Scott Foley has starred in some of TV’s best fictional dramas — but when it comes to his own entertainment, he and wife Marika Domińczyk are all about reality.
“Very little excites us more than a new season of [MTV’s] The Challenge!” Foley, 52, exclusively shares in Us Weekly’s latest What I’m Obsessed With series, on newsstands now. “We’ve been watching for 20 years and feel like we know each contestant, their fears and strengths and for us, it’s pure comfort.”
The Challenge, which premiered in 1998, is a reality competition show that started as a spinoff to two of MTV’s popular reality shows: The Real Worldand Road Rules. In the game, reality TV stars from both series compete in physical and mental challenges to win cash prizes. Since it premiered, The Challenge has become more successful, outlasting both of the original shows. There have been 40 seasons aired in addition to 12 spinoff seasons, and the show has filmed on six different continents.
While Foley enjoys snuggling up with his family and watching from his couch — he and Domińczyk share daughter Malina, 14, and sons Keller, 12, and Konra, 10 — he’s likely not preparing to sign up himself any time soon. But Foley’s own job takes him to plenty of exotic places, too. For his new film La Dolce Villa, the actor got to spend eight weeks in Italy — a huge selling point when it came to accepting the role.
“I read the script and was like, ‘Oh, there’s no way they’re gonna shoot this in Italy.’ And then, they said, ‘We’re gonna shoot it in Italy.’ And I thought, ‘Well, I kind of have to do it,’” Foley told Colliderearlier this month. “It worked out really well. Italy, the country, and then these little towns we shot in, really was another character in this film, and it adds to the wanderlust of all this.”
The romantic comedy, which hit Netflix on February 13, stars Foley as Eric, a father who, after discovering that his daughter, Olivia (Maia Reficco), recently bought a crumbling Tuscan villa, rushes across the pond to try and talk her out of it. When he arrives, he realizes that there just might be beauty, romance and a new purpose waiting there for him as well.
“The relationships in this movie are really important,” Foley told Collider. “There’s the relationship with [his] daughter and overcoming the divide that has grown between us since the passing of my wife and her mom, and then being open to not just another love in another person, but really a whole new life for my character.To a certain degree, he’s leaving behind everything he had and starting anew.You’re getting to see the revitalization of this person and this character.”
Foley may prefer a little reality TV to unwind, but he still has Us pressing play on all his best leading man moments, from Felicity to Scandal, and now, to La Dolce Villa. Keep scrolling for a list of everything Foley is currently obsessing over right now:
‘Interstellar’
“I don’t know how I missed it when it initially came out but I’m obsessed,” the actor tells Us. “The idea that love can transcend basically anything really resonated with me. Everything from the concept to the acting to the production design is really stellar (see what I did there)!”
Foley noted that it’s Matthew McConaughey’s performance in particular that really makes the film memorable. “I also love a good heartbreak and watching McConaughey’s character [Cooper] choose to leave his family, choose to take on missions that extend the amount of time away from them … crushing.”
‘The Challenge’ and More Good TV
In addition to Foley’s Challenge obsession, he’s also a big fan of shows like Showtime’s The Agency an espionage thriller starring Michael Fassbender.
‘The God of the Woods’
When it comes to his reading list, Liz Moore’sThe God of the Woods lands in the top spot — “I flew through it, absolutely loved it,” he says — but Foley has more than just one recommendation.
“Right before that I downloaded this new nonfiction piece by, of all people, John Grisham,” he tells Us. “I’ve been a fan since The Firm but this book Framed, co-authored by Jim McCloskey — who is the founder of Centurion Ministries, which was the first organization in the world devoted to freeing the wrongly convicted — this book and the stories that they tell about those imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit has really stuck with me.”
Zach Bryan
The Scandal alum knows he’s not alone when it comes to his music playlist. “I think I’m on the bus with this one … Zach Bryan seems to be a daily listen for me,” he confesses. “We sing his songs as a family in the car.”
He added that Bryan’s music also served an important role in a mournful family moment recently: “My wife even used his song ‘Pink Skies’ on an Instagram post she made when we had to put one of our dogs down last week. Hard not to cry whenever I listen to it now.”
The ‘Pivot’ Podcast
Foley, a self-proclaimed “big podcast consumer,” says he jumps back and forth “between industry news, politics and just fun listens.” Recently, however, there has been one show that he prefers most: “I’ve been learning into ‘Pivot,’” he said of the Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway-hosted podcast. “The cover topics I care about in a way that doesn’t make me feel like I’m in too deep.”
