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JK Rowling

Michaela Coel for GQ

Michaela_Coel_GQ

-Are you watching HBO’s I May Destroy You? I shied away from it at first because the premise sounded so bleak, but I’ve now caught up on all four episodes that have aired so far and it’s remarkable. Yes, it’s about a woman trying to figure out if she was sexually assaulted when her drink was spiked so it’s dark, but it’s also funny and charming and unpredictable. No wonder it’s already ending up on best TV show lists. Series creator and star Michaela Coel talks about the show in the latest issue of British GQ.

–Kylie Bunbury and Mark-Paul Gosselaar shot a new, socially distanced promo to celebrate Pitch being on Hulu. Rumours keep surfacing about execs wanting to bring the show back and I don’t want to get my hopes up again, but why would Disney spend money on shooting a new promo for an old show?!

–Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds continue to step up. They donated $200K to a Nova Scotia Indigenous women’s program.

-The latest round of Actors on Actors videos feature Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman (she told him “[Chris Nolan] doesn’t allow chairs, and his reasoning is, if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they’re sitting, they’re not working. I mean, he has these incredible movies in terms of scope and ambition and technical prowess and emotion. It always arrives at the end under schedule and under budget. I think he’s onto something with the chair thing”), and Chace Crawford and Penn Badgley (bless Penn for saying “we can debate about whether or not that even makes sense” of his character being Gossip Girl).

-What the hell is Terry Crews doing? Someone change his Twitter password already.

-The first chapter of Quibi’s star-packed Princess Bride remake dropped yesterday. It’s an insanely fun four minutes.

–Mel Gibson has three upcoming movies booked despite those anti-Semitism comments the actor allegedly made to Winona Ryder resurfacing. Tell me more about “cancel culture.”

–Lena Dunham agreed with that viral tweet that went around earlier this week, saying that she agrees the “Hollywood system is rigged in favor of white people and that my career took off at a young age with relative ease.” Ok, I get that she had an easy ride and benefited from being a white indie movie darling with famous parents. But Girls was good (sometimes great!). How come we’re not calling out white male showrunners who get chance after chance and keep making bad shows? I know Dunham is an easy target but come on.

-365 Days star Michele Morrone confirmed that a sequel is in the works. God help us all.

–Kim Kardashian-West shared photos from daughter North’s 7th birthday, which they celebrated on their $14 million ranch in Wyoming. Is she the only little girl who’s ever asked for a pony and got it?

–Dr. Dre‘s wife of 24 years, Nicole Young, has filed for divorce.

–This photo of Chris Pine walking out of an indie bookstore with a big bag of books while wearing a mask has sent Twitter aflutter.

-I love that Mae Whitman and Jane Levy are BFFs IRL.

-“Hi guys I’m in my gym today and yes it is the gym that I burned down, it’s still not fixed yet but I’m getting there” is the best intro ever to an Instagram video.

–Adele shared some flirty exchanges with British rapper Skepta on Instagram.

–JK Rowling continues to show her true colours.

–Alison Brie says she regrets voicing Diane Nguyen on BoJack Horseman: “We missed a great opportunity to represent the Vietnamese American community accurately and respectfully.” I mean, ok, but this was a repeated criticism of the show while it was airing and it’s weird to position it like this is something that never occurred to her.

-Family Guy’s Mike Henry will no longer voice Cleveland. He also had a four-season spinoff on which he was an executive producer; is he giving back his royalties from that?

-Speaking of hollow, performative gestures, Hulu pulled a “blackface” episode of Golden Girls that featured Blanche and Rose in mud masks. Instead of all this virtual signaling, wouldn’t it be great if the television industry focused on the work that actually has to be done.

–Paul Walker‘s daughter snapped a selfie with all three of Vin Diesel‘s children — including Pauline, who was named after Walker.

-Ozark is coming to an end on Netflix, but it’s doing so with an expanded order for its fourth and final season.

-So now Justice League actor Ray Fisher is taking a swing at Joss Whedon? What a mess.

-HBO beat out 16 other bidders to turn Brit Bennett’s novel The Vanishing Half into a limited series. I just finished it and yeah, it’s worth the hype.

-Amazon Prime Video has launched a Watch Party feature which allows for up to 100 people to stream movies and TV together. I can’t believe Netflix hasn’t launched something like this yet.

-The hot priest met the hot couple from Normal People. So much hotness!

-Disney+ released a new clip from Hamilton featuring Renée Elise Goldsberry singing “Satisfied”.

–Jennifer Hudson shines in the new trailer for the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect.

–Liam Neeson and his real-life son star in the Made In Italy trailer.

George Clooney Recounts His First Meeting with Amal

–George Clooney gushes about wife Amal in David Letterman‘s next Netflix interview. On their first meeting, he says, “It was the wildest thing. A mutual friend of ours said, ‘I’m stopping by and can I bring my friend?’ And I was like, ‘Of course!’… The funniest thing was my mom and dad were visiting so my parents were there. And we just talked, we stayed up all night talking. And I got her email address, because she was going to send me some pictures of my parents. So we started writing. I didn’t know if she wanted to go out with me — I just thought we were buddies.” Oh George, you sweet summer child.

