–Robert Pattinson covers Variety and the interview is great. He discusses the initial rumors that he had been cast in Matt Reeves‘ Batfilm — and he hadn’t even gotten the chance to audition yet, let alone been cast. “When that thing leaked, I was fucking furious. Everyone was so upset. Everyone was panicking from my team. I sort of thought that had blown up the whole thing…I’d had Batman in my mind for a while. It’s such an absurd thing to say. I sort of had an idea to do it, and I’d been prodding Matt. He didn’t accept any prods. I kept asking to meet him.” He also talks about noticing an odd career pattern while shooting his latest film, The Lighthouse: “In the last three or four movies, I’ve got a masturbation scene. I did it in High Life. I did it in Damsel. And The Devil All the Time. I only realized when I did it the fourth time. But when I saw the clay figure of the mermaid, if you’re getting turned on by that, you’re in a very strange place in your life.”
-Speaking of good cover stories, Renee Zellweger talks about her comeback in NY Mag. This is the part that’s raising eyebrows: “It’s interesting that both Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli married gay men, I say, and here she makes the most complicated and hilarious face imaginable, one that seems to say, all at once, Haven’t we all? And Go figure! ‘Cute’s cute,’ she says. ‘Handsome is handsome! Sweet is sweet. If it works…I mean, I mean! Sometimes it just doesn’t really matter. It just dudn’t. If there’s a spark, it just is, and who needs to explain it?’ (At the moment, she’s single, after a long relationship with a musician; her previous high-profile boyfriends include Bradley Cooper, Kenny Chesney, Jim Carrey, and George Clooney.)”
–Timothee Chalamet won the Venice red carpet this weekend with the suit that launched a thousand tweets.
-Run to Jodie Smith‘s IG stories RIGHT NOW to see the videos she shot of boyfriend Joshua Jackson in bed with her.
–Brad Pitt went to Kanye West’s Sunday Service this weekend, which is…huh.
-Supergirl’s Melissa Benoist and Chris Wood got married on Sunday. When it comes to TV star weddings I’m always intrigued by which costars showed up — and which ones didn’t. Wood’s Vampire Diaries costar Paul Wesley, Supergirl’s Odette Annable, and Kevin Smith (who directed several SG episodes), were in attendance.
-Do you think that Harry Styles realized that too many people fell in love with him because of last week’s unbelievably charming Rolling Stone interview, so he was like “F-k it, I’ll just get a bowl cut so y’all will leave me alone.”
-Congrats to Lizzo, who just earned her very first Billboard No. 1 song with “Truth Hurts.”
-This is a very, very sweet video of the Jonas Brothers showing up at a 16-year-old fan’s hospital room because she had to miss their concert due to a chemo treatment.
–This is a great piece on how shows like Fleabag, Younger, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel have ushered in a TV landscape that’s less interested in fairy-tale endings than the challenges of modern love.
-Speaking of TV, here’s my picks for the 10 new shows to watch this fall.
-Apple+ is not moving forward with its Richard Gere drama. It’s not a good sign that Apple reportedly did not like the show’s “tone of vigilante justice” and is looking for more “aspirational programming” (which sounds way too close to the happy/earnest vibe Disney+ is going for). On the plus side, maybe it’s ok that the show is dead because the premise sounds *horrible*: two elderly Vietnam veterans’ “lifelong regrets and secrets collide with their resentment of today’s self-absorbed millennials, and the duo go on a shooting spree.”
–Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth are going to star in a new Quibi series. It feels like every other day some major star signs onto Quibi, and I still don’t really get what it is.
-Critics are really, really digging the new Joker movie, which premiered at Venice over the weekend. I’m waiting for more female critics to weigh in before I decide if I’m going to see it in theatres.
-I can’t believe how much I laughed at the Between Two Ferns movie trailer. “You killed Matthew McConaughey!”
–Taika Waititi skewers Hitler in the new Jojo Rabbit trailer. This is the only ticket I’m really wishing I would have scored for TIFF this weekend, but it sold out SO FAST.