When it came to playing a “douchey” cop in his new horror-comedy Heart Eyes, Devon Sawa was all in — and knew exactly where to turn for inspiration.
“I’ve played some [bad] guys in the last few years for sure,” Sawa, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly. “This guy came from my internet algorithms, specifically on X. I made the mistake of starting to watch [videos of] when the cop rolls up to the car and their camera is on and they try to do some stuff that isn’t right and then the person calls them on it. That’s where this cop came from. It’s those cops that think they’re just above the law, [who] may have watched too many Dirty Harry movies back in the day. That’s where this guy came from.”
From director Josh Ruben, Heart Eyes — which hit theaters on February 7 — follows a vengeful serial killer who has some serious issues with Valentine’s Day and expresses his anger by ruthlessly murdering anyone in love. Although Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) are determined not to let Heart Eyes ruin their first date plans, things quickly take a turn for the worse when the titular character sets his sights on the new couple.
Sawa, for his part, portrays detective Zeke Hobbs, an officer attempting to track down the Heart Eyes killer alongside his partner, Jeanette Shaw (Jordana Brewster). And while Sawa pointed out that there are “a lot of great cops out there” in the world today, his fictitious Hobbs is definitely not one of them.
“There are a few [cops] that think they’re [Sylvester] Stallone from some ‘80s cop movie, and so that’s where this guy came from,” he explained. “It was that douchey, kind of, ‘I’m above the law. Men do it better.’ That guy. And so it was fun to play for a month.”
If you found yourself hating the moments when Hobbs was on screen, prepare yourself for any future director’s cut or deleted scene. Sawa revealed that his character was capable of even more douchebaggery when Ruben allowed him to “spitball” while playing the character, allowing for even cringier dialogue than what eventually made the final cut. “He got really douchey,” Sawa confessed with a laugh. “I’ll leave it at that.”
The opportunity to play the world’s douchiest cop on screen, it turns out, wasn’t the only reason Sawa was drawn to Heart Eyes. The actor grew up loving both the horror and romantic comedy films of his era, and jumped at the chance to be part of a project that blended the two genres seamlessly.
“Horror was my first love when I was a kid growing up — when I was renting movies, when I was seeing movies, it was always horror. But I was also a big fan of those ‘90s rom-coms, especially as a teenager. The Sleepless in Seattles, the You’ve Got Mails, the Cocktails, all these romantic movies I loved,,” he explained. “And so when I read the script, it felt like one of those movies, but we’ve inserted a killer into it. And so it had both of those worlds and I fell in love with it instantly and I knew I had to do it.”
SONY/YouTube
Sawa himself is a major pioneer of what the horror genre has become today, but the Idle Hands star credited Ruben and stars Gooding and Holt for making Heart Eyes what it is — a balance between jump scares, gore, humor and heart that he said felt “perfectly executed.”
“This could have been way over the top, but Josh comes from a world of comedy,” Sawa said of the director. “He’s also a huge horror fan. He was able to keep it at a certain level that made it all work. It never got too heightened. It never got too scary. I mean, it’s scary, but it was all done at the right level. It felt like a fan did this. A fan of horror and a fan of comedy.”
Sawa also gave a shoutout to Mary Vernieu — the casting director behind last year’s The Strangers: Chapter 1, The Fall Guy, Alien: Romulus and more — for knowing Gooding and Holt were the right choices for their respective roles.
“They’re both electric, even on their own, even when you hang out with them,” Sawa gushed of the two leads. “Mason is intoxicating. He just makes you smile and he says all the right things and he feels genuine. And Olivia’s the same. They’re both super talented.”
Both Gooding and Holt have created their own respective legacies in the horror sphere over the past few years, with Gooding part of the next gen in the Scream franchise and Holt starring in 2023’s Totally Killer and the first season of Freeform’s anthology hit, Cruel Summer. Sawa, for his part, got to witness the pair make magic up close: “I really just stood on the sidelines and did a lot of watching,” he said. “I’m very fortunate that the two leads of the movie are as good as they are because I’m going to benefit from all of it immensely.”
Although Sawa didn’t get to film much with the duo — instead sharing most of his screentime with the “phenomenal” Brewster — the cast were able to spend some downtime together while shooting on location in New Zealand. Sawa told Us the group would often play “board games,” “have dinners” together and eventually created a bond that he won’t soon forget.
“I hope [Mason and Olivia] stay the way they are now,” Sawa added thoughtfully, sharing that Gooding in particular recently wrote him a heartfelt letter “that, like, almost made me cry.”
