In Greenroom Confidential, reporters and editors at TODAY.com share a look at what actors, authors, performers and more guests told us behind the scenes at TODAY. This week, more stars rolled through Studio 1A, from actors like Bella Ramsey and Lily Gladstone, to athletes including Paige Bueckers and Walt Frazier. Take a peek!
Bella Ramsey says Pedro Pascal will be in their life ‘forever, one way or another’
Bella Ramsey, the 21-year-old star of “The Last of Us,” stopped by Monday ahead of the show’s Season Two premiere on HBO this weekend. They co-star alongside Pedro Pascal, whom Ramsey holds a close friendship with.
“Me and Pedro are, like, bonded at the hip,” Ramsey told TODAY.com. “We’ll both will be in each other’s lives forever, one way or another. We can not speak, not see each other for, like, a year, and then just pick back up. I know that he’s got my back.”
The cast of ‘The Wedding Banquet’ just adores Youn Yuh-jung
While guest co-hosting Jenna & Friends, Bowen Yang invited his castmates from “The Wedding Banquet” for a chat in studio. Afterward, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran and Han Gi-chan told TODAY.com about working with Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung in the movie.
“She knows herself so well. She’s completely no bulls—, but she’s also very loving,” Gladstone said, adding that Han was “tested” by their co-star.
“There was a moment that I went to the place before filming with her,” Han said. “She just said, ‘Sit down, read the script.’ I was almost freaking out, but just pretended not to. … Later on, just talking about her costumes and stuff, she just told me, ‘OK, so your Korean pronunciation is a little mumbling.’ I was like, ‘OK, I’ll fix it!’
“And later on, she told me that it was kind of a test, I just wanted to see if you were prepared,” he added. “And I passed it.”
Paige Bueckers describes her journey to national champion in 1 word
Fresh on the heels of winning her first NCAA championship title in the women’s March Madness tournament, UConn star Paige Bueckers stopped by TODAY to discuss the game, look back on her college career and preview the upcoming WNBA draft, set for April 17. Speaking with TODAY.com before her interview with Savannah and Willie, Bueckers said she feels like she’s been “living in a dream.”
“I was going to have tears regardless at the end of the season, win or loss, but to just be able to encapsulate my whole entire five-year journey in one tournament and to be able to top it off with a national championship meant the world to me,” Bueckers told TODAY.com. “But obviously the journey, the relationships and the experiences, was really the thing that made it all worth it. And so it was very emotional, super bittersweet, just knowing we ended it off the right way — but just also sad it had to end it all.”
Many have called the victory a “fairy-tale ending” for Bueckers’ college career after several setbacks, including an ACL injury. As for how she would describe her basketball career so far?
“Just a story of overcoming a lot of adversity, a story of resilience, of trusting, of growing in my faith, of growing so much in my leadership abilities and trying to be a great teammate,” she said.
She said there’s one word she uses the most: “rewarding.”
Harry Hamlin and chef Renee Guilbault preview Season 2 of their cooking show
Harry Hamlin stopped by TODAY April 9 alongside chef Renee Guilbault, his niece and fellow star of “In the Kitchen with Harry Hamlin.” The duo discussed the upcoming second season of the AMC show as well as their Open Food Company.
The company’s first product was Harry’s Famous Sauce, which comes in two flavors: Spicy tarragon vodka and the family recipe, rosemary red wine.
The goal is to meet home cooks where they are at — whether they want to make the sauce themselves from scratch or not. “If they don’t have that time, here’s the jar, it’s exactly the same,” Guilbault told TODAY.com.
As for “In the Kitchen,” Hamlin said the upcoming premiere will feature appearances from actors like Ben Feldman and Kevin Rahm — “who was my nemesis on ‘Mad Men,'” he noted — as they cook a roast beef dinner.
“Everybody wants to know how to make a roast beef, right? And most people go, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t make this,'” Hamlin said. “So what we do is we open that up and we tell you, ‘Hey, guys, don’t be intimidated by a big roast beef … You can do it, and it’s going to be great.'”
