Debora Cahn received her first Emmy nomination 20 years ago as a producer on The West Wing. Now, the TV vet is up for best drama for her own show, the political thriller The Diplomat, for the second straight year — while also receiving her first-ever writing nod.
Cahn discusses with THR her partnership with star Rufus Sewell and writing the “terrifying” finale.
The show has grown in Emmy nominations over each of its three seasons. What do you make of that from your own creative perspective of evolving the show?
There’s always the hope that a show can continue to thrive past all of your first-grade ideas, which you lay out in the first season. All of the low-hanging fruit storywise goes into those first few episodes. Then it turns into this new thing that is partly a show that I had in my mind and partly the product of a bunch of people working on this thing together — the relationship that Keri [Russell] and Rufus built out of Kate and Hal and turned into this marriage that has really drawn people in and served as the spine of the series. The hope is always that you haven’t used up all your good tricks and that you have a deeper well than you knew yourself going in. That’s a little bit of a leap of faith. It’s really great when it feels like your audience is responding to that reach.
Rufus got his first nomination for the show, and it feels appropriate since Hal takes more center stage this season opposite Kate. What is it like writing for him?
He has been, from the beginning, this stellar dance partner who is in so many ways responsible for everything that that relationship is. There are a lot of people who really connect with Kate as a character, and see themselves in that character, and there is a tremendous amount of love for Hal and connection with Hal. I sense from the audience that Hal is just giving them a unique ride. He’s fucking great.
You end the season with Kate realizing Hal’s subtle, brutal betrayal. How did you get there?
When you’ve achieved a finale by blowing a bunch of people up and then you’ve achieved a finale by having a president killed, having an interesting shift in one character’s attitude toward another character … is the most terrifying finale to write. (Laughs.) It was intimidating to try and figure out how you make a finale out of a really subtle shift in perspective that you’re not sure is real. It was a relief that people were willing to watch.
You’re nominated for writing the episode “Amagansett” with Peter Ackerman, which pits the relationship between Kate and Hal against that of the president and first gentleman, Grace (Allison Janney) and Todd (Bradley Whitford). How did that parallel develop?
It certainly was an experiment in turning the Grace character into a piece of another marriage where the marriage itself was going to be a character in the way that Kate and Hal’s was. We didn’t know that it was actually going to work, but was there a ton of suspense? No: It’s Allison and Brad. We were excited to see them build a different kind of way to work together after they had decades ago. We were all a little bit nervous that we were writing into a piece of the past, but they so elegantly and joyfully have created this whole new thing with two new characters that are just such a blast to watch. Every time that epic foursome is onstage together, the whole crew leans in. It’s just without question a career highlight for me, seeing the four of them work together. Boy, does game recognize game.
This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Lucy Davis, the actress who starred in the original British version of The Office, has revealed she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.
The actress shared a post on Instagram explaining that she initially felt a lump that “wasn’t a ‘lump’ as such; rather a kind of hard spot. Really tiny. I almost didn’t bother getting it checked,” urging others to attend regular checkups. Davis also said that her cancer is “incurable.”
“A year and a half ago I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Breast Cancer, which has metastasized to my bones,” she wrote. “Specifically to my spine, right hip, and my ribs. The cancer is incurable, and too late for chemo.”
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Davis shared the extent of her pain, noting that it “can really be something else.” She added, “Standing and walking for too long a time can be hard, and I need to use a wheelchair sometimes (so if you see me toddling around in one, feel free to give me a push!).”
Davis starred in the original Office throughout its three-season run as Dawn Tinsley, a receptionist at the Wernham Hogg paper merchant company. Her character formed a romance with Martin Freeman’s Tim Canterbury; Davis’ Dawn was the model for Jenna Fischer’s Pam Beesly.
“As of now, I’m trying to live out whatever might be left of my life in as fun a way as I possibly can,” Davis wrote. “I always like to find the teachable moments in anything negative that happens. And cancer has not disappointed in that regard; there’s a lot I have learned from it, and I’m grateful for that.”
“The Daily Show” released a slew of never-before-seen audition tapes from past and present correspondents in a 10-minute compilation posted to YouTube.
The video, honoring the satirical news program’s 30th anniversary, features audition tapes from all five current rotating hosts, many of whom are seen in the footage bantering with either Jon Stewart or Trevor Noah, depending on when they first joined the show.
