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'Downton Abbey' adds Harriet Walter, Kiri Te Kanawa in guest role; Shirley MacLaine returns
Photo credit: Carnival Films
Shirley MacLaine will return to 'Downton Abbey' in next season's finale while renowned stage actress Harriet Walter and opera star Kiri Te Kanawa are joining in guest roles, the show announced yesterday. Joanne David, another big English TV star, is also joining in a guest role.
Walter's especially intriguing because she's an esteemed Shakespearean actor, and well-known on British TV, now about to get some exposure to U.S. audiences. (She's also been on Broadway, recently in "Mary Stuart.") New Zealand born Te Kanewa is an opera great - a household name to opera buffs for decades (her role's expected to be brief, more along the lines of a cameo, than recurring.) Julian Ovenden is yet another very big get for the show.
For a bit of perspective, some of these names may not be all that well-known to U.S. TV viewers, but they certainly are in the U.K., so this is all reasonably important casting news
Tom Cullen as Lord Gillingham, an old family friend of the Crawleys who visits the family as a guest for a house party
Nigel Harman as Green, a valet
Dame Harriet Walter as Lady Shackleton, an old friend of the Dowager
Joanne David in a guest role as the Duchess of Yeovil
Julian Ovenden as aristocrat Charles Blake
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa as a guest who sings in the house
Tina Fey as Oscars host? If asked, she will serve
Photo credit: Getty Images
By now, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, the question "will Tina Fey host the Oscars," is so old and tired that it's almost as dog-eared as "How about that sexist Seth MacFarlane on the Oscars?!" But I do think I detected in Fey's latest denial on last night's "Late Show with David Letterman" the slightest opening of a door. Reason? She used the same joke about why she wouldn't do it ("too many dresses to try on") as in another interview promoting her most recent movie, "Admission."
Of course when you joke about something, that's the first sign you're deadly serious about it. Freud wrote whole volumes about this ("The Interpretation of Jokes;" "Civilization and its Discontented Jokes," and so on).
Plus, she went on and on last night about raising a very, very young child. Believe me, by next February, she'll be BEGGING to do the Oscars.
Here's the full Fey interview. Amusing.
'David Letterman': Alec Baldwin again denies racist comment
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Alec Baldwin, who tends to embrace the paparazzi (and airline attendants, and Republicans, and Shia LeBeouf and name-an-antagonist) in his own special way, has denied a recent incident in which he (reportedly) used a racial slur during a confrontation with a New York Post reporter and photographer. He's on "Late Show with David Letterman" Monday night; first clip, and then another one...
Read more »Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman named Oscar presenters
A couple more good reasons to tune in Sunday night to the Oscars: Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman were just named presenters. Nicholson of course has presented before, though his presence on this stage always tends to consecrate the Oscars as something truly notable and special. His appearance for his last win, "As Good as It Gets," as an example. Here was his acceptance speech from back then (2008), and it's hard to imagine a cooler or more gracious way to say "thanks:" And after that, Hoffman's cri de cour acceptance for "Kramer vs. Kramer":
