Mamie Gummer may have notched her film debut in her mother Meryl Streep's film Heartburn at age 3, but the actress has gone to great lengths to learn acting the formal way. She graduated from Northwestern University's theater program in 2005 and soon won roles in Evening, Stop-Loss, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, and Taking Woodstock. Now, alongside fellow NW grad Zach Gilford, Gummer stars on ABC's new drama Off the Map, a Shonda Rhimes medical serial set in exotic South America. Just ahead of tonight's premiere, we caught up with Gummer to discuss her theatrical past, her feelings for TV, and the Meryl Streep movies she keeps meaning to see.
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You might not think that the thickly accented Javier Bardem would be able to pull off a convincing Woody Allen Impression but he can -- and did -- on last night's Conan. He also mocked Conan's hair, a daring move for someone who sported a bowl cut for an entire film. Elsewhere, Stephen Colbert suffered from Bieber Fever, Vince Vaughn talked skydiving, and Colin Firth told Jon Stewart how to play a stuttering king.
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Allison Janney returns to primetime Feb. 9 on the ABC comedy Mr. Sunshine, playing Matthew Perry's unpredictable boss. The four-time Emmy champ will exercise the comic chops she brought to Juno and Hairspray, dotting her punchlines with classic C.J. Cregg smarts. We caught up with Janney at the TCA press tour in Pasadena and discussed Mr. Perry's candid commentary, her love-hate relationship with auditions, and her response to West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin's dialogue in The Social Network.
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Following the crazy American Idol panel at Tuesday morning's TCA event in Pasadena, Fox executives Kevin Reilly and Peter Rice took the stage and were immediately barraged with Lone Star cancellation-related questions from critics. For those believers out there, Reilly and Rice confirmed that the network is still looking for a home for the six unaired episodes they filmed last year. When another critic suggested that the media's positive reviews of the Kyle Killen drama obviously did not mean anything to the network, the execs joked, "You said your reviews are meaningless. They're really not. Except in this case."
The American Idol panel at Fox's TCA event in Pasadena delivered on so many levels -- Ryan Seacrest made a joke about using "placenta" to stay young, Randy Jackson plaintively remarked that we'd see a different kind of "dawg" this season, and Steven Tyler gave the best possible reason for wanting to sit at the judges' table with Jennifer Lopez: She was exceptional in The Back-Up Plan. His quote may haunt you.
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It felt a little strange to see Jon Stewart so uncharacteristically serious on Monday's edition of The Daily Show, but he was reporting on the horrible Arizona shooting tragedy...with the help of a correspondent in adult pajamas. Elsewhere in late night, Donald Glover showed off his Tracy Morgan impression, David Letterman let Snooki promote her new book, Winona Ryder discussed her irrational fear of the internet, and Jay Leno did his best snake.
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It was a peculiar week for Saturday Night Live, with the cast pretty much resigned to taking a back seat to the manic comedic stylings of host Jim Carrey; except for the cold open and "Weekend Update," Carrey was the focal point of every sketch. As a result, this week's SNL Relevancy Poll is thrown more than a bit off-kilter: Instead of cast members standing out, what we saw instead were cast members just trying to keep up with their host. And if there's anything we know about SNL, it's that it rarely (if ever) functions at its best as a one-man show.
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Today's ABC's day at the Television Critics Association panels in Pasadena, and aside from semi-grim news for Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters, there's not much to report -- wait, except for president Paul Lee's abject adoration of The Bachelor: "This particular season is going to be delicious and funny and fascinating and sexy in all the right ways. I would personally hold up The Bachelor -- and I take none of the credit for this; this precedes me -- of how you can take a really good idea and own it. And by the way? It still fits into the deeply romantic brand that is ABC. And still is a deeply relevant show. That yearning to find love is still there." Hmm. "Passionate" is one way to describe Jake Pavelka, I guess.
Bulletin: It's not a great weekend to be Sarah Palin. Update: I'm going to make fun of her lame show just the same. That's journalism, and everyone knows it. Join me for the finale of Sarah Palin's Yukon adventures, where Piper smarts off, everyone giggles over gold, and Sarah ends her reign as TLC's second-worst wearer of North Face vests. Democracy wins.
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There was something odd about last night's Jim Carrey-hosted installment of SNL. Between the promos featuring Carrey hitting on Kristen Wiig, his monologue proposal and the good-nights where Carrey emotionally thanked pretty much the entire world, it felt like the episode might have been one big Jim Carrey therapy session. The last time Carrey hosted, May 18, 1996, Carrey wasn't too far removed from being the guy walking down the street wearing an oversized cowboy hat looking for a copy of the Rhode Island Slut. Now, we have a more mature, certainly a more damaged Carrey hosting for a second time -- complicated by hosting on, well, a day that, due to current events, people did not find particularly funny. How did he do? On to the scorecard...
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Just hours after AMC announced that Mad Men will probably return for a fifth season, pint-size actress Kiernan Shipka appeared at the winter Television Critics Press Tour to promote her upcoming Hallmark Channel Movie Smooch. Not-so-oddly, the journalists were more interested in talking to Shipka than her co-stars. When asked about her own tween crushes, Shipka enthusiastically answered, "I love Twilight. I like Robert Pattinson. I love Justin Bieber. I don't think I have Bieber fever though. I'm more of a Twilight person." In other Shipka revelations, the actress is not allowed to watch Mad Men, wants to attend Yale, and doesn't think that acting on Mad Men is any different than acting for the Hallmark Channel.
Alert Rich Sommer: According to AMC, Mad Men will return for a fifth season. Eventually. Unofficially. Sometime. "We're negotiating, don't know much more than that yet," AMC senior vice president Joel Stillerman told Deadline. "Can't put a timetable on if." So you're saying there's a chance! For what it's worth, the highly anticipated new series The Killing will debut on April 3, season four of Breaking Bad will kick-off during the summertime and The Walking Dead will likely return for the fall. Mad Men in 2012? [Deadline]
It has been one of the most discussed parts of Saturday Night Live since comedian Jay Pharoah was added as a featured player last September: Would the young impressionist -- who does a pretty mean Barack Obama -- replace incumbent Fred Armisen as the fake Commander-in-Chief. To the consternation of some, he hasn't thus far, but that's not because of Armisen. Movieline caught up with the comedian -- who is now in his ninth season on the legendary sketch show -- to discuss his Obama impression, his seniority at studio 8H, and how he keeps his relationship with Saturday Night Live fresh after all of these years.
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Apparently Oprah Winfrey appreciated a reporter's question about her childhood dreams at Thursday's Television Critics Association panel in Pasadena; she cooed, "Nobody has ever asked me that!" before answering the question, and then monologuing about her life and network for another 18 minutes. It was a strange little oration. You can thank Alan Sepinwall at HitFix for transcribing the rant in its entirety, but let's sort through Oprah's speech-team gusto and pinpoint its strangest revelations.
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Carson Kressley has been a television fixture for close to a decade, moving from Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to Oscar red carpets to Lifetime's How to Look Good Naked in an effortless evolution. Though he co-hosted the second season of ABC's True Beauty last year, his talents seem especially accustomed to his newest role, that of co-judge (alongside Nancy O'Dell) on the Oprah Winfrey Network's Your OWN Show: Oprah's Search for the Next TV Star. We caught up with Kressley at yesterday's TCA panels in Pasadena to discuss Oprah, starmaking, and why shows like What Not to Wear and our quasi-beloved The A-List: New York could be hazardous.
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