Some of the auditions are presented like correspondent segments, with Jordan Klepper, for example, wearing a suit and riffing with Stewart in front of a green screen showing Washington, D.C. Others are more casual, with Desi Lydic seemingly talking to a producer reading a script off-screen.
A fresh-faced John Oliver, who joined “The Daily Show” in 2006, is seen joking around with Stewart before the audition starts. “Now, if you do come work for us, you know you can’t use the name John,” Stewart tells Oliver, who quips back, “That’s fine. I’m prepared for that. I was going to take ‘Rico.’”
The auditions also include Samantha Bee, who served as a correspondent from 2003 to 2015 before leaving to host her own show, “Full Frontal,” and Michael Che, who was on “The Daily Show” for three months before departing for “Saturday Night Live.”
Jessica Williams, Roy Wood Jr., Rob Riggle, Jason Jones and Wyatt Cenac are also featured. And, in 2002, Ed Helms and Rob Corddry are seen performing the same bit, about changes being made to Winter Olympic sports.
Camp Rock 3 sees the brothers’ band Connect 3 returning to the camp to look for a new opening act for their tour. This means a whole new cast of campers — led by Malachi Barton and Liamani Segura — are introduced, along with a cameo appearance from fellow O.G. star Demi Lovato (who also serves as an EP).
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s L.A. premiere on Monday, Joe Jonas said that in shooting scenes with Lovato, they “both were looking at these new campers kind of pinching ourselves like wow, this is a pretty wild full circle moment. We’ve all lived so much life and to be where we are today and to create something like this, Camp Rock 3, as producers, wearing the producer hat, I think we were like, ‘This is kind of wild.’”
Walking the carpet alongside Nick Jonas and Kevin Jonas, Joe also weighed in on getting to know the next generation of Disney stars, and how different it is now than when the brothers were first getting famous.
“I don’t envy anybody that’s doing this now, there’s probably a lot more scrutiny,” Joe noted. “Things happen a lot faster, and with that you also have an opportunity to kind of explain yourself quicker; when we were starting, we didn’t have a lot of options — just kind of hope that the article isn’t about you. Now you can at least go on your TikTok and say, ‘Hey guys, I didn’t say that’ or whatever it is.”
Joe Jonas also emphasized that there are more resources now to speak to professionals and get support from the studio, and “we also wanted to make sure that we were running a safe space on set. That was one of our priorities when we signed up to do this, we were like, ‘We want these kids to feel comfortable,’ because ultimately we remember what it was like and it can be a lot of pressure. They’re about to be shot out of a cannon into stardom, so we wish them the best and we hope they’re surrounded by love and care.”
Lovato said she also offered the new stars plenty of advice, telling them that “this is going to be a whirlwind and make sure to take breaks if you need them; it’s so important to protect your mental health, and to soak it up and to have fun. That’s the most important part.”
The pop star explained that returning to Camp Rock almost two decades after the sequel was “really healing for me,” as “Camp Rock has meant so much to so many people and it’s meant so much to me; this was the beginning of my journey in this industry and [my character] Mitchie will always have a huge, special place in my heart.”
Camp Rock 3 premieres Thursday on Disney Channel and the next day on Disney+.
Julie Andrews recently told InStyle magazine that she is not returning for “The Princess Diaries 3” opposite Anne Hathaway. The 90-year-old icon turned down the offer to reprise her role of Queen Clarisse in the movie, which will serve as a long-awaited sequel to 2001’s “The Princess Diaries” and 2004’s “Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.”
“I think I probably passed… I think I’m retired, really, would be about the best description for that,” Andrews said about her decision not to return. “[The film’s creative team] asked me all last year if I would be keen to do it. It was very very hard to say ‘no,’ but I did because I thought I had a wonderful ride, and this one I felt would flourish very well and wouldn’t need Granny going in there at my age.”
Andrews has not acted on screen in years, although she has taken various voice roles over the last decade in movies such as “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” “The King’s Daughter” and “Aquaman,” plus television series like “Bridgerton.” She told InStyle that she enjoys narrating the blockbuster Netflix series as Lady Whistledown since she can record her lines from home. Andrews added: “I do it mostly to keep my brain alive.”
Varietyconfirmed in November 2022 that Disney was developing a third installment in “The Princess Diaries” franchise with screenwriter Aadrita Mukerji (“Reacher,” “Supergirl”). Andrews told Access Hollywood a month later that she doubted she’d be back.
“I think we know that it’s probably not going to be possible,” she said at the time. “It was talked about very shortly after [“Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement”] came out, but it’s now how many years since then? And I am that much older and Annie the princess, our queen, is so much older. And I am not sure whether it would float or run.”
