Small Screen: Hidetoshi Nishijimam Joins Apple TV+ Series, Agyeman Exits ‘New Amsterdam’; Leaked Photo Shows Rafael Casal Filming Second Season Of ‘Loki’
Elia Cantu - Days Of Our Lives
Broadcast: Freema Agyeman has announced via Instagram that she is exiting NBC’s medical drama New Amsterdam ahead of its fifth and final season, writing that “while I am saddened, I am also incredibly excited to see how the story concludes as a fan of the series.” The fourth season ended with her character Dr. Helen Sharpe leaving Ryan Eggold’s Dr. Max Goodwin at the alter, however, there have been no revelations as to how exactly the character will be written out of the show as of yet. This announcement comes right after the news that Agyeman will star with singer Lily Allen in Dreamland, set to premiere in 2023 on the British pay television channel Sky Comedy and streaming service NOW. Based on Sharon Horgan’s BAFTA-winning short, the six-episode series “is a dark comedic exploration of multi-generational female relationships, and their (somewhat dysfunctional) family dynamics” and is produced by Horgan and Clelia Mountford’s production company Merman, in association with Sky Studios.
On July 19th, actress Elia Cantu (9-1-1) debuted as Detective Jada Hunter on the long-running NBC soap opera Days Of Our Lives. In a recent interview with Soap Opera Digest, Cantu talked about her history as an avid fan of the show and how excited she was to join the cast and meet the people she loved to watch growing up. “The experience has been wonderful,” enthused Cantu, who also spoke about the challenges and hard work of soap operas, saying it reminded her of the theatre. "The prepping is important. You’ve got to really be ready because when you go on set, you’ve got to be ready to go. You get one take, maybe two. Then you have a lot of dialogue to get through and work on. All the actors are so amazing. I was just in awe. It was very inspiring to see everybody and to work that muscle.” For the role of the tough yet vulnerable detective who she describes as “kind of a black stallion”, Cantu spoke to people she knows in law enforcement to make sure she got the details of the profession just right. The biggest highlight so far was attending the recent Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony with the cast for the first time. “It was awesome. It was almost a blur, though, because there was so much happening. It was like a roller-coaster feeling, emotionally, but it was really fun.”
Aisha Dee, star of Freeform’s The Bold Type, will play the lead in the first show being produced by Kindling Pictures, a four-part thriller for Australian public broadcaster SBS (Special Broadcasting Services). Written by playwright Anna Barnes, Michelle Law, and Jean Tong, and directed by Stevie Cruz-Martin, Safe Home tells the story of a woman in her twenties who leaves a prominent law firm to join a struggling family violence legal center and is based on Barnes’ own time working in Melbourne at a family legal center.
J. Anthony Pena, who portrays Deputy Mo Poppernak on ABC’s Big Sky, has been promoted to series regular for the show’s third season. It was also reported that actor Anirudh Pisharody is among five others joining the cast in recurring roles. Pisharody will play a New Yorker whose girlfriend (Madalyn Horcher) books them a camping trip in the show’s setting of Helena, Montana for his birthday.
Marqui Jackson, the co-executive producer of The CW’s All American: Homecoming has been promoted to executive producer and co-showrunner (alongside creator Nkechi Okoro Carroll) for the upcoming second season. The drama about athletes at an HBCU from Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios stars Geffri Maya (Private Practice), Peyton ‘Alex’ Smith (Legacies), Kelly Jenrette (Grandfathered), and Cory Hardrict (The Chi).
Speaking of Nkechi Okra Carroll, NBC has ordered her new drama Found starring Shameless’ Shanola Hampton to series. Writer Okoro Carroll executive produces via Rock My Soul Productions alongside Lindsay Dunn with Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter via Berlanti Productions. Hampton is set to play P.R. specialist Gabi Mosley who runs a crisis management team that focuses on missing persons. Other cast members include Gabrielle Walsh (9-1-1), Arlen Escarpeta (The Oath), and Karan Oberoi (Roswell, New Mexico).
Rosie Perez - Steven Ferdman
Cable: Recently Emmy-nominated for her role in The Flight Attendant, actress Rosie Perez has landed a major recurring role in the Showtime series Your Honor starring Emmy winner Bryan Cranston. Perez will appear as assistant U.S Attorney Olivia Delmont trying to bring down a New Orleans crime organization. It was also announced that Andrene Ward-Hammond, who plays the leader of the Desire Gang, Big Mo, has been upped to series regular. Based on Ron Ninio and Shlomo Mashiach’s Israeli series Kvodo, Your Honor’s debut season was the most watched in Showtime history.
