Browsing Tag

Olivia Colman

Saoirse Ronan Says She “Needed” to Play Jo in Little Women

Saoirse Ronan Little Women

-In her Variety cover story, Saoirse Ronan says “I tapped Greta [Gerwig] on the shoulder and said I heard she was doing Little Women, and that I needed to be Jo.” She says when Gerwig said she had to think about it, she replied “Oh, for f—k’s sake.” Gerwig, however, remembers it a bit differently: “Saoirse told me she was playing Jo.”

Michael B Jordan shot his Esquire cover story at his old high school.

-Speaking of great covers, Queen and Slim’s Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya are on Vibe’s digital cover.

-This is gutting: Supergirl’s Melissa Benoist posted a raw, unflinching 14-minute video on Instagram detailing the abuse she says she suffered at the hands of an ex. Those she doesn’t name her alleged attacker, she claims he once threw an iPhone at her face so hard it tore her iris, and they made up a story about how she tripped and fell on a potted plant. She retold the potted plant story on The Tonight Show and at the time told Jimmy Fallon it happened the day after she landed Supergirl, which — if true — means it would have been in 2015 when she was married to Glee costar Blake Jenner.

Keke Palmer‘s song association video is wonderful. It’s almost as good as her impassioned defense of the movie Titanic.

-I like how many Canada callouts there are in Dan Levy‘s 73 Questions with Vogue video.

-Former Grey’s Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington is getting a show on Fox News’ streaming service. Sounds about right.

-Variety dug deeper into Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough‘s departures from America’s Got Talent. According to their story, when Jay Leno was a guest on the show and allegedly made a racist joke about Koreans, Gabrielle told producers to report the incident to human resources. She also urged producers to cut a white contestant impersonating Beyonce from the lineup. Sources also say Union and Hough received excessive notes on their physical appearance.

-This interview with Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies is a total delight.

-Why is Drake texting Billie Eilish? She’s 17.

-Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi commented on Martin Scorsese‘s controversial Marvel statements: “Maybe it’s too colorful for him.”

Ira is in Toronto, which means his appearance on The Social was perfectly timed for him to drag Justin Timberlake.

-I finally caught up to Sunday’s episode of Watchmen and gah, that show is doing extraordinary things. I’ve liked pretty much every episode (we’re six into its 9-ep run), but this latest one somehow managed to expertly tackle race, class, white-washing and childhood trauma in eye-poppingly creative ways. Every episode seems to spin off a ton of think pieces (as they should), and I’m especially interested in what black critics/writers are saying about it. Here are a few I’m following (if there are others, let me know!):  Soraya Nadia McDonald at The Undefeated, Angelica Jade Bastién at Vulture, Melanie McFarland at Salon, Micah Peters at The Ringer, Joelle Monique at AV Club.

-This interview with the co-writer of the episode is also worth your time.

Summer Walker responded to backlash after showing up three hours late to her Toronto concert and leaving fans waiting out in the cold Monday night.

Jacob Trembly reveals a correspondence with a famous actor in the trailer for Xavier Dolan‘s latest film, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, starring Natalie Portman, Sarah Gadon and Kit Harington.

Prince Andrew Crashes and Burns

-I’m assuming whoever arranged for Prince Andrew to do that TV interview this weekend is now fired, because wow that went even worse than anyone could have predicted. As Lainey says, when it comes to the Palace getting their shit together it’s been amateur hour over there.

Kanye West has announced his first-ever opera, Nebuchadnezzar, named after the longest-reigning king of ancient Babylon. Honestly, every headline about him these days just sounds like mad libs on crack.

-The Swifties came through. Taylor Swift and her former label Big Machine Records have reached a compromise — she can officially perform whatever songs she’d like at this weekend’s AMAs, including those bought by Scooter Braun earlier this year.

-Oh wait — it’s not over yet. AMAs producers are disputing Big Machine’s statement about her performance. Dick Clark Productions just released their own statement saying, “At no time did Dick Clark Productions agree to, create, authorize or distribute a statement in partnership with Big Machine Label Group regarding Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2019 American Music Awards.” All the sighs.

-Fresh from jail, Felicity Huffman was spotted taking homemade cupcakes to The Teen Project on Sunday, an organization dedicated to “serving at risk homeless and sex trafficked young women” in LA.

-I don’t watch Doctor Who but man this got me.

-I can’t stop reading Survivor takes and this is a good one on how CBS’s handling of misconduct on the island was “an exercise in ass-covering” disguised as “starting a conversation.” I’m still angry about last week’s episode — and that was the first episode I’ve caught up on in years. I can’t imagine how fans who’ve been sticking with it feel.

