Browsing Tag

Sonequa Martin-Green

Halle Berry’s a Fighter

 

halle berry in a cutout white bathing suit on the cover of womens health

–Halle Berry covers Women’s Health to promote Bruised and talks about stepping into the ring to fight and stepping behind camera to direct. “When I realized I couldn’t find a director who saw this story like I saw it, I had a moment of reckoning. I finally realized that at this point in my life, I was ready. I had to take control. I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to work harder than I’ve ever worked.’ ”

–Gugu Mbatha-Raw covers Variety UK and discusses the “illusion” of diversity on TV: “It’s very diverse in front of the camera, and people accept that…When you look at camera operators, sound engineers and everyone behind the scenes, it’s a very different picture.”

-Five years after it happened, 12 people have been charged for robbing Kim Kardashian at gunpoint in a Paris hotel room.

-The original cast of Saved By the Bell appeared in the reboot for a scene honouring Screech (the late Dustin Diamond). Why are they all so … shiny?

-Speaking of the Saved By the Bell reboot — they’re doing a tribute to Showgirls?!

–Zoë Kravitz is talking up The Batman costar Robert Pattinson in her new interview with Variety. “Rob is perfect for this role. He was incredible. His transformation was out of this world.”

-There’s something wonderful about the random collection of celebs who attended Danny DeVito’s bday party.

–Prince William is once again criticizing population growth in Africa, blaming it for destroying wildlife on the continent (which is pretty rich coming from someone who’s expecting his third child).

-Meanwhile, BBC’s new documentary, The Princes and the Press, claims he has been reaching out to the tabloid press to build a better relationship and influence their stories.

-Amid rumours about her health, Prince Charles insists the Queen is “alright,” adding “Once you get to 95, it’s not quite as easy as it used to be. It’s bad enough at 73.”

-This Is Us’ main adult cast fought for — and got — $2 million cash bonuses for the final season.

–Benedict Cumberbatch talked about The Power of the Dog’s themes of toxic masculinity, saying “We need to fix the behaviour of men. You have to kind of lift the lid on the engine a little bit.”

–Louis C.K. and Dave Chappelle were both nominated for Grammys. Being cancelled seems real rough.

-The annual Book Concierge from NPR is always worth browsing through for good recommendations. (Though it breaks my heart to see some of my fave books from this year are blurbed by Petra Mayer, the late great NPR book editor.)

-Disney’s Encanto is getting rave reviews.

-Speaking of raves, I don’t watch The Great British Baking Show, but people are going nuts about the semifinal episode.

-Star Trek Discovery has left Netflix, much to fans’ disappointment.

-Speaking of Star Trek Discovery, star Sonequa Martin-Green paid tribute to Whoopi Goldberg on The View. “I am your accomplishment and I thank you.”

-This is a cute TikTok tie-in to the new Spider-Man movie.

-Meanwhile, here’s the latest Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer.

Chrissy Teigen Covers People’s ‘Beautiful’ Issue

Chrissy Teigen people-beautiful-issue

–Chrissy Teigen is on the cover of People’s Beautiful issue, and talks about her mom’s experience in America, the uptick in violence toward Asians, and her miscarriage. “We have this new home that we’re building, and this tree being planted inside. The whole reason why I wanted it was so Jack’s ashes could be in that soil, and he could be with us all the time and grow through the beautiful leaves.”

–Britney Spears broke her silence on the documentary about her, saying in an IG caption “I didn’t watch the documentary but from what I did see of it I was embarrassed by the light they put me in … I cried for two weeks and well.. I still cry sometimes.” (We’re assuming she wrote that.)

-Meanwhile, her father Jamie Spears is requesting she to pay his $3 million in legal fees — which he’s using to fight against her wishes in court. He also wants to keep his monthly stipend for being her conservator, even though he’s been replaced.

–Prince William is reportedly having trouble biting his tongue after Prince Harry’s tell-all interview. Let it all out, man!

-Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jennifer Shah’s virtual court appearance spiraled into Housewives-style chaos today because of technological issues — at one point, there were so many people on the call that she couldn’t get into her own arraignment.

-Also, there’s talk that the feds may have planted undercover agents in her glam squad.

–Demi Lovato is recreating her 2018 overdose in behind-the-scenes photos from her music video for “Dancing With the Devil,” which is expected to drop on Friday.

–Hugh Grant just starred in an HBO limited series; now it’s Colin Firth’s turn.

-Speaking of star turns in HBO prestige dramas, here’s the new trailer for Mare of Easttown starring Kate Winslet.

–Sarah Michelle Gellar has landed a new Amazon show. Excellent; she’s due for a comeback!

–Adam Brody gushed about wife Leighton Meester on Anna Faris’ podcast, and told the story about how they met at a Gossip Girl cast restaurant gathering.

-Netflix is reportedly closing in on a $400M+ deal for Knives Out 2 and 3 with Daniel Craig and director Rian Johnson returning. The deal is one of the biggest ever made for the rights to a movie series.

-CSI is getting the revival/sequel treatment with a new series called CSI: Vegas, which is bringing back William Petersen and Jorja Fox.

-Footage of Saweetie and Quavo having an altercation in an elevator is raising more questions about their split.

