Jenna Ortega to Appear on This Season’s “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors”

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Jenna Ortega is talkin’ shop with a fellow former child star…

Variety’s Actors on Actors series returns featuring the biggest stars in this year’s Television Emmys race for Season 18, including the 20-year-old Puerto Rican & Mexican American actress.

Ortega, who stars in Netflix’s acclaimed series Wednesday, will sit down with The Great actress Elle Fanning for their segment.

But Ortega isn’t the only Latinx artist to participate this season…

Pedro Pascal, the star of HBO’s The Last of Use, will sit down with Steven Yeun, who stars in Netflix’s Beef.

Meanwhile, in a Star Wars themed conversation, Diego Luna, the star of Andor, will appear opposite opposite Hayden Christensen of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The four episodes will debut on PBS SoCal on Thursday, June 15th starting at 8:00 pm, followed by encores on KCET and public television stations across the country and the WORLD Channel (check local listings). All episodes will stream on pbssocal.org and the free PBS App following their premieres.

Variety’s Actors on Actors issue will hit newsstands on June 7th and the conversations will start airing on Tuesday, June 6th on Variety.com and its social media channels.

This year’s “Actors on Actors” lineup includes:

Katherine Heigl (“Firefly Lane”) with Ellen Pompeo (“Grey’s Anatomy”)
Jeremy Allen White (“The Bear”) with Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus”)
Ali Wong (“Beef”) with Jason Segel (“Shrinking”)
Jenna Ortega (“Wednesday”) with Elle Fanning (“The Great”)
Kieran Culkin (“Succession”) with Claire Danes (“Fleishman Is in Trouble”)
Melanie Lynskey (“Yellowjackets”) with Natasha Lyonne (“Poker Face”)
Brett Goldstein (“Ted Lasso”) with Theo James (“The White Lotus”)
Steven Yeun (“Beef”) with Pedro Pascal (“The Last of Us”)
Diego Luna (“Andor”) with Hayden Christensen (“Obi-Wan Kenobi”)
Meghann Fahy (“The White Lotus”) with Elizabeth Olsen (“Love and Death”)
Sheryl Lee Ralph (“Abbott Elementary”) with Jennifer Garner (“The Last Thing He Told Me”)
Brian Cox (“Succession”) with Emily Blunt (“The English”)
Rachel Weisz (“Dead Ringers”) with Taron Egerton (“Black Bird”)

Variety Studio: Actors on Actors won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2019, as well as the Los Angeles Area Emmy Award for best entertainment programming in 2015 and 2016.

The series is produced by PBS SoCal in partnership with Variety Media, LLC.

PBS Masterpiece to Air Helena Bonham Carter’s British Period Drama “Nolly”

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Helena Bonham Carter is getting the masterpiece treatment…

PBS Masterpiece has signed on to air the 56-year-old part-Spanish English Oscar-nominated actress’ British period drama series Nolly.

The public broadcaster will air the series, which will debut on UK streaming platform ITVX, in the U.S. although no premiere date has been announced.

Nolly will tell the story of Noele Gordon (Bonham Carter), who played Meg Richardson in hit ITV soap Crossroads before being abruptly axed at the height of the show’s success.

With the boss’s words “all good things must come to an end” ringing in her ears, Gordon found herself thrown out of the show that was her life for almost 20 years.

The biopic comes from It’s A Sin creator Russell T Davies and is produced by ITV Studios-backed Quay Street Productions.

It also stars Augustus Prew and Mark Gatiss.

Alejandra Vasquez Signs with William Morris Endeavor (WME)

Posted on January 12, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Alejandra Vasquez has new representation…

The Mexican-American filmmaker and Sam Osborn, the directors behind the Sundance Film Festival-bound feature documentary Going Varsity in Mariachi, have signed with William Morris Endeavor (WME).

Marking Vasquez’s feature directorial debut and Osborn’s sophomore feature, the film makes its world premiere in U.S. Documentary Competition on January 22.

It’s set in the competitive world of high school mariachi, where the musicians from the South Texas borderlands reign supreme. Under the guidance of Coach Abel Acuña, the teenage captains of Edinburg North High School’s acclaimed team must turn a shoestring budget and diverse crew of inexperienced musicians into state champions.

The film is produced by James Lawler and Julia Pontecorvo of Osmosis Films and Luis A. Miranda, Jr. for Embeleco Unlimited. Impact Partners and Embeleco Unlimited co-financed with Fifth Season, which is also handling worldwide sales.