Before the third installment was officially put in development at Disney, Hathaway told Entertainment Tonight that she would be keen to bring Andrews back. She added: “We would go to where she was and put a green screen behind her and just make it happen.”
But Andrews is not returning after all. Adele Lim (“Crazy Rich Asians,” “Raya and the Last Dragon”) signed on to direct “The Princess Diaries 3” in 2024. Hathaway will reprise her role as Mia Thermopolis, now Queen of Genovia, in the threequel. She said during an interview on SiriusXM’s “Radio Andy” earlier this year the script for the new movie recently went through a breakthrough.
“I think we are moving in the right direction,” she said at the time. “The script that we were working on — we kind of had to start over with this new direction, which is not the update I think anybody wants, but we all feel really good that this is gonna be the one.”
Lim told Variety in May that the shooting and production schedule were still being worked out for “The Princess Diaries 3.’ A release date has yet to be announced.
The original “Princess Diaries,” based on the novel by Meg Cabot, was released in 2001 and was directed by the late Garry Marshall. Hathaway stars as an awkward American teenager who learns she’s the heir to the throne of the European kingdom of Genovia. Despite mixed reviews, the family film became a box office hit with $165 million in global ticket sales. The first sequel opened in 2004 and introduced the world to Chris Pine. It was equally successful in theaters with $134 million worldwide.
“The Last House,” a new thriller film starring Greta Lee and Wagner Moura, debuted with 27.5 million views in its first three days of streaming on Netflix.
With that total, the movie easily sailed to the top of Netflix’s viewership rankings for the week of Aug. 3-9, not only as the No. 1 English-language film but as the most-watched title overall. Right behind it was “72 Hours,” Kevin Hart’s new comedy film that hit 11.1 million views in its third week on the chart. The next two spots on the English-language films list went to “Spider-Man: Far from Home” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which no doubt received a boost from the theatrical release of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” on July 31.
On the TV side, “The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare” was the No. 1 title for the second week in a row, hitting 10.6 million views after debuting with 18.2 million views the week before. Season 3 of “My Life With the Walter Boys” debuted right behind it with 9 million views in its first four days. In third place for the second week in a row was “The Bombing of Pan Am 103.”
A remake of Possession is ready to take over theaters.
Paramount Pictures has set a wide theatrical release for filmmaker Parker Finn‘s reimagining of the 1981 supernatural thriller feature on June 11, 2027. Callum Turner, Margaret Qualley, Diego Calva, Madeline Brewer, Emory Cohen, Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Paul Dano round out the cast.
Finn (Smile) helms Possession from his own script that is based on writer-director Andrzej Żuławski’s original film. Producers for the new movie include Finn and Jonathan Fass for Bad Feeling, alongside Roy Lee and Andrew Childs for Vertigo. Robert Pattinson also produces.
Also set for theatrical release on that same weekend is Universal’s live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon 2.
Starring Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill, the 1981 Possession centered on a woman going through a divorce who begins exhibiting bizarre behavior. A meditation on marriage, the international co-production between France and Germany was not a major hit but developed a cult following.
Finn made his feature directorial debut with 2022’s Smile, a breakout horror hit for Paramount that grossed $217 million globally on a $17 million budget. He also helmed the 2024 sequel.
Turner currently stars opposite Monica Barbaro in Will Gluck’s romantic comedy One Night Only, which hit theaters over the weekend from Universal. Qualley stars alongside Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin in Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars, which 20th Century is set to release theatrically later this month.
Bailey Taylor, one of the newest recurring cast members on Bravo’s Summer House, has signed with Gersh for representation in all areas.
Outside of Summer House, Taylor is a content creator behind the It Girl series, which includes an online video series, the Substack The It Girl Guide and the iHeartRadio podcast It Girl Podcast, where recent guests range from Dieux Skin founder Charlotte Palermino to Love Island alums.
Taylor joined the Bravo series in its latest season, which later exploded into scandal and earned its first Emmy nomination in the outstanding unstructured reality program category. The season, the tenth for the long-running show, earned series ratings highs, with a record-breaking 2.2 million viewers per episode.
“We had no idea where it was going,” executive producer Steven Weinstock recently told The Hollywood Reporter. “We had to sit and look at the story arcs of the individuals that were involved and we had to consider ways in which we could bring that story to the audience that really made sense and didn’t cheat them out of the real drama of the story.”
