shield. Kurt wrote one of the episodes Danny starred in.

Danny appears to have announced is own participation in the Netflix comedy One Day At A Time a few hours ago (at time of publishing). The power of social media. ODAAT has so far had two seasons, each of 13 episodes, released in January of this year and last. The show is about a divorced mother of two sharing a house with her mother. Justina Machado (Six Feet Under, Cold Case episode ‘The Good Death’) stars as the mother, Rita Moreno (Oz) is the grandmother. Danny is set to join the cast as the brother of Justina’s character. A multi-generational comedy is hardly a new idea and in this case that is even more true than normal as this is based on a show of the same name from the late-seventies/early eighties. The original ran for 9 seasons on CBS. A major change for the update is the shift to it being based around a Cuban-American family living in Los Angeles. Following the normal pattern of release dates for the previous two seasons, expect every episode of season 3 to be available in one go via the streaming service early next in 2019.

Some how we got through the May 2018 CCCC-up without mentioning Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) and we survived! I’m not sure we could have survived two in a row! The chance of not discussing the always-working Tracie for so long is of ‘hell freezing over’ proportions. But we could do with a bit of cooling down here in the UK, with a lengthy period of warm and humid weather making things uncomfortable for many.

After a premiere at the SXSW film festival in March we recently had the release of the trailer for the comedy short film Are We Good Parents? starring Sean Maguire (Once Upon A Time) and Tracie. You can watch all 40 seconds of the already award-winning film trailer HERE on Vimeo. Tracie and Sean are parents to a teenage girl who they had long believed was gay.

Are we seeing a new trend in titles? Tracie has joined a stellar cast for a new 10 part drama series for Apple (yes, the iPhone maker) called Are You Sleeping. I’ve not seen it written anywhere with a question mark so I assume that is the way it is supposed to be. Check out this cast list: Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures), Elizabeth Perkins (Weeds), Mekhi Phifer (ER), Lizzy Caplan (Cloverfield), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us), and Tracie, amongst others. Reese Witherspoon (Election) is involved on the other side of the camera via her production camera. Based on a novel by Kathleen Barber looks at the increasing interest in podcasts (from the company that effectively named the medium) about true crime stories, and the impact that has on the justice system.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – May 2018

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Normally I leave these regular updates on the on-going careers of the Cold Case cast members on the last day of the month. As we’ve got other things to deal with tomorrow I’ve decided to throw this one out a day early. This can only mean there’ll be some big news shortly after this gets posted.

Let’s start with John Finn (John Stillman in CC). In March we noted that John appeared to have taken a role in a new pilot for NBC, the home of Kathryn’s new show Reverie. The Enemy Within is about a former CIA operative (Jennifer Carpenter, Dexter) turned traitor, who is possibly turned informer to help the FBI track down a criminal. Morris Chestnut (The Perfect Guy) stars as the FBI agent, Kelli Garner (Pan Am), and Raza Jaffrey (Spooks) co-star. A few weeks ago it was announced that the new drama had been ordered to series. An official press release and some imagery from it were released along with that news. John actually featured in a photograph of Jennifer being lead in shackles from the prison by Morris. The pilot was directed by Mark Pellington, who you may recognise as a producer and director on a number of Cold Case episodes, which may explain John’s presence. No news yet on when The Enemy Within will be broadcast or if John will be in more than just the pilot.

Moving on from a TV show about a woman in jail we have Dead Women Walking, a film about… women… in jail. Not sure if I missed this before or not but Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera in CC) stars in this film by Hagar Ben Asher, which apparently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival back in mid-April. Not surprisingly with a title like that the film is about women on death row. Jeremy is listed as playing Bill.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – April 2018

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A quick update for April 2018 on the on-going careers of the other main Cold Case cast members.