Vasquez is a director and producer raised in rural Texas who, with Osborn, directed the short Folk Frontera, which was awarded the Jury Prize for Texas Short Film at SXSW 2022 and premiered on PBS’ The Latino Experience. She also helmed the short When It’s Good, It’s Good, co-produced with Latino Public Broadcasting.

The up-and-comer cut her teeth on the producing side as part of the teams behind the award-winning features Matangi/Maya/M.IA. (2018) and Us Kids (2020) and is set to co-produce an upcoming feature from Sundance and SXSW prize winner Nanfu Wang.

PBS to Premiere Second Season of Macarena Garcia’s “La Otra Mirada” in January

Posted on December 28, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Macarena García is getting another look soon…

PBS will premiere the second season of La Otra Mirada (A Different View), starring the 34-year-old Spanish actress, in early January.

Season 2 will premiere on Thursdays, January 5-February 23.

Set in an academy for young ladies in Seville in the 1920, La Otra Mirada shows a teaching center clinging to an unwavering way of doing things and conditioned by the traditions of the city and those years. All this universe and its pillars wobble with the arrival of a new teacher who has a very different way of seeing things and who has a secret objective directly related to the academy. The search for the own voice of a group of adult and young women will be the destiny of the protagonists.

In season two, Teresa (Patricia López Arnaiz) returns to school after being found innocent of her father’s murder. Her struggles, though, are far from over, as she deals with new secrets and new threats to the Academy.

From Walter Presents, the series is in Spanish with English subtitles.

The series also stars Ana Wagener and Cecilia Freire.

Chita Rivera to Headline “West Side Story” 65th Anniversary Celebration on PBS’ “A Capitol Fourth” Program

Posted on June 23, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Chita Rivera will bring the West Side to the world…

This year’s A Capitol Fourth, the annual televised Independence Day concert, will feature a celebration of West Side Story‘s 65th anniversary, headlined by the 89-year-old half-Puerto Rican actress, singer, dancer and Broadway star.

Rivera, who played Anita in the original Broadway production of West Side Story, will lead the anniversary celebration, as the National Symphony Orchestra performs a musical tribute.

The event, to be broadcast on PBS, will be hosted by Mickey Guyton, with performances by Darren Criss, Yolanda Adams, Gloria Gaynor, Keb’ Mo’, Emily Bear, Andy Grammer and Loren Allred with the National Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Jack Everly.

Rachel Platten will do a special tribute to military heroes and their families, as she performs her song Stand By You.

The event, on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, will be open to the public, after two years of virtual celebrations due to COVID-19.

The evening will conclude with the Capital fireworks display, including a performance featuring The U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” also marking its 100th anniversary.

The event will air from 8:00 pm ET to 9:30 pm ET on PBS. It also will be aired on Armed Forces Network and aired on NPR member stations. It will be streamed on YouTube and PBS.org from July 4 to July 18.

Kate del Castillo Signs with Buchwald

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Kate del Castillo has new representation…

The 49-year-old Mexican actress and telenovela star has signed with Buchwald.

del Castillo stars in Telemundo’s hit drama La Reina del Sur.

One of the highest rated Spanish-language series in the world, La Reina del Sur adapts the bestseller by Spanish novelist Arturo Perez-Reverte. In the crime drama, which recently wrapped filming for Season 3, del Castillo plays Teresa Mendonza, a woman from Mexico who becomes the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain.

Castillo recently completed a two-series deal with Telemundo. Her production company, Cholawood, has a first-look development deal with Boomdog, the Mexico City-based division of Endemol Shine North America.

The actress starred opposite Will Smith as the villain in Sony’s Bad Boys for Life, also recently featuring on NBC’s sitcom Mr. Mayor, from creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, and the Netflix animated series Maya and the Three, created by Jorge R. Gutiérrez.

She rose to acclaim in America with her performance in Fox Searchlight’s Under the Same Moon, which is one of the highest-grossing Spanish-language theatrical releases in U.S. history, and has also featured in such films as Bordertown, No Good Deed and All About Nina.

del Castillo has also appeared in series including PBS’ Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated drama American Family, The CW’s Jane the Virgin and Showtime’s Weeds, among others. Her one-woman Off-Broadway show, The Way She Spoke, made her the first Latina actress to earn Drama Desk, Drama League and Lucille Lortel Award nominations.

A philanthropist and outspoken global activist, del Castillo was appointed Ambassador for the Mexican Commission on Human Rights to combat human trafficking in 2009.

Camila Cabello Performs Mariachi-fied Version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” at White House

Posted on December 22, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Camila Cabello is bringing a little sabor to the White House this holiday season…

The 24-year-old half-Mexican Cuban-born singer joined a star-studded list of performers for PBS‘ In Performance at The White House: Spirit of the Season on Tuesday — and brought along a full mariachi group for her rendition of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

Julia Garner and Jill Biden introduced for her performance from the Grand Foyer as Cabello rocked an all-red jumpsuit and matching gloves.

