Jennifer Lopez announced on her Instagram that she has created Sunset Glow, her personal beauty line. What we know so far is that Lopez is the latest celebrity to jump into the beauty and skin-care game. And, her timing is perfect.

Lopez joins Selena Gomez with her Rare Beauty, Lady Gaga has Haus Laboratories, and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty makeup and skin-care company is also all the rave.

Lopez announced her new beauty venture on August 24th — what we know is that it’s called JLo Beauty and just broke the news on Instagram. Her Instagram post captioned “Sunset glow… #JLoBeauty coming soon.

Showtime Cancels: “Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels” After One Season

The industry trade, Variety, is the first to confirm that Showtime’s Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will not get a second season of its drama TV series. And, what a shame it is that this promising series gets cut short before it gave its viewing audience an opportunity to really settle into a tale that opened in the 1930 Los Angeles era. This time in Angeleno history was infused deeply with social and political tension. Sound familiar to what’s going on in 2020?

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels cast stars Nathan Lane, Natalie Dormer, Daniel Zovatto, Kerry Bishé, Rory Kinnear, Adriana Barraza, Michael Gladis, Jessica Garza and Johnathan Nieves. Nieves also starred in this sequel from the original series created by John Logan, the series creator, writer and executive producer. Michael Aguilar is also an executive producer, along with the original series’ EPs Sam Mendes and Pippa Harris.

“Showtime has decided not to move forward with another season of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels,” the network said in a statement Friday. “We would like to thank executive producers John Logan, Michael Aguilar and the entire cast and crew for their outstanding work on this project.”

The sequel opened with a grisly murder that shocks the city, Detective Tiago Vega (Zovatto), and his partner Lewish Michener (Lane). The detectives became embroiled in an epic story that reflects the rich history of Los Angeles. Think about it– it’s a time when the building of the city’s first freeways happened and it also captures its deep traditions of Mexican-American Folklore to the dangerous espionage actions of the Third Reich and the rise of radio evangelism. Before long, Tiago Vega and his family are grappling with powerful forces that threaten to tear them apart.

“The Dreadfuls,” Penny Dreadful’s loyal fan base, unfortunately, was not as supportive of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels and any new audience was not enough to carry over for a season two.

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by Roberto Leal

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” —Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

When it comes to amassing a team of talented, resumé rich, creative people to put together a series, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, which premieres on Showtime, Sunday, April 26, is loaded for bear!

It begins with Academy Award nominee writer and creator of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator), to Oscar winning producer / director, Sam Mendes (1917, American Beauty), who executive produced the original Showtimes series. 

The cast is stellar with engaging performances that include Natalie Dromer playing all the female evil incarnations (Magda, Alex, Elsa and Rio); Daniel Zovatto (The TV Shows Here and From Dusk Til Dawn) as the first Chicano detective in the LAPD; Kerry Bishe as the saintly Molly.  Nathan Lane, in a dramatic turn as Lewis Michener, Daniel Vega’s detective partner. Then there is Amy Madigan as Molly’s mother whose actions belie the religious woman she purports to be.  The rest of the Vega family is played by Adam Rodriguez (NCIS: Miami, Magic Mike), Johnathan Nieves (Shameless) and Jessica Garza (The Purge).

Logan’s sweeping, kaleidoscopic, multi-layered saga is set in 1938, Depression Era, pre-world War II, Los Angeles. It is a story with many fascinating moving parts; murder, racial discrimination, crooked cops and politicians, religious charlatans, Nazis, cultural upheaval in the Chicano community, horror, myth, and Mexican folklore, all culminating in a penultimate, apocalyptic battle between Good and Evil. Logan’s story is a cautionary tale that eerily and prophetically holds up a critical mirror, to present-day America, to remind us: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The breadth and depth of Penny Dreadful: City of angels, is truly breath-taking.

However, within all those moving parts, there is one significant, central gear that makes the narrative machinery move along smoothly: Maria Vega, the strong-willed, loving mother of the Vega family. And fortunately, Logan cast the perfect Latina actress to play this critical, pivotal role, Adriana Barraza. Mexican-born actress, Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner, director, and acting coach.

Barraza grew up in Toluca watching old Mexican and North American movies, in black and white, on Mexican network TV. Young Adriana loved watching such diverse movie stars as German Valdez Tin Tan, Pedro Infante, Carmen Montejo, Marga Lopez, as well as Esther Williams and Fred Astaire.

“I loved the dramas with Bette Davis,” she recalls fondly. “I think I’ve seen All About Eve more than 20 times.” What she admired most about those stars and stories, was they made her laugh, cry and always to dream.

In Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, Adriana plays family matriarch, Maria Vega. She modeled Maria Vega after her own grandmothers.  “I modeled Maria after my two grandmothers who were the attentive parental role models in my life,” she began.

“My fraternal grandmother, Doña Virginia Marin de Barraza, was a very traditional, old-fashioned woman, very Catholic, and always wore black.”

“On the other hand,”, she continued, “My maternal grandmother, Doña Angela Flores de Gonzalez was an eccentric woman with a beautiful house full of light, classical music, birds in the garden, extravagant pets, like herons and large turtles.”

Logan played a huge part in getting the talented Mexican actress involved in this epic project. She had been a fan of the original Penny Dreadful series and an admirer of John Logan’s work.

“I received an invitation, from John Logan, to read the first episode of the new series. I was thrilled,” she recalls gleefully. “John’s uncanny knowledge of Mexican culture—such as Maria’s nahual, the coyote, and the other positive examples of what la Santa Muerte means—that is what hooked me on the project.”

Logan expressed to Barraza his desire and passion to bring to a wide audience the rich, complex, often turbulent and painful history of Mexican Americans in a city that once had a much longer poetic Spanish name, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río Porciúncula — before it became simply, Los Angeles.

It was Logan’s portrayal of Mexican Americans as not “the other”, but as people with normal every day hopes and dreams like everyone else, that ultimately drew Adriana to the role of Maria Vega. 

“I knew that I understood Maria Vega as a Mexican and as a fighting mother who loves her children and is capable of doing anything for them. Plus, the supernatural world that is familiar to me as I previously mentioned. I am forever grateful to John Logan for thinking of me for the role of my beloved Maria!” And Logan has done a masterful job of capturing the essence, the sights and sounds and what has been documented to be the reality of the Mexican American / Chicano experience of that time.

As with all great stories, and Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is all that and a bag of spicy chicharrones, there is always an overarching truth. Here it’s Logan’s tribute to the struggle and triumph of humanity of the Vega Family and by extension, the greater Chicano community.  The powerful mythical, supernatural presence of Coatlicue, the Aztec Earth Mother Goddess of Life, is embodied in the heart and soul of the family matriarch, Maria Vega.

It has been reported that Barazza has a part in the upcoming Robert Rodriguez superhero film We Can Be Heroes, due to appear on Netflix soon. Did Robert cast her as the very first mature, Latina superhero?

“No,” she came back quickly, “I play Grandma Moreno. I teach the superheroes.”

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels premieres on the Showtime Networks , Sunday, April 26, 10/9c.

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by Luis Reyes

Showtime’s hit supernatural horror series Penny Dreadful, closing its series run after three seasons (2014-2017), will return with a new focus on Depression Era 30’s Los Angeles through the prism of a Mexican-American family in Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.

While the new series shifts away from its previous setting, it will have the involvement of series creator/ writer/ producer John Logan and executive producer/writer John Aguilar who has written for Showtime’s Kidding and I’m Dying up Here.

Daniel Zovatto, of Costa Rican ancestry will star as Detective Tiago Vega, the LAPD’s first Mexican-American detective. Tago’s reality will be rife with racism, childhood trauma and faith issues that challenge the inexplicable supernatural occurrences in the storylines.

Zovatto’s credits include the horror features Don’t Breathe and It Follows and the Greta Gerwig comedy Lady Bird. His television credits include HBO’s Here and Now and AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead.

Joining Zovatto will be Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Adriana Barraza, who will play Maria Vega, the powerful matriarch of the Vega family who will go to any length to protect her children from the dangerous world of 1938 social politics as well as from the chilling supernatural forces invading their lives. Barraza won a Best Supporting Actress nomination in 2006 for her role in Alejandro Inarritu’s Babel. She was most recently seen in FX’s The Strain. Upcoming for the Mexican actress are roles in the feature films Rambo 5 and Dora the Explorer.

Jessica Garza will play Josefina, the youngest of the Vega family (Tiago’s daughter). She plays the quiet and overlooked sister that possesses a powerful spirit waiting to be unleashed. Garza was recently seen on USA Networks The Purge and History channels Six. She has also guest stared on Modern Family and NCIS.  Jonathan Nieves plays Mateo Vega, Tiago’s younger brother, who looks up to his older sibling and carries his strength of character but is vulnerable to people and events around him. Nieves’ credits include New Amsterdam, Better Call Saul and Chicago Fire.
Also in the cast are Nathan Lane (Birdcage) and Natalie Dormer(Game of Thrones, The Tudors).

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