Back in October last year we reported that Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC) had joined a pilot for a new show called Mayans MC. This was a sort of spin-off from the popular Sons Of Anarchy series, which came to an end in 2014. Mayans MC was to be a very separate show but based in the same universe as SOA. There had already been a pilot filmed but it had undergone significant enough revisions to the story to warrant a new pilot to assess the changes. Danny was added to the v2 pilot. Since then we’ve not heard a lot about Mayans MC. Worryingly in the small pieces of news about new cast members Danny was not mentioned. Further changes could have been made since the new pilot. We didn’t know. The good news is that a couple of weeks ago new that The Last O.G. star Gino Vento was to join the show. Articles described Gino’s character as a childhood friend of Danny’s Miguel Galindo. That’s good news as it re-confirms Danny’s involvement. Later there was new that veteran actor Tony Plana (Ugly Betty, Madam Secretary) was also to become a recurring character. The pedigree and the cast suggest Mayans MC will be a strong show.

Not sure when this appeared in Tracie Thoms’ (Kat Miller in CC) credits on IMDb but I’ve just seen a project listed called Emmett. There is not a lot of information about this comedy film but it is a combination of live-action and animation, and it features the young actor Miles Brown (Black-ish) and Rita Wilson (Girls, wife of Tom Hanks). It is possible the project was completed in 2016, or it could be still in pre-production, depending on what source you believe. Either way I don’t think the Bridget Stokes directed film has been released yet. The story is said to be about Emmett (Miles) teaming up with a retired person (possibly Rita) to solve a crime and keep his family together.

Back in October, and I mean 2016 this time, we reported that Tracie had filmed a horror filmed called The Basement. In the fast moving world of entertainment things can sometimes take a long time. At the time ‘2017’ was the best we could do in terms of a release date. Despite receiving a première at the Shriekfest horror movie event in October (I do mean the one in 2017 this time) there wasn’t sign of movement on a general release. Now that has changed a little to a limited launch in September 2018. More when we hear it.

The Saturday before last (21st April) Tracie returned to the For The Record fold for a performance apparently held at a house in the Hollywood Hills for live streaming on social media. The show involves mostly singing songs from movie soundtracks. Previously they focused on Quentin Tarantino movies as they usually have a notable collection of songs. This time the repertoire includes music from Black Panther as well. In the last few days Tracie was at John Hopkins University with the Theatre Of War group to perform a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. called ‘The Drum Major Instinct’. The university was running a series events under the title ‘Race In America’.

Occasionally we stretch our remit to include a few other key people connected to Cold Case. Writer/director/producer Veena Sud is one them. Post-CC Veena had a lot of success with a remake of a Danish drama series The Killing starring Mireille Enos. It looks like the two ladies have reunited for a new family drama film called Between Earth And Sky (or maybe Between The Earth And Sky), which may still be a working title. If that isn’t exciting enough for The Killing fans this new film also includes another star of that show: Peter Sarsgaard (Garden State). Filming is said to have started in late January in Toronto. In slightly less good news Veena’s series Seven Seconds will not be returning for a second series. There were thoughts that the show could continue for multiple seasons but Netflix has decided not to go forward with it.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – March 2018

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As it is the end of the month (nearly) it is time for updates on the careers of the main Cold Case cast other than Kathryn. She gets enough attention around here. Here is the news from March 2018.

We’re going to start with one our less frequent fliers: John Finn (John Stillman in CC). It is pilot season in TV land and NBC has ordered one called The Enemy Within. Starring Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter), Kelli Garner (Pan Am), and Raza Jaffrey (Spooks) the show is about a former CIA agent jailed as one of the biggest traitors in US history. She, Erica Wolfe, is released to help the FBI prevent serious cases of espionage. John is listed as playing Richard Bregman. It is not known if the character is to be a recurring one. In coming months we will no doubt find out more. In last month’s CCCC-up we talked about the release of the movie Bent in early March. That happened on the 9th. See the previous article for more details, including a link to the trailer.

Another less frequent appearer in these updates is Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera in CC). Jeremy was in a recent episode of the NBC (them again) series Taken. Somehow based on the movie of the same name the show starts yet another Brit abroad Clive Standen (Vikings) and Jennifer Beals (Flashdance). Airing on the 2nd of March, titled Absalom episode 5 of season 2 saw Jeremy play Detective Lyons. A cop again!

In combined Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) and Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC) news, the series that saw them reunited (after the brilliant BrainDead of course), Gone, has started being broadcast here in the UK. It is on the Universal channel on Monday nights at 9pm. The first episode of the 12-part drama was shown on the 19th of March. Universal is available on cable and satellite platforms.

