PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — A roundup of news Friday from the Television Critics Association winter meeting, at which TV networks and streaming services are presenting details on upcoming programs:
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HOPKINS BACK AS KING LEAR — SORT OF
Unlike many actors of his generation, Anthony Hopkins says he had an uneasy relationship with the work of William Shakespeare.
His background — he grew up wanting to be a musician, not an actor — had something to do with it. But Hopkins, 78, admitted Friday it was fear he wasn’t up to the material that led him to Hollywood and movie-making largely fulltime after playing King Lear on the British stage in 1986.
“Now, after all these years, I know how to do it,” Hopkins said.
He returned to King Lear, in a way. Hopkins is in the movie version of “The Dresser,” a play adaptation in which he portrays an old actor who performs the Shakespeare role in wartime England. Ian McKellen is his dresser, the backstage friend who gets him ready for each performance. “The Dresser” has already been shown on the BBC and will appear on the Starz network this summer.
Hopkins said he appreciated the character and the need of actors to act.
“Did I ever want to quit?” he asked. “Yes, several times. Every day I think about quitting but they come up and offer me a job and I say, ‘OK.’ We are mad. We want to be loved. We want more, more.”
McKellen, who had never shared a stage or screen with Hopkins before this project, said he’s never thought of quitting.
“You don’t have to stop,” he said. “There will always be a part for an old geezer in the corner of the stage.”
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RILEY KEOUGH JUGGLES TWO LIVES IN NEW SHOW
Riley Keough is starring in a new TV show she really wouldn’t want her grandfather to have seen.
The 26-year-old actress plays a law student and law firm intern who gets drawn into the world of women who provide emotional and sexual relationships at a high price.
“The Girlfriend Experience” debuts April 10 on Starz.
Keough is the daughter of singer Lisa Marie Presley and the granddaughter of the late Elvis Presley, who would have turned 81 on Friday.
“My mother has seen the show. She likes it. She’s pretty progressive. She understands art,” Keough told a gathering of TV critics. “My grandfather, I have no idea because I never met him. I really don’t want to show men in my family the show, to be honest.”
The 13-episode series shares a title with the 2009 movie directed by Steven Soderbergh, who met Keough when she appeared in his movie “Magic Mike.”
“I had a sense I was kind of scratching the surface of her capabilities,” he said.
Keough’s character juggles two different lives and quickly gets drawn into the GFE world, attracted to the rush of control and intimacy.
“The one thing I was having a hard time understanding was being able to have sex with no emotional connection,” she said. “I started to understand that the more sex scenes I did, how it could just be a physical thing.”
The series will debut at the Sundance Film Festival later this month.
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AP Television Writer David Bauder and Beth Harris contributed to this report.
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