*By Conor White*
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner's new anthology series for Amazon, "The Romanoffs," is about far more than Russia's last royal family, according to one of its stars.
"As I said to Matthew when I was doing this, I have to bone up on the Romanoffs," actor Aaron Eckhart said in an interview on Cheddar.
"And he said, 'Well, not really, because it really has nothing to do with the Romanoffs.'"
The family consisted of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and five children. After Russia's February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas II abdicated the throne and was later executed with the rest of his house. Within the last 30 years, all the bodies have been discovered and identified through DNA testing. Despite that evidence, whispers remain that one of his children, most likely Anastasia, escaped the killings. (The tsar's youngest daughter inspired the popular animated film, "Anastasia," which was recently turned into a musical.)
The Amazon ($AMZN) series features a different cast in each of its eight episodes, which are all linked by some sort of connection to the famous family ー be it real or fabricated.
Eckhart said it's the relationships between the show's characters ー whether directly linked to the royals or not ー that makes the show special.
"The magical part of the show is that it has thematics, and it has through lines with the Romanoffs," the Golden Globe nominee said. "But it's all these different scenarios with different people all over the world."
The series is creator Weiner's return to television after his seven-season run with "Mad Men" ー the highly-acclaimed show garnered two Golden Globes for "Best Drama Series" and eight Primetime Emmy awards.
It was Eckhart's first time working with Weiner, and he said the experience was "educational, interesting," and "fascinating,"
"It's very surprising and striking and bold. It takes a real genius to figure this all out," Eckhart added.
In the age of binge-watching, Amazon has made the choice to release one episode per week after releasing the first two episodes simultaneously on Oct. 12.
Eckhart is a fan of the move and called it "more traditional." But he admitted he has binged his way through at least one classic series.
"I did binge-watch 'Friends'," he said.
"'Friends' is a very good show."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/meet-the-romanoffs).
An executive named in a damning report about sexual harassment at Google has resigned, Axios reported, as Google employees prepare to stage a walkout to protest the company's leadership ー or lack thereof ー on issues of alleged misconduct at the company.
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Apple showed some love to the MacBook Air and Mac Mini Tuesday. Reports ahead of the event anticipated the announcements, but that didn’t leave the crowd — made up of Apple employees, guests, partners, and media — any less enthused when C.E.O. Tim Cook and team finally got on stage. Cheddar's Hope King was in Brooklyn for the unveiling.
It's no secret that the romantic comedy "Crazy Rich Asians" has kicked off conversations about inclusiveness in Hollywood ー but it's also proven those conversations can be lucrative. "Crazy Rich Asians" star Constance Wu, who now has a crazy big platform thanks to the film's runaway success, said she is glad to see Hollywood embracing narratives from a wider variety of backgrounds, even if it's partially due to the film's financial success.
Apple on Tuesday unveiled updated versions of its MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and iPad Pro lines from an event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The biggest update came in the form of a redesigned iPad Pro, the high-end model of the tablet the company debuted eight years ago and which Cook described on stage as "a magical piece of glass that transforms instantly into anything you want it to be."
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James Patterson is a fixture on the vaunted New York Times bestseller list. But this year, the author of canon thrillers like "Juror #3," "Pop Goes the Weasel," "Zoo," "Jack & Jill," and the "Alex Cross" series is using an unlikely platform to deliver his latest work: Facebook Messenger. "I call it unofficially 'a bookie.' It's a book meets a movie, there's a lot of text and then video," Patterson told Cheddar Monday. "Nobody has done that before."
Golden State Warrior Stephen Curry has added a fourth title to his resume: NBA player, investor, entrepreneur ー and now executive producer. Curry's first feature film, "Breakthrough," is slated for release on April 12, 2019. "I know people will love it," the three-time NBA champion told Cheddar in an exclusive interview on Friday.
Attending a Trump rally can be daunting for any self-proclaimed liberal ー even more so if your last name is Pelosi. But an experience with her political opposites left Alexandra Pelosi, the documentarian and youngest daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, feeling hopeful. "We all need to burst out of our own bubbles and see what the other people are thinking," Pelosi said Monday in an interview on Cheddar.
Hershey's ($HSY) has unveiled a deal to promote its latest candy creation, a combination Hershey-Reese's bar, with the help of two of esports' biggest names: DrLupo and Ninja. Cheddar was at TwitchCon in San Jose, Calif. and got an early look at Hershey's first foray into esports and live-streaming from the company's head of integrated media, Charlie Chappell.
