Want to know the status of a particular movie, TV show, or band? Wondering what a certain actress is up to these days? Send your entertainment-related questions to [email protected] – with your first name, city and country – and we’ll try to answer as many as we can.
Question: I just caught the tail end of Kissing Jessica Stein on TV today and I was wondering if you could tell me what writers/co-stars Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt are up to these days? I love that movie and thought they both did brilliant jobs both writing and acting in it!
ÔÇò Kelcie, Bellingham, WA Answer: Jennifer Westfeldt has worked steadily following the success of Kissing Jessica Stein. Just last year she had a multi-episode arc as a patient on Grey’s Anatomy, and this fall she’ll join the cast of 24 as journalist Meredith Reed. Also currently in development for Westfeldt is Dusty and the Big Bad World, a play she wrote and is bringing to the big screen. In the film, “The Christian right swoops down on a TV show that has afforded an 11-year-old girl the opportunity to appear on the program with her brother and two gay dads.”Westfeldt is set to star in it as well.
Westfeldt’s Jessica Stein co-star Heather Juergensen has kept a slightly lower profile. In 2003 she appeared in Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, and in The Hammer in 2007. She also wrote and directed a short film, The Suzy Prophecy (2007) about a woman who loses her job and finds “unexpected redemption” as a data entry operator.
According to her official website, Juergensen is now working on a script for a “sports comedy set in the world of girls’ track and shot.” Savvy is the woman who knows how to play to her loyal lesbian fans.
Question: I found a stack of old CDs the other day from my college years and it included a lot of Natalie Merchant. I feel like her music was the soundtrack to all of my Women’s Studies classes! Is she still putting out music? She’s not gay, right?
ÔÇò Patty
Answer: Nope, Merchant isn’t gay. She’s married to Daniel de la Calle and has a daughter. But being the outspoken human rights advocate that she is, I’m sure she’d be thrilled to hear about providing background music for your forays in feminism!In 2003 (and after 18 years), Merchant left Elektra Records and independently released an album of traditional and contemporary folk music, The House Carpenter’s Daughter, on her own label (Myth America Records). That was her last big solo release, but she’s been busy with other things.
Some of those things include serving as a member of the New York State Council on the Arts, contributing vocals to David Byrne’s album Here Lies Love (about the life of Imelda Marcos), performing at and judging the Poetry Out Loud: Recitation Contest National Finals in April 2009, and receiving an Honorary Doctorate Degree (in Music) from New Paltz University this past May.
For the last five years she’s been researching, writing and recording a collection of songs adapted from classic and contemporary poems. On her official website, Merchant said of the upcoming album:
I’ve never had such a massive amount of material to draw from before, I’ve been writing continuously for the past seven years. I’ve wanted to make another album but knew that it’s a full-immersion process and I didn’t want to sacrifice the time and attention that my child deserved. Now that she is older the time feels right.Some of the people she’s collaborating with include Wynton Marsalis, Medeski Martin & Wood, Katell Keineg and the musical lesbian (and romantic) duo, The Ditty Bops (Abby DeWald and Amanda Barrett). The album is slated for release in either Fall of 2009 or Spring of 2010. In the meantime, you can see Merchant perform two benefit concerts on Sunday, Sept. 27, at the 1848 Shaker Meeting Hall in Colonie, with proceeds going to the historic site’s operator, the Shaker Heritage Society.I’ve met so many talented musicians over the years and have wanted to play music with them and still even more I’ve admired from a distance and wanted to approach about collaborating. I’ve been inviting people from all over the musical map to come to Upstate New York and spend a brief time making music with me. The results have been magical, some of the best musical experiences of my life.
As for the aforementioned Ditty Bops, the newlyweds recently released a six song compilation Songs For Steve, inspired by DeWald and Barrett’s friend Steven Zinn, who died in a motorcycle accident last summer. The band is currently on tour across the US through December. For updates, you can follow them on Twitter.
