•• You can now watch “The Hot Flashes” On Demand through Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Suddenlink and Dish Network. Watch the official trailer below!

•• Virginia Madsen is an Oscar nominee, a longtime working actress, a mother, and the founder of film production company Title IX—great feats on all counts. Madsen has had dozens of roles in her career including Maya in 2004’s Sideways  and Princess Irulan in 1984’s Dune—and is most recently a star of The Hot Flashes (alongside Darryl Hannah, Brooke Shields, and Wanda Sykes), a new film released July 12 from director Susan Seidelman about a group of misfit middle-aged women who form a basketball team to raise money for breast cancer prevention.

– First of all, is Wanda Sykes as hilarious as she seems?
Yes. Wanda is one of the best women I’ve ever met. She’s so much fun. She’s got such a strong spirit, and she’s incredibly generous. People would jump out of their cars and leave their car running in the street to come over to hug her. And she always says hello to people and stops and takes a picture. She didn’t care at all, she just loved it.

-Was your character in The Hot Flashes a fun departure from your dramatic roles?
I’ve been experimenting with comedy over the last few years and it’s something that I’m learning about. This was one of the first times that I got to be funny and not just the “straight man,” like Maya in Sideways. So it was a lot of fun for me to work with the physical comedy and what I got to do with my look. I really enjoyed it. Continue Reading  

•• Witches of East End has cast its spell on Virginia Madsen, tapping the Oscar-nominated Sideways actress for a multi-episode arc.

The new Lifetime drama which received a 10-episode order in January, centers on Joanna Beauchamp (Julia Ormond) and her two adult daughters Freya (American Horror Story‘s Jenna Dewan-Tatum) and Ingrid (American Dreams’ Rachel Boston), both of whom unknowingly are their family’s next generation of witches, , who lead seemingly quiet, uneventful modern day lives in Long Island’s secluded seaside town of North Hampton. When one of the daughters becomes engaged to a young, wealthy newcomer, a series of events forces her mother to admit to her daughters they are, in fact, powerful and immortal witches.

Virginia Madsen will play Penelope Gardiner, the mother of Freya’s fiance Dash (Eric Winter). The cast also includes Mädchen Amick as Joanna’s sister Wendy and Jason George as Ingrid’s beau. Maggie Friedman, who helmed ABC’s similarly-themed Eastwick, will serve as showrunner.