20 Questions On Deadline Podcast: ‘Hacks’ Paul W. Downs Teases The Season 3 Episode That Made Him And Jean Smart Cry & “Bucket List” Guest Stars

Hello, and welcome to Oscars Sunday on Deadline. Tonight we gather as another lengthy awards season draws to a close, and what a bizarre season it has been. Before the year started, who would’ve thought a pic like A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, a scrappy sci-fi comedy adventure about an Asian-American family, would go from outside underdog to odds-on front-runner? The film debuted last year out at SXSW but has stuck around, charming its way onto screens across the world and picking up top honors from all four major guilds — a sweep only four other films have ever achieved. But can it win Best Picture? That’s perhaps the biggest question still at play this evening.

Felicity Huffman has questions for .The 60-year-old actress returns for her first television role in the proposed Good Doctor spinoff, since her involvement in the 2019 college admissions scandal, and ET has a new exclusive sneak peek from Monday's episode.In the backdoor pilot, Dr. Shaun Murphy (Freddie Highmore) seeks legal representation to help him win a case and puts his faith in promising, young lawyer Joni DeGroot (Kennedy McMann), who has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Described as «brilliant, funny and self-aware,» the young lawyer is relatively new to her prestigious law firm when she takes Shaun’s complicated case.

Jesse Spencer will make a special comeback in the role of Matt Casey in an upcoming Chicago Fire episode.

It’s transfer time for Phil Dunster, who has played AFC Richmond’s star striker Jamie Tartt on the Emmy-winning comedy drama Ted Lasso for three seasons. The actor is joining Gugu Mbatha-Raw on Season 2 of her psychological thriller Surface, Breaking Baz can reveal.

Turning up the heat! Sarah Shahi and Adam Demos leaned into their real-life romance while filming season 2 of Sex/Life.

Charna Flam Sundance prize winning directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson have signed with Range Media Partners At the 2023 festival, Brewster and Stephenson won the grand jury prize for U.S. Documentary for their feature ”Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project.” Harvard-and Stanford–trained psychiatrist, Brewster, and Columbia Law School graduate Stephenson decided to pursue filmmaking together, and by 2006 the two founded Rada Studio. The studio has provided creators the opportunity to think radically about storytelling and work to disrupt nonfiction spaces. The pair works together to build reality, fiction, immersive and hybrid stories that embrace and deliver compelling narratives, which are all created by, for, and about the Black and Brown communities.

 has been announced and there are 30 new contestants mainly from Seattle, Washington, looking to find their soulmates. Co-hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey are back to guide the West Coasters on their journey to their happy, sad, and chaotic endings. The contestants range in age from 26 to 39 and have a whole host of interesting professions from flight attendants to even a marriage therapist. The new season hits Netflix on Friday, March 24.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Seven of the biggest media-buying agencies on Madison Avenue and Roku have joined a media-industry effort that aims to count TV audiences in new ways. Dentsu, WPP’s GroupM, Horizon Media, Interpublic Group’s IPG Mediabrands, Omnicom Group’s Omnicom Media Group, Publicis Media and RPA have all lent counsel to the U.S. Joint Industry Committee, a consortium formed in January led by Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount, TelevisaUnivision, and Warner Bros. Discovery and their Open AP joint venture that hopes to vet and certify a dizzying array of audience-measurement technologies that have come to market in recent months.  Along with Roku, Hallmark Media and the industry group Video Advertising Bureau, the companies have issued a new set of minimum requirements for acceptance of several new measurement technologies that TV networks would like to implement more quickly.

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Production on “Hacks” Season 3 will resume the week after next, series producers Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky revealed to Variety on Sunday. Downs, Aniello and Statsky were at the WGA Awards in Century City, where the trio picked up the win for episodic comedy (for the Season 2 finale “The One, The Only”). “She’s doing great,” Downs said. “She actually said to me recently that she’s better than ever, which I believe because she is Jean Smart. She’s at home. Obviously, not out on the town tonight. But she’s doing really well.” Production on Season 3 of the Emmy-winning HBO comedy was put on hold late last month after Smart revealed via Instagram that she had successfully undergone a heart procedure.

