Binge It!
Celebrities are just like the rest of us — they also like to plop down in front of the TV (or mobile device), presumably with their favorite snacks, and binge-watch the best of what the small screen has to offer… or a good old-fashioned guilty pleasure, in some cases.
Ahead, see which shows your favorite stars can’t get enough of.
John Leguizamo | GLOW
“Y’all better go watch the kickass women in GLOW on Netflix right now! They call out the tokenism, the racist stereotyping, and the blatantmisrepresentation of cultures that was so pervasive in Hollywood in the 80s,” says John Leguizamo, whose Latin History for Morons is currently streaming on Netflix. “Back in the day I couldn’t get a part unless I was carrying a gun. And this sort of thing is still going on today, because even though it’s true #OscarsSoWhite, guess what? #HollywoodsEvenWhiter. GLOW points all this out and makes it fun to watch. And you better binge-watch to get to season 2, so you can see Shakira Barrera bring some Latinx power to the ring!”
Vanessa Bayer | Escape at Dannemora
“I watch so much TV, I don’t even know where to start… but I think the last thing I binged was Escape at Dannemora. I started it late and so I watched it all in like — well, except the one episode that wasn’t on yet — I watched it all in like two days,” confesses Single Parents guest star and Saturday Night Live alum Vanessa Bayer about the prison-escape drama starring Patricia Arquette (who won a Golden Globe for her performance), Benicio Del Toro, and Paul Dano. “It’s just very riveting, and if I start watching a show like that, that’s so good and I have access to more episodes, I’ll basically put that ahead of sleep.”
Sterling K. Brown | The Americans
“I just took down 75 episodes of The Americans. That show is off the chain,” This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown tells EW. “I knew Matthew Rhys was going to be in contention for [the Best Actor Emmy], and I said, ‘I’ve got to see it, and if he wins, I want to be able to authentically celebrate him.’ And my God if he didn’t blow me away, if he didn’t exceed expectations…. What a complicated and wonderful character to embody, this reluctant spy, a spy with a conscience. And the juxtaposition between him and his wife, Elizabeth [Keri Russell], and that they had to deal with each other and love each other from opposite sides of the humanity of what they were being asked to do…I was floored by it.”
Keira Knightley | Killing Eve
“Sandra Oh is absolutely amazing, but that psycho killer [Jodie Comer’s Villanelle] is the only part that I’ve ever been really, really jealous that I didn’t play…. It is such a f—ing amazing psycho, I would really have liked to put my teeth into that,” Keira Knightley confesses. “Jodie was f—ing amazing…. I totally loved watching that moment when she turns around in the club and she kills [spoiler] and she’s like a shark coming through that club. I just loved that so much. That image is totally stuck in my head now.”
Cush Jumbo | Murder, She Wrote
“I love Murder, She Wrote. I’ve seen every episode there is,” gushes The Good Fight star Cush Jumbo, who knows a thing or two about addictive crime/legal dramas. “How many nieces and nephews does that woman have? In every state! And they’ve all been arrested.” Among Jessica Fletcher’s (Angela Lansbury) extended family were characters played by Friends star Courteney Cox and General Hospital alum Genie Francis, while Lynn Redgrave, Doris Roberts, and Shirley Jones portrayed other relatives. The series, which ran for 12 seasons on CBS (1984–1996), also welcomed a who’s who of guest stars before they were award-winning celebs, including George Clooney, Neil Patrick Harris, Megan Mullally, Bryan Cranston, Julianna Margulies, Joaquin Phoenix, Cynthia Nixon, and Marcia Cross.