“Such an incredible honor to perform again at the white house,” Cabello tweeted with a clip for her performance of the Bing Crosby 1943 classic. “Wishing you all a wonderful holiday with your loved ones.”

Among the other performers were Eric Church, Jonas Brothers, Pentatonix, Billy Porter, along with Andrea Bocelli and his children Matteo and Virginia.

This isn’t the first time Cabello has visited the White House. During her time in Fifth Harmony, the group performed “All I Want for Christmas” for Barack Obama‘s National Tree Lighting in 2016, and also sang “Happy Birthday” to Michelle Obama‘s Let’s Move campaign during the White House Easter Egg Roll in 2015.

Cabello previously performed the song (alongside a mariachi) during NBC‘s Michael Bublé’s Christmas in the City earlier this month.

“I wanted to pay tribute to my Mexican heritage with this Christmas cover of I’ll be home for Christmas,” she wrote on Instagram about the tribute. “Luis [Miguel] did it first and in Spanish, but I wanted to bring it to an audience that normally doesn’t get to hear the beauty of Mariachi music.”

In Spanish, she added: “Much love to Mexico and to the beautiful music of my country. Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy this cover that’s now available on Amazon Music.”

Cabello first introduced a mariachi to her music during Latinx Heritage Month for her NPR Tiny Desk performance, when she performed a track called “La Buena Vida.”

“I’m gonna sing a song called ‘La Buena Vida’ which is part of my upcoming album Familia and this is one of my favorite songs on the album so thanks for having me and I hope you guys enjoy it, let’s get it,” she said as she was joined by the band.

https://twitter.com/Camila_Cabello/status/1473675680424542217

Earlier this month, during a conversation with Kid Cudi, Anderson .Paak and the Sparks Brothers for The Hollywood Reporter‘s Songwriter Roundtable, the Fifth Harmony alum opened up about how writing a song for her Cinderella film helped her with her mental health.

“I don’t think I know how to write in any way that isn’t personal to me,” she said. “When I was working on ‘Million to One‘ for Cinderella, to be totally honest, I was going through a really hard time with my mental health.”

“It was just a period of a lot of anxiety and sadness for me, and that song had me feeling like, ‘I can overcome this. I know that I can make my life better.’ I feel like I channeled my personal journey into the one of the character. The character was super confident — everybody was telling her no, but she knew,” Cabello added.

Camila Cabello to Perform on PBS’ “In Performance at the White House” Special

Posted on December 9, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Camila Cabello is headed to the White House…

The 24-year-old Cuban Mexican is set to take part in PBS’ In Performance at the White House, which will return with a holiday season special to air on network on December 21.

But Cabello isn’t the only Latina to participate.

Kirstin Maldonado and her Pentatonix group mates will also perform during the special.

The program will be taped from December 11-14.

Jennifer Garner will host the special, with performances by Andrea Bocelli, Matteo Bocelli, Virginia Bocelli, Eric Church, the Jonas Brothers, Norah Jones, Billy Porter, Northwell Health Nurse Choir, Voices of Service and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will deliver remarks, and the event, titled Spirit of the Season, will highlight the holiday decor of the White House.

This will be the first In Performance since 2016, as none were held during the presidency of Donald Trump. The special also will be different in that the performances will be taped over a span of a few days, rather than a concert in the East Room, as has been tradition. That is because of Covid-19 protocols.

“We look forward to sharing more special performances recorded at the White House to capture the essence of our nation at its best,” Sharon Percy Rockefeller, president and chief executive officer of WETA-TV, said in a statement.

The Northwell Nurse Choir is a group of frontline nurses that formed last year as their profession faced the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic. Voices of Service is a quartet that has used their platform to show the impact that music can have on service members recovering from post traumatic stress disorder.

The In Performance specials began in 1978 with an East Room recital by pianist Vladimir Horowitz.

The special is produced by WETA, in association with Ken Ehrlich Productions. Executive producers are John F. Wilson and Ehrlich, with producer Renato Basile and director Toré Livia.

Critics Choice Association to Honor Rita Moreno at Inaugural “Celebration of Latino Cinema”

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

It’s a special celebration for the legendary Rita Moreno…

The 89-year-old Puerto Rican actress, dancer and singer will be honored alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda and Demián Bichir at the Critics Choice Association’s inaugural Celebration of Latino Cinema.

Moreno, Miranda and Bichor will be honored alog with a group of additional honorees, many associated with upcoming 2021 films, still to be announced.

