Kathryn Morris UK

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – January 2020

john_finn_001_430x180 A slow start news-wise to 2020 for our Cold Case cast members that aren’t Kathryn. The KM UK January 2020 CCCC-up is looking like slim pickings. I have every faith that will change once Tracie recovers from the holidays

For the past couple of season of The Walking Dead John Finn (John Stillman in CC) has featured as a guest star in a recurring role. John’s Earl Sutton is expected to return when TWD returns from hiatus next month. But as we know with shows like that, things can change very quickly and no-one is safe.

In the UK the big sci-fi movie Ad Astra, starring Brad Pitt, became available on the home DVD and Blu-ray formats in the last few days. The US saw the release a month ago. We’ve mentioned the film and John’s role in it many times over the past year.

Towards the end of last year Apple launched their new streaming service TV+. One of the big shows on it was one called Truth Be Told. It has an all star cast of Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures), Lizzy Caplan (Cloverfield), Mekhi Phifer (ER), Elizabeth Perkins (Big), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), amongst others. Our Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) was one of those others. The show was released on a weekly basis, rather than one big ‘drop’, and the final of 8 episodes saw the light of day in mid-January. Apple has announced several of their shows as being renewed. So far there is no news on Truth Be Told.

Several times in recent CCCC-ups we’ve mentioned that Cold Case producer/writer Veena Sud (The Killing) has made a 10 episode drama series for a new streaming service for mobile devices called Quibi. As we go to press (when I post this) the Sundance Film Festival has been going for a week and still has a few days to go. Quibi has been featuring at the event, they seems almost designed to be together, with previews and Q&As going on. Veena certainly took part promoting the 10-minute ‘long’ episodes of The Stranger. Quibi is expected to launch in April.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – December 2019

The December Cold Case Cast Catch-up is made up of two parts. Part number one is the normal monthly latest news on the on-going careers of the CC main actors. The second section will be a look back at the year of CCCC-ups.

Errr… Looks like December has been a relatively quiet month on the news front for all our regulars.

Mid-month Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) was back home in Baltimore to take part in a reading of Thorton Wilder’s short one act play The Long Christmas Dinner. The event was held in the Baltimore Center Stage theatre as part of a fund raising effort to support various programs the venue runs. Written in the 1930s the 30 minute play covers 90 years worth of Xmas dinners of a particular family. Tracie played Leonora, the wife of family member Charles. After the reading there was a discussion/Q&A with the cast and crew.

Earlier in December was the release of the Apple TV+ drama series Truth Be Told. The first three episodes ‘dropped’ on the 6th. The remaining seven have been/will be released on a weekly basis across December and January.

Some of the older people amongst you may remember the sitcom Mad About You, starring Paul Reiser (Stranger Things) and Helen Hunt (Twister). As seems to be the trend these days, the show has been revisited for a new series (crossing fingers for CC). The original ran for seven seasons and 162 episodes starting in 1992. It made the two leads into huge stars. After MAY Paul primarily stayed working in TV whilst Helen mostly shifted to movies. The new series is a continuation of the show, set all these years later. Due to its distribution not being on a major network, despite the original being on NBC, the publicity has been relatively low key. This would be why I managed to miss the fact that Tracie apparently guest starred in the second episode, released on November 20th. That’s my excuse anyway.

Anyone else want to step forward? No?

OK, then Let’s move swiftly on to the review of the year’s reviews.

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Cold Case Cast Catch-up – November 2019

The senility is really kicking in these days! That and real life getting in the way.

Time to catch-up with a Cold Case Cast Catch-up as I managed to miss the traditional end of the month post in November. We can all pretend that instead of being a day short, that November 2019 has 32 days, right? Great! Let’s look (a little further back) at the news of the other members of the Cold Case cast.

Waaaay back at the beginning of the (very long month of) November, just after the last episode of the run, it was confirmed that the FX network TV show Mayans M.C., which stars Danny Pino (Scotty Valens in CC) had been renewed for a third season. Spin-offs don’t often do as well as their originating show; Mayans M.C. is related to the 92-episode, seven season-long hit Sons Of Anarchy; but is this one is going strong. No news on whether Danny will be involved, but I don’t know of any reason why not at this stage.

John Finn (John Stillman in CC) got himself a guest starring role in one of the biggest TVs in the world at the moment that doesn’t involve dragons. It does involve royalty though. A mid-month episode of Netflix’s The Crown saw John as Arthur ‘Bull’ Hancock. He was racehorse owner/breeder from America, who the Queen (now played by the amazing Olivia Colman) met whilst learning about horse training.

Fittingly enough in the middle of October (but not noticed by me until mid-November) a documentary called Somewhere In The Middle appeared on VOD platforms. It is about those thousands of artists who don’t become big names (like those we talk about here), but also don’t leave the business known as show altogether. They keep working at it as a day job, just as the rest of do. The film focuses on 5 artists (actor, sculptor, painter and 2 musicians) and how they deal with is ‘in the middle existence’. How Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC) fits into this I’m not sure, but I think is likely to be in footage of her working with actress Jasika Nicole on the website Send Me: An Original Web Series. As we know Tracie’s in everything so may it’s just that Tracie continues to guest star in the drama series 9-1-1. The latest episode is this very night, November 32nd (aka December 2nd). As noted previously, the Apple TV+ drama Truth Be Told is due to ‘drop’ on the 6th of December. See the previous CCCC-up posts for more details on that.

