After venturing into original scripted series with the pickups of two acclaimed dramas that had faced cancellation, Friday Night Lights and Damages, DirecTV is moving onto launching its own original drama series.

I’ve learned that the satcaster has picked up Rogue, a 10-episode drama produced by Entertainment One.

Thandie Newton is in talks to star in the project, written by British writer-director Matthew Parkhill (The Caller). It centers on an undercover cop (Newton) who takes on a gangster after her young son is killed in a drive-by shooting. The project was developed at Momentum Entertainment by head of scripted Nick Hamm who will serve as an executive producer.

This would mark the first series regular role for Newton, who has been heavily pursued for pilots and series over the last few years, including this season. Her only previous series gig was an arc on ER. Newton, most recently seen in Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds, is with WME, which also reps Parkhill.

DirecTV is the latest non-traditional TV distributor to order scripted original series. Netflix has already greenlighted three, David Fincher’s House Of Cards starring Kevin Spacey, Eli Roth’s Hemlock Grove starring Famke Janssen and Jenji Kohan’s Orange Is The New Black.

Deadline.com

Thandie Newton recently attended the OK! Magazine Nigeria Edition Launch Party in London, England. I have just added 13 HQ and MQ images from the event into our photo gallery!

I have just updated our photo gallery with 718 HQ and MQ images of Thandie Newton from all of the events that she has attended so far this year!

Thandie Newton welcomes any opportunity to work with renaissance man Tyler Perry. After making his For Colored Girls, the actress leapt at the opportunity to return to Perry’s Atlanta home base to star in his latest, Good Deeds. Newton is sitting down with Movie Fanatic for an exclusive video interview and extols the virtue of not only the filmmaker, but the immense power that is his films.

Newton has already led a storied career that has seen her star opposite some of the industry’s biggest heavy hitters. She appeared with Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2, John Cusack in 2012, Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness and was part of the Oscar-winning ensemble in Crash. She also portrayed Condoleezza Rice in Oliver Stone’s W.

She electrifies the screen in Good Deeds as a cleaning woman who works in the building where Perry’s computer executive character works. Will the two fall in love? You’ll have to check out the film and see!

MovieFanatic.com

Actress Thandie Newton met with “Extra’s” Mario Lopez to chat about her new film “Good Deeds,” and about working with Tyler Perry.

In Perry’s “Good Deeds,” Thandie plays a single mom struggling to make ends meet. Newton says she and Perry are “addicted” to working together and that she loves “Tylerwood” studios in Atlanta.

A professional actor for 25 years, she said she has seen her daughters take an interest in show business. Check out what she thinks of them following in her footsteps, and don’t miss “Good Deeds,” in theaters February 24.

ExtraTV.com