Lucy Davis, best known for playing receptionist Dawn Tinsley in the original U.K. edition of “The Office,” has revealed that she has terminal cancer.
Writing on Instagram, Davis said she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer a year and a half ago after discovering a lump on her breast. The cancer had “metastasized to my bones,” she said, specifically her spine, right hip, and ribs, and was “incurable, and too late for chemo.”
“As of now, I’m trying to live out whatever might be left of my life in as fun a way as I possibly can. I always like to find the teachable moments in anything negative that happens. And cancer has not disappointed in that regard; there’s a lot I have learned from it, and I’m grateful for that,” she wrote.
“The thing that has been most vital to me is humour. I asked my friends and family to make fun of me as much as possible (which they’re really good at), and most importantly of all to not treat me like a sick person. There’s nothing that will make you feel more unwell than being treated as if you’re unwell.”
Davis, who also appeared in cult British comedy “Sean of the Dead” and later 2017’s “Wonder Woman” added: “I’m not scared of whatever comes next. I’m at peace with it.”
As the under-appreciated Wernham Hogg receptionist Dawn in “The Office,” Davis — the daughter of British comedian Jasper Carrot — became a fan favourite on the show, particularly for her slow-burn relationship with Martin Freeman’s Tim. After two seasons of flirting and near-misses, the two wound up having a happy ending together in the Christmas special finale. Dawn would later become the basis for Jenna Fischer’s Pam Beesly in the U.S. version.
“I still would like to keep working. I’m perfectly able to do so, and acting is one of the biggest joys in my life,” Davis added in her Instagram post. “For those of you on a similar journey to mine, I do wish you well. Cancer asks a lot from us, physically and mentally. And we all get to do it however we choose.”
If Frank Miller seems everywhere this summer, it may be because he has been everywhere this summer. The comic book legend known for Dark Knight Returns and Sin City has been on a multi-hemisphere, multi-city book tour for his memoir/creative manifesto, Push the Wall: My Life, Writing, Drawing, and the Art of Storytelling, sitting down in front of audiences for talks with collaborators Zack Snyder and Robert Rodriguez and fellow authors Scott Snyder and Joe Hill.
The book, which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, debuted in the top 15 on the New York Times best seller list and Miller has no plans on stopping his book tour just yet.
Miller was also at San Diego Comic-Con and then showed up to the premiere of Spider-Man: Brand New Day in Los Angeles. The movie features his ninja clan creation The Hand as one of Spidey’s antagonists.
“It was a hoot; they did a lot of clever stuff with it,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter of the movie. Regarding the Hand sequences in the movie, he adds, “they clearly had seen a lot of the Hong Kong movies that I’d seen over the years.”
Miller has also been catching up on his moviegoing, and had seen Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which he calls “extravagant.” The creator behind Spartan story 300 knows his way around an ancient Greek myth or two (he can easily slip into expounding on Corinthian style helmets and their influence on Sparta) and says the movie “really did an awful lot right.”
Tuesday sees the wide digital release of Frank Miller: American Genius, the documentary made by his creative partner Silenn Thomas, which doesn’t just look at his career and work but, as he puts it, delves into “this wonderful subculture that we all share of comic book and how it celebrates itself all over the planet.”
But this is no farewell tour. The 69-year old Miller no plans on slowing down and is pushing ahead on a new Sin City book as well as a few others. “I feel like I’m just now freely exploring where I wanna take this medium. There’s no reason not to keep going,” he says.
Amid his movie watching and globe-trotting, Miller hopped on the phone with THR to talk about the influence of mentor Neal Adams and Jim Shooter, why he didn’t leave (but still left) Marvel in the 1980s, and why he’s returning to Dark Horse for his latest book, Invasive Species.
Your book is part memoir and part lessons in creativity. Why do it this way?
I got my career started by calling up Neal Adams’ office and getting a meeting with him. Neal Adams was the premier artist in comics at the time, and his art had a great effect on me as a child. And he was listed in the phone book. And I got to meet him that day, an hour after I called. And he looked over my drawings and told me they were terrible and sent me off. I redid them and I saw him again and again and again. And he was always a harsh critic, but every time he taught me more and more, sometimes doing drawings over them. And, and as the months went by, he got me my first job and he continued to be a sensei and an advisor to me on things professional and on how to deal with being an artist in the world and many other things. Years passed and I became successful. And one time, Neal and I were at a comic book convention and I just took him aside and I just said, “Neal, how do I thank you for what you’ve done for me? You’ve never asked me for anything.” And he said, “Oh, there’s only one thing you can do. Do the same thing for the next guy.” Well, this book really is my attempt to do the same thing for the next guy. And to commit to paper my experiences, my observations and, and the lessons learned in making comic books.
