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Lauren Ambrose & Tom Riley To Lead ‘The Unbelievers’ Off Broadway

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EXCLUSIVE: Lauren Ambrose (Broadway‘s My Fair Lady, TV’s Six Feet Under) and Tom Riley (Broadway’s Arcadia, Apple TV’s Down Cemetery Road) will lead the cast of Manhattan Theatre Club‘s production of The Unbelievers, the Nick Payne play getting its American premiere Off Broadway this fall.

The production, which will begin performances Tuesday, October 13, at New York’s City Center Stage I, will be directed by Knud Adams.

Both Ambrose and Riley will make their MTC debuts with The Unbelievers, while Payne returns to the company where his previous credits include the American premieres of Constellations starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson in 2015 and Incognito with Geneva Carr, Charlie Cox, Heather Lind and Morgan Spector in 2016.

Adams, the director of the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays English by Sanaz Toosi and Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, makes his MTC debut.

Additional casting and creative team for The Unbelievers will be announced soon. MTC will also announce additional productions and casting for the 2026-27 season in coming weeks.

The synopsis: “Faith means believing in something. Especially when it feels impossible. As the years go by and the mystery of the sudden disappearance of Miriam (Ambrose) and David’s (Riley) teenage son remains unsolved, their blended family must figure out how to go on, relearning how to live through the ups and downs of ordinary days in their altered world.”

MTC describes the play as “poignant and disarmingly funny.”

The Unbelievers joins MTC’s 2026-27 season that includes the previously announced Broadway productions of School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh, Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! and David Hare’s Montauk.

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Ben Jones Dead: Cooter On ‘Dukes Of Hazzard,’ Georgia Congressman Was 84

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Ben Jones, known to millions as the affable — if mischievous — mechanic Cooter on The Dukes of Hazzard, died today at the age of 84. His wife, Alma Vitor, said that Jones had died of a massive heart attack while “resting in his favorite chair waiting for the Braves to come on and whoop the Yankees.”

Jones played “Crazy” Cooter Davenport on all seven seasons of the original show from 1979-1985 as well as in the made for TV “Reunion” movie in 1997 and the 2000 one-off Hazzard in Hollywood. While many may remember Cooter as a gregarious good ‘ol boy, the character had a wild, rebellious side in the first season of the show. Often called an “honorary Duke,” he owned the local garage which just happened to be across the street from the Sheriff’s station, allowing him to keep an eye on the comings and going for the Duke cousins.

Jones’ second act was an auspicious one. After serving as president of SAG’s Georgia Branch and as chairman of the Georgia Film Commission, Jones won the race for Georgia’s Fourth Congressional District in 1988. He was re-elected in 1990. While on Capitol Hill, Jones was Democratic whip, a member of the Committee on Veteran’s Affairs and a member of the Committee on Public Works and Transportation. In 1994, he ran against Newt Gingrich in another district and lost.

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Here is the full text of Alma Vitor’s statement on social media:

I lost the love of my life today. Ben passed from a massive heart attack. He was home resting in his favorite chair waiting for the Braves to come on and whoop the Yankees. Ben had the most amazing rich full life. He loved and was loved by so many. He will be missed. I loved him so so much.

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James Gray Learned About a Locarno Award. His Wife Mentioned the Trash

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Sunday is family day. So, it just made sense for the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival to book Paper Tiger, written and directed by James Gray and starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller, for Sunday evening. After all, the loosely autobiographical movie tells the story of a suburban family that becomes entangled with the Russian mob.

Just before the Paper Tiger screening, Gray received the Career Leopard honor from the Swiss festival in a moment that seemed worthy of a big cat pun.

Looking out at the city’s big central square, the Piazza Grande, which seats 8,000 people, the U.S. auteur shared the mix of excitement and nervousness that he was feeling.

“I didn’t expect this crowd. I sort of feel like I’m in the Beatles or something,” he told the big crowd. “This is very strange. I’m very nervous because usually I’m behind the camera and I’m yelling at other people to do things and telling them what to do. And now I’ve got to do some talking. It’s vaguely terrifying.”

Gray also called the experience “very moving,” before resorting to some deadpan humor. “When I told my wife, I said, ‘Hey, they want to give me this prize in Locarno,’” the filmmaker shared. “My wife said, ‘That’s very nice. Now, can you take out the garbage?’”

Continued the U.S. honoree: “So this … gives you a kind of perspective in life. But my wife’s feelings aside, it’s very moving to me.”

Continuing with the family theme, Gray told the Locarno outdoor audience about Paper Tiger: “You’re going to see pretty much where I grew up. A lot of it is autobiographical. You’ll see my neighborhood, and you’ll say, ‘Oh my God.’ Because I got here with this [award], and I came from that.”

Gray also concluded that just because he received this year’s Career Leopard, film fans shouldn’t write him off yet. “I’m not old,” he said. “I have many good films, hopefully, left, and maybe better. So don’t age me out yet.”

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Wagner Moura Compares ‘The Last House’ To COVID Isolation

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SPOILERS: This post contains details about the Netflix movie The Last House

As Wagner Moura traps fans at home with his new movie The Last House, he can’t help but recall the isolation of the COVID pandemic.

While discussing the ending of the Louis Leterrier-helmed Netflix film, now available to stream, the Oscar nominee said he hopes the Delgado family finds “good things about that change” after escaping their house five years into a phenomena that floods the world and unleashes monsters from the ocean.

“Well, I hope they discover that of course, the world changed,” he told CinemaBlend. “But I hope that they discover that there are good things about that change.”

Moura continued, “I think that we came out of COVID when, when COVID sort of happened in the end of the whole pandemic, I was like, ‘Okay, the world is gonna change. We are gonna come out of this with a different mindset.’ And I don’t think we did. So I hope it’s different for the characters of the film.”

In The Last House, Jason (Moura) and his wife Ann (Greta Lee) find that they are trapped along with their two children in their Seattle home when a mysterious heavy rain seals everyone in their homes. As the days go by, the family must learn to survive with what they have.

Wagner Moura as Jason in ‘The Last House’ (2026) (Courtesy of Netflix)

Netflix has promoted the sci-fi drama by trapping a man in a house atop a billboard on Sunset Boulevard, where he has been living and communicating with passersby via whiteboard.

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