Home » Style » Kaley Cuoco, Jurnee Smollett, John Stamos, Matthew Rhys,...

Kaley Cuoco, Jurnee Smollett, John Stamos, Matthew Rhys, and more dressed as their Favorite TV Characters in W Magazine

Posted on August 17, 2021

In celebration of a year of incredible television, W Magazine released their second annual TV Portfolio in which they asked the most sought-after and influential stars of the moment to pay homage to their favorite small screen characters by stepping into their shoes.

This year’s portfolio features many Emmy nominees including Jurnee Smollett dressed as Walter White from Breaking Bad; Kaley Cuoco dressed as a contestant from The Bachelor; Matthew Rhys as Ernest Hemingway and Elizabeth Olsen as Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote. It also includes some of the year’s biggest stars such as Lily Collins as Prue from The Great British Baking Show; Cruel Summer’s Chiara Aurelia as Miriam from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; John Stamos as none other than Elvis himself; Lili Reinhart as Anya Taylor Joy’s, Beth Harmon from The Queen’s Gambit; Juno Temple as Eleven from Stranger Things along with Aidy Bryant, Andrew Koji, Brandee Evans, Christian Serratos, Christopher Meloni, Colman Domingo, Cristin Miloti, Dane DeHaan, Emma Corrin, Justice Smith, Kate Mara, Madison Lintz, Naomie Ackie, Natalia Dyer, Phoebe Dynevor, Savannah Welch, and Thuso Mbedbu.

Jurnee Smollett
Pin
The advice she would give her younger self: “… just quiet the censor. I wouldn’t change my route to here because it made me who I am, and I’ve been incredibly blessed to work with such great actors and filmmakers and take from those experiences and build my bag of tricks. The unfortunate thing about the business is that it can sometimes be very detrimental to young performers and artists.Sometimes those voices can really get in your head. The judgmental side of this industry messes with your ability to create art… A lot of the work young artists have to do coming up in this industry is quieting the censor and protecting the artist child, who is so pure and creates from such a pure place.”

Kaley Cuoco
Pin
Recalling her first kiss: “My first kiss was on set. It was actually not on set, but it was while I was shooting with a guy that was shooting with me, but he took me on a date and he actually kissed me and it was my first one. And it was a Disney movie. Kids got wild on those Disney movies back in the day.”

Matthew Rhys
Pin
On how drunk he would get co-hosting The Wine Show: “Oh my god. Absolutely wasted. Wasted! That first season, it was such a shock, especially Italy. When they do wine tasting, Italians firmly believe that… You do not spit the wine… So, if you imagine we start at 8:30 in the morning, we would stop at like 6:30 in the afternoon—by midday, we were on our knees! All the producers would say, “You’ve got to stop slurring, you’ve got to say something more than, ‘Oh, this is nice!’” They started scheduling that into the day because around 2 o’clock we wouldn’t have a single linear thought in our heads…”

Elizabeth Olsen
Pin
On her secret skill selling real estate: “…I got my real estate license because I didn’t want to work in a restaurant in New York, as a summer job. So I thought, I’ll work in a real estate office. I was dealing with my sister’s friend who was a realtor, and I dealt with his rental clients. And I would mispronounce streets in New York, because I had just moved there, all the time.”

Lily Collins
Pin
On her love for baking and cooking: “I love any show about baking and cooking,” says the Emily in Paris star. “I bake a lot of gluten-free, vegan things, which people think sounds not so fun or gross, but I get a kick out of making something with vegan chocolate or more ingredients, and seeing if it works.”

Chiara Aurelia
Pin
On when she found out about the surprise ending in Cruel Summer: “I was kind of the sleuth of the cast, always trying to put all the pieces together, see what information I could gather. It was a really interesting experience because the creators kind of gave us the opportunity to be an audience member and a viewer. We were excited to figure out what was going to happen, just like everyone who was watching it.”

John Stamos
Pin
On his first ever acting role on General Hospital: “…I played Blackie Parrish. My character was supposed to die and my mom wrote all these letters to ABC and they kept me around. But it was great. That show was super popular at the time. Sammy Davis Jr. was on. And Elizabeth Taylor. One day, I’m doing my scenes and I look and there was someone in the eyeline. I go, can you get that woman out of my eyeline? And it was Elizabeth Taylor sitting in a director’s chair having champagne. I think [she] and Luke [played by actor Anthony Geary] were hanging out together.”

Lili Reinhart
Pin
On her love for period pieces: “I’m a sucker for a period piece,” says the Riverdale star. “And I liked watching a young girl become an adult—have her life completely change in just a few years. I relate to that.”

Juno Temple
Pin
On American childhood: “There’s something about the American childhood that is just so very different to what I grew up with that I find deeply fascinating,” says the Emmy-nominated Ted Lasso star. “I was completely besotted by this incredible ’80s fantastical world and the beautiful friendships between these children.”