Question: I have been told that The L Word actress Erin Daniels is pregnant. Is it true?
ÔÇò Zachy, Taipei City, Taiwan
Answer: Yes. Well, it was true. Daniels (who is married to Chris Uettwiller) gave birth to a son, Ely Dashiel Uettwiller, on August 1, 2009.
Now raise your hand if you were secretly hoping she’d name him Piddles Junior. Or Sounder III.Question: I really enjoy Jennifer Tilly, especially in Bound. Has Afterellen ever interviewed Tilly? If not, why not? Is there anyway Afterellen can interview Tilly, especially regarding Bound. And what is she up to?
ÔÇò Andrea Answer: Alas, AfterEllen.com has not yet had the pleasure of interviewing Ms. Tilly. But what a fabulous idea! I think she’s the perfect candidate for one of our “A Quickie With …” features by Dara Nai, so we’ll see what we can do.
Since heating up the screen with Gina Gershon in the lesbian classic, Bound back in 1996, the Oscar-nominated Tilly has acquired quite a few film, television and stage credits, including Liar Liar (1998), Bride of Chucky (1998) and Seed of Chucky (2004), and the short-lived CBS show Out of Practice (2005-2006), which featured Paula Marshall as a lesbian doctor.
Tilly is also an avid poker player. In 2005, she became the first celebrity to win the Ladies No-Limit Texas Hold’em event at the World Series of Poker, and since then she’s won over $450,000 in tournament play.
In a December 2008 interview, however, Tilly told Bluff Magazine, “I love poker but greatness in poker is an elusive dream. There are too many variants. Trying to find validation in poker is like trying to find a virgin in a whorehouse. I’m not giving up poker entirely – gambling is an addiction after all. I’m just going to treat it more like a hobby and less like a career.”
The poker world’s loss is our gain, as it was just announced this week that Tilly will appear in the upcoming feature 30 Beats, an ensemble piece exploring a series of “amorous encounters” among 10 people in Manhattan. In it, Tilly will play “a psychic who engages in weekly sexual encounters with a free-spirited Cuban messenger (Jason Day).”
Tilly also does a lot of voiceover work, including the films Monsters, Inc., and Stuart Little, and she’s a semi-regular on Family Guy as Joe’s wife, Bonnie Swanson. This fall, Tilly will appear in the pilot episode of Family Guy spinoff The Cleveland Show, which centers around the character Cleveland Brown (voiced by Mike Henry), who moves back to Stoolbend, VA to start a new life with childhood sweetheart Donna and her two children.
The show will also feature the voices of Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and liberal author and columnist Arianna Huffington as a pair of religious talking bears. Yes, Huffington’s definitely going to have fun with that one.
But the best thing about The Cleveland Show is that the character of Donna will be voiced by the always fabulous (probably even in animated form) Sanaa Lathan (Something New, Love & Basketball). In case you’re wondering what Lathan has been up to, she co-starred with Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, and Phylicia Rashad in an ABC television adaptation of lesbian playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun in 2008, and writer-director Ava Duvernay is reportedly pitching a romantic drama, The Middle of Nowhere, which would reunite Lathan and Rashad once again.
In 2008, Lathan appeared in Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, followed by Powder Blue and Wonderful World in 2009.
She’s rumored to be part of the cast of Macbett (The Caribbean Macbeth), a modern re-telling of the Shakespeare play set in the West Indies to be written and directed by Aleta Chappelle. IMDb.com is reporting that Lathan will play Lady Macbett, alongside Terrence Howard (Macbett), Danny Glover, and Blair Underwood. For now, the project is listed as “in development” and and producers are hoping for a 2010 release.
A new edition of Ask AfterEllen.com is published every other Tuesday. Have a question for us? Email it to [email protected]. For more entertainment news, read previous editions of Ask AfterEllen.com, and check out AfterElton.com’s weekly entertainment Q&A column, Ask The Flying Monkey.
