Hampton Habitués

Good News Gossip About Our Notable Friends and Neighbors.

Here we are, back in the thick of it. The sun is shining, the waves are breaking and the stars seem to be everywhere all at once. Ahh, summertime in the Hamptons. 

Endless Love
One such luminary that we see out and about with some regularity is Southampton resident Brooke Shields. Currently starring in Mother of the Bride on Netflix, this frothy and fun feel-good flick about love is set primarily in Phuket, Thailand, and features a fun pair of romantic storylines. 

Starring Shields, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Sean Teale, Rachel Harris and Michael McDonald, the rom com centers on love young and (not quite yet) old. The light-hearted romp centers around what happens when Shields’ adult daughter returns from London with a fiancée, and a future father-in-law who just happened to break her heart way back in the day. The question isn’t really will they or won’t they rekindle their lost romance, but when and how. 

Center Square
No stranger to romantic features and many other forms of entertainment, Drew Barrymore, who recently listed her Sagaponack home, is again stretching herself creatively. The actor, producer, talk show host and author is set to produce and star as the center square in the Hollywood Squares reboot coming out next year. Newly formatted, the half-hour show will begin airing on CBS in January. 

Dynamic Duo
East Hampton’s Hugh Jackman will be reprising one of his most famous roles this coming September with the release of Deadpool & Wolverine. Also starring Ryan Reynolds, this Marvel franchise buddy movie will most likely break the box office wide open. 

Jackman, who had previously decided to retire from the character, decided to jump in and don his Wolverine claws one last time when he was approached to play opposite Reynolds. “I’ll probably have more fun on that movie than anything I’ve ever done,” he said. 

The film, which also stars Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Jennifer Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, and Patrick Stewart, will center around the bickering pair as Wolverine crosses paths with Deadpool while recovering from grievous injuries. Naturally, they must team up to defeat a common enemy as they verbally joust one another along the way. 

And Scene
No stranger to the Marvel universe himself, let’s hear it for East Hampton’s Robert Downey Jr., who is set to make his Broadway debut at the end of summer. He will star as the titular character in Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal, which will stage at Lincoln Center from September 5 to November 24. 

Downey’s meaty role will be that of Jacob McNeal, a serious writer / continual Nobel Prize candidate who tries and fails to connect with his estranged son as he toils on what just could be his magnum opus. No word yet on who else is set to star in this sure-fire staged stunner. 

More Murders
Longtime Bay Street Theater supporter Richard Kind will be joining one of our very favorite comedies later this year. Appearing in a pair of bookending episodes of Only Murders in the Building fourth season, the actor’s role is unclear but sure to be memorable. 

We hear that the Hulu streamer will focus on what happens after the shooting of stunt double Sazz Pataki, played by Jane Lynch. Was the bullet aimed for her or that of Steve Martin’s character, Charles? Hmmmm. 

What we do know is that the show, which has featured so many familiar East End faces over the years, will include headliners Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short, plus Meryl Streep, Jackie Hoffman, Molly Shannon, Tina Fey, Jane Lynch, Eva Longoria, Eugene Levy, Kumail Nanjiani and Zach Galifianakis. 

No word on whether Nathan Lane will return, but we’ll see him again soon enough when he portrays none other than writer Dominick Dunne in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. That limited series, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, will star Chloë Sevigny and Javier Bardem is set to stream on Netflix. 

An Offer He Can’t Refuse
Montauk resident Robert DeNiro also has a new Netflix series coming out. It’s called Zero Day and it’s about high stakes politics, conspiracy theories, and impending worldwide doom. 

The Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner will play a former United States President who is pulled from retirement to lead a commission investigating a cyber-attack. 

The six-episode conspiracy thriller has a seriously star-studded lineup, including Angela Bassett, Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen, Connie Britton, Dan Stevens, Matthew Modine, Gaby Hoffmann, and Clark Gregg. Adding to the star power on the screen, the talent behind the camera is equally impressive. The limited series was created and executive produced by Eric Newman, Noah Oppenheim and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael S. Schmidt. 

Twisty Turns
On a lighter note, we’re looking forward to catching up on the big screen with Montauk-based The Affair’s Maura Tierney this summer. She’s got a small but important role in the epic studio disaster movie Twisters, which is slated to screen in July. Tierney is also currently starring in Amazon Prime’s American Rust with Jeff Daniels. 

The upcoming feature film is a sequel to the 1996 blockbuster Twister. This outing stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as a storm chaser and Glen Powell as a charming but reckless social media superstar who come together to try to predict, and possibly tame, the immense power of tornadoes.