STARZ has released nine character posters for the upcoming second season of its hit horror comedy, “Shining Vale,” which returns on Friday, October 13th.
Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, Mira Sorvino
“Shining Vale,” stars Emmy Award® nominee Courteney Cox (“Friends,” “Cougar Town”), Academy Award® nominee and Emmy Award® winner Greg Kinnear (As Good as It Gets, “The Kennedys”) and Academy Award® winner Mira Sorvino (“Hollywood,” “The Expecting”).
In addition to Cox, Kinnear and Sorvino, “Shining Vale” also stars Gus Birney (“Dickinson”), Merrin Dungey (“Big Little Lies,” “The Resident”), and Dylan Gage (“PEN15”), and features Emmy Award® nominees Judith Light (“Poker Face”), Allison Tolman (“Gaslit,” “Why Women Kill”) and Sherilyn Fenn (“Twin Peaks”).
Courteney Cox as Patricia “Pat” Phelps
Patricia “Pat” Phelps
Patricia “Pat” Phelps is a former “wild child” who rose to fame by writing a raunchy, drug-and-alcohol-soaked women’s empowerment novel (a.k.a. lady porn). Fast forward 17 years later, Pat is clean and sober but totally unfulfilled. She was a faithful wife until her one slip-up: a torrid 15-night-stand with a hot, young artist/handyman/musician neighbor. In a last-ditch effort to save her marriage, she and her family move from the “crazy” of the city to a large, old house, which may be haunted. Things get worse for Pat as she starts writing her new novel… she gets possessed and then committed to a psychiatric hospital by her daughter.
Greg Kinnear as Terry Phelps
Terry Phelps
Terry Phelps is a sweet, sensitive guy who enjoys a good laugh almost as much as a good cry. He assumed he was married to the perfect wife, until she had an affair with their young handyman, destroying the kitchen island, and maybe his marriage. Ever the optimist, Terry is willing to do whatever it takes to keep his family together, including intensive couples therapy and cashing in all his assets to buy an old Victorian house in the suburbs of Connecticut. Terry’s challenge is always to ride out whatever is going on with Pat, without completely losing his own mind in the process. This all changes when Pat, possessed by the demon Rosemary, nearly kills him with an axe!
Gus Birney as Gaynor Phelps
Gaynor is Pat and Terry’s teenage year-old daughter who is going through that awful phase where she’s smarter than everyone and angry at the world—and by the world we mean her mother. She spars with Pat over sex, drinking, school, drugs, the weather—everything, really—mostly because she’s exactly like her mom was when Pat was her age. Things really hit the fan when Gaynor is forced to commit her mother into a psychiatric ward… like mother, like daughter.
Gaynor Phelps
Dylan Gage as Jake Phelps
Jake Phelps
Dylan is the Phelps’s pubescent son who is always glued to some sort of screen. He has severe ADHD and OCD so he quickly forgets what he’s obsessing about. Deeply quirky, and deeply sweet, he has his father’s temper which, like everything else about Jake, comes out at the oddest moments. A sensitive soul, Jake attracts other sensitive souls– some of whom died years ago in the house. He spends too much time inside the house discovering a new crawl spaces and hidden secrets.
Merrin Dungey as Kam Jennings
Kam Jennings
Kam is Pat’s oldest friend and book editor, a no-bulls**t straight talker who knows and loves Pat more than Pat does herself. Kam has been with Pat through the highs of Pat selling her first novel to the lows of everything that has happened since. Not realizing Pat’s finished second novel is the work of Rosemary, she’s thrilled with the outcome and cannot wait to get it out on the shelves.
Mira Sorvino as Rosemary Wellingham
Rosemary Wellingham
Rosemary is either Pat’s alter ego, a split personality, her id, her muse, or a demon trying to possess her. Sometimes playful, sometimes evil, often tragic, Rosemary has been roaming the halls of Pat’s new house for 70 years, searching for a vulnerable soul to live vicariously through. She sees in Pat a kindred spirit—like Pat she was unfulfilled in her role as a dutiful housewife—and as a result may or may not have slaughtered her entire family, straightened up the house, then took her own life in the bathtub that Pat now uses to relax. In any case, Rosemary promises to help Pat get her groove back and finish her novel, if Pat will simply agree to let Rosemary “come inside her,” a bargain that may haunt Pat forever. When Pat is committed to the psychiatric ward, she sees a familiar face in the old photos on the wall.
Judith Light as Joan Krueger
Joan Krueger
Joan Krueger is Pat’s mother, who has long battled mental illness, and her daughter… (whom Joan hasn’t forgiven for having her committed when Pat was 17). Joan is vain, irresponsible and hyper-critical, taking any opportunity to recall her prized youth, or belittle Pat. Joan is the woman Pat fears she will become