–Tiffany Haddish says she once wrote a treatment for a show where she takes celebrities on Groupon excursions, and now that’s all I want to watch.

-Here’s the trailer for Mindy Kaling’s new NBC show (which she produced and stars in), in which she drops off her kid to live with his dad in New York City, where the teen wants to go to art school.

-Oh ffs. Director David Yates confirmed that the Fantastic Beasts sequel will revolve around Dumbledore and Grindelwald, but will avoid addressing Dumbledore’s sexuality. Yates said “Not explicitly, but I think all the fans are aware of that,” which is such a copout. Why can’t a character who’s gay in canon be depicted as such onscreen?

–Keanu Reeves‘ Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace is oddly beautiful.

-I stopped watching House of Cards very early in its run, but suddenly the no-Kevin Spacey season sounds awesome. Robin Wright is the lead, and now Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear will play siblings.

-Speaking of shows that are getting major cast overhauls in their final stretch, Katherine Heigl is joining Suits for Season 8. I feel like she’s one of those people that we all have to rethink our treatment of. Sure, there are lots of stories about her and her mom’s behaviour on set, but really the reason everyone turned on her was because she dared to imply that Knocked Up had some problematic portrayals of women…and she wasn’t wrong. And Hollywood crucified her for it and labelled her “difficult.” We’ve given male actors a free pass for behaving much, much worse.

-Along those lines, Kathy Griffin is plotting her comeback in the new THR cover story, eight months after torching her career (and friendship with Anderson Cooper) with a photograph of a decapitated Trump. “I didn’t rape anybody. I didn’t assault anybody. I didn’t get a DUI. I mean, my God, there are celebrities that fucking kill people.”

-In a new interview, Hayley Atwell apologized for working with Woody Allen (and casually mentioned that Ewan McGregor was in the film, too).

–Chrissy Teigen said she freaked out and acted weird when she met Beyonce at the Grammys last weekend. “It was like, ‘milady.'”

-Bless Kelly Clarkson, who chipped away at Grammy president Neil Portnow‘s comments piece by piece and kindly directed him to her “A-game album.”

-I really liked this article on how The Good Place went against the antihero-TV idea that people don’t improve, by showing that being good is damn hard work.  Also, these fan theories on what the finale means are great.

-Speaking of articles I liked, this profile on Amber Tamblyn (which the writer started in Oct, before the Me Too movement – in which she’s becoming an outspoken activist) is a fascinating read.

-Another good read: how much Sundance was judged as a “quiet” year had to do with it being a female-driven year.

-The CW just ordered six new dramas, including a Roswell reboot.

-I’ve never watched BoJack Horesman (I know, I know – I’ve heard it’s amazing), but this is a really thoughtful interview with the creator about how he regrets his part in animation’s whitewashing.

-The Revenant co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy made a bet around the 2016 Oscars and Hardy, who lost, kept his end of the bargain.

-As most late night comedians weighed in on the state of the union speech, Jimmy Kimmel focused last night’s show on more human coverage—with surreal results.

-Orange is the New Black star Taryn Manning was unhappy to learn that her SAG Awards dress is only $200 and widely available, but soon backtracked on her comments.

-Here’s the new trailer for the next Jack Ryan film. I guess John Krasinski is still trying to do the movie star thing, huh?

Lupita Nyong’o Covers Vogue

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-I was not expecting Lupita Nyong’o to land the January cover of Vogue, but I’m not complaining!

–Nicole Kidman is me that one time my mom was sick and I had to make the entire Christmas dinner on my own.

-I love how the internet is obsessed with the Netflix movie A Christmas Prince. I didn’t like it and yet will probably watch it at least twice again before Christmas.

–Sufjan Stevens’s musical tribute to Tonya Harding didn’t make the cut for the movie, but it’s still beautiful.

–Fergie is talking about her past addiction to crystal meth.

-I really like Jane the Virgin’s Justin Baldoni. He’s super earnest and that usually bugs me, but for some reason it looks on him. Here’s a part of his TED Talk on supporting women.

-This NYT profile on Gabrielle Union is excellent, and she brings up a very valid point. “I think the floodgates have opened for white women. I don’t think it’s a coincidence whose pain has been taken seriously. Whose pain we have showed historically and continued to show. Whose pain is tolerable and whose pain is intolerable.” This video is incredibly powerful.

-It must suck to be Kate Winslet on this press junket, where she can’t help but answer questions about the film’s director, Woody Allen. Still, she’s got to be able to do better than this.

-Meanwhile, Dylan Farrow asks the tough question: Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?

-Great take on how Al Franken isn’t being denied due process. None of these famous men are.

-Read the room before making jokes like this, Russell Crowe.

–JK Rowling gave an incredibly mealy-mouthed statement about Johnny Depp being cast as Grindelwald. It was incredibly disappointing.

-Can Lorde predict the future?

-No surprise here: there’s a big shakeup coming at DC after the Justice League failure.

–Kristen Wiig hilariously butchered “Hallelujah” on James Corden‘s show last night.

-I didn’t think I had room in my life for another CW show, but this trailer for Black Lightning is doing it for me.