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From the Hollywood Reporter

Pedro Pascal from TV’s Graceland has been cast as Prince Oberyn Martell a.k.a. The Red Viper in season 4 of Game of Thrones. The Red Viper has a beef against the Lannisters, particularly their creature The Mountain. He’s also the father of those badass women, the Sand Snakes.

Looks like strong jawlines are a prerequisite for jobs on Game of Thrones.

Elsewhere on television: The Following starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy has probably the dumbest, most inept law enforcement agents of any TV show, and that includes shows where the cops are the comic relief. It’s painful how stupid they are, and the serial killer they’re after isn’t even particularly clever. Only our devotion to Kevin Bacon kept us watching (and Letterman saying Kevin Bacon should make a movie with Jon Hamm). Next to this show, Hannibal is brilliant.

Game of Thrones + Portlandia = Game of Portlandia.

Listen to her.

Found at National Bookstore, Php1159.

Mark your calendars. George R.R. Martin and Peter Dinklage will appear at the Sydney Opera House for one night only in November. Visit www.sydneyoperahouse.com/gameofthrones.

And here is the Ridley Scott-Cormac McCarthy-Michael Fassbender-Penelope Cruz-Brad Pitt-Javier Bardem project, The Counsellor.

Publicity photo for the telenovela My Husband’s Lover.

MTRCB will follow due process on CBCP warning over My Husband’s Lover.

My Husband’s Lover is about a man who is married to a woman but is really in love with another man. Yes, it’s practically a documentary. No thanks, we have enough examples (Tantanan niyo na si Jun Encarnacion, ano ba, namamahinga na siya). The actors playing the lovers do not telegraph their gayness to the audience in the stereotypical manner—mincing about, speaking baklese, gushing over their make-up. They act like straight guys, and that’s probably what distresses some viewers. (“They’re fooling us! We thought they were hetero!” and “What a waste of good genes!” When Brokeback Mountain came out, we know married women who freaked out because the lovers looked, sounded, dressed, and went on trips together—just like their husbands.)

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

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Turns out we sort of know the people behind My Husband’s Lovah.

* Our sister’s friend Paul Sta. Ana is one of the writers.

* The director is Dominic Zapanta, who has told us many gross stories. (Remember the one about the monobloc chair?)

* One of our friends had a massive crush on Dennis Trillo. He (our friend) was standing outside their building, waiting for his car, when Dennis Trillo’s car drove up. Our friend, a very visual thinker, described Dennis’s arrival thus: “Bumukas ang pinto. Lumabas ang sapatos. Lumabas ang binti. Lumabas ang tuhod. Lumabas ang shorts…”

“At hiwa-hiwalay silang lahat!” Noel interrupted.

* A couple of years ago, at a friend’s birthday dinner, Joji Alonso introduced us to Tom Rodriguez, who was starring in her production, Here Comes the Bride. “Hello,” he said, “I’m Tom Mott.”

“Like Mott Street?” we said. He said yes. “Your name is a palindrome!”

Way to talk to the cute guy, nerd.

* Andresa has a huge crush on Roi Vinzons, who plays Vincent’s father. (Just say the word, she makes killer ostrich burgers and has a wood-fired pizza oven.)

* Kuh Ledesma plays the cruel mother-in-law. Many years ago, at the defunct Republic of Malate, our friends were recalling the Kuh Ledesma movie, Tinimbang Ang Langit. Before long they were singing one of the songs from the movie, “Try A Little Suicide”.

“Won’t you try a little suicide…suicide…” complete with second voice. Suddenly they spotted Kuh Ledesma walking towards them. She did not look amused. They did a quick fadeout.

* Our best story involves a snappy retort from Chanda Romero, but we can’t print it.

Double Fault by Lionel Shriver (We Need To Talk About Kevin) is one of the finest novels ever written about tennis. If you ever spot it, snap it up. We’re amazed that it’s not better-known, and that it hasn’t been adapted for film. It’s about two professional tennis players who fall in love and marry each other. A terrible idea. Extremely competitive people working in the same field should not marry each other. The dating period will probably be fun, but in the long term, when one of them realizes that the other is more successful at what they do, there will be trouble. (Especially if the less successful one is actually better, just less lucky.)

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The game may be as mental as it is physical, but playing it well entails making the brain shut up. At my worst, my head is crowded with imperatives—first and foremost, though you’d think this would go without saying, WATCH THE BALL! Then: Step into the shot! Hit the ball in front of you! Get your racket back! But these clamouring edicts are an impediment to obeying them; they so clutter my mind that I might as well have strewn a clatter of gardening tools on the court itself.

For tennis tantalisingly offers perfect inhabitation of the present tense, what drummers call playing “in the pocket.” During brief, intoxicating periods of hitting at the top of your game, the mental cacophony quiets, and there’s no longer any space between “telling yourself” to do something and doing it. This flow state seems like not thinking. In fact, it is perfect thinking.

Read My tennis obsession by Lionel Shriver at Prospect.