Latest news with #YourFriends&Neighbours
Mint
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
The Night Agent actress Arienne Mandi joins Chicago PD as series regular for Season 13
Washington DC [US], July 23 (ANI): 'The Night Agent' actress Arienne Mandi has joined the cast of 'Chicago PD' as a series regular for Season 13, reported Deadline. According to Deadline, Mandi will play Chicago P.D. officer Naomi Kerr. She is a former soldier and military contractor who is said to thrive in dangerous situations. The actress character in the series is described as a fearless outsider who keeps her cards close to the vest. Names and character descriptions could be changed at any stage of production, reported Deadline. Chicago P.D. follows the men and women of the Chicago Police Department's elite Intelligence Unit, combatting the city's most heinous offences, which include organised crime, drug trafficking, high-profile murders and beyond. According to Deadline, Naomi arrives at a particularly chaotic time for the team, following the murder of Deputy Chief Charlie Reid (Shawn Hatosy), orchestrated by Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe). Although Detective Kim Burgess (Marina Squerciati) and Officer Dante Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) are off the hook for the latter's affair with his CI and the former covering it up, there's no telling what the fallout will be just yet. LaRoyce Hawkins and Patrick Flueger also star in this thriller series. Meanwhile, Toya Turner has exited the NBC police procedural as Kiana Cook and will not appear in Season 13. "I'm grateful for the time I had bringing Kiana to life. Thank you to everyone who welcomed me so warmly," said Toya Turner as quoted by Deadline. Mandi currently stars in Season 2 of Netflix's 'The Night Agent'. She co-stars in Guy Nattiv's award-winning feature 'Tatami', which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. 'The Night Agent' actress will next be seen starring opposite Jon Hamm in season 2 of Apple TV 's 'Your Friends & Neighbours'. (ANI)
Sydney Morning Herald
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
James Frey wrote his new book in 57 days. He doesn't want Oprah to read it
Long before cancel culture, Frey and Winfrey laid out the blueprint. First comes the cancellation, then comes the backlash to the cancellation, and eventually, the dust settles. Or does it? While Frey admits to lying, he maintains that 'about 85 per cent' of the memoir was true. However, when discussing the controversy, he remains coolly detached, explaining that his perspective has shifted. 'If you look at a page one of A Million Little Pieces, it's clearly manipulated information, right?' says Frey. 'I long said I've changed everybody's name, I changed identifying characteristics, but the problem was I blew up the rules of publishing.' Frey points to the recent rise of autofiction, a genre that blends elements of autobiography and fiction, as proof that the punishment didn't fit the crime. 'My book didn't fit into their classification system, so they got mad. Say what you want about A Million Little Pieces, it's still read, it's still purchased, and it's still an iconic part of culture.' Frey, 55, is not one for life lessons, but if the encounter with Winfrey taught him one thing? 'Writing is not about making a f–king talk show host happy,' he says. Instead, these days, he prefers to entertain himself with his work, which was the driving inspiration behind his latest novel, Next To Heaven, published by Authors Equity. The plot centres on a group of uber-wealthy friends, living in the fictional gated community of New Bethlehem in Connecticut (based on the real town of New Canaan, where Frey has lived since 2013), whose collective boredom inspires them to host a swingers party. Their perfect lives are turned upside down when one of the guests turns up dead, kicking off a classic small-town, big mystery, whodunit. In Next To Heaven, everyone is beautiful, rich and awful. Hedge fund traders, bitcoin bros and trophy wives, sleeping with each other one day, gossiping about each other the next. The book slots neatly into the 'eat-the-rich' genre that has dominated popular culture; TV series such as Succession, The White Lotus, and more recently, Your Friends & Neighbours have fuelled our fascination with the 1 per cent. Unsurprisingly, he's already sold the TV rights. 'I enjoy those series as a consumer, but I wanted to take people further behind the curtain, show them that money is the most potent drug on the planet; it wreaks the most havoc and does the most damage,' he says. Loading 'I live in a highly insulated, heavily protected bubble filled with some of the wealthiest people in the world,' adds Frey, who describes himself as the poorest motherf---er in the area. 'A town of 19,000 people with somewhere between 20 and 40 billionaires. And when you can have and do anything you want, you look for bigger thrills.' Given his reputation, he's quick to clarify the characters are not based on New Canaan's billionaire set; instead, they just 'showed up'. 'There are always two or three books dancing around in my head, and when one of them starts to assert itself, the characters just show up.' This is a side-effect of his curious creative process, driven by what Frey labels 'the fury', an intense and self-destructive streak that he manages through a combination of therapy, medication and meditation. 'When I'm not writing, I have all these systems in place to manage it, but when I start writing, it all has to stop. I stop taking my daily antidepressants, I stop meditating, I usually walk every morning and night, I stop that too. Then I can tap into this reservoir of emotions and unleash myself.' He says he spent up to 16 hours a day at his desk, and the book was completed in just 57 days. 'I only write one draft of a book, and I don't use outlines,' he says. 'Contractually, I have what we jokingly call the 'You get what you get, and you don't get upset' clause, which means the publisher has to accept what I give them,' he says. You get what you get, and you don't get upset might also describe Frey's response to the book's critical reception. Reviews have been mixed. The New Yorker praised his prose as 'endearingly excitable,' but ultimately concluded, 'James Frey's new cancelled-guy sex novel is as bad as it sounds.' Meanwhile, Kirkus Reviews raved about his return, saying, 'Frey's literary affectations don't get in the way of a good time'. Either way, Frey positions himself as genuinely unmoved.