Limiting ourselves to just Tracie she continued her recurring role in the cross-service based drama series 9-1-1. Including the season finale last week. There were only 10 episodes in this mid-season run but the show has already been signed for a second season due to start in the autumn/fall. So far the news is that it will have 16 episodes in two runs of eight stretching into 2019. The show stars Angela Bassett (Black Panther), Peter Krause (Sports Night), Aisha Hinds (Under The Dome), and Connie Britton (Nashville) amongst others. Tracie plays Aisha’s characters partner, I think. Speaking of guest roles Tracie’s episode, called Gestalt (a German word often used in a similar way to holistic), of returning show-within-a-show show UnREAL aired on the 26th of March. And the final season of the Netflix show Love got its big release all in one go in early March. Tracie returned as the TV show producer in a handful of episodes.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – February 2018

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We’re already 1/12th of the way through 2018, more if you consider the number of days. To mark the occasion here’s a quick round-up of updates in the world of the Cold Case cast that aren’t Kathryn.

These regular CCCC-up posts are about looking back at the recent careers of the CC cast. We often revisit items as more news comes in. To start with Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) we are going back over two years. In October 2015 Tracie filmed a comedy called The California No. All this time later the film finally received its world première earlier this month at the San Francisco. Things can move slowly in Hollywood. Maybe the film has found its time. A couple of days before that a trailer was released, you can watch it HERE on YouTube. Beware, it contains ‘adult themes’. The film stars Noah Segan (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Ursula Mills (Peter Pan), with some slightly better known faces like Jordan Hinson (Eureka) and Breckin Meyer (Road Trip) alongside Tracie in the support cast.

Speaking of films starring Tracie and world premières another of her many projects, a short called Are We Good Parents?, will be getting its debut at the SXSW film festival. The film is to be shown three times across the whole event which runs from the 9th to the 18th of March. As it is a short film it will be packaged in a screening with others in the same category on the 10th, 12th and 15th. Sean Maguire (Once Upon A Time) co-stars in Bola Ogun’s film about two parents dealing with their teen-aged daughter going on her first date with a boy. A common enough issue for parents around the world. These two, however, had got the idea that their daughter was gay. See the SXSW website for details HERE.

Staying with Tracie: she was treading the boards again at the beginning of last week. In aid of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) the play-on-words comedy titled Villian: DeBlanks came to LA at the Rockwell Theatre. As you can probably guess from that clever title the murder mystery play is improvised, with the actors having to use suggestions from the audience to shape the story.

To round-off Tracie new this month the Lifetime network show-about-a-show UnREAL returned for its third season on Monday (26th Feb), and the third and final of Love (the Netflix comedy-drama) starring Gillian Jacobs (Community) and Paul Rust (Comedy Bang! Bang!) will be out on the 9th of March. The trailer for that is HERE on YouTube.

John Finn (John Stillman in CC) next. Bent, a movie starring Karl Urban (Dredd), Sofia Vergara (Modern Family), and Andy Garcia (The Lost City) is due for release next week. We first mentioned it on this site last May. The framed-cop out for revenge thriller will receive a limited cinematic outing and be available via VOD services such as iTunes. Another ‘adult themes’ trailer can be seen on YouTube HERE.

Further, and even greater, evidence of the way things sometimes go in Hollywood is the film Give Til It Hurts. KM UK first and last mentioned this film waaay back in December 2014. 2014! At that time release was due in 2015. Now we have a date of 6th July 2018. Two brothers try to get back an inheritance they believe is theirs. Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera in CC) has the enigmatic role of ‘Elvis’, likely a small role.

Just in time for Xmas a teaser trailer and some promotional art work was released for Veena Sud‘s (writer/producer on CC) latest project Seven Seconds. We covered that in our round-up of round-ups to end 2017. Since then a full trailer was let loose (watch it HERE on YouTube). The 10 episode drama was made available in its entirety last week on Netflix. The show centres around the shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer. Regina King (American Crime) plays the boy’s mother dealing with the aftermath. The story is based on a Russian show. Who’d of thunk it? Russia influencing American media!