Gooding and Holt may be stars on the rise, but Sawa has already made his own legacy via his decades-long career. After making a name for himself in films like Casper, Now and Then and Final Destination, the actor recently garnered an even larger cult following for his role on the Chucky series, which saw him return as a new character for each of the show’s three seasons.
Being murdered, it turns out, can actually be fun — and Sawa is fine with not always being that Final Guy. So when it came to (spoiler alert!) getting brutally murdered by the Heart Eyes killer, he was completely down for the experience.
“It was nuts. The older I get, the more people want to kill me. I love it,” he said with a laugh. “Especially with [Chucky creator] Don Mancini. I wasn’t supposed to go on to season 2, but I guess he enjoyed murdering me twice in one season [so] he thought, ‘Look, let’s bring you back so we can murder you again.’ It’s a lot of fun to die and come back.”
Now that both Chucky and Heart Eyes have wrapped — at least, until the hopeful sequel — Sawa is looking ahead for what’s next. While horror will always be in his veins (“I want to keep coming back to horror at least once a year,” he promised), there are plenty of other genres he’d like to visit, too.
“One of my guilty pleasures is watching mob documentaries on YouTube. I think I’ve run out of them to watch. I’ve watched them all. I’d love to visit some really grounded crime stuff. And romantic comedy,” he told Us. “I just want to keep doing what I love doing. Like, what would I watch? That’s what I want to do.”
Grab your margaritas and pour one out, because Sweet Magnoliasshowrunner Sheryl J. Anderson is breaking down the Netflix hit’s most explosive season yet.
After premiering in 2020, Sweet Magnolias spent three seasons covering a mere few months’ time for the citizens of small town Serenity, South Carolina. That all changed with the release of season 4 — which hit Netflix on Thursday, February 6 — when viewers caught up with BFFs Maddie (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Helen (Heather Headley) and Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott) more than one year after the events of season 3 came to a close.
“It freed up how we were telling our stories,” Anderson exclusively told Us Weekly of the choice to leap ahead for the show’s fourth season. “There are 34 minutes between season 1 and season 2 and two hours and 34 minutes between season 2 and season 3. We talked a long time about how big a jump we would take, but we wanted to [do something different].”
Warning: spoilers below for season 4 of Sweet Magnolias.
Time moving forward, of course, meant big changes happening off screen for the Magnolias and their inner circles: Maddie and Cal (Justin Bruening) went and got engaged, Helen and Eric (Dion Johnstone) found new love – and not with each other — and Dana Sue gave up active control of her restaurant, Sullivan’s, in lieu of teaching students how to cook. Annie (Anneliese Judge), meanwhile, began her senior year of high school while Ty (Carson Rowland) explored his future as a musician.
Fans only have brief moments to catch up with what’s evolved for the characters off screen, however, before the new season jumps into a slew of new twists by the end of episode 1.
“Episode 1 is full of surprises,” Anderson teased. “We wanted to surprise the audience and allow them to recalibrate along with us as we are continuing this journey. We just thought it was interesting and reset some of the story lines in a way that we could come into them more vigorously.”
Season 4 is certainly a vigorous season — one that takes off running and doesn’t stop until the credits roll in the finale. Keep scrolling for Anderson’s break down all of season 4’s biggest bombshells:
Why Did They ‘Kill Bill’?
Courtesy of Netflix
It’s revealed early on in season 4 that Bill (Chris Klein) died of a heart attack while living in Texas with his parents and new girlfriend, Kathy (Wynn Everett). When asked why Bill’s death was necessary in moving the story forward, the showrunner pointed out how connected Bill was to Serenity as the ex-husband of Maddie, father of Kyle (Logan Allen), Ty and Katie (Ella Grace Helton), ex-fiancé of Noreen (Jamie Lynn Spears), estranged father of Bex and biological father of Issac (Chris Medlin). Whew!
“I prefer to think of it as Bill’s untimely passing. Not that we killed off Bill,” Anderson quipped to Us before confessing there were “plenty of ‘Kill Bill’ jokes” on set. “But the reason [he died] is we were looking for a cataclysmic event that would strike everybody at the core of their being. And across his time in Serenity, [Bill] has been central, obviously to Maddie and the kids but also to the group of friends around them [and] to other people in town.”
Anderson noted that Bill and Kathy ultimately found their “happy conclusion” during the season 3 finale — when they sought forgiveness before leaving town indefinitely — leaving an open space for something “completely unexpected” to happen.
