‘Wednesday’ star Jenna Ortega reveals new fencing scene was a favorite moment of the series
Jonathan Hession/Netflix
Jenna Ortega‘s Wednesday Addams will rejoin her peers at Nevermore Academy this week for season 2 of the hit series Wednesday.
“We’re still with the same cast, and there’s a lot of new faces coming into play, because a lot of people [last season] had unfortunate endings,” Ortega said while speaking with Good Morning America on Monday. “We had such an incredible reaction to the first season that we just wanted to give them something good.”
Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Morticia Addams, is also reprising her role for season 2.
“She’s one of the funniest people I have met. I don’t think she gets enough credit for that. She’s unbelievable,” Ortega said. “If she’s ever not funny, it’s because she needs, like, a piece of chocolate.”
The pair will face off in season 2 in a sword fight scene, which Ortega revealed “was one of my favorite things to come out of the show.”
“The fencing sequence where we just tried to end each other for a good, like, five minutes, it was such a dance that we had to do,” she said.
Two more big names have joined this season. Steve Buscemi is onboard as Principal Barry Dort and Christopher Lloyd, who famously played Uncle Fester in the 1991 film The Addams Family, joined as the longest-serving professor at Nevermore Academy.
“Christopher Lloyd I’m still quite shocked by, I don’t know how to process that, his history in film in general, but then also his relation to the Addams Family,” she said. “Steve I’ve had the pleasure of working with twice now. He’s just a cool — he’s a cool guy.”
The new season of Wednesday will be released in two parts on Netflix, with Part 1 streaming Wednesday, Aug. 6, and Part 2 streaming on Sept. 3.
A poster for ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.’ (Disney)
The Mormon mom influencers of #MomTok are returning for a new season.
Hulu has announced that season 3 of the Emmy-nominated series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives will be released Nov. 13, with all 10 episodes dropping at once.
The reality series stars Taylor Frankie Paul, Demi Engemann, Jen Affleck, Jessi Ngatikaura, Layla Taylor, Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Matthews, Miranda McWhorter and Whitney Leavitt.
According to Hulu, the new season will focus on new revelations and allegations that might put the #MomTok community in jeopardy.
“The members face a crisis of friendship as loyalties shift, trust is tested, and the lines between fact and fiction blur,” a synopsis from Hulu reads.
“When the pursuit of the truth calls character into question, a war over morality begins and a clash between #Momtok and #Dadtok erupts,” the synopsis continues. “With their sisterhood and everything they’ve built hanging in the balance, can the women find a path forward to salvation? Or will their collective sins destroy #Momtok for good?”
While fans will have to wait another three months to catch new SLOMW episodes, they can tune in as Leavitt and Affleck hit the ballroom dance floor in their debuts on season 34 of Dancing with the Stars, which premieres Sept. 16 on ABC.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives first premiered in 2024 and was nominated earlier this year for an Emmy Award for outstanding unstructured reality program, alongside America’s Sweethearts: Dallas CowboysCheerleaders, Love on the Spectrum, RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked and Welcome to Wrexham.
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC, ABC News and Hulu.
Spike Lee directed the upcoming film Highest 2 Lowest and says A$AP Rocky did not come to play. He sang the rapper’s praises on Thursday during his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
“Yeah, don’t sleep on ASAP,” Lee said of the rapper’s acting performance in the movie. “In this film, Denzel [Washington] and ASAP go toe to toe.”
“What’s interesting is, even before I got involved with this film, I always thought that ASAP looked like he could be Denzel’s son. There’s a big resemblance,” he continued. “So when you see it on the screen, it adds an element of father and son. Don’t sleep on ASAP.”
Despite working with a legendary, award-winning actor like Denzel, Spike says Rocky wasn’t at all fazed.
“I’ve done five films with Denzel and a lot of times when he’s in a scene with somebody, they just get overwhelmed because he’s one of the world’s greatest living actors today,” he said. “But ASAP wasn’t having that. Toe to toe. I mean, they were going at it.”
Rocky plays Yung Felon in Highest 2 Lowest, Spike’s remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 Japanese film High and Low,according to Variety. He’s an aspiring rapper trying to get noticed by Washington’s character, who Deadline describes as “a titan music mogul, widely known as having the ‘best ears in the business.’”
The film arrives in theaters Aug. 15 and on Apple TV+ on Sept. 5.
Jimmy Kimmel appears on his show, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ (Randy Holmes/Disney)
Broadcast groups Nexstar and Sinclair have announced they are ending their preemptions of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The broadcast groups, which own a combined total of around 60 ABC affiliate stations, according to their websites, both announced Friday afternoon that the show will return to airwaves on the affiliate stations starting Friday evening.
In a statement, Sinclair said, “Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience.”
It added, “We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming.”
The company added that during the preemption, it “received thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives.”
“We have also witnessed troubling acts of violence, including the despicable incident of a shooting at an ABC affiliate station in Sacramento,” Sinclair continued, saying “these events underscore why responsible broadcasting matters and why respectful dialogue between differing voices remains so important.”
The company said it proposed suggestions to ABC moving forward, including “measures to strengthen accountability, viewer feedback, and community dialogue, including a network-wide independent ombudsman.”
According to the statement, ABC has yet to adopt the measures. Sinclair said it believes “such measures could strengthen trust and accountability.”
It added, “While we understand that not everyone will agree with our decisions about programming, it is simply inconsistent to champion free speech while demanding that broadcasters air specific content.”
Nexstar released a statement on Friday, announcing the return of Kimmel’s show to its airwaves and saying the company “remains committed to protecting the First Amendment while producing and airing local and national news that is fact-based and unbiased and, above all, broadcasting content that is in the best interest of the communities we serve.”
The statement continued, “We stand apart from cable television, monolithic streaming services, and national networks in our commitment — and obligation — to be stewards of the public airwaves and to protect and reflect the specific sensibilities of our communities.”
The broadcaster added that its “commitment to those principles has guided our decisions throughout this process, independent of any external influence from government agencies or individuals.”
The Walt Disney Co., the parent company of ABC, previously announced Kimmel would return to its airwaves on Tuesday evening after his late-night show was preempted by the network for nearly a week.
After that announcement, Sinclair and Nexstar each released statements of their own, saying then that they would continue to preempt the show.
“Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” Sinclair stated at the time.
In a separate statement at the time, Nexstar said, “We made a decision last week to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse. We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”
It added, “In the meantime, we note that ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ will be available nationwide on multiple Disney-owned streaming products, while our stations will focus on continuing to produce local news and other programming relevant to their respective markets.”
In a more than 15-minute monologue at the top of his show on Tuesday, Kimmel gave an impassioned defense of free speech, needled the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and President Donald Trump, and explained his previous comments about the response to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
ABC first announced that Kimmel’s show would be preempted “indefinitely” on Sept. 17, following Kimmel’s comments regarding Kirk’s death.
Before the network’s decision to preempt the show was announced last week, FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested that Kimmel should be suspended over the comments.
“There’s calls for Kimmel to be fired. I think, you know, you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this and again, you know, the FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at,” Carr said on a podcast with conservative commentator Benny Johnson at that time.
Unions that represent entertainment professionals and TV writers condemned the move.