–Drew Barrymore is launching a new lifestyle magazine called Drew, which will be $9.99 an issue.

–Wyatt Russell is making a meal out of his Falcon And The Winter Soldier role and I love it.

-Godzilla Vs Kong hits U.S. theaters and HBO Max today, and it’s expected to have the best domestic opening since the pandemic first shuttered cinemas. It’s surprisingly well-reviewed.

–Penelope Spheeris (director of Wayne’s World, Suburbia, The Beverly Hillbillies) does not mince words in this Variety interview. “A male film director can get arrested for drunk driving while on cocaine with a hooker in the car and then go ahead and get a deal the next day to direct a $50 million dollar movie. If a woman director gets arrested for drunk driving, there’s no way you work after that, you’re a danger. When you got a male director on the set and he’s a screamer and obnoxious and hard to get along with, we call that a genius. And if you have a woman who’s a screamer and hard to get along with, they call that the wrong time of the month.”

-This is a fascinating article on Randall Emmett’s direct-to-video “geezer teasers” empire, where many of Hollywood’s older, most bankable stars have found lucrative early retirement.

–Brian Tyree Henry and Sonequa Martin-Green star in the super cute trailer for the romcom The Outside Story.

-The Zola trailer is everything! This makes me want to re-read the Twitter thread that this movie is based on, even though it’ll take me like 2 hours because once I start I get sucked in and cannot stop even though I know how it ends. Every. Single. Time.

Gossip Girl’s Ed Westwick Denies Rape Allegation

https://twitter.com/EdWestwick/status/927940546382913536

-Actress Kristina Cohen wrote a long Facebook post last night, accusing Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick of raping her three years ago. She says her boyfriend at the time, a producer, took her to the actor’s house. After quickly becoming freaked out by the situation, she says she feigned illness and went to lie down in a guest room. “I was woken up abruptly by Ed on top of me, his fingers entering my body. I told him to stop, but he was strong. I fought him off as hard as I could but he grabbed my face in his hands, shaking me, telling me he wanted to f**k me. I was paralyzed, terrified. I couldn’t speak, I could no longer move. He held me down and raped me.”

–Westwick responded to the allegation with an unequivocal denial.  It’s surprising he waited nearly a day to comment if he was just going to end up doing it on Twitter instead of arranging for an interview with a prominent outlet.

-Meanwhile, BBC One’s social media manager really, really needs to check trending topics before tweeting...

–Sia said someone was trying to sell a nude image of her, so she posted it herself.

-Following Taylor Swift’s battle with the ACLU, journalist have taken to Twitter to talk about times when her legal team tried to kill their stories.

-The world sucks right now. A Tiffany Haddish Oscar nomination would make it suck slightly less.

–Jason Momoa talked about his secret wedding to Lisa Bonet: “Some a**hole leaked it!”

-Star Trek Discovery’s star Sonequa Martin-Green squaring off against Piers Morgan in a gender fluidity debate is my new favourite song.

–Jessica Chastain says she won’t be silent about those Bryan Singer allegations just because she’s working on his X-Men movie. That’s ballsy and I love it.

-Looking back at old interviews reveals that Dustin Hoffman grabbed Meryl Streep‘s breast the first time he met her. He also once told a story about pinching his The Graduate co-star Katharine Ross‘ butt during their first screen test “as a way to help loosen us up…She said, ‘How dare you?!'”

–Ronan Farrow’s latest article that makes it clear why it was so hard to expose Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein hired private security agencies to investigate his accusers and journalists. Over the course of a year, elite Israeli intelligence agents using false identities as women’s rights defenders and fellow victims insinuated themselves into Rose McGowan’s life.  Scary stuff.

-Oh and  a lawyer oversaw Weinstein‘s private spying effort to stop NYTimes’s story – while also representing the NYTimes!

-Interesting question: are we over Matt Damon now? I will say, when he showed up in the super secret cameo in a recent blockbuster, I enjoyed it much less than I would have a month ago.

-Wait, on Stranger Things Steve was originally supposed to rape Nancy in season one? Thank god they swerved away from that. He’s my new fave!

–Julianna Margulies is going to return to TV in Marti Noxon‘s AMC revenge drama Dietland. I loved the book that the show is based on so I was already here for it. But this is good casting.

-Just when I think I’m about ready to quit Riverdale, they incorporate a Rent song into an episode. What is this show?!?

-Holy moly, did Disney’s ban of the LA Times blow up in their face. After banning them from covering their movies following this Times’ story on Disney’s financial relationship with the city of Anaheim, a ton of reporters refused to cover Disney in solidarity, including some from the Washington Post, NYT, NPR and The A.V. Club. Then four key film critics’ organizations announced that they would disqualify Disney’s films from year-end awards consideration. Oscar voter David Simon said he wouldn’t vote for their movies. Even Ava DuVernay, who is directing the Disney film A Wrinkle in Time, expressed solidarity with the press. By this afternoon, Disney called mercy and ended the ban.

–Chris Evans‘ tweets about his dog never fail to crack me up.

-I had no idea Mudbound was heading to Netflix next week. This movie got rave reviews at Sundance and TIFF.