Pregnant Love Island star Shaughna Phillips is eagerly anticipating the birth of her first child, after announcing she was expecting a baby in October 2022. The 28 year old fell pregnant just two months after coming off the pill last summer, and described the moment she saw the positive test as an "out-of-body experience". Shaughna, who is just weeks away from her due date, hasn't held back when it comes to detailing her experience of pregnancy, as she prepares to become a mum for the very first time, as she's opened up on struggling with her changing body and regretting not finding out her baby's gender.

Jenna Ortega was the most recent guest on “Hot Ones,” showing off her masterful skills with spicy foods. Over the course of her episode, Ortega barely flinched as she eat a stack of wings that got progressively spicier. She had her taste buds so in control that she called the wings spice levels “sweet” and “baby.”Jenna Ortega explains why she was not in season 4 of ‘You’: ‘I was devastated’Jenna Ortega and The Weeknd set to star in new film: Here’s everything we knowA post shared by Jenna Ortega (@jennaortega)Ortega ate various wings and talked about her most prominent roles, including “Wednesday” and the new chapter in the “Scream” franchise, which comes out this month.

John Dean doesn’t recall the exact date more than 50 years ago when he first met Martha Mitchell, but he remembers his impressions.

My guest this week is Kerry Condon.

Sex/Life season two is debuting tomorrow on Netflix and we have the scoop on who’s returning from season one, as well as which stars are joining for season 2!

Ed Balls had come in for criticism from Good Morning Britain viewers as he fronted the show again on Tuesday (February 28). The former Labour MP-turned-presenter was back at the helm of the ITV news programme alongside Susanna Reid when they were joined in the studio by actor Lee Mead.

John Oliver started off Last Week Tonight roasting Fox News for the second week in a row. The HBO Max host showed started off by noting that Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg attended the train derailment in Ohio.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Jean Smart is “doing well” following a recent heart procedure. The “Hacks” star announced on Feb. 23 that she had undergone an unspecified procedure. Production on Season 3 of the HBO Max series has paused while she is on the mend. “She’s doing well,” co-star Hannah Einbinder told Variety on the red carpet at the SAG Awards. “She’s recovering. We just visited her.” Co-star Poppy Liu added, “She requested a lot of photos from all of us. We will be FaceTiming with her.”

Charna Flam John Leguizamo will receive the Miami Film Festival‘s Impact Award on March 11. Leguizamo’s new MSNBC series, “Leguizamo Does America,” will screen ahead of the award presentation.

Ethan Shanfeld “Party Down” was an underdog show about underdogs — out-of-luck caterers who dreamed of one day rubbing shoulders with Hollywood rainmakers rather than serving them hors d’oeuvres. In the series, which ran on Starz for two seasons (2009-10), an ensemble cast led by Adam Scott and Ken Marino paraded around Los Angeles, working funerals, orgies and everything in between. The scrappy comedy got creative with a small budget, centering episodes around a corporate picnic or a one-man birthday party, which didn’t require hiring extras. Showrunner and co-creator John Enbom says the team wouldn’t pitch a “dog wedding,” for example, because they knew they “couldn’t afford to hire 20 animal trainers.”

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Production on Season 3 of HBO Max’s Emmy-winning comedy “Hacks” has paused as star Jean Smart recovers from a heart procedure. Smart revealed on Thursday that she had successfully undergone the procedure and was doing well. “February is American Heart Month — a time when the nation spotlights heart health, so it feels important to share with all of you that I am recovering from a recent, successful heart procedure,” Smart wrote on her Instagram account. “I am fortunate to have excellent professional care and support from family and friends while I continue to recuperate. Please listen to your body and talk to your doctor — I’m very glad I did!”