Mourning Andre Braugher, parsing the great Netflix data dump, and more of this week’s top entertainment stories

R.I.P. Andre Braugher, star of Homicide: Life On The Street and Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Andre Braugher, the masterful actor who could bring just as hard an edge to drama as he could an uplifting warmth to comedy, has died. That’s according to Deadline, which says the Homicide and Brooklyn Nine-Nine star passed away after a “brief illness.” He was 61. – Sam Barsanti Read More

Netflix released actual viewership data, and apparently everybody watched The Night Agent

Netflix has historically been frustratingly cagey about how many people are actually watching its various shows and movies, choosing instead to insist that things are popular without backing it up with any real numbers—or numbers based on ridiculous metrics that don’t really tell you anything, like “minutes viewed,” which is not how the average person would measure the popularity of… anything. Maybe a painting? But that’s all irrelevant now, possibly thanks to the fact that greater transparency from streamers is one of the things the Writers Guild wanted while on strike, because Netflix has just a massive list of actual viewership data that it’s calling the “What We Watched” report. – Sam Barsanti Read More

David Hyde Pierce just didn’t feel like doing more Frasier, alright?

Against all odds, Paramount+’s Frasier reboot is apparently pretty good (we’ll get around to it someday), but even with Kelsey Grammer’s salad-tossing and egg-scrambling Dr. Crane living in a new town with some young new friends, there’s still a little sting from the lack of David Hyde Pierce’s Niles Crane—a presence so crucial to the original series that Pierce made a meta cameo on The Simpsons as the brother of Grammer’s Sideshow Bob. And now, while promoting his role in the Stephen Sondheim/David Ives musical Here We Are, Pierce has opened up a bit about not appearing in the new Frasier. – Sam Barsanti Read More

Jennifer Aniston recalls her final exchange with Matthew Perry: “He was happy. He was healthy.”

It’s been about six weeks since the death of Matthew Perry, and those who knew and worked closely with him are gradually opening up about their memories with the late actor. The cast of Friends quickly put out a joint statement days after his death, while the individual actors followed with their own social media posts in the following weeks. Now, in a joint interview with her Morning Show costar Reese Witherspoon for Variety, Jennifer Aniston shared some of her final memories with her departed friend. – Drew Gillis Read More

Seth Meyers risks ruining his home life by day drinking with Dua Lipa

The thing that makes Late Night With Seth Meyers’ “Day Drinking” segment so enjoyable is that there is an element of danger. These people are legitimately getting very drunk on camera; Lorde confessed to needing an IV drip after filming it. And though the content is obviously edited to be suitable for television, Meyers’ loose-lipped goofiness as he gets progressively more wasted is part of the appeal. But the demands of Day Drinking do take a toll: “It’s been a year since the last one! (And will probably need to be two before the next),” Meyers wrote on Twitter presenting the latest edition, this time with pop star Dua Lipa. – Mary Kate Carr Read More

The biggest snubs and surprises from the 2024 Golden Globe nominations

The Golden Globes are back, and while it’s too soon to say whether they’re better, the slate of nominations that Cedric The Entertainer and Wilmer Valderrama announced Monday morning were genuinely promising. On a macro level, the Globes did a generally good job of highlighting both non-American, non-English-language films across general categories and recognizing the massive pop culture moments of the year (outside of the silly new Outstanding Cinematic and Box Office Achievement category, too!). – Drew Gillis Read More

Adam Driver says Kylo Ren’s Star Wars arc wasn’t what he signed up for

Will we ever be finished re-litigating the Star Wars sequel trilogy? From The Last Jedi on, the movies have been a black hole of discourse that is near-inescapable if you have even a casual interest in the franchise. 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker was such a rocky ending that it seems to have impeded Lucasfilm’s theatrical development entirely. (At least, they haven’t been able to get a film into production since.) And so, we come back to the same question again and again: what went wrong? Well, Adam Driver might have the answer—or an answer, anyway. – Mary Kate Carr Read More

Jonathan Majors recording calling himself “a great man” and other evidence unsealed amid trial

The prosecution rested its case against Jonathan Majors on Wednesday, and Judge Michael Gaffey approved the release of evidence that had previously been shared with the jury. That included surveillance and body cam footage in connection to the March 25 incident which led to Majors being charged with assault and aggravated harassment, as well as text messages and audio of other exchanges between Majors and his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. Those exchanges were unsealed after Judge Gaffey ruled that the defense had opened the door to it with their cross-examination of Jabbari, per Deadline. – Mary Kate Carr Read More

Jamie Kennedy talks Scream and working with Baz Luhrmann

Kennedy also thinks Son Of The Mask is an underrated movie

Hugh Grant continues to hate on CGI in the most charmingly grumpy way possible

The actor has once again voiced his displeasure of playing a CGI Oompa Loompa in Wonka