In other Showtime news, Jelani Alladin and Noah J. Ricketts have been added to the cast of the limited series Fellow Travelers. They join Linus Roache, Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, and Allison Williams in the eight-episode series about a romance between two men (Bomer and Bailey) that spans four decades in the mid-twentieth century. Alladin will be playing D.C. journalist Marcus Hooks and Ricketts will play drag performer Frankie Hines in this adaptation of the Thomas Mallon novel written by Philadelphia writer and Oscar nominee Ron Nyswaner.
HBO has released the trailer of Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye’s upcoming drama series The Idol. Tesfaye created the series with Sam Levinson and Reza Fahim, and the singer also stars along with Lily-Rose Depp, Troye Sivan, Tunde Adebimpe, Nico Hiraga, and the recently announced Jennie Kim among others. As of yet, there is no premiere fate for the show that takes place within the music industry and follows a self-help guru and cult leader who develops a complicated relationship with an up-and-coming pop idol.
Zackary Momoh will star alongside Giancarlo Esposito in The Driver, a remake of a 2014 British drama for AMC and AMC+. The original three-part BBC series was created by Danny Brocklehurst with Jim Poyser and followed David Morrissey (The Walking Dead) as a taxi driver employed by a criminal gang. Esposito will play Morrisey’s part in the remake while Momoh plays the New Orleans-based Zimbabwean gangster he agrees to chauffeur. The remake is due to go into production this August and is executive produced by Brocklehurst, Esposito, Morrisey, Sunu Gonera, and showrunner Theo Travers alongside Josh Kesselman and Danny Sherman from Thruline and A+E Studios’ Barry Jossen and Tana Jamieson. AMC Studios will produce the series in association with A+E Studios and Thruline Entertainment.
AMC is also bringing comedian Martin Lawrence back to television with a recurring role in the channel’s upcoming series Demascus starring Okieriete Onaodowan. Lawrence will play Uncle Forty, the self-proclaimed patriarch of the titular character’s family, his first television role in eight years.
Hidetoshi Nishijima - Jun Sato
Streaming: Actor/writer/producer Rafael Casal may be joining the upcoming second season of the Marvel series Loki on Disney+. A photo of Casal with the show’s stars Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson was reportedly leaked online and theories are circulating that Casal could be playing the entity from the Dark Dimension known as Zaniac.
Oz Rodriguez, the Emmy-winning SNL director, and Lemon Andersen, co-producer on Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It for Netflix, is developing a new adult animated comedy series for HBO Max titled Uptown Bodega. A co-production between HBO Max and Universal Television, Uptown Bodega tells the story of Tati Cruz, a married mother of three, who inherits her father’s old New York bodega. Supervising the script is Peter Murrieta (Mr, Iglesias, One Day At A Time), who also executive produces along with Rodriguez and 3 Arts’ Greg Walter.
Hidetoshi Nishijima, star of the Oscar-winning Japanese film Drive My Car, has a starring role opposite Rashida Jones in the new Apple TV+ series, Sunny. The dark comedy from A24 is based on a book by Japan-based Irish writer Colin O’Sullivan called Dark Manuals and is being adapted by writer Katie Robbins with Lucy Tcherniak set to direct. Nishijima portrays Masa Sakamoto, a brilliant roboticist in Kyoto whose wife Susie (played by Jones) is given one of his robots after he and the couple’s son disappear in a mysterious plane crash.
Paramount+ is developing a ten-episode series based on the 2011 film Warrior with Lionsgate Television that will possibly star Jane The Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez and retired two-time UFC champion Dam Cormier. The film’s writer-director Gavin O’Connor has started writing the treatment and scripts with Adair Cole (Lawless Range) and the two will also serve as showrunners, with Cole as executive producer and O’Connor directing. O’Connor describes the series as “really ambitious, part family drama, sports saga, definitely social commentary, in each character’s life fight,” with the MMA being the only real connection to the original film and “the heart, desperation, and demons that compel fighters to excel in the cage.”
Also on Paramount+, actress Nishi Munshi has been promoted to series regular for the second season of Mayor Of Kingstown. Munshi plays Tracy, wife of police officer Kyle McLusky (played by Taylor Handley), the youngest sibling of star Jeremy Renner’s Mike McLusky. The popular series was created by Hugh Dillon, who appears on the show as Ian Ferguson, and Taylor Sheridan, the creator of Yellowstone. Based on Dillon’s hometown of Kingston, Ontario, in Canada, McLusky’s hometown of Kingston, Michigan is “where the business of incarceration is the only thriving industry.” Mayor Of Kingston’s premiere was the No. 1 original scripted drama on Paramount+ since ViacomCBS rebranded and the show was renewed for a second season in February.
Production on Season 3 of the Netflix hit Bridgerton is beginning and Daniel Francis (Stay Close) and James Phoon (Wreck) are joining the cast along with The Crown’s Sam Phillips. This is the first season of the Shondaland show with Jess Brownell as showrunner (taking over for executive producer Chris Van Dusen) and one that will focus on the relationship between Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton). Francis and Phoon play eligible bachelors Marcus Anderson and Harry Dankworth, respectively.