Valerie Bertinelli is entering a new hosting era
On April 9, Valerie Bertinelli appeared on Jenna & Friends and turned the tables on Jenna Bush Hager and her co-host Jay Ellis. Instead of Jenna and Ellis calling the shots, Bertinelli was the host, putting the duo through a round of Game Show Network’s upcoming show “Bingo Blitz,” premiering April 14 with Bertinelli at the helm.
The game is bingo with a twist — combining the traditional game of chance with trivia. Bertinelli, who previously hosted two shows on Food Network, told TODAY.com that in hosting “Bingo Blitz,” she “had a lot more fun that I thought I was going to have.”
“Because I always had fun,” she said. “But this was — I was learning so much, learning about the people that would come on and be the contestants. It’s been a real blast.”
She said her active social media presence, which includes answering direct messages and talking directly to her followers, came in handy as she connected with contestants on the show.
“I find people fascinating. I find their lives fascinating. I think we all have such fascinating lives that we don’t even take into consideration, because we all think we’re playing our own role. But I think if we look around and open our eyes, there’s just so many interesting people, and their stories are always interesting,” she said. “Being so open on social media helped me be open with the guests and make them comfortable.”
Adrienne Warren is making Cathy in ‘The Last 5 Years’ her own: ‘I have to!’
Each night, Adrienne Warren has to fall in and out of love with Nick Jonas. OK, not quite — she plays Cathy and he is Jamie in “The Last Five Years,” a musical about a relationship from beginning to end.
There’s a twist, however. Jamie’s songs are sung in chronological order; Cathy’s start from their breakup to when they first get together.
Warren, who made her Broadway debut in “Bring It On: The Musical,” said her goal isn’t to make theatergoers “Team Cathy.”
“My goal each night is that everyone just sees that these are two artists who are growing and learning about themselves through a relationship and growing up in New York City,” she said.
She said it’s an “honor” to step into the role, which has never been performed on Broadway, and put her own spin on Cathy.
“She’s a woman who has persevered through many obstacles and trying to find her way as an artist in the city,” she said of her character. “She’s a woman who stands up for herself, but also maybe loses herself through love, as sometimes we lose ourselves in love.”
Mel Robbins on why we can’t stop saying ‘let them’
During her April 11 appearance on TODAY, Mel Robbins’ wrist was wrapped in green beads — a subtle nod to the vibrant green cover of her book, “The Let Them Theory,” which recently took over the world, more or less.
In an interview before her broadcast appearance, Robbins made her best guess as to why the “let them theory” has taken off.
“We are in an unprecedented moment of stress and overwhelm. That is the backdrop. Having a simple, timeless message about how you can gain control of your life at a moment when things feel so out of control is probably the single most important message they could possibly put into the world right now,” she said.
Ironically, she said the way to get control is to let go.
“This is a book about power and control. What are you in control of? And what do you have power over? When you say ‘let them,’ you are reminding yourself that the one thing in life you will never be able to control is what another person thinks, says, does or chooses to believe,” she said.
Basketball legend Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier on his signature announcing style
New York Knicks legend Walt “Clyde” Frazier became the first NBA player to make the Hall of Fame as both a player and a broadcaster in 2022, but it wasn’t a smooth ride when he first embarked on his career as a color analyst.
In the late 1980s, the player known for his famous cool on the court debuted the rhyming style that has become his trademark, from “posting and toasting” to “styling and profiling.”
“When I first started, I was criticized,” Frazier, 80, told TODAY.com. “Even my bosses at the Garden told me to stop rhyming, and I go, ‘Man, I don’t know I’m rhyming. It just comes out.
“I’m not choreographing the game where I have stuff in front of me that I see, so I said, ‘Well if I’m going to get fired, I’m going to fired my way.’ And then all of a sudden people started liking the rhymes and the words that I was using. That’s been rewarding.”
One of Frazier’s signature phrases is now a children’s book called, “Winning and Grinning: Walt Clyde Frazier Knicks Legend and New York City Icon,” depicting his life story in vivid color.