Murder, She Wrote is available to watch Mon-Fri, 11 p.m.-3 a.m.; Sat-Sun, 11 p.m.-6 a.m. on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
Lea Thompson | The Kids Are Alright
“To be honest, the last thing I binge-watched was the show that I’m sitting in the parking lot for that I’m about to direct, The Kids Are Alright,” Back to the Future and Caroline in the City star Lea Thompson told EW when she was preparing to direct the sitcom’s April 9 episode (8:30 p.m. on ABC). “It’s a really funny show. I watched all the episodes because I’m about to direct it, and I thought that it was really funny and adorable, and seeing the stuff about the ’70s reminds me of my childhood. Just walking around the sets right now, just seeing all the props and stuff, it’s kind of crazy. It’s like walking into my childhood. It’s amazing.”
The Kids Are Alright is available to stream on Hulu.
Ilana Glazer | Westworld
“My husband made me binge-watch Westworld. It freaks me out,” Broad City co-creator and star Ilana Glazer admitted to EW on the Emmys gold carpet about the sci-fi thriller set at a high-tech, Wild West-themed amusement park. Run by Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), it’s inhabited by android “hosts,” Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores and Thandie Newton’s Maeve among them. Glazer eventually couldn’t get enough: “It’s so good and you’re in a world, but it trips me out. I was like, ‘Stop, for the ninth time, let us stop,’ but I plunged in and it was great.”
Betty Gabriel | Barry
“Barry is very funny, but it’s got this dark thing to it,” says Get Out actress Betty Gabriel. “I like Bill Hader and Stephen Root — we didn’t work together, but he was also in Get Out. Henry Winkler is great as the acting teacher. Acting classes are just weird, and I think they encapsulate that reality so beautifully.”
George R.R. Martin | Ozark
“It’s an amazing, amazing show,” Game of Thrones mastermind George R.R. Martin told EW on the Emmys gold carpet after taking in the second season of this Netflix crime drama starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney. “The characters are what it’s about, I think, in anything — the human heart in conflict with itself. So if a show has great characters, it’ll hook me every time. I want to know what becomes of them.” And if anyone knows how do to that, it’s Martin.
Olivia Munn | The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
“My one guilty pleasure is all the Housewives. But I always find it funny when people get excited and say they want to meet them or they want to be friends with them,” says Olivia Munn. “I mean, there are a few of them that I think are amazing and epic — like, Erika Jayne seems like a really cool person, Yolanda [Hadid] seems really cool — but for the most part, the rest of them you watch and go, ‘Yeah, that’s how you don’t treat friends.’ [Laughs] It really seems like there are a lot of borderline personality disorders on these shows, you know?”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is available to stream on Hulu.
Vicki Lawrence | It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
“Charlie Day is our executive producer [on The Cool Kids], and I didn’t know who he was,” admits Vicki Lawrence. A girlfriend said, ‘Oh my God, Always Sunny in Philadelphia is hysterical, this is going to be great!’ I’d never seen it, so I started binge-watching Charlie, and what I love about that show is they’re so ridiculous and silly. They make me laugh out loud, and I don’t feel like I laugh out loud at sitcoms very much anymore. The stuff that they get into, and the trouble they get into — they’re all adorable. So I’m hoping we’re going to be an older version of that, just getting into ridiculous situations where you as the audience go, ‘Well, this is not going to work.’”
Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks | Narcos
Rita Wilson says she and husband Tom Hanks binge-watched the first three seasons of this crime drama, which chronicles the illegal exploits of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar (Golden Globe nominee Wagner Moura). “It was just great performances, good writing, great direction,” Wilson gushes. “I love it.”
Freddie Highmore | Mum
Lesley Manville stars as a recently widowed woman trying to handle her crazy family. ”The way it sort of fuses comedy and laughter with an underlying sadness of the loss that she is dealing with is remarkable,” says The Good Doctor’s Freddie Highmore.