Speaking of mentors, Jim Shooter (the wonderkid who became Marvel’s polarizing editor-in-chief through the 1980s) was also one. Do you remember the first time you met him?
My first memorable encounter with Jim was at the Marvel offices. I basically came in and was sort of selling my services. I’d gotten some little job, doing some little three-pager of something like Doc Sampson and that had gotten his attention enough to want to keep me around. And, he gave me his lecture on storytelling. Everything was always storytelling with Jim because he felt comics had really lost track of their basic mission, which was to enchant and compel young readers with gripping stories.
He came in on a fairly loose pack of people who were all over the map creatively. And he worked to pull it all together into a more cohesive unit.
There were a lot of writer-editors and little fiefdoms at the time.
Right. He focused more than ever on the concept of a Marvel universe.
How did you guys work together?
He was eager to change things and I was eager to learn. And we both had strong opinions. I think one of the reasons we got along was we were both up for a good argument. Arguments can be a very creative thing and a very good thing.
You left Marvel in a pretty high profile fashion twice. And I say high profile because your profile was very high and you were creatively cresting, twice with Daredevil. What caused you to leave that first time?
Well, I didn’t leave anybody. I chose to take a project to another publisher who was more amenable to kind of freedom I wanted to do it with. The message underneath all this was that it was important to demonstrate that talent is portable. Let me say that. When a publisher is releasing your work, that does not mean you’re saying an oath of allegiance to a military operation. It’s not a marriage.
Well, you came back, proceeded to do Born Again, then left again.
No, no. I proceeded to do work that was not for Marvel Comics. (Laughs.) We can’t keep on referring to me coming and going. I didn’t come and go. I stayed exactly where I am. I didn’t move where I lived. Nothing like that.
In any case, it was teased at the time that after Born Again there would be a Daredevil story with Walter Simonson.
It’s taken us an awful long time to get that done, I’ll admit to you. (Laughs.)
Is that ever going to happen?
Why not?
Uh, speaking of stories that never happened, what happened with the Doctor Strange run you were supposed to have with writer Roger Stern?
On that one, I really had come to realize that I was just dying to write my own material. And, I couldn’t wait anymore. I had to start writing and drawing my own comics and, you know, start being a cartoonist rather than just an illustrator.
Miller meeting director Destin Daniel Cretton at the premiere of Spider-Man:Brand New Day.
Yvonne Bennett
In the ’80s, with Dark Knight and Batman: Year One, you were elevated to art icon. You weren’t just comic book famous, you were art world famous. How did you handle that kind of fame?
As well and as poorly as anybody. (Laughs.) I’m not go into the long and gory biography of my life, but it does create all kinds of wonderful highs and dismal lows to go through that sort of thing. It transforms you.
The time of Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen and Maus is looked at like a revolutionary era at this point where comics were reinvented. How healthy is the comic art form now? Is the wall still being pushed?
Sure it is. I mean, it’s easy to look back on that time and say, “Wow, what a sunburst. That changed everything.” But in fact, that was a pretty small amount of work that we’re talking about that caused a big splash and that’s what people remember at the time. Because people tend to remember the stuff that really made a splash when they think back on a given period. We certainly have a pretty wildly diverse amount of stuff coming out now.
What do you like to read or what artist are you following?
I tend to hunt down the people whose work I like so I can work with them. I’m really, really excited by Peach Momoko’s work.
This year, there was upheaval at Dark Horse Entertainment, the home of your Sin City books. But you announced a new book that you’re writing, Invasive Species, with them. How did you decide to stay at Dark Horse for the new book and not take it elsewhere?
Well, the relationship was a good and strong one, and it served us all very well. I met with the people there. The philosophies of the company seemed to be close enough to what I’d always known them to be, and they certainly had the infrastructure to do a good job at it.
Going back to Sin City, the only thing happening now is the Western that is being drawn by Milo Manara, right?
Right now, yeah, but I’ve got a dozen ideas for new ones. Sin City is my life’s work, more than anything. Milo is well along. I just gotta teach him who to draw girls. (Laughs.)
Last question: What’s been your favorite character to write and draw after all this time?
I fall in love with each of them. I really do. I mean, you have kids?