The next CCCC-up will hopefully be on time and will be a round up of the year’s news.

Cold Case Cast Catch-up – October 2019

john_finn_001_430x180 Winter is definitely on the way for those of us in the northern hemisphere. The sun is not setting early on our Cold Case cast members though. Welcome to October 2019’s CCCC-up where we catch-up with the stars of Cold Case that aren’t Kathryn.

Let’s start with John Finn (John Stillman in CC) as this takes us back to the beginning of the month. The long-running AMC drama series The Walking Dead returned in early October for its 10th season. I don’t watch the show myself but it looks from IMDb listings that John has reprised his role as Earl Sutton in the opener and episode 4, which aired a few days ago. Perhaps he’ll be back for more as the run (zombie shuffle?) continues.

John is a mere hors d’oeuvre to the ever prolific Tracie Thoms (Kat Miller in CC). How does she do it all? On the day John was back with the undead Tracie was with those trying to prevent the deadening in the first place, as she guest starred on ABC’s The Good Doctor. We referenced this in the September CCCC-up. Within a week Tracie was back at over on Showtime’s The Affair, which stars Maura Tierney (ER) and Dominic West (The Wire). On top of those, Tracie managed to squeeze in a couple of episodes of 9-1-1, which is on the Fox network. Another fortnight and she’ll be back for a third.

That enough Tracie news for one month? Of course not. We’re just working up to the big one. Back in June of 2018 we first reported that Apple, of iPhone fame, had commissioned a new drama for it’s planned streaming service (now called Apple TV+). That show became Truth Be Told. Octavia Spencer (The Shape Of Water) is a true-crime podcaster who tries to solve a mystery. Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), Lizzy Caplan (New Girl), Elizabeth Perkins (The Flintstones), and Mekhi Phifer (ER) co-star along with Tracie. A trailer was released for Truth Be Told early in the month. See it HERE on YouTube. Tracie appears briefly near the end. The première date for the show is the 6th of December.

Speaking of streaming services, we are on the verge of another one joining the fray. April 2020 is the planned launch date for Quibi, a mobile streaming platform for short form videos. Longer projects will be released in 10 minute segments, aimed at being consumed in “quick bites” suitable for those on the go. There are some big backers of this company. The likes of Jeffrey Katzenberg (DreamWorks SKG), Meg Whitman (Hewlett-Packard), Steven Spielberg (many films), and even existing large media companies like Disney and Sony Pictures. They have raised $1 billion in investment. A partnership with the T-Mobile communications organisation has recently been announced. But why are we mentioning it in a CCCC-up? That’s because Cold Case producer/writer Veena Sud (The Killing) is making a drama series called The Stranger for Quibi. She is writing, producing and directing this one. The Stranger involves an Uber-style driver (Claire) caught up with a sociopath in a 12 hour long fight for survival. Interestingly, there will be ten 10-minute episodes, each made available 1 hour later than the previous one. Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) and Maika Monroe (Independence Day: Resurgence) are the stars.

Kathryn’s Kelly’s Hollywood

This one seems to have passed us all by, but it is worth a bit of digging to find the story behind it.

Brian Donovan was an actor (still is) looking to make it in Hollywood. He had many small jobs across a wide range of TV (Wings, In Living Color, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, General Hospital, Beverly Hills 90210) and films (Gia, starring Angelina Jolie in an early role). He met a lot of different people over this time.

Brian had a younger sister, Kelly, who was born with Down Syndrome. The two of them were very close and as she grew up Kelly proved herself to be a real character and quite the performer, loving the spotlight.

Kelly’s health began to decline and Brian decided to try and make her Hollywood dreams come true. To let her star shine.

The 2015 documentary, Kelly’s Hollywood, is the film Brian made of their journey through this process and the effects it had on both of them.

Kelly was embraced by Hollywood with all sorts of people contributing to this project. A red carpet style première was created, where Kelly turned up in a limousine and faced the paparazzi. Kathryn, Danny Pino and John Finn also welcomed Kelly onto the set of Cold Case to do an interrogation scene with them. In it Kelly was questioned as a suspect in a case involving her favourite actor Colin Firth (A King’s Speech). Detectives Rush and Valens grilled her on her involvement. This whole thing was improvised by them all, not every one could keep a straight face throughout (Kathryn!), and it took some dark turns. Kathryn was also at the première event.

The documentary premièred in October 2014 and had a Los Angeles screening in the January of 2015. Kathryn attended that ocassion, and her and Danny were at a live event where Kelly was on stage with her brother. Danny was one of Kelly’s favourite men and he was great with her.

Sadly, Kelly passed away in 2009 but Brian continues to show the film at festivals around the world as part of campaigns to raise awareness of disabilities and that people should not be defined by them. Kelly wasn’t going to let hers stop her enjoying life. Brian continues his acting work, mostly doing voice work in Naruto anime games in films.

Kelly’s Holllywood was shown on the Showcase network and is now available on Amazon Video, free to Prime subscribers, in the UK and US. I’ve posted a very small selection of not-so-great quality screencaps in the Gallery to give you an idea of Kathryn’s appearance in the film, and a couple of photos related to the première event. There is a trailer and few videos out there if you want to see them. Check out the full film if you can.