Variety and PBS’s ‘Actors on Actors’ Returns January 3 with Natalie Portman, Octavia Spencer, Nicole Kidman and more

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The Emmy-winning Variety/PBS SoCal series Variety Studio: Actors on Actors is set to return for its 5th season on January 3rd, 2017 and the match-ups set look pretty great. Two additional episodes will air on January 4th and January 5th. They will also stream on pbssocal.org, with clips available on Variety.com starting at the end of this month and will air on other PBS stations across the nation beginning in January. Stars from some of the biggest Oscar hopefuls of the season like Moonlight, Jackie, Manchester by the Sea and Hidden Figures will go head-to-head in conversations about everything from first auditions, lost jobs, balancing family life, awards and more.

Cleverly, they pair up actors that aren’t in direct contention with each other (that could actually be kind of fun) but always enlightening and eye-opening as the actors work off of each as interviewer and interviewee.

This year’s lineup includes:

Viola Davis (Fences) with Tom Hanks (Sully)
Natalie Portman (Jackie) with Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)
Amy Adams (Arrival, Nocturnal Animals) with Andrew Garfield (Silence, Hacksaw Ridge)
Nicole Kidman (Lion) with Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)
Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals) with Adam Driver (Paterson)
Emma Stone (La La Land) with Molly Shannon (Other People)
Dev Patel (Lion) with Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)
Matthew McConaughey (Gold) with Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures) with Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool)
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) with Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women)
Annette Bening (20th Century Women) with Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins) with Colin Farrell (The Lobster)
Hailee Steinfeld (Edge of Seventeen) with Sally Field (Hello My Name Is Doris)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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