The Age
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
James Frey wrote his new book in 57 days. He doesn't want Oprah to read it
Long before cancel culture, Frey and Winfrey laid out the blueprint. First comes the cancellation, then comes the backlash to the cancellation, and eventually, the dust settles. Or does it? While Frey admits to lying, he maintains that 'about 85 per cent' of the memoir was true. However, when discussing the controversy, he remains coolly detached, explaining that his perspective has shifted. 'If you look at a page one of A Million Little Pieces, it's clearly manipulated information, right?' says Frey. 'I long said I've changed everybody's name, I changed identifying characteristics, but the problem was I blew up the rules of publishing.' Frey points to the recent rise of autofiction, a genre that blends elements of autobiography and fiction, as proof that the punishment didn't fit the crime. 'My book didn't fit into their classification system, so they got mad. Say what you want about A Million Little Pieces, it's still read, it's still purchased, and it's still an iconic part of culture.' Frey, 55, is not one for life lessons, but if the encounter with Winfrey taught him one thing? 'Writing is not about making a f–king talk show host happy,' he says. Instead, these days, he prefers to entertain himself with his work, which was the driving inspiration behind his latest novel, Next To Heaven, published by Authors Equity. The plot centres on a group of uber-wealthy friends, living in the fictional gated community of New Bethlehem in Connecticut (based on the real town of New Canaan, where Frey has lived since 2013), whose collective boredom inspires them to host a swingers party. Their perfect lives are turned upside down when one of the guests turns up dead, kicking off a classic small-town, big mystery, whodunit. In Next To Heaven, everyone is beautiful, rich and awful. Hedge fund traders, bitcoin bros and trophy wives, sleeping with each other one day, gossiping about each other the next. The book slots neatly into the 'eat-the-rich' genre that has dominated popular culture; TV series such as Succession, The White Lotus, and more recently, Your Friends & Neighbours have fuelled our fascination with the 1 per cent. Unsurprisingly, he's already sold the TV rights. 'I enjoy those series as a consumer, but I wanted to take people further behind the curtain, show them that money is the most potent drug on the planet; it wreaks the most havoc and does the most damage,' he says. Loading 'I live in a highly insulated, heavily protected bubble filled with some of the wealthiest people in the world,' adds Frey, who describes himself as the poorest motherf---er in the area. 'A town of 19,000 people with somewhere between 20 and 40 billionaires. And when you can have and do anything you want, you look for bigger thrills.' Given his reputation, he's quick to clarify the characters are not based on New Canaan's billionaire set; instead, they just 'showed up'. 'There are always two or three books dancing around in my head, and when one of them starts to assert itself, the characters just show up.' This is a side-effect of his curious creative process, driven by what Frey labels 'the fury', an intense and self-destructive streak that he manages through a combination of therapy, medication and meditation. 'When I'm not writing, I have all these systems in place to manage it, but when I start writing, it all has to stop. I stop taking my daily antidepressants, I stop meditating, I usually walk every morning and night, I stop that too. Then I can tap into this reservoir of emotions and unleash myself.' He says he spent up to 16 hours a day at his desk, and the book was completed in just 57 days. 'I only write one draft of a book, and I don't use outlines,' he says. 'Contractually, I have what we jokingly call the 'You get what you get, and you don't get upset' clause, which means the publisher has to accept what I give them,' he says. You get what you get, and you don't get upset might also describe Frey's response to the book's critical reception. Reviews have been mixed. The New Yorker praised his prose as 'endearingly excitable,' but ultimately concluded, 'James Frey's new cancelled-guy sex novel is as bad as it sounds.' Meanwhile, Kirkus Reviews raved about his return, saying, 'Frey's literary affectations don't get in the way of a good time'. Either way, Frey positions himself as genuinely unmoved.
The Age
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
All US television is Trumpy now, even when it's not
In the original SATC era we wanted to join the wealthy and aspirational foursome for a drink, but now the zeitgeist has turned. The television shows that feel most relevant to the moment, and which are the most engaging, are all about the suffering and the immorality of the super-rich. It feels more comfortable, now, to reassure ourselves that while billionaires and tech-bro oligarchs appear to be running the world, they're living lives of miserable inauthenticity. It started with Succession, a brilliant and darkly funny exposition of the ways in which inherited wealth can corrupt family relationships. The creator of Succession, Jesse Armstrong, has just released a movie, Mountainhead, about a foursome of tech billionaires who hole up in a mountain mansion in Utah as the world seems to be ending. More recently we have Your Friends & Neighbours, starring Mad Men's Jon Hamm, a square-jawed hero of all-American good looks but with just enough despair in his face to hint at inner spiritual desolation. Hamm plays Coop, a one-percenter hedge fund manager enraged by his divorce (his wife left him for his good friend), who loses his job after a low-level sexual indiscretion at work. In order to maintain his lifestyle (which includes $4500 skin treatments for his daughter and $30,000 tables at charity galas), he resorts to stealing from his friends and neighbours. These people, who live in a fictional, highly manicured wealth conclave outside New York City, are so obscenely rich that they have $200,000 watches and rolls of cash lying around in drawers. Hamm does what he has to do – he becomes a cat burglar with a cynical philosophy. Loading Coop is just a man trying to get by, and if that doesn't involve selling his Maserati, or getting a new (albeit less well paid) job, then it is a testament to the show's good writing that we are still with him, even when we question his attachment to a lifestyle he purports to disdain. Another new American show, Sirens, stars Julianne Moore as the beautiful philanthropist wife of a billionaire hedge-fund manager, who is summering in her uber-mansion (it has a turret) on an unnamed east-coast big-money island similar to Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. She has a creepy, co-dependent relationship with her young personal assistant, who comes from poverty and dysfunction but who is loved in a way her wealthy boss never will be. Of course, these shows have a buck each way – they seek to satirise the super-rich and expose the underlying emptiness of their lives, while allowing us the vicarious experience of living in their luxury for an hour or so. The Hollywood Reporter calls it 'affluence porn'. We get access to the calfskin-lined interior of the private jet. We get to enjoy the week-long wedding festivities in Tuscany and gawp at the marvellous outfits, all while judging the protagonists for their materialism. In AJLT the materialism is not there to be judged; it is an integral part of the fun. Perhaps AJLT feels off because the writing is bad, and the plot lines so tired that dogs must be enlisted to prop up the action. Or maybe it is because in the second Trump administration the US political environment has become so oppressive and so inescapable that no story feels true unless it references it, however obliquely.
Sydney Morning Herald
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
All US television is Trumpy now, even when it's not
In the original SATC era we wanted to join the wealthy and aspirational foursome for a drink, but now the zeitgeist has turned. The television shows that feel most relevant to the moment, and which are the most engaging, are all about the suffering and the immorality of the super-rich. It feels more comfortable, now, to reassure ourselves that while billionaires and tech-bro oligarchs appear to be running the world, they're living lives of miserable inauthenticity. It started with Succession, a brilliant and darkly funny exposition of the ways in which inherited wealth can corrupt family relationships. The creator of Succession, Jesse Armstrong, has just released a movie, Mountainhead, about a foursome of tech billionaires who hole up in a mountain mansion in Utah as the world seems to be ending. More recently we have Your Friends & Neighbours, starring Mad Men's Jon Hamm, a square-jawed hero of all-American good looks but with just enough despair in his face to hint at inner spiritual desolation. Hamm plays Coop, a one-percenter hedge fund manager enraged by his divorce (his wife left him for his good friend), who loses his job after a low-level sexual indiscretion at work. In order to maintain his lifestyle (which includes $4500 skin treatments for his daughter and $30,000 tables at charity galas), he resorts to stealing from his friends and neighbours. These people, who live in a fictional, highly manicured wealth conclave outside New York City, are so obscenely rich that they have $200,000 watches and rolls of cash lying around in drawers. Hamm does what he has to do – he becomes a cat burglar with a cynical philosophy. Loading Coop is just a man trying to get by, and if that doesn't involve selling his Maserati, or getting a new (albeit less well paid) job, then it is a testament to the show's good writing that we are still with him, even when we question his attachment to a lifestyle he purports to disdain. Another new American show, Sirens, stars Julianne Moore as the beautiful philanthropist wife of a billionaire hedge-fund manager, who is summering in her uber-mansion (it has a turret) on an unnamed east-coast big-money island similar to Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. She has a creepy, co-dependent relationship with her young personal assistant, who comes from poverty and dysfunction but who is loved in a way her wealthy boss never will be. Of course, these shows have a buck each way – they seek to satirise the super-rich and expose the underlying emptiness of their lives, while allowing us the vicarious experience of living in their luxury for an hour or so. The Hollywood Reporter calls it 'affluence porn'. We get access to the calfskin-lined interior of the private jet. We get to enjoy the week-long wedding festivities in Tuscany and gawp at the marvellous outfits, all while judging the protagonists for their materialism. In AJLT the materialism is not there to be judged; it is an integral part of the fun. Perhaps AJLT feels off because the writing is bad, and the plot lines so tired that dogs must be enlisted to prop up the action. Or maybe it is because in the second Trump administration the US political environment has become so oppressive and so inescapable that no story feels true unless it references it, however obliquely.