“We were also looking for a way to have our characters confront those really existential questions that erupt when the first person in your friend group passes,” she continued. “You know, it’s like, ‘Who am I? Could time run out for me tomorrow? And if it does, what’s my legacy? Have I spent my time wisely? Am I doing what I should be doing? Am I with the person I truly love? Bill was such a shock. What if another shock is coming? Should I change my life?’”
Anderson clarified, however, that the writers and the cast all “love” Klein as an actor, sharing that they were collectively ”so sorry to tell him, ‘We’re taking this direction, but we love you.’”
Why Did Maddie Keep Her Wedding a Secret From the Magnolias?
Courtesy of Netflix
“We wanted to make it a family project,” Anderson explained to Us of Maddie hiding her wedding from her two best friends. “And Maddie shares with Dana Sue and Helen that she and Cal let the kids help them plan. So it was, ‘Let’s make it fun, let’s make it splashy, let’s make it so unusual that, you know, [we may] go on [for] many, many seasons and have many, many weddings, [but] there will never be a wedding like Cal and Maddie’s!’”
Cal nd Maddie tied the knot in a surprise ceremony on Halloween night during episode 2. While Maddie’s kids were let in on the secret, even Dana Sue and Helen are kept in the dark — a choice Anderson thought would cultivate an “interesting conversation for friends to have” after the deed is done.
While Dana Sue and Helen weren’t angry with Maddie, they did share their disappointment the following day. Garcia, for her part, called the experience a “big lesson” that Maddie needed to “learn.”
“Look, at the end of the day, if you need a body buried I would go to Maddie because she is gonna keep her lips sealed,” Garcia Fisher said, noting that she’s a lot like Maddie in that way. “Like, when people say, ‘I have that one person that I tell the secret to,’ well I hold secrets like a lockbox. I’m a lockbox secret girl.”
She continued, “I never realized that and I’ve always prided myself on that, but I’ve never realized that that could hurt people’s feelings. So when Helen said, ‘Yeah, you keep secrets but not from us.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I get it.’”
Garcia Fisher added that while she was “surprised” Maddie didn’t let her friends in on the planning, she also understood the decision. “It was like a fun surprise,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I would’ve felt really shafted as a friend. So I think they let [Maddie] off the hook a little easier than I would’ve. I would’ve been mad.”
Maddie’s second big secret of the season— that she knew Bill was Isaac’s biological father — felt like a secret she did need to keep. “There are grades,” Garcia Fisher argued, noting that some secrets “we just keep to ourselves,” even if it is “top tier gossip.”
Breaking Down the ‘Slap’ Heard Around Serenity
The tension between Bill’s mom, Bonnie, and Maddie reached a fever pitch in season 4 after Bonnie screamed at Ty the night of Bill’s funeral. When Maddie called Bonnie “vain” for her behavior, Bonnie attempted to slap Maddie across the face — but Maddie caught her wrist just in time.
According to Anderson, it was important Bonnie never actually made contact when going to hit Maddie. “From the original pitch of the moment there was not full contact, because this is Maddie taking control of the relationship,” she explained to Us. “Maddie tried so hard to be the daughter-in-law that Bonnie expected and therefore Bill expected. And it was a struggle from the get go.”
The moment, Anderson said, led to the “revelation” that Bonnie revealed before leaving Serenity — that Bill secretly stood up for his ex-wife while they were still married.
“We thought that spoke to the complexity of their marriage and how no matter how old we are, a lot of us are still trying to fulfill parental expectations,” Anderson told Us. “Some relationships can bear that and some can’t. But Bill’s a very particular kind of guy, and was raised [with someone saying], ‘You deserve whatever you want.’ So we just spent some time thinking about what kind of parents raise a kid that way. And that’s how we came up with Bonnie and [his dad] Trip.”
Why Was Now the Time for Ty and Annie?
After seasons of fans hoped childhood BFFs Ty and Annie would get together, the pair finally kissed and confessed their love during the first episode of season 4. Anderson explained that the pair getting together boiled down to what Ty’s bandmate Olivia (Tommi Rose) told him before heading out on tour.
“We’re gonna go out on the road, and if you continue to mess around and take her for granted, if you stay quiet and we come back and she’s with somebody else, it’s on you,” Anderson said. “And having recognized that he kind of blew it, and she started dating Jackson (Sam Ashby) [in season 2], the wheels start turning and he is like, ‘I better say something!’”
What Happened Between Ty and Annie During the Year Time Jump?
Anderson told Us that Ty and Annie were simply in a holding pattern for the year viewers didn’t see them on screen, focusing on their bond as friends.
