Shining Vale is a horror-comedy series set to drop on Starz this month. The show is created by Jeff Astrof and Sharon Hogan, who previously created the HBO series Divorce. She had also acted and written for other TV shows like Pulling and Catastrophe. Here is the synopsis of the show, according to Rotten Tomatoes: “A dysfunctional family moves from the city to a small town after Patricia “Pat” Phelps, a former “wild child” who became famous through writing a raunchy female empowerment novel, is caught cheating on her husband. In an attempt to rebuild their family, they move into a house where terrible atrocities have taken place. Nobody seems to suspect anything odd except for Pat, who is convinced she is either depressed or possessed. But soon, the demons haunting the family’s new home begin to appear much more real.” One of the most anticipated TV shows of the year, Shining Vale is set to drop its first episode on March 6. Here is a list of the cast members set to appear in the show.
Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox stars in Shining Vale as Patricia “Pat” Phelps, a romance novelist who moves to a new place with her husband. While Cox is most popularly known for her role as Monica Geller in the hit sitcom Friends, she’s also a horror and slasher mainstay, most famously appearing in the Scream movies as Gale Weathers. Cox has also appeared in hit TV shows like Cougar Town, 9 Months with Courteney Cox, and Dirt. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Courteney Cox revealed her experiences working on the show: “To play someone who’s going through all this emotional stuff gave me so many opportunities,” Cox says. “Going through a midlife crisis — I understand that. Being at that stage in life where, we don’t want to say the word ‘menopause,’ but that’s what she’s dealing with. And what else … marriage and how it’s work, man. A lot of work. And what it’s like to be a mom to a teenager — that it’s not easy. Some of the best acting moments of my whole career came from this show.”
Greg Kinnear
Greg Kinnear also stars in Shining Vale, playing Courteney Cox’s on-screen husband Terry. A veteran actor in TV and film, Kinnear was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1996 for the movie As Good As It Gets. The actor has appeared in plenty of blockbusters and highly acclaimed projects, including Sabrina (1995), You’ve Got Mail (1998), Nurse Betty (2000), Someone like You (2001), We Were Soldiers, Auto Focus (both 2002), Stuck on You (2003), Robots (2005), Little Miss Sunshine, Invincible (both 2006), Green Zone, The Last Song (both 2010), Heaven Is for Real (2014), and Misbehaviour (2020). In an interview Kinnear did with Entertainment Tonight, he talked about his previous working relationship with Courteney Cox, with whom he briefly worked on Friends (although they didn’t have any on-screen appearances). “You know, it’s crazy, my oldest daughter was born like the night before I was going to go on Friends and subsequently something happened where my stuff — which I was so excited to go do it in front of the live audience and the whole thunderous crowd and hang with the whole gang here — and I ended up having to pretape all my stuff,” he shares. “Funny enough, we shot [Shining Vale] at first in a very haunted house out in Pasadena, seriously, and then we moved to Warner Brothers and the first studio stage that we worked at Courteney’s like, ‘Yeah, I did Friends here,’ and the whole thing came rushing back to me that she has this incredible legacy with the show.”
Sherilyn Fenn
Sherilyn Fenn plays a character named Robyn Court in Shining Vale. Previously, she’d worked in Twin Peaks, playing the role of Audrey Horne from 1990 to 1991 and again in 2017. She’s also played recurring roles in Shameless and Ray Donovan.
Gus Birney
Young actress Gus Birney plays Gaynor in Shining Vale. According to her IMDb, “She signed with Click Models, and began modeling walking in such designers as Kanye West and Vivianne Hu. And at 16 she was cast in Spike’s series The Mist, and dropped out of High School to pursue acting full time. She has since gotten her GED, and now works with State Management for modeling. She also continues to writes and records her music.”
Dylan Gage
Child actor Dylan Gage has also been cast to play a role in Shining Vale, alongside veteran actors Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear. Fans would be most familiar with him for his role in the series Pen15.
Mira Sorvino
Oscar-winning and Emmy-nominated actress Mira Sorvino will be joining Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear in Shining Vale. Mira Sorvino has seen a resurgence in her career recently after a lengthy stall in her acting work. She recently worked in Modern Family and Hollywood, as well as the movies After We Fell and Sound of Freedom. Sorvino won an Oscar for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite, directed by Woody Allen. Her role in Shining Vale has been described by The Wrap as follows: “Courteney Cox is a romance novelist with writer’s block, who gets a little spiritual help from Mira Sorvino following her family’s move to the country in the official trailer for Starz’s “Shining Vale,” which dropped Wednesday.”
Merrin Dungey
Merrin Dungey plays Kam in the series Shining Vale. She previously had roles in Malcolm in the Middle, Chasing Life, and most recently Lucifer. Shining Vale co-creator Jeff Astrof described her character in an interview with Bleeding Cool: “Kam is Pat’s oldest friend and book editor, a no-bulls**t straight talker who knows and loves Pat more than Pat does herself. Kam has been with Pat through the highs of Pat selling her first novel to the lows of everything that has happened since. She is the one person Pat can rely on for tough love, but Kam is running out of patience: If Pat does not give Kam a book she can sell, then Kam will have no choice but to leave her — this time for good.”
Judith Light
Lastly, veteran actress Judith Light will also appear as a main character in Shining Vale, playing the role of Joan. She’s most prominently known for her lead role as Angela Bower in the hit sitcom Who’s The Boss?
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