Kathryn Morris UK

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – December 2020

Today (at time of posting) is the last day of 2020 and I think it is fair to say “good riddance”. However, before we finally wish a less-than-fond farewell to the year we get to do a traditional annual look-back round-up of the Cold Case Catch-up posts from the past 11 months.

First up we need to cover any updates on the on-going careers of the non-Kathryn Cold Case cast from December.

Let us start with Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC) and his film work. In August we talked about the film Fatale, starring Michael Ealy (The Perfect Guy) and Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby). The thriller involves Ealy as a man caught up in a situation with a vengeful police office (Swank) who isn’t going to let things go, Fatal Attraction-style. Danny plays the politician ex-husband of the cop who she is also making suffer. There’s lot of opposite stuff going on here. In The Perfect Guy, Ealy was the stalker. Hillary is not often cast in the ‘bad guy’ role. Danny is not the cop (he did play a politician in the wonderful but shortlived BrainDead). The film received a limited theatrical release in North America on December the 18th, and is expected to go to video on demand services in January. A trailer for the movie can be seen on YouTube HERE.

Nothing to add for Tracie Thoms (Kat Millar on CC) on the TV/movie front for December. Tracie has been active in online videos though. We have her in an Zoom-based spelling bee early in the month on Facebook HERE and a campaign to encourage everyone (eligible) to vote in the upcoming Georgia state Senate run-off election. A variety of Broadway stars have gathered (virtually) to perform the song ‘Georgia On My Mind’ for the group Fair Fight Action. Included in the large number of singers involved are Lin-Manuel Miranda, Vanessa Williams, Bellamy Young, Josh Gad, Billy Porter, and Rosie Perez. You can watch a version of the released single on YouTube HERE.

Several years ago One Tree Hill stars James Lafferty and Stephen Colletti set about putting together a comedy drama about two ex-stars of a once hit show trying to find their way back to the same levels of same fame. This show, Everyone Is Doing Great, has been in the works for a while. The two stars wrote and directed the series, they also spent a long time trying to get funding to make the show. In 2018 and 2019 some element (possibly a pilot) was shown at a few festivals. A few weeks ago it was announced that the streaming service Hulu had picked up the series and would make it available from the 13th of January 2021. The reason we’re mentioning Everyone Is Doing Great here in the CCCC-up is because Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera in CC) is guest starring in an episode, number 6 if the details are correct. The fact that his character shares a last name with one of the main characters suggests a family relationship (father?) but I don’t have more than that. Hulu has released a trailer for the show on YouTube HERE.

And now for the look back at 2020 CCCC-ups.

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Cold Case Cast Catch-up – November 2020

Some of you will have spotted the obvious mistake I made in the Cold Case Cast Catch-up for October. There was no CCCC-up for October. My senility and workload got the better of me and I just plain forgot. To be honest, I don’t think there was much to talk about.

With that dealt with, let’s take a look at the news about the on-going careers of the non-Kathryn Cold Case cast from the past 2 months in the November 2020 CCCC-up.

The main US network TV shows have started returning to the schedules in the past few weeks. Most face shortened production runs, with fewer episodes planned due to you-know-what. Maybe if things improve they can add more. In general the entertainment industry, realising the current situation could be around for a while yet, have been trying to get back to some sort of normal, within limitations to minimise the risks to all involved.

We so rarely get to talk about Jeremy Ratchford (Nick Vera in CC) that we have to give him top billing when ever we do. Looks like this might be old news but it is not something I’d noticed before. I try to keep track but it is possible this got past me. Back in March Jeremy guest starred in an episode of an Canadian cop show called Hudson & Rex. A new one on me. The show is variant on the cop + dog format, as seen in the 1989 Jim Belushi film K-9, and is apparently based on a German show.

One things regulars to these round-ups will know is that it takes more than a global pandemic to stop Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) working. Mid-November saw Tracie guest star in the second episode of the latest season of NCIS: Los Angeles. She’s in uniform again, and appeared to be a military prosecutor (a JAG?) in a case about a war crime. I’ve seen it mentioned that this episode continues a case from the end of the previous season of the show. This being the trial portion of it. Wasn’t that what they could have done with NCIS and the show JAG when that was still on? Tracie appeared in some publicity material for the episode.

Back October, Amazon Prime and Blumhouse Productions teamed up to release a series of original feature films on the online retailer’s streaming service. Occasional regular on the CCCC-ups, Veena Sud (writer/producer on CC) directed and co-wrote one these films. It is called The Lie. You may remember that we first posted about this film in the April of 2018 CCCC-up. The film stars Marielle Enos and Peter Saarsgard, both of whom lead Veena’s post-CC smash TV series The Killing. As is generally the case with lies, they are eventually uncovered.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – September 2020

The lack of production taking place yet, or only just about to start, is hurting the amount of showbiz news coming out. This is likely to be shortest Cold Case Cast Catch-up yet.

Typically, the day after last month’s CCCC-up news broke that the new film Dear Evan Hansen that Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC) is set to star in had added Julianne Moore to the cast. Oscar winner Julianne (Far From Heaven) will play one of the main character’s mother in the movie adaptation of the hit musical. This is fast becoming a stellar cast with Amy Adams (Arrival), Kaitlyn Dever (Last Man Standing), Ben Platt (The Politician) and Danny already signed-up. In the past few weeks two Broadway stars (DeMarius Copes and Gerald Caesar) have also been added to the cast. The film is still in pre-production, so is some way off.

Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) is very active on social media giving support to various campaigns but does not appear to be working as she normally would. Shows like 9-1-1, which Tracie has been a regular in for several seasons are expecting to start production in October. We’ll have to wait and see if that is possible.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – August 2020

Throw the summer holidays on top of ‘everything else’ that’s going on in 2020 and it is not surprising that showbiz news is a little lacking. The difficulties of making the normal shows for the autumn/fall season will soon start to be very noticeable to everyone. We do, however, still have some news for our regular monthly Cold Case Cast Catch-ups so let’s go with that.

For the second month running we are going to start with Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC). In the past few days it has been announced that Danny has joined the cast of a film called Dear Evan Hansen. This is the movie adaptation of a very successful (Tony and Grammy award winning!) musical. Ben Platt (The Politician) was the star of the Broadway stage production and will take on the same role for the film. Amy Adams (Arrival) and Kaitlyn Dever (Last Man Standing) are set co-star in the big screen version. The story is about a teenager who kills himself and the repercussions on his friend Evan (Platt) as result of his behaviour. Amy is the dead boy’s mother. Danny will be Amy’s husband, who did not feature in the stage show, and step-father to her two children (Platt and Dever). Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the team behind La La Land, will be doing music and lyrics for the film. It is still early days for this project so it will be awhile before we get any idea of release dates.

While reading up on Dear Evan Hansen it came to light that Danny also has a film coming out in October. This is not something that we’ve previously reported on here, it managed to pass us by. Anyway, the film is called Fatale and stars Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby), Michael Ealy (The Perfect Guy) and Mike Colter (Luke Cage). I think The Perfect Guy might be a good comparison in terms of vibe for Fatale, but with Ealy as a man caught up in scheme by a dodgy copper (Swank). The film already has a bit of history with it really starting two years ago and being purchased for distribution one year ago. After several delays (y’know, because of ‘the thing’) it is currently set for release at the end of October in the US. That could easily change.

Normally I rely on Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) to help fill these posts. For once I think she has let me down. We stil love you Tracie! But, I did find that at the beginning of August she appeared as a guest on a YouTube-based channel called Stars In The House. With the complete shutdown of theatres across the world the channel was created to support The Actors Fund charity. In a regular Monday night slot Andréa Burns (Blue Bloods) interviews various stars of the stage. Here we are on the last Monday of the month. Back on the first Monday of August, Andréa hosted Tracie and the wonderful Helen Hunt (Twister) for an hour-long chat. Sounds good to me! Watch it HERE.

Just to pad this article out a little more we’ll drop in a quick bit of news on the Veena Sud (writer/producer on Cold Case) series The Stranger. It was created as a series of very short episodes for the online streaming platform Quibi but was shown on a big screen recently. Last week a suitably ‘current situation compliant’ drive-in movie theater was set up in Glendale, California, and all 13, sub-ten minute long episodes played as a feature film. Veena also did a Q&A session afterwards.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – July 2020

We maybe are starting to see some early signs of things beginning to think about sort returning to a version of normal. Perhaps. For now we will be having to stick with these brief Cold Case Cast Catch-ups looking at the on-going (but currently slightly stalled) careers of the main Cold Case cast. Let’s see what July 2020 had for us.

We’ll get to Tracie in a moment but first a quick mention of Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC). Danny is due to visit a school in his home town of Miami as part of a funding scheme set up by the Education Theatre Foundation. This originally started from a memorial concert for the very successful producer Craig Zadan (Footloose, Drop Dead Diva). The programme seeks to issue grants to a number of theatre schools in communities of colour. This is to foster a wider diversity of people working within the arts, helping those that would not normally be able to access such schools.

It seems so long ago now but early this month it was announced that our very own Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) had been cast in the pilot for a new drama on the Fox network. The show is called Blood Relative and sounds a bit like a cross between Cold Case and Bones. As you can possibly guess from the title, there is a genealogy element to this. Combing that with forensics, it is about two woman solving crimes. Apparently it is based on a newspaper article from a couple of years ago by James Renner about that very thing. Dascha Polanco (Orange Is The New Black) is set to lead the show with Melissa Leo (Treme). Tate Donovan (Damages) and Sarah Catherine Hook (the upcoming The Conjuring 3) also star. Tracie is set to be a regular as Lieutenant Hannah Dixon. Sort of following from being sort of mentored by Lilly Rush, the first female homicide in Philly, Lt Dixon is first woman to reach that position in their area of the country. She sounds like she is not so keen on the brand of policing that is the focus of the show, but will no doubt fight for the team, and she has her own personal issues to deal with. So far Blood Relative is just a pilot, albeit one that will be filmed unlikely many, so we will be keeping an eye out for news on further developments.

Blood Relative is a possible future show but Tracie was recently involved in the end of an existing. I don’t mean she caused it to end, she just guest starred in the final two episodes. The show in question was Blindspot on the NBC network. After 100 episodes Jaimie Alexander (The Brink) brought her role of the very tatooed Jane Doe to a close. Tracie played the intriguingly named Arla Grigoryan, who sounds like she should be some super spy from a foreign land. Arla was actually the Interim FBI Director.