“It’s,‘We’re just gonna be friends forever.’ So they weren’t pursuing each other,’” she said, before noting that them “holding hands” at the vow renewal during the season 3 finale was “a moment of mutual support” more than anything.
Will Ty and Annie Be Able to Make It Work?
Courtesy of Netflix
While Ty and Annie started season 4 on cloud nine as a couple, things took a turn when Ty returned from tour in the finale, revealing that his band was asked to tour Europe for the summer and fall — and he wanted Annie to defer her acceptance to her dream college to go with him. Annie, for her part, declined the offer, telling Ty that they should be able to survive one year apart after taking 17 years to admit their love.
The pair end the season as one of the only cliffhangers — and Anderson told Us that Annie’s decision played into season 4’s overall theme.
“One of the great heartbreaks of being in love at that age is that you’re at different levels of emotional maturity and what seems like a clear path to him is not a clear path to her,” she explained. “And frankly, one of the things that we were touching on this season is how often women are expected to put aside their dreams. Annie, Dana Sue, Maddie, Helen — I mean, you know, the sacrifice is somehow supposed to come to us naturally. And that was one of the things that we wanted to explore.”
Anderson noted that Annie is such a “supportive” and “giving” character, so forcing her to “stand up against the guy she’s been in love with all her life and say, ‘I have my plans,’ we just thought was an important conversation for a couple of any age to have, but certainly at their age.”
As for Judge, she’s not sure if the duo will make it in the end — but she hopes they will.
“I’m going to be really interested to see if we’re renewed for another season, which I’m crossing my fingers [we will be],” she said. “The cliffhanger, it’s there for me. I feel like I’m right alongside the viewers. Like, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know what’s gonna happen.’ Like, I don’t know if Ty’s gonna realize that that was not the right way to approach that conversation. Because it came from a good place. He wanted her to go with him. He wanted to for the world with her. I get it, but it’s hard. It’s so hard. We’ll have to see.”
Are Kids in the Cards for Helen and Eric?
Courtesy of Netflix
While season 4 began with Helen and Eric each respectively dating other people, the pair finally found their way back together during a hurricane — after a dripping wet Eric saved Helen from being crushed by a tree, of course. The twosome spent most of the season in bliss before Eric popped the question on Christmas Eve, but will the newly engaged couple fulfill Helen’s dreams of having children after her miscarriage, and Eric losing his wife and baby?
“I would love to have a season 5 to answer that question,” Anderson told Us with a laugh when asked if adoption may be in the cards for the couple. “But to where they are here in season 4, it’s really important for couples to have at least begun conversations on those big issues before they get engaged. I mean, ideally and certainly before they get married.”
Helen and Eric did have a “delicate” conversation “circling around” about possibly expanding their family in the penultimate episode of season 4, which Anderson said is “really interesting for Helen, who had already been struggling with fertility issues to expand the definition of what it would mean to have children.”
Can ‘Sweet Magnolias’ Go on With Maddie in NYC?
Despite finding massive success as a children’s book author during the time jump, season 4 concluded with Maddie accepting a marketing job at a publishing house in New York City. While she’s hesitant to leave, her family and friends encourage her to take the leap — and Garcia Fisher is in full agreement that getting out of Serenity is the right way to go.
“I think it’s important to get out of the bubble a little bit and test the waters,” she said. “And I think that’s sort of a whole part of Maddie’s journey. “She was living this one life for so long and doing it really capably, but it backfired, it blew up. And she really dedicated herself so wholeheartedly to be this wife and this mother and it’s not really all that noble. It was a huge lesson for her where she was like, ‘You know, I definitely sacrificed myself and who I was and experiencing great love and all of those kind of things.’”
Garcia Fisher called Maddie’s move a “cool angle to explore” for the character, especially since it hasn’t been that long since Bill and Maddie actually divorced.
“It feels like a long time because Sweet Magnolias has been around for a while. but when you really look at the timestamp of our show, it’s pretty rapid fire,” she said, adding, “I think it’s inevitable that she’s gotta get her groove back. And a part of that is reconnecting with her roots and the things that she’s good at and the things that she dedicated herself to at one point in her life. So I love the idea of it.”
But could Sweet Magnolias continue with Maddie in Manhattan? Garcia Fisher certainly thinks so. “I think that it’s safe to say that no matter where Maddie is, where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she told Us, adding, “I think it’d be really cool to see the Magnolias in Central Park strolling around like the Southern Sex and the City gals.”
