Meryl Streep is entering ‘Building’
Q: What was the reason that the supporting actor and actress categories for television were presented together at the Critics Choice Awards? – Amanda Rowe, via email
Q: Is it true that Meryl Streep is joining “Only Murders in the Building”? – Jan Holly, Sacramento, Calif.
A: It is. The legendary actress will reunite with Steve Martin – with whom she worked in the 2009 movie “It’s Complicated” – when she becomes a cast member for Season 3 of the Hulu comedy-mystery series. Her role hadn’t been detailed as of this writing, but it’s known that Paul Rudd also will be in the new round, reprising his part from the Season 2 finale as a Broadway actor. Martin Short and Selena Gomez will be back as well, but also murky is when exactly Season 3 of the show will start running. It’s in production now, and the debut traditionally has been in the summer – August 2021 for the first season, and June last year – so it’s entirely possible that the same pattern could continue.
A: We’d imagine it was an attempt to conserve time, though the CW telecast had three hours to play with. As viewers saw, it could take some time for a winner to negotiate crossing the ballroom at Los Angeles’ Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel to get to the stage, depending on where the
person was seated. (Trust us, we know: We’ve been in that spacious room.)
The concept of having two winners at once seemed to work fairly well, with each taking his or her turn courteously, and no one “stepping” on anyone else to get there first. We found Henry Winkler (who won for HBO’S “Barry”) and Sheryl Lee Ralph (ABC’S “Abbott Elementary”) to be a particularly good example of that. There’s no guarantee that approach will continue to be used in the future, but it was interesting to see how it went this year. Send questions of general interest via email to tvpipeline@gracenote.com. Writers must include their names, cities and states. Personal replies cannot be
sent.