-Speaking of the garbage fire that is CBS, two female writers of Carol’s Second Act quit the show after they complained about inappropriate conduct by exec producer David Hunt, who is married to series star Patricia Heaton. One of the writers took to Twitter to expand on the story, saying that she only wanted a low intensity response to a difficult situation. Instead, it appears that she and her only ally were driven out.

-I could watch hours of Olivia Colman and Helena Bonham Carter interviewing each other forever, mostly because HBC sounds like my spirit animal. Colman: “At lunch time today I said “Helly should we have lunch together? And you said ‘you can have 10 minutes of eating and talking and then I will be lying down and you can lie down next to me but silence after that.'”

-Oh god. Now Gal Gadot and Ben Affleck are tweeting their support in the push to release Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League. I thought the consensus was this thing didn’t even exist? This has been the most exhausting trending topic on film Twitter for two years and I can’t believe we’re back at it.

-Oof, Alan Moore’s take on pop culture’s current obsession with superheroes is scorching. (Weirdly, I don’t think that’s what Damon Lindelof is doing with his source material on The Watchmen.)

-I’m here for pretty much whatever content @ira wants to give me, but the premise of his new show sounds fantastic.

-I’m really bummed that Charlie’s Angels underperformed at the box office. Here’s hoping word of mouth helps it in the coming weeks.

-The Mad About You revival is on a network no one really has, but that’s ok because the reviews are not great.

-With the release of Apple+ and Disney+ and the upcoming launch of HBO Max, there’s been a ton of coverage about the streaming wars, but this take might actually be my favourite. So much content is getting churned out that quality/rewatchability is starting to not matter, and there’s no incentive for creators to take risks. Even more ground shifting, everyone is going to be watching different things, so “how we talk about TV to each other is going to radically change when your content has nothing in common with mine.”

-The trailer for the final season of Schitt’s Creek is here. You fancy, huh?

Kristen Stewart Gets Spicy

Kristen Stewart and her Charlie’s Angels costars were the latest celebs to chow down on spicy wings on Hot Wings.

-Speaking of KStew, she’s surprisingly getting good reviews for her comedic timing in Charlie’s Angels. I did not see that coming — but I love it!

-Also, Kristen and Shia LaBeouf were the latest duo to do Variety’s Actors on Actors segment, and this one might be my fave yet. It got really intense really fast, with her talking about a bad experience with a director (“One dude made me cry on set one day, on the first day of a movie, but that was the last second that I cared about him anymore. I was like, ‘I’m alone & you’re terrible.’ He made a bad movie”) and him talking about his somewhat unhealthy love of acting (“The most intimate moments of my whole life happened on set. I don’t know if there’s anything more intimate than creating something with somebody. I think I’m deeply dissatisfied in life”).

Saoirse Ronan looks AMAZING in the new issue of Dazed.

-Whoa, it sounds like this week’s Survivor was a total shitshow. Some contestants turned sexual misconduct into game play and producers apparently let it happen, while the woman who originally complained was forced to sit silently through tribal council while the accused got to angrily defend himself. Gross.

Gillian Anderson is getting raves as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown. Between her and Olivia Colman, I’m gonna have to start watching this show boring ass show again, aren’t I?

-NBC has renewed Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I don’t go here, but good for them!

-At this point, I’m wondering if Scarlet Johansson should just bow out of all press tours. She’s not good at it.

-Also continuing to be problematic: Gina Rodriguez.

Jason Momoa being interviewed by Kelly Clarkson’s kids is all kinds of swoon-worthy.

Julia Wolov is pushing back against a report about Louis CK, confirming that she did NOT consent to him jerking off in front of her to completion.

-I don’t watch horror movies cause they give me the scares, but I love the creator of Black Christmas’ reasoning for making it PG-13 instead of R. “We wrote it with an R in mind. When they did the test screenings, was clear that this movie needed to be available to a younger female audience because the subject matter is timely. Also I want to indoctrinate girls into horror.”

-How did I not know that Vin Diesel taught Judi Dench how to play Dungeons & Dragons and she went on to become DM for her grandchildren?!

-I can’t get enough of these stories about how Mary Steenburgen went under the knife for routine arm surgery — and woke up with incredible musical talent.

-Look, this recent college graduate had a bad take on Sarah Dessen’s YA novels, but there’s something really terrible about watching New York Times bestselling authors like Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult using there hugely followed Twitter accounts to call her out. This is punching down in a really unfortunate way.

Ben Affleck struggles with addiction in the first trailer for his basketball drama The Way Back.