Human Rights Watch follows lead of Pentagon, FBI and CIA to insert its messages into popular film and TV culture
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has decided to take on Hollywood to improve the visibility and awareness of humanitarian issues in popular culture.
As part of the move, the advocacy group has signed up with a talent agent firm, Activist Artists Management (AAM), to provide “scripted and unscripted content in film and television”, an HRW statement said.
Continue reading...This year’s Academy Awards with Jimmy Kimmel at the helm drew an average TV audience of 18.7m – and a bigger share of younger viewers
The audience for the 2023 Academy Awards broadcast improved substantially on last year’s unimpressive figures, with a 12% jump on what was the second worst ratings performance in history.
Early ratings from Nielsen, supplied to the Hollywood Reporter, said that the show on ABC attracted an average of 18.7m viewers, compared to 16.6m in 2022. The audience share in the key 18-49 age demographic also improved, from 3.76 last year to 4.0.
Continue reading...The multiverse adventure picked up four major categories, while The White Lotus and Abbott Elementary won big for television
Everything Everywhere All at Once reigned supreme at this year’s Screen Actors Guild awards, winning four major awards and breaking the record for most wins for a single film.
The multiverse fantasy film picked up the night’s biggest award for ensemble in a motion picture, female actor for Michelle Yeoh and both supporting actor awards, for Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan.
Continue reading...Standup comedian played police role in Homicide: Life on the Streets, Law & Order: SVU and other series
Richard Belzer, a stand-up comedian who became one of TV’s most indelible detectives as John Munch in Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: SVU, has died. He was 78.
Belzer died on Sunday at his home in Bozouls in southern France, his longtime friend Bill Scheft told the Hollywood Reporter.
Continue reading...Actor appeared in two series of the thriller as well as Star Trek: Picard, and was reportedly diagnosed with cancer in 2020
The actor Annie Wersching, best known for playing FBI agent Renee Walker in the TV series 24, has died at the age of 45.
Wersching died on Sunday morning in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer, her publicist told the Associated Press. The type of cancer was not specified.
Continue reading...Convicted fraudster and inspiration behind Inventing Anna is creating a series in which she hosts dinner parties in her apartment
Anna Sorokin, the convicted con artist who went by the name Anna Delvey, subject of a viral New York magazine story and inspiration for the Netflix series Inventing Anna, is reportedly working on her next act: a reality TV series.
The Russian-born former “Soho grifter”, who is currently under house arrest after overstaying her visa, will host “celebrities, moguls and glitterati” for dinner parties in her Manhattan apartment for an unscripted series tentatively titled Delvey’s Dinner Club, according to a statement from producers on Wednesday. Sorokin, who just turned 32, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention last October after overstaying her visa; she already completed her sentence for her 2019 conviction for attempted grand larceny.
Continue reading...Josh Nalley specialized in pretending to be a lifeless body on social media – then CSI: Vegas came calling
A man from Kentucky who plays dead on TikTok has finally caught the attention of CSI: Vegas after the crime show decided to cast him as an “un-alive body”.
Josh Nalley from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, is the owner of the TikTok account @living_dead_josh where, since last October, he has featured hundreds of videos in which he mimics a corpse.
Continue reading...Authors and politicians have accused the US comedian of projecting an American cultural context on to the UK
The row began with a single call to a UK radio station, was stoked by one of America’s best-known comedians and ended with former Cabinet ministers wading in – and Downing Street, too.
At the heart of the furore: a claim that Rishi Sunak had experienced a racist “backlash” after becoming the UK’s first British-Asian prime minister.
Continue reading...Reports suggest that the character actor appears to have suffered a medical emergency before crashing his car in Hollywood
Actor Leslie Jordan has died after a car accident in Los Angeles on Monday at the age of 67.
Law enforcement sources told TMZ and then the Los Angeles Times that they suspected the beloved actor suffered a medical emergency before crashing his BMW into the side of a building in Hollywood.
Continue reading...The final episode of the first season of the hit Game of Thrones prequel has landed online days early
The season finale of House of the Dragon has leaked online just two days before it was set to premiere on HBO.
According to an HBO spokesperson, the much-anticipated episode of the hit Game of Thrones prequel appears to have come from a distribution partner in Europe, the Middle East or Africa.
Continue reading...Canadian actor had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder over shooting near Vancouver
The actor Ryan Grantham – featured in the CW show Riverdale and the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid – has been sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting his mother in their home in Canada.
Grantham, 24, was sentenced on Wednesday after pleading guilty earlier this year to second-degree murder, which carries an automatic sentence of life in prison, reported the New York Times.
Continue reading...The late actor best known as Lieutenant Uhura will join James Doohan, who played Scotty, and creator Gene Roddenberry
The late actor Nichelle Nichols, best known as Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, will become the latest member of the 1960s television series to be memorialized by having some of her earthly remains flown into space.
Nichols, who died on 30 July at age 89, is credited with helping shatter racial stereotypes and redefining Hollywood roles for Black actors at the height of the US civil rights movement, as one of the first Black women to portray an empowered character on network television.
Continue reading...HBO’s hit drama is out in front with The White Lotus, Ted Lasso, Hacks and Only Murders in the Building running close behind
Succession is leading the way in this year’s Emmys race after today’s announcement that the acclaimed HBO drama picked up 25 nominations.
The hit show, which has previously won nine Emmys, was nominated for best drama series, with stars including Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin all receiving noms.
Continue reading...Marta Kauffman will fund professorship in African and African American studies at her alma mater
The co-creator of the TV sitcom Friends is planning to donate $4m to an African and African American studies project because she’s so “embarrassed” by – and feels such “guilt” at – the white homogeneity of the characters on the classic coming of age series.
Marta Kauffman told the Los Angeles Times that she intends for her planned gift to fund the Marta F Kauffman ’78 Professorship in African and African American Studies at her alma mater, Brandeis University, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts.
Continue reading...Louisiana college student found hidden audio recording device and told police she feared musician planted it there
Three years ago, Laine Hardy tasted superstardom by winning American Idol. Last week, the 21-year-old landed in the headlines for a different reason.
A college student in Hardy’s home state, Louisiana, looked under her dormitory bed, