-It’s interesting to me that the new Jurassic Park seems to be marketing itself as the franchise’s feminist evolution. Variety’s new cover features Jurassic World Dominion stars Laura Dern, Bryce Dallas Howard and DeWanda Wise, and it’s a lovefest between the trio. Dern says of Wise’s casting: “It wasn’t about color, sex or anything. It was about finding the actor who could be the next Indiana Jones. And this,” she says, pointing to Wise, “happens to be the actor.”
-Oh god, this is sad and shocking: Ray Liotta, best known for Goodfellas and Field of Dreams, has passed away at 67 years old. He leaves behind a fiancée and a daughter. Deadline reported that he died in his sleep in the Dominican Republic, where he was shooting the film Dangerous Waters.
–Taron Egerton, Liotta’s onscreen son in Apple’s upcoming series Black Bird, remembered his co-star in a long, heartfelt messageon Instagram.
–Jeff Bridges talks about getting Covid after chemo. “I was pretty close to dying. The doctors kept telling me, ‘Jeff, you’ve got to fight. You’re not fighting.’ I was in surrender mode. I was ready to go. I was dancing with my mortality.”
-During Thursday’s episode of The Kardashians on Hulu, Kourtney Kardashian says a fertility expert told her to drink Travis Barker’s semen four times a week. Was the expert on Barker’s payroll?
-Wow, Alan Ritchson, the guy who plays Reacher, is going hard in his IG comments. Respect.
–This New Yorker piece on Depp’s defamation case is worth your time. “If you spend enough time inhaling the sulfurous fumes of the Depp-Heard live stream, what it starts to resemble most is a high-budget, general-admission form of revenge porn, an act in which the person with the upper hand in a relationship forces the other to be complicit in the sharing and dissemination of raw, vulnerable, literally sensational moments for the delectation of an unseen audience”.
-The Star Wars celebration event led to lots of news, including the announcement that Jude Law will lead a new Star Wars seriesfrom Jon Watts and Chris Ford.
-The biggest thing to come out of Celebration was the first teaser for Andor, the Disney+ series that stars Diego Luna and takes place five years before the events of Rogue One.
–Matthew McConaughey spoke out about the horrific school shooting in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas. For all his talk of needing to re-evaluate and sacrifice, he didn’t mention guns, though.
-Well. Britney Spearsmay be involved in the Weeknd’s upcoming HBO show, The Idol.
-THR’s drama actress Emmy roundtable included Rosario Dawson, Lily James, Jung Ho-yeon, Sandra Oh, Christina Ricci and Emmy Rossum. Is Rossum getting Emmy buzz? Her series isn’t even out yet. I’m surprised she was there over Laura Linney or Amanda Seyfried.
-The person who now owns Seth Green‘s Bored Ape NFT spoke with Buzzfeed. They said they are an Australian surgeon with a side hustle, believes they “bought it in good faith,” and conceded that they have no plans for the NFT — including giving it back to Green.
–Ellen DeGeneres‘ show wraps up this week. This is a good piece on the complicated legacy it’s leaving behind.
-More people need to be talking about what a great season Barry is having. It’s like they recognized that audiences will root for lead characters even if they’re monsters (a la Tony Soporano and Walter White) and were like “f**k that.”
-If you’re having bad day, here’s Idris Elbapunching a lion in the face in the Beast trailer.
-The Mr. Malcolm’s List trailer looks *delightful*. Freida Pinto pretends to be the “perfect woman” to trick a man into proposing in this upcoming period drama based on Suzanne Allain’s novel.
–Doja Cat covers Elle’s Women in Music issueand talks about being on social media (“I put a lot of things out there about myself. I’m just constantly on live. Sometimes I look at myself and I’m like, Well, if you could just f**king turn off your phone for, like, five minutes…”), and being a musical shape-shifter (“I play with genres that I’m not really used to, and I’m inspired by things that are new to me. That’s the game of it all”).
–Kristen Stewarttalked to Vulture about her new Cannes film, Crimes of the Future, and the nature of celebrity. “You know so clearly which actors like to act and which actors just like to be famous. It’s so fucking obvious. It’s very clear. Why don’t we just say it? I mean, I do, but the people who just want to be the center of attention: ‘I love it! That’s why I got into this.’ Instead of being like, ‘Oh, it’s the art!’ I’m like, ‘Is it?'”
-Speaking of Cannes interviews, Julia Roberts is there to present this year’s Trophée Chopard, and she told Variety, “When people say, ‘What advice would you give to an actor?’, I would say the first thing I would say to any actor is don’t take advice from actors. It would be the worst thing to do because we all have our unique experience.”
–Ricky Gervais released his Netflix comedy special SuperNature this week and about five minutes in, he took aim at trans women. This is what Netflix wants now. They don’t spend this many millions on this crap unless it’s on brand.
-This is an interesting Vox piece wondering if Amber Heard is the first target of a new extremist playbook. At this point, she’s pretty unlikely to lose the defamation case (assuming the ruling is based on the evidence that’s been presented), but how’s that going to go over with the people who assume Depp has it in the bag because their SM feeds are filled with posts from the bot armies and men’s rights activists? (The fact that I’ve seen multiple level-headed, feminist mutuals use the phrase “mutual abuse” in the past few weeks like that actually exists makes me worry that the fallout from this trial is going to be incalculable.)
-Meanwhile, Kathryn Arnold testified that Aquaman director James Wan and star Jason Momoawere the only reasonsHeard was not booted from the Aquaman sequel after Depp tried to get her fired.
-A Disney chief had a different take, saying the reason she was almost dropped from the franchise was over a lack of chemistry between her and Momoa.
-Speaking of disrupted concerts, whatever is going on with Conor Oberstsounds very sad.
-People are losing their mind over the wild sex scene in this week’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. It was also in the book (but I don’t remember it being so explicitly spelled out.)
–James Gray clearly articulates Hollywood’s need for a bunch of narrative styles, voices and genres, and why the dominance of one type of movie at the theatre is bad for everyone. “When you make movies that only make a ton of money and they’re only one kind of movie, you begin to get a large segment of the population out of the habit of going to the movies. And then you begin to eliminate the importance of movies culturally…[If I say] ‘I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse’ you know instantly what movie that is. You cannot quote me a single line from Aquaman.”
-It’ll be interesting to see if Letitia Wright tries to walk back her anti-vax takes as the Black Panther press tour heats up. She isn’t yet. When asked what she’s learned during the pandemic, she told Variety, “I’ve learned that in life, you just have to keep going strong with what you believe in.”
-There’s lots of chatter that the person behind DeuxMoi was revealed this weekend, and Hailey Bieber (who previously said she knew who it was) seems to have corroborated it.
–Seth Green’s Bored Ape NFT, which was set to star in its own animated show, was stolen in a phishing scam. Since the actor no longer owns the rights, the show cannot move forward.
-A24 has won the North American rights to the critical Cannes darling Aftersun, starring Paul Mescal and newcomer Frankie Corio. In other deals, Wild Four O’Clocks starring Michelle Pfeiffer was bought by Sony.
–Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Regé-Jean Page, Alfre Woodard and Billy Bob Thorton star in the new trailer for The Gray Man, directed by the Russo Brothers. It will hit theaters on July 15 and start streaming on Netflix a week later.
