Hollywood, Texas is home to the week’s most notable show business news about Texas stars, Texas stories, and other roles our state was born to play.

One of the seminal lessons of Dazed and Confused—besides the timeless importance of playing it cool—is that the older you get, the more rules they try to get you to follow. The best we can do is follow our hearts, keep a little change in our pockets, and exert some measure of control over our own lives whenever possible, like voting for the people who write those rules in the first place. This is especially crucial in an era when it seems more difficult than ever to just keep livin’—and that’s why the Dazed cast is coming back to help you come of age all over again. Nearly all the principal actors from Richard Linklater’s 1993 film will reunite for a virtual live read of the script on Sunday, October 11, at 6:30 p.m. Central, raising money for the Texas voting initiatives March for Science and Voto Latino, and reminding everyone of the importance of turning November 3 into a civic beer bust. Have you contributed to the fight against systemic voter suppression? It’d be a lot cooler if you did.

Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Rory Cochrane, Marissa Ribisi, Cole Hauser, Deena Martin, Esteban Powell, Christine Harnos, Wiley Wiggins, Michelle Burke, Mark Vandermeulen, Sasha Jenson, Jeremy Fox, Christin Hinojosa, Catherine Morris, and Nicky Katt are all reportedly on board, joined by special guests Jensen Ackles, Lamorne Morris, Eliza Gonzalez, Adrianne Palicki, Ricky Whittle, and Jason Reitman. (Sadly, it looks like Renée Zellweger will not be reprising her iconic role as “Girl Holding Beer Funnel.”) The Dazed live read will be followed by a Q&A, moderated by comedian Patton Oswalt, and then a party at the Moontower, if only in the stoned, wishful reverie of our currently ramble-free lives. 

The Walker, Texas Ranger Reboot Edges Closer to Filming in Austin

Nearly thirty years later, Dazed and Confused continues to draw fans to Austin, where they’re eager to see its many iconic filming locations, such as Top Notch and, uh, the fancy barbecue joint where the Emporium used to be. Now the city’s hoping that one day it can say the same about the upcoming reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger. According to KVUE, Austin officials are close to an agreement with the upcoming CW drama that stars local actor Jared Padalecki in the tough-guy role first played by Chuck Norris. The show is due to begin shooting in just a few weeks. Padalecki, who’s also one of Walker’s executive producers, is said to be especially “championing the production” setting up shop in his hometown (for obvious reasons), something that could bring in an estimated $17 million in wages for local residents. The team is also pitching the city on Walker eventually becoming a tourism draw for fans. Of course, considering the show is already set in Austin, the real incentive is to keep it from becoming another 9-1-1: Lone Star. We can’t have our Walker, Texas Ranger kicking people through L.A. windows.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller Lands Plum Role in Borat Sequel

When you’re in Austin taking that Walker Segway tour, be sure to swing by the Texas Department of Agriculture, where (if he’s not taking a taxpayer-funded trip to the rodeo) you just might catch a glimpse of newly minted movie star Sid Miller. The Texas agriculture commissioner and Stephenville native makes his film debut in the upcoming Borat sequel, we learned this week, thanks to a trailer in which Miller makes a surprise cameo near the end, sharing a fist bump and an unfortunate euphemism with a (rather poorly disguised) Sacha Baron Cohen. On his Facebook page, Miller later copped to having been “Boratted,” laughing it off by saying, “Good thing I’m not one of those politicians who take themselves too seriously!” 

And really, what’s one little embarrassing interview in a Borat movie when held up against a career of dignified service that includes declaring a “feral hog apocalypse”; hiring rocker Ted Nugent as his campaign’s treasurer; using his first act in office to grant “amnesty to cupcakes;” visiting Oklahoma City to get a special cocktail of injections known as a “Jesus shot;” regularly promoting fake news stories and George Soros conspiracies on a social feed that teems with racism and misinformation; and, memorably, tweeting from his official state account that Hillary Clinton is a “c—t”?  Sid Miller can rest assured: his reputation is safe!

Kacey Musgraves Teams Up With Scooby-Doo


Joining an esteemed lineage that includes the Three Stooges, KISS, and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, country star Kacey Musgraves has become the latest celebrity to get animated alongside the equally lovable stoners of Scooby-Doo. The Golden native shared a couple clips from her recent appearance on Boomerang’s Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, which finds Musgraves’s cartoon avatar calling in a favor from her apparent “bestie” Daphne and the rest of the gang, asking them to investigate a series of ghostly sightings that threaten to derail her Nashville variety show. You can stream the episode for free through the Boomerang app to find out how the mystery gets solved. Ten bucks says it was Old Man Bro-Country all along! 