Netflix has released a trailer for a new Bollywood-inspired animated preschool series from Mattel, Inc. called Deepa and Anoop that will premiere on the streamer on August 15th. The show centers on 7-year-old Deepa and her best friend, a color-changing baby elephant named Anoop, and will feature a Bollywood musical number in each episode. Executive produced by Mattel Television’s Fred Soulie and Christopher Keenan, the series was created by animator Munjal Shroff (Shortcut Safari), writer Lisa Goldman (Dragon Tales), and producer Heather Kenyon (Doki Adventures) and will feature the voice talent of Pavan Bharaj, Veena Sood, and Ana Sani.
A new Netflix series from the creators of Cobra Kai has cast Eugene Kim, Paola Lazaro, Terrence Terrell, and Amalia Yoo among others. Obliterated focuses on an elite special forces team who thwarts a deadly threat to Las Vegas only to discover in the midst of their wild, drunken celebration that a bomb they deactivated was a fake and the real bomb is still out there. Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald executive produce the Sony Pictures Television show, already in production, with Dina Hillier from Counterbalance Entertainment.
Jak Knight - Momodu Mansaray
Industry: Tia Michelle Williams, the former Director of Original Series at Netflix, has officially joined Courtney Kemp’s production company End of Episode as SVP of Episodic Television. Williams, who also previously worked for CAA, Robert and Susan Downey’s Team Downey, and BET Networks, will report to Chris Selak, company president and chief content officer. Williams will be responsible for developing new and current projects to series under the company’s recently signed four-year deal with Netflix.
Issa Rae’s media company Hoorae (formerly Issa Rae Productions) has promoted creative executive Jax Clark to director of development for TV and hired Sarah Al-Qatou and Gaby McCormick as creative executives in film and TV and director of feature development and production, respectively. All three will be reporting to the EVP of development and production, Sara Rastogi. Clark worked on seasons four and five of Insecure, while Al-Qatou worked with Lulu Wang and Dani Melia’s production company Local Time and McCormick is coming from David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman’s Mandeville Films.
Former late-night star Lilly Singh has signed a first-look global scripted and second-look unscripted deal with Blink49 Studios and Bell Media. Via her production company Unicorn Island Productions, Singh and Unicorn’s head of development, Polly Auritt, will focus on creating television projects that amplify underrepresented voices in media. Singh states that she is “thrilled to be collaborating with Blink49 Studios and Bell Media” adding “with their support, I’m looking forward to bringing compelling and inclusive stories to audiences around the world.”
Co-creator and star of the comedy series Bust Down Jak Knight passed away at age 28. The show’s six-episode first season featured Knight, writer and host Sam Jay, The Boy’s Langston Kerman, and SNL’s Chris Redd as four friends working at a casino in Indiana. The Los Angeles County’s coroner’s office reported the cause of the death as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Jak was also known for being the voice of Devon on the Netflix adult animated comedy series Big Mouth and serving as the executive story editor on ABC’s Black-ish.
Here are a few of the notable names included in this year’s Future’s L.A. TV Week 40 Under 40:
Kelle Coleman (center) is the SVP of Global Content and Experiences at Nielsen. Kelle began her career at Nielsen in Industry Relations and is currently using her marketing and communication skills to broaden Nielsen’s visibility, corporate strategy, and industry influence on a global scale.
Joey Femia (inner right) is the VP of Current Programming at Universal Television Alternative Studio. Some of the series he oversees include American Song Contest hosted by Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg, That’s My Jam hosted by Jimmy Fallon, and The Weakest Link hosted by Jane Lynch. He first joined NBCUniversal in 2014 as an Entertainment Coordinator and rose thru the ranks before being named VP of Current Programming in January of this year.
Lawyer Prachi Kohli (outer left) works in the Legal Affairs department of the National Diversity Coalition (NDC), a non-profit organization advocating for greater opportunity, financial equality, and economic empowerment for the diverse, minority, and low-to-moderate income communities, with whom she’s advocating for Chime TV, the upcoming Asian American-owned network featuring Asian culture and entertainment.
Maryam Mehrtash (outer right) is the VP of Integrated Marketing for CBS Entertainment, Paramount+, and CBS Media Ventures and was responsible for Paramount+’s go-to-market launch strategy in 2021. She has garnered more than fifteen years of experience in advertising, content strategy, and television production since beginning her career back in Canada.
Kenny Tsai (Inner left) is now SVP of Current Programming for Universal Content Productions after previously serving as VP of Current Programming at Universal Television. Some of the diverse content he’s overseen at the company includes Queer As Folk, The Umbrella Academy, Bel-Air, Master of None, and Never Have I Ever.