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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Soap fans open-mouthed as legendary star makes debut in blockbuster spy thriller - and is worlds away from his TV roots
Fans of The Assassin were baffled after seeing a familiar face from the past in the new Prime Video drama. The crime thriller hit screens just days ago, and stars Brit actors Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore. The six-part series follows the life of a retired assassin, now living in Greece, who reunites with her estranged son. But the mother's dangerous past proves difficult to escape, and forces the pair to go on the run together. Their strained relationship faces even more adversity when a dark conspiracy unfolds before them. So far, the show has been well received, and was even more so when a well known soap star made an appearance. But can you guess who it is? The actor is none other than Alan Dale, the New Zealand star who played patriarch Jim Robinson in the Australian soap Neighbours. The 78-year-old features in the new series as supporting character Aaron Cross. But he gained fame and a loyal following from his eight years on the beloved Aussie serial, having left in 1993 to pursue US roles. Alan briefly reprised his role as Jim when he appeared in a dream to his on-screen son Paul Robinbson, played by Stefan Dennis. Since his departure from the show, Alan has had notable roles in Ugly Betty, The O.C., Homeland and sci-fi drama series Lost. In his new role in The Assassin, he plays a ruthless billionaire who has made his fortune in the mining industry. Star Keleey Hawes most recently appeared in BBC series Miss Austen. The period drama was quickly praised as 'perfect Sunday night viewing' after just one episode. But he gained fame and a loyal following from his eight years on the beloved Aussie serial, having left in 1993 to pursue US roles The first instalment of the BBC series aired on February 2 and stars Keeley as Cassandra, as well as Game of Throne star Rose Leslie as Isabella Fowle. Exploring the sisterly bond between Cassandra and Jane Austen, the four-part drama was filmed in and around the home counties. Adapted from Gill Hornby's best-selling novel, BAFTA-winning writer Andrea Gibb has taken the tale of Cassandra notoriously burning Jane's letters and explores the sisters' challenging relationship. This summer has proved an exciting one for British TV dramas, with a new police thriller also released this month dubbed 'the new Line Of Duty'. The popular show, titled Karen Pirie, first hit screens in 2022 and the second series launched on Sunday evening. Following Scottish DI Karen Pirie, played by Lauren Lyle, as she tackles cold cases, the programme based on Val McDermid's novels. The show is produced by World Productions, the same company behind other hits including Bodyguard and Line Of Duty. The first episode saw Detective Karen investigate a challenging kidnapping case when a man's body is found. The new six-part series follows the life of a retired assassin, now living in Greece , who reunites with her estranged son The new season of Karen Pirie was well-received by some fans who took to social media to rave. One posted on X: 'Enjoyable first episode of the new series, so intriguing I immediately binge-watched the other two on ITVX!' Another chimed in: 'I thought #KarenPirie was excellent TV, looking forward to next Sunday.' Someone else said: '35 minutes in and I'm hooked. This is brilliant #KarenPirie.' 'Feel like I've been waiting a lifetime for this new series of #KarenPirie,' one fan posted. 'The new Line of Duty I think!' someone else said, according to WalesOnline. Another reportedly added: 'Watched the first three episodes already! So good.' 'Tried watching #KarenPirie but really don't care about any character past or present. Boring drama by numbers.' The Mail's Christoper Stevens rated the drama an impressive five out of five stars. He described the story line and various 'plots as deep and dark as a coal mine shaft'. 'The characters aren't merely well drawn — they're alive, constantly seeking to understand and learn more about each other,' the critic gushed.
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
My favorite Denzel Washington movie just landed on Paramount Plus — you need to stream this crime thriller now
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. "Training Day" might be the best movie from the new shows and movies on Paramount Plus this month. Hopefully, you've seen this crime thriller or are at least familiar with it. It's centered around an incredible Denzel Washington performance that ultimately earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor and is my pick for Denzel's best performance of his career. His performance isn't the only great one in this movie either. Ethan Hawke is nearly as good and also earned an Oscar nomination for his performance. But if you remember any performance from this movie, it's probably Denzel's. That said, you might not remember this movie, or there's a chance you've never even seen it. "Training Day" only brought in around $105 million at the box office back in 2001, and it's now nearly 24 years old, meaning at least an entire generation of people might not even know this movie exists. But I'm here to fix that, because this crime thriller is a must-watch. Here's what "Training Day" is about and why you need to check out Denzel's greatest performance now that it's available to stream on Paramount Plus. "Training Day" stars Ethan Hawke as LAPD officer Jake Hoyt, who is trying to join the narcotics squad of Detective Alonzo Harris (Washington). To get the gig, he will need to ride along with Alonzo as his partner for a one-day trial evaluation. That ride-along comes with some serious risks. Alonzo's squad covers some of the most violent, gang-ridden neighborhoods of Los Angeles. As the pair goes around looking for crime, they come across everything from college kids buying marijuana to drug dealers carrying loaded guns. However, as the day goes on, Jake realizes that the most dangerous part of this gig might not be the crime in LA. It might just be his new partner. For the record, as much as I love this movie, it's not flawless. The plot pretty quickly devolves into something that requires suspension of disbelief. But Denzel's performance as Alonzo will make it incredibly easy to overlook these flaws, and you don't have to wait particularly long for him to start cooking. And once he gets going, he doesn't really stop. Again, Ethan Hawke is genuinely great in "Training Day," and maybe without him alongside Denzel, their performances become undone by the screenplay. But I'm convinced this would have been an incredible performance regardless of who Denzel was acting alongside. There's one scene in the movie — and if you've seen this crime thriller before, you'll know which one I'm talking about — where Jake catches some guys assaulting a girl in an alley. From the moment Alonzo comes up on them, it's probably around a four-minute scene and most of it is Denzel just ripping off incredible line after incredible line. Hawke may have two lines in the entire thing. But it doesn't matter that it's just Denzel doing his thing, because he's mesmerizing doing it. It's why you need to watch "Training Day" right now, and witness one of the greatest actors ever give the greatest performance of his career. Stream "Training Day" now on Paramount Plus Brad Pitt's 'F1' is 'Top Gun: Maverick' with cars — I'm so glad I didn't wait for it to hit Apple TV Plus Ryan Gosling's new movie looks like 'Interstellar' meets 'The Martian' — and the first trailer looks awesome 'Smoke' showrunner reveals why he dropped that major twist in Apple TV Plus' new true crime thriller
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Books of the Month: What to read this July, from a dark satire on war journalism to a memoir told in verse
Summer holidays are a good time to try out new novels, and among the recommended fiction out this month is Connor Hutchinson's sharp debut, Dead Lucky (Corsair), which is set in Openshaw, Manchester. In it, Hutchinson tells the story of an embalmer at a funeral home who is drawn into the addictive world of gambling to pay his debts. The reliably accomplished John Niven's latest novel is The Fathers (Canongate), a witty account of parenthood and masculinity, while Alexander Starritt's enjoyable Drayton and Mackenzie (Swift) is a tale of two old acquaintances who reunite by chance to form an unusual alliance. If you are looking for a twisty crime thriller, try Gregory Galloway's All We Trust (Melville House), a gripping story about hardware store-owning brothers who launder money. Their family squabble quickly escalates into a war between crime cartels. Meanwhile, it seems an apt time to contemplate the plea for sanity contained in Takashi Nagai's The Bells of Nagasaki (Vintage Classics). This slim memoir was written just before his death from leukaemia in 1951. The Japanese physician was there at the moment the atomic bomb was dropped from an American B-29. He describes the flash as looking 'like a huge lantern wrapped in cotton'. Although it's wretched to read a witness account of the 'world of the dead' caused by the nuclear fallout, the book is essentially an urgent call for the bell of peace to sound. And that's something we all need in the demented, dangerous landscape of 2025. My choices for the novel, memoir and non-fiction book of the month are reviewed in full below: A 'vulture' journalist is one who chooses to spend their lives 'in the world's most f***ed-up places', making a living from death and disaster. Sara Bryne, a 'stringer' (freelance reporter) for a British broadsheet newspaper, has decided that Gaza in 2012 is a land of opportunity for an ambitious young journalist. 