Natalie Zea Lands Recurring Role on The Unicorn

When last we checked in on Monahans native Natalie Zea, she had just been cast as the lead in the twisty NBC drama La Brea, as a mother who finds herself plunged into a mysterious, primitive world that leaves her desperate to get back home. Of course, that was way back in the primordial age of late February, approximately two weeks before our own world turned dark and unrecognizable. So while La Brea has become one of many productions to remain on indefinite hold, Zea has sought comfort elsewhere: in a reunion with her Justified costar Walton Goggins on CBS’s The Unicorn, where Zea has netted a recurring role as the “mystery woman” who catches the eye of Goggins’s recently widowed father character, then ropes him into her complicated life. Zea and Goggins didn’t share much screen time on Justified; as the ex-wife and frenemy, respectively, to Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan Givens, they were linked solely through a sort of transitive chemistry, based on mutually driving him crazy. But now they finally have the chance to get to know each other, without the fear of anyone shooting up the place. 

Netflix’s Selena Series Gets a Release Date

Netflix has finally announced a December 4 release date for its long-gestating Selena: The Series, which was first announced nearly two unusually long years ago. The show plans to split the story of the Tejano legend’s life across two chapters, with the release of the second part still to be determined. The first six episodes will follow a young Selena Quintanilla, played by The Walking Dead’s Christian Serratos, from her teenage years in Corpus Christi through her early stardom, chronicling the “heart-wrenching and life-changing choices” Selena’s family has to make as they contend with the demands of her growing fame. Serratos is front and center in the newly released teaser, which finds her singing (and twirling) in a heavily stylized concert sequence and, well, not much else. Still, you’ve waited this long to see something, anything of substance from this show. What’s a couple more months?

 Did Post Malone Get a New Tattoo?

Once again, no. However! He did announce his own signature line of Arnette sunglasses—including a version that features a replica of Malone’s “Always Tired” face tattoos etched right into the bottom of the lens, which I will consider close enough. Now you can see the world the way Post Malone does: through a filter of blasé, Bud Light–fueled impetuousness, never far from being confronted by your own rash decisions. Maybe it’ll inspire you to go out and get some new ink of your own, even if Malone himself won’t.

THIS WEEK IN MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY

Like the film itself, Sunday’s Dazed and Confused reunion is just the launching pad for an all-out Matthew McConaughey blitz in the coming weeks, as the October 20 release of the actor’s junk-drawer-journal Greenlights draws ever nearer. This week, McConaughey added to the ever-present buzz by filling in some of the few remaining celebrity guest spots on his upcoming virtual book tour, adding his Newton Boys costar Ethan Hawke to his event at the Texas Book Festival; his Sing costar Reese Witherspoon to the San Francisco date; and his cinematic soulmate Woody Harrelson to the Oklahoma stop. With other previously confirmed guests Richard Linklater, Kate Hudson, John Grisham, and Idris Elba already on board, the tour is partly a nostalgic, This Is Your Life trip through McCona-history, part falling-asleep-in-front-of-TBS fever dream, one that promises to yield plenty of fondly shared movie memories. Or, in Harrelson’s case, probably a lot of mutual giggling.

Of course, if it already feels like McConaughey is everywhere, it’s because he is. If you tuned into last Saturday’s Texas versus TCU game, you may have even had the odd sensation that he was out there watching you. That’s because, with its stadium reduced to just 25 percent by COVID restrictions, UT-Austin found a creative way to fill the stands: bringing in cardboard cutouts of McConaughey from his various films, so that his characters from The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike, The Wedding Planner, et al. got an up-close view of the Longhorns’ 33–31 loss. At least the team didn’t have to see the real McConaughey’s face.

Finally, this week McConaughey revived what feels like his longest-running role to date, that of spiritual adviser to a decidedly not all-right nation, with another appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show. Once again, Kimmel called upon McConaughey to deliver one of his renowned, We Are Marshall–style pep talks to a weary America, a request McConaughey obliged by near-involuntarily rattling off another bit of inspirational slam poetry that was rife with both rhyme and reason. Who knew that when we first watched a young Matthew McConaughey pontificating on the indignity of drug-free pledge sheets and the moral imperative of scoring Aerosmith tickets that we’d still be looking to him for wisdom three decades later?