The Celebration of Latino Cinema, to be presented virtually, will take place on Thursday, December 9, 2021 and aims to put a spotlight on the contributions of great Oscar-winning and -nominated artists like Moreno, Miranda and Bichir, but also Latino filmmaking in general, a facet of the motion picture industry that doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves during awards season.

Among other things, the CCA’s Celebration of Latino Cinema aims to change that.

“We are thrilled to be launching the first annual Celebration of Latino Cinema which recognizes the talented performers and skilled professionals who create the acclaimed films we are so proud to honor,” said Claudia Puig, a CCA member and co-programmer of the event.

“Films by our honorees represent the diverse and multi-faceted Latino community, and reflect our increasingly inclusive industry” said CCA board member and event co-programmer Clayton Davis.

The Celebration of Latino Cinema will be produced by Madelyn Hammond and Javier Infante of Madelyn Hammond & Associates. Stagedge will be responsible for transforming the show into an immersive virtual experience.

A portion of the proceeds from the event will be donated to LA Collab, whose mission is to accelerate Latino access, visibility and representation in the entertainment industry.

Moreno has won all four of the most prestigious awards in show business: an Oscar, a Tony, two Emmys, and a Grammy. She recently co-starred in the Latinx reimagining of Norman Lear’s classic sitcom One Day at a Time, and her documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival before being released in theaters; it will be broadcast on PBS’ American Masters in October. Moreno also co-stars in and executive produces Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story.

She is a recipient of the Peabody Career Achievement Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts.

Miranda is a Pulitzer-, Grammy-, Emmy– and Tony Award-winning songwriter, actor and director, and creator and original star of Broadway’s Hamilton and In the Heights. A recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Award, a Kennedy Center Honor and the Portrait of a Nation Prize, he received an Emmy with Tom Kitt for their song “Bigger” from the 67th Tony Awards. Upcoming projects include Disney’s Encanto and his directorial film debut, tick, tick… BOOM!

Bichir received a Best Actor Oscar nomination in 2012 for his role in Chris Weitz’s A Better Life, becoming the first Mexican-born actor to be nominated in that category by the Academy since Anthony Quinn in 1957. He more recently received rave reviews for his performance in the film Land, directed by Robin Wright. His film credits include Steven Soderbergh’s Che, Oliver Stone’s Savages, Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills, Paul Feig’s The Heat, Richard Shepard’s Dom Hemingway, Ridley Scott’s Alien, George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky, and Adam Wingard’s Godzilla Vs. Kong.

Rosalynne Montoya Among Transgender Artists to Sign Development Deal with Ozy Studio

Posted on September 7, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Rosalynne Montoya is ready to breakthrough…

The Hispanic bisexual, non-binary transgender woman, who works as a model, actor, makeup artist and content creator, has signed a development deal with Ozy Studios, along with Puerto Rican chef Paxx Caraballo Moll, Alabama-based activist Dan Eggers.

Beginning as a digital magazine in 2013, Ozy has moved into podcasts, events and original television series featured on A+E, History, Lifetime, Amazon, Hulu, OWN, PBS and BBC.

Montoya, Chef Pax and Eggers will now be part of those multi-platform storytelling initiatives.

“At Ozy we feel the immense responsibility of pushing culture forward with the content we share and conversations we foster with our audience,” said CEO Carlos Watson. “We feel this is an important moment to highlight the complexity of humanity and the truly diverse life experiences of these incredible talents are one important way in which we can do that.”

“Amplifying voices from within the trans community is not just in-line with Ozy’s philosophy: It’s personal,” said Executive Director of Ozy Studios Chris Rantamaki. “As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I know the impact of seeing ourselves reflected in pop culture. I’m excited about showcasing a wide spectrum of trans talent in our content, alongside some of the biggest celebrities in the world.”

Montoya is well-known on TikTok and Instagram.

“Queer people need accurate representation,” said Montoya. “When I felt like I didn’t have a future or life wasn’t worth living, it was seeing positive representations in the media that proved to me that I have a happy and successful life ahead.”

Chef Pax is a trans man who was named Best New Chef in 2019 by Food and Wine magazine.

“I’m excited to work with Ozy because I felt at home with them immediately,” says Chef Paxx. “I can’t wait to highlight my culinary skills and bring my queer kitchen sensibilities to the entire world.”

The Alabama-born Eggers is the first openly transgender person to enter a top college musical theater program. Of his new deal Eggers said, “I felt that my experience would be properly honored in the Ozy family rather than tokenized…Ozy sincerely brings forward those who have often been left behind. I am ready to help #ResetAmerica!”

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