John Leguizamo | Blazing Saddles & Richard Pryor: Live in Concert
“Richard Pryor is the greatest comic of all time, no contest, bar none, ipso facto, QED. He’ll always be the king of taking dark topics and turning it around to make us laugh. Every comedian that’s come since owes their careers to him,” Leguizamo says. “Anybody who takes comedy seriously (ha!) has gotta binge Blazing Saddles [which he co-wrote] back-to-back with his special Richard Pryor: Live in Concert. They’re both groundbreaking in their own ways and make you laugh a little differently every time. There’s your new morning ritual: Watch a little bit of Pryor every day. Do it while you brush your teeth. While you make your bed. While you watch the news. It’ll make your life better! Maybe. Maybe not. But it’ll definitely make your life funnier.”
Blazing Saddles is available to rent on iTunes, YouTube, and more. Richard Pryor: Live in Concert is available to stream on Netflix.
Carrie Coon | Halt and Catch Fire
“It was a criminally underrated show,” says Fargo’s Carrie Coon. “Twisting that narrative around so that the women became the central story was extraordinary and compelling. Mackenzie Davis, Kerry Bishé, Scoot McNairy, and Lee Pace… their acting is exquisite.”
Abbi Jacobson | Succession
“I just binge-watched Succession,” Broad City co-creator and star Abbi Jacobson told EW on the Emmys gold carpet. “I had kinda watched it, and a friend was like, ‘Keep going!’ and I loved it. It’s all about greed, and you kinda hate them — you really do hate them — but it’s about the greediest, richest family in the country, which feels appropriate. It was really beautiful, very New York.”
Chris Sullivan | The Handmaid's Tale
Sure, it was an Outstanding Drama Series Emmy contender against his This Is Us, but Chris Sullivan couldn’t get enough of The Handmaid’s Tale. “You gotta rip it off like a Band-Aid, get it over with,” the actor says after binge-watching the dystopian drama’s season 2, which recently won two of the 17 Emmys it was nominated for. “I think it’s a very modern story about women’s rights and the role of women in our society. I thought it was very current, and Elisabeth Moss is probably one of the best actors working today.”
Alex Wolff | Rick and Morty
“Everyone should watch Rick and Morty. Rick and Morty is the best,” professes Hereditary star Alex Wolff. “I love Rick and Morty so goddamned much, especially the last season. The episode [‘Rest and Ricklaxation’] where they get their toxins removed and where there’s two personalities is literally the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sara Bareilles | Castle Rock
Sounds like Sara Bareilles is a fan of horror and thrills. And now she’s singing a love song for this J.J. Abrams-produced series based on Stephen King’s works. “It’s so bizarre and suspenseful, and the cast is incredible,” she says of the show starring Sissy Spacek, Bill Skarsgård, André Holland, and more. “Each episode I keep coming away going, ‘What happened?!’ and it makes me wanna watch the next one.” For that, we call her… brave?
Andy Cohen | Wild Wild Country
“I love docs,” says Bravo’s Andy Cohen. “I just can’t believe this unbelievably complex story was going on without any of us knowing.”
Camila Mendes | Easy
“Every episode is a different couple or a different relationship or friendship,” Riverdale star Camila Mendes explains of the Joe Swanberg-created series featuring Jane Adams, Zazie Beetz, Dave Franco, Kiersey Clemons, and more. She cites two episodes as her favorites: “Prodigal Daughter,” a “beautiful story, a coming-of-age, but also there’s an undertone of religiousness and the church…it’s brilliant,”; and “Lady Cha Cha,” which sees envy build between a lesbian couple when one of the women wants to be a burlesque dancer. “Jealousy is universal. [The episode] challenges every notion of modern love. It’s really cool.”
John Leguizamo | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
“John Oliver is waging a war on misinformation with Last Week Tonight on HBO. He’s sharp, he’s funny, and he talks a mile a minute. So y’all know when you binge-watch you’re getting an ear-full of jokes and info,” Leguizamo says. “He just did an episode on the immigrant families separated at the border. This is an unforgivable atrocity that we as Americans must refuse to forget about. In a time when every day the news becomes more and more absurd, we need to poke holes in that absurdity and call it out. And John Oliver’s doing exactly that.”
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver airs Sundays at 11 p.m. on HBO.
