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Emma Thompson

Christine Baranski’s Good Fight

christine baranski townandcountry mag

-Any day there’s a new Christine Baranski photoshoot is a good day. She talks about her habit of playing  imperious grande dames: “It’s funny because I’m from this blue-collar neighborhood in Buffalo. I don’t know how it happened.”

-Meanwhile, I haven’t watched The Gilded Age premiere yet, but it’s probably a bad sign that the two reviews I read about it quoted Aretha Franklin’s “Great gowns, beautiful gowns.”

Kim Kardashian may have gotten famous thanks to a sex tape, but she’s denying Kanye West’s claims that there is more footage of her and Ray J.

Kanye West reportedly thinks Kim Kardashian‘s relationship with Pete Davidson is “fake” and he’s sick of the family making “up story lines for their lives.” Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he were the one to pull back the curtain on what makes the Kardashian empire tick?

-Speaking of hilarious, he’s also reportedly been dissing Pete Davidson for looking like he gets his clothes ‘from the mall.’

Cheryl Hines responded to a tweet about her husband, saying “My husband’s opinions are not a reflection of my own. While we love each other, we differ on many current issues.” Ok, but her hubby Robert Kennedy Jr. just compared vax and mask mandates to the Holocaust, so it’s a bit bigger than a difference of opinion. (She’s been shooting the second season of The Flight Attendant so she’s presumably vaxxed.)

Cardi B won a defamation verdict against a YouTuber who spread rumors of herpes and shocking sex acts. The rapper won $1.25 million damages, with possibly more on the way.

Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon comparing their Bored Apes NFTs is really disturbing. How are we normalizing this?!

Tiffany Haddish joked about her recent DUI arrest while on Jimmy Fallon‘s show. “I can say this, Jimmy…I’ve been praying to God to send me a new man. A good man. And God went ahead and sent me four—in uniform.”

-Speaking of Haddish, Girls Trip is finally getting a sequel.

-I kinda love that Angelina Jolie takes her 13-year-old daughter shopping at Urban Outfitters.

Peter Dinklage recently called Snow White a “f—ing backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave,” saying he was “taken aback” that the new adaptation was moving forward. Disney has responded, “We are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community.”

-A source in Olivia Munn‘s camp tells Us Weekly that her and John Mulaney’s relationship has been strengthened since their son’s birth in November.

-Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series is a really great way to read the scripts from this year’s movie awards race. What an excellent resource for anyone hoping to break into the writing biz.

Alicia Witt opened up about the sudden passing of her parents, who were both found dead in their home days before Christmas. Reports suggest a space heater may have caused their deaths, and the actress said, “I hadn’t been allowed inside my parents’ home for well over a decade; every time I offered to have something repaired for them, they refused to allow workers into their house.”

-CBS renewed Ghosts, and this is the cute way they told the cast.

Sydney Sweeney credits Euphoria creator Sam Levinson for agreeing to cut out some of her topless scenes from the second season. “There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here.’ He was like, ‘OK, we don’t need it.’ I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.” I mean, I’d suggest maybe the writers shouldn’t have including so many topless Cassie scenes in the first place, but everything about Euphoria this season puts me in old lady prude mode.

John Krasinski has cast his Office costar Steve Carrell in his new movie.

-Bravo finally axed Jennie Ngyuen from RHOSLC, saying “We recognize that we failed to take action once her offensive social media posts were brought to our attention.” Controversial social media posts appearing to promote White Lives Matter from 2020 resurfaced this week.

Franz Ferdinand is back! Here’s their new music video.

Marilyn Manson‘s attorney has issued a statement denying Evan Rachel Wood‘s allegation that he raped her on camera during a 2007 music video shoot. “Brian did not have sex with Evan on that set, and she knows that is the truth.”

Neil Young is demanding Spotify remove his music over their partnership with Joe Rogan. (Young almost died of polio as a kid before the vaccine came out and the illness affected his life for years, so him fighting against vax misinformation makes sense.)

-Based on buzz, it feels like the Sundance movies everyone is talking about are Palm Trees And Power Lines (which is getting lots of Red Rocket comparisons), Cha Cha Real Smooth (a crowd-pleaser starring Dakota Johnson), and Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (a two-hander with Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack).

Emma Thompson talked about doing her first fully nude scene in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, in which she plays a widowed school teacher who hires a young male escort. “I don’t think I could’ve done it before the age that I am.”

-I was not expecting the hottest new trend in Hollywood to be following Greek philosopher Epictetus’ advice on stoicism.

-I had no idea there was a Jamie Foxx-directed comedy where Robert Downey Jr. plays a Mexican. It seems like it won’t see the light of day.

Ewan McGregor plays a story-telling cricket in the first teaser for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

-Here’s the trailer for the first Tiger King series, Peacock’s Joe vs Carole, which stars Kate McKinnon as Carole Baskin and John Cameron Mitchell as Joe Exotic.

Keanu Reeves Remains Dreamy

Keanu Reeves wears a striped suit on the cover of Esquire

-My only requirement for a Keanu Reeves profile is that it doesn’t ruin the idea I have of Keanu in my mind (which is, admittedly, a high bar). Luckily, his new Esquire profile certainly doesn’t. I love how he repeatedly laughs off the notion that movie making is hard work (“I mean, ‘hard’? Come on, man. We’re making a movie!”),  and won’t complain when he wakes up feeling crappy and sick during his current routine of travel and constant night shoots (“So? Drink some hot tea with some lemon and honey in it. I don’t know. Slap yourself in the face. Stretch. Concentrate, man”). The part that’s going to get the most play is undoubtedly Sandra Bullock’s story about how he once brought her champagne and truffles because she had offhandedly mentioned never trying them — and when he dropped them off she was painting her nails so he let her paint his, too. All in all, the whole article is worth your time — even though the writer describes the upscale Toronto neighborhood of Yorkville as “bohemian.”

-The splits keep coming: Kaia Gerber and Jacob Elordi have reportedly split after a year of dating, and Batsheva Haart and Ben Weinstein of Netflix’s My Unorthodox Life have broken up after nine years of marriage.  As Jezebel says, the end of the pandemic cuffing season for famous people is here.

-Bucking the trend are Jaden Smith and Phoebe Dynevor, who may be dating. The age difference seems big but she’s actually only 3 years older.

Adele hosted another televised special — this time in the UK, and the audience was even more celeb-packed than the US one. Stars in the crowd included Idris Elba, Emma Thompson, Hannah Waddingham, Emma Watson, Bryan Cranston, Mel B, Naomi Campbell, Josh Gad, Samuel L Jackson and Richard E Grant.

-My favourite part was when Emma Thompson was urging everyone around her to get up and dance. I have been that person at concerts…

-Another great moment was when Adele’s former English teacher surprised her.

Britney Spears praised Lady Gaga for speaking out on her behalf and chided Christina Aguilera for refusing to do the same. Everyone’s blaming Xtina’s publicist, but look at her face before he even jumps in — this was clearly a “no-go” topic.

Taylor Swift has topped both the Billboard 200 album chart and the Hot 100 singles chart. Say what you will, but she’s managed to dominate the charts with songs that are a decade old.

-Meanwhile, there’s renewed chatter that Jake Gyllenhaal runs the Instagram account of a cat named Ms. FluffleStiltskin, who has started scolding about cyberbullying.

-This is neat: Jane Campion used a Jungian dream coach – who is also Sandra Oh‘s mentor – to put the unconscious on screen in The Power of the Dog.

Ridley Scott is blaming The Last Duel bombing at the box office on apathetic millennials. “What it boils down to [are] the audiences who were brought up on cell phones. The millennian, [who] do not ever want to be taught anything unless you told it on the cell phone. This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook. This is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.” There’s a few reasons I didn’t see it in theatres, and they had nothing do with age: the marketing and trailers were abysmal, Matt Damon was promoted much more than Adam Driver and Jodie Comer, I’m still not back to my full in-person theatre-going schedule, AND I had zero desire to watch the same sexual assault repeatedly play out from different perspectives. But go off, I guess.

-For non-ridiculous director talk, here’s Paul Thomas Anderson eating vegan Mexican food and chatting with the NYT.

Kristen Stewart, Jessica Chastain, Tessa Thompson, Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Hudson and Emilia Jones open up about their respective films already gathering Oscar buzz in THR’s first roundtable of the awards season.

Oscars’ best-actor category is shaping up to be this year’s stiffest competition, with Will Smith, Andrew Garfield, Leonardo DiCaprio, Benedict Cumberbatch, Joaquin Phoenix, Bradley Cooper and Mahershala Ali all being bandied about already.

Jason Reitman’s reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise made a respectable $44 million from 4,315 theaters this weekend.

Eddie Redmayne is courting controversy yet again by playing the Emcee in Cabaret — a character that is often played by LGBT actors. While he admits past mistakes (“I made The Danish Girl with the best intentions, but I think it was a mistake”), he says of his new role “Of all the characters I’ve ever read, this one defies pigeonholing. I would ask people to come and see it before casting judgment.”

-We Are Lady Parts has (finally) been renewed for a second season at Peacock. The first 6-episode season was a blast.

-This is a really good example of how dark and grimy TV looks nowadays. It’s everywhere!

-Three autistic roommates try to conquer their fears in the trailer for As We See It, from This Is Us creator Jason Katims.

-Here’s the trailer for Shonda Rhimes‘ latest Netflix show, Inventing Anna, starring Julia Garner as a grifter who infiltrated the NYC socialite scene.

Pete Davidson Tries to Break the Internet

pete davidson paper

Pete Davidson is on the cover of Paper’s break the internet issue, in a photo that pokes fun at his BDE and rumoured…uh…endowments.

RuPaul is on the cover of Vanity Fair, where he says “true drag really will never be mainstream. Because true drag has to do with seeing that this world is an illusion and that everything that you say you are and everything it says that you are on your driver’s licence, it’s all an illusion. Most people will never in their lives understand what that is. Because they don’t have the operating system to understand that duality.” Fair.

-In a surprising display of self-awareness, Scooter Braun calls himself the “bad guy” in his saga with Taylor Swift.

Jennifer Garner spent 25 minutes looking for her car in a one-level parking garage. “I stopped to tie my shoe [here]…I should be on CSI: Miami” made me LOL.

Brenda Song (who is in Dollface which just came to Crave and is soooo good) says she was ‘not Asian enough‘ to audition for Crazy Rich Asians. Director Jon M. Chu disagrees.

Amy Schumer posted a photo of her hanging out with Jennifer Lawrence and Phoebe Waller-Bridge and I’m incandescently jealous.

Emma Thompson fielded questions from children, who asked her who was her best onscreen kiss (“Meryl Streep’s a very good snogger. I had to snog her in Angels in America and she was method about it”) and what they should spend their pocket money on (“peppermint creams”).

-Buckingham Palace is bracing for an “imminent” summons from US investigators for Prince Andrew to give testimony about Jeffrey Epstein.

-The Independent Spirit Awards nominations are out and The Lighthouse and Uncut Gems are leading the way. Jennifer Lopez also got a best supporting actress nod for Hustlers.

Amanda Palmer hired a freelancer to travel with her and cover her tour and wrote a whole Twitter thread about it as if she’s the first person to invent PR.

Riley Keough landing the lead role in the Daisy Jones & The Six adaptation is great casting.

-The Paramount Laws, which prevent movie studios from block-booking features in the theaters they own, may be going away. This is very not good.

-Surprising but good news: Disney actually worked with indigenous Sámi people to make sure that Frozen 2 was culturally sensitive.

-DC has announced its next live-action series, Stargirl. The character will debut during the network’s upcoming superhero crossover event in Dec, and the show will air on The CW the day after episodes debut on DC’s streaming service.

-This is incredibly sad: Spirit of the West frontman John Mann passed away at 57. He was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease when he was 50.

-The paparazzi aren’t always bad. Courteney Cox‘s two dogs were rescued from traffic by a quick-on-his-feet paparazzo who was driving by.

-Love seeing the raves for Adam Driver‘s new movie The Report. Saw it at TIFF and it’s stuck with me.

-I will take any new Jane Austen adaptation you can give me thank you very much.