Q&A Hollywood
Q: I was just watching the Hugh Grant movie “The Rewrite,” and I'm wondering who played Prof. Weldon. She looks so familiar.
A: The stern and serious professor, with whom Hugh Grant's less-serious character immediately clashes, is a pretty standard rom-com character. She's the kind of character who really could have been played by the usual capable but unremarkable actor that normally gets that sort of role. But instead they picked Allison Janney, and the film is much better for it.
Janney was, of course, C.J. on “The West Wing,” the long-running TV role she'll always be remembered for. But she's also an Oscar-winning (for 2017's “I, Tonya”) bigscreen actress and a Tonynominated Broadway star. Along with her Oscar-winning role, she's also appeared in a huge number of prestigious films, including 2002's “The Hours,” 2011's “The Help” and 1999's “American Beauty,” not to mention currently starring in the CBS sitcom “Mom.”
Yet even with all that gravitas, she's always made time for lighter comedies, such as 2014's “The Rewrite.”
That said, “The Rewrite” actually had a surprisingly stacked cast — two more of the actors are also Oscar winners (though, to be fair, only one of them had the statue prior to signing on for the film).
One of those winners is leading lady Marisa Tomei, who won her Oscar more than a decade earlier for 1992's “My Cousin Vinny.”
The other is the alwaysbusy J.K. Simmons, who, in the same year he appeared in “The Rewrite,” also appeared in “Whiplash” (2014), winning an Oscar for it a few months later.
These strong casting choices paid off. The Chicago Tribune said the film “shows how sharp lines and strong supporting performances can elevate the ordinary to something you tell friends to add to the middle of their Netflix queue.”
Q: I remember watching reruns of “Are You Being Served?” and “Keeping Up Appearances” together, late at night, when I was younger.Why did they air together? Were they related somehow?
A: Aside from being two of the most successful sitcoms to come out of Great Britain, the only direct link between “Are You Being Served?” and “Keeping Up Appearances” is that they were both produced by and aired (originally) on the BBC. However, that's true of a huge percentage of British shows —particularly back in the `80s and `90s, when these shows were being made — and it's especially true of the British shows that have been made available on TV over here.
The reruns you're referring to aired on PBS, which, as a publicly funded broadcaster, is the U.S.'s counterpart to the BBC. PBS has a long tradition of buying BBC shows to air on this side of the pond as the shared language and the fact that the BBC has a lot more money to spend on programming make it a natural partnership.
They also, of course, have the simple fact of their nationality in common. Over there, these were two fairly different shows that aired years apart from one another, but in North America they made sense as a one-hour block because they were British shows about British people doing British things, and that gave them far more in common with each other than with the rest of the North American TV programming airing alongside them.
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