'This war is there for the taking,' she boasts. The compelling protagonist of Phoebe Greenwood's debut novel is, unfortunately, a dysfunctional, walking chaos zone. Greenwood, who covered the Middle East in the early Noughties for The Telegraph and The Guardian, gives a visceral account of being a war reporter, as she neatly skewers rude news editors, sexually anarchic photographers, and all the minor oddball journalists (including a blogger in a maroon beret) attracted to Gaza's 'mind-bending dimension of misery'. Vulture lays bare how the cynical modern war news industry fails the people whose tragedies fuel it. As we see today, war remains a booming business for the media. Greenwood seems to be even-handed about the culpability of Hamas and the Israelis in the ongoing conflict. When a ceasefire was announced in late 2012, there was still some last-minute bombing. A fictional (perhaps) Israeli general tells Sara that it is 'their last chance to mow the lawn' – a callous remark that seems to sum up how the horror of daily life in Gaza is normalised. The novel contains spiky flashback scenes to explain Sara's background – and wry verbal sparring with her mother. There is a witty line about Dulwich being 'the most aggressively mediocre of London's suburbs'. As Sara's life spirals out of control – not helped by hallucinations and the toxic effects of (gulp) ulcerated genital herpes sores – she makes a dangerous choice that brings on tragedy for others. Vulture is a dark satire with real claws. 'Vulture' by Phoebe Greenwood is published by Europa Editions on 3 July, £16.99 One of the chapters in Mandy Haggith's The Lost Elms is titled 'Death: Elms in the Arts'. Haggith, a writer who is also described as a 'forest activist', states that poems about elms are often poems of grief. Among the novelists who also come into this section are Eugene O'Neill, EM Forster, and Tana French. Gloomy old Thomas Hardy is in there, too, for The Woodlanders. Hardy's character John South is convinced the elm outside his house will be the end of him: 'There he stands, threatening my life every minute that the wind do blow. He'll come down upon us, and squat us dead.' In fact, it is the elm tree itself in danger of being 'squatted dead', a result of the Dutch elm disease that has wiped out millions of trees across the world. Haggith's captivating book is full of personal reflections and anecdotes. It is engagingly written and has important things to say about globalisation, the threat of climate change and the value of biosecurity. The elm, it seems, offers hopeful lessons for how we can save other species. 'The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees – and the Fight to Save Them' by Mandy Haggith is published by Wildfire on 3 July, £22 Although poet and playwright Amanda Quaid does not mention in her memoir that she hails from a famous family – her father is actor Randy Quaid, her uncle Dennis Quaid – there is an oblique reference to her heritage within the witty poem 'Mystery Pain'. In it, she recounts a visit to a male proctologist, stating drolly: 'With his finger in me, told me how much he loved my dad in Independence Day and also I didn't have a rectal tumor.' Very unusually, No Obvious Distress is a memoir in verse. The poems are funny, moving, wise and constantly surprising, as in 'The Curse', where a random stranger on a flight tells her, 'You're nice, but you're unlucky.' These scary words of foreshadowing come just before her diagnosis for mesenchymal chondrosarcoma – a rare and aggressive malignant tumour that originates in bone or soft tissue. Happily, No Obvious Distress concludes with the poems dealing with the diagnosis that her cancer may be gone following 'the scorch of radiation'. Quaid deploys a range of poetry styles – there is even a nifty limerick – and makes clever 'poems' from her redacted medical chart notes. I especially enjoyed the heart-rending 'Telling My Mother' and the deftly tragicomic 'The Oncologist Sexologist'. Anyone who has ever undergone a brain scan will recognise the scary beauty in Quaid's three-line 'Haiku': 'In the MRI I know how the woodpecker must sound to the tree' 'No Obvious Distress' by Amanda Quaid is published by JM Originals on 24 July, £14.99
Forbes
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Duster' Stars And Creator On Paying Tribute To The 1970s
'Duster' The season finale of Duster, J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan's latest TV show, will be released tomorrow on Max, and I caught up with the actors and creator behind the 1970s adrenaline-fueled crime thriller series, Josh Holloway, Rachel Hilson and Latoya Morgan. Set in the Southwest in the 1970s, Duster tells the story of the FBI's first Black woman agent, Nina Hayes, played by Rachel Hilson, who will have to overcome many obstacles to stop a crime syndicate. But in order to gather all the evidences she needs, Nina will have to collaborate with Jim Ellis, portrayed by Josh Holloway, the getaway driver of the syndicate's boss. Tomorrow will be the last time the audience is able to admire the show's opening credits, filled with hidden easter eggs, adding to the fun and creativity of this sequence. I spoke to Morgan about the creative and narrative decisions behind the opening credits. She said, ''We wanted the chance to really immerse the audience in the story, and the title sequence was just another way to do that. We had this great company called the Meat department, who did our animation. We wanted to feel like you're in a little toy box, like you're on the drive with this toy duster.'' UNIVERSAL CITY, CALIFORNIA - MAY 08: (L-R) Rachel Hilson, Josh Holloway and LaToya Morgan attend the ... More Los Angeles Red Carpet Premiere of Max Original Series 'Duster' at Universal Studios Hollywood on May 08, 2025 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for Max) Abrams has had Duster's opening sequence in mind for two decades. When he called Morgan and Holloway, whom he's been friend with since they worked together on Lost, he described the vision he had with a phone ringing in the middle of the desert, a car going very fast towards it, a man getting out of the car and answering the call. To Morgan, Abrams has been ''really fantastic to work with and a great collaborator.'' She said, ''I was shocked because first I was like 'J.J. Abrams is calling me? This is weird.' But I was very very happy and excited. When we met, we just had a meeting of the minds, we have very similar sensibilities, we like the same stuff, and we both wanted to do something we both felt hadn't been done on TV for a while. And that was to have this sort of throwback, crime, thriller show.'' Holloway said, ''I had to really concentrate and really listen to him because my mind started wrapping around all of that and what it would be like. I was like 'Stay with J.J, he's still telling you more about this show.' But that's what happens to us as artists or actors, you start embodying this character immediately if it's something you're attracted to, it's like a magnet. The world of the 1970s blew up in my mind.'' Josh Holloway in 'Duster' Hilson said, ''I had a little bit of a different journey from Josh, I auditioned, I didn't know much about this character but I knew she was from Baltimore, which I am also from Baltimore, so I found that to be very cool. After reading the script, which was under wrap for a while, I just saw this character, I wanted to get the chance to embody her. And I think knowing J.J's body of work, he really champions the heroine, so knowing that and knowing more about LaToya, Nina was a no brainer for me.'' Holloway immediately found himself in Jim's character, having grown up in ''dirt roads in Georgia in the 1970s.'' He said, ''I have been driving since I was 9 years old, the ranch truck and the tractor. I remember dad, and he looked exactly like Abraham Lincoln by the way, picture that! He had the beard without the mustache, that Hamish thing. He was driving his little MGB and his hair was blowing. I remember him coming home from work, and I was like, 'That was the 1970s!' He was a nudist, he walked around nude all the time, so I lived in that era, it was simpler back then. And I was like 'Ah! This feels like when I was a kid!' So I really immersed myself back in my memories.'' He added: ''I always drive with the windows down, I hate AC, we didn't have AC growing up, so it's windows down, hair blowing, music blasting, big VA. That's who I am,'' Holloway said. Holloway also knew right away what Jim was listening to in his car. He said, ''I found what Jim drives to, and it's Jimmy Hendrix, 100%.'' Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson Everything in Dusters feels like it could have been made in the 1970s, from the photography to the set locations. Morgan said, ''When we're out in the desert, we wanted those wide vistas to feel very cinematic.'' Over the past few weeks, Duster has been a perfect watch for any 1970s aesthetic, music or movies aficionado, and the creators have made the very creative choice to add real elements and real people into their fictional story. In episode 2, Jim has to steal Elvis Presley's own Blue Suede Shoes in order to get himself out of a very dangerous situation. Morgan said, ''It's crazy that he literally has to steal the Blue Sudede shoes! But that's why we wanted it to be about Jim, having to come up with a crazy compromise in order to satisfy one guy, so he can get out of trouble with the other guy. That was because we wanted to do something in Elvis' honeymoon house. This was close from Arizona, it could be a place where Jim drives to and we can have a party there.'' Duster is now streaming on Max.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Irish Crime-Thriller ‘Amongst The Wolves', Starring Aidan Gillen, Gets U.S. Distribution Deal
EXCLUSIVE: Irish crime-thriller Amongst The Wolves, whose cast includes GOT star Aiden Gillen, has been picked up for U.S. distribution by Sunrise Films. The 2024 Galway Film Fleadh premiere is set to be released in a handful of U.S. theaters and on digital platforms beginning July 11, 2025. More from Deadline Sci-Fi Cinema Doc 'So Unreal', Narrated By Debbie Harry, Gets North American Deal UK Indie Studio HaZimation Becomes Atelier 11, Paula Crickard Now Sole Leader After Hasraf 'HaZ' Dulull Exits Former Disney Channel & Fox Exec Kemal Coşkuner To Lead New Spacetoon Kids Network In Turkey Filmmaker Mark O'Connor's (Cardboard Gangsters) movie also stars Luke McQuillan (Black Medicine), Jade Jordan (You Are Not My Mother), and Helen Behan (Small Things Like These). Set against the backdrop of Dublin's underworld, pic follows Danny (McQuillan), a homeless ex-soldier battling PTSD, whose chance encounter with a runaway teen, Will (Daniel Fee), sparks an unlikely alliance. As they're hunted by a ruthless drug gang led by the menacing Power (Aidan Gillen), their fight for survival becomes a journey of redemption. Released earlier this year in Ireland and the UK by Wildcard and Vertigo, respectively, pic is produced by Jeff O'Toole (Bread & Circus / Stalker Films), with Andrew Keogh and Paul O'Connor serving as co-producers and Dean Scurry and Paul Tall‑Order Ritchie as executive producers. 'Amongst the Wolves is a gripping, high-stakes thriller with real emotional punch and the kind of elevated genre storytelling American audiences are craving,' said Andrew Nerger, Head of U.S. & International Distribution at Sunrise Films. 'With powerful performances, a razor-sharp script, and timely themes, it's a standout international release we're proud to bring stateside this summer.' Best of Deadline Who Is [SPOILER]? The Latest Big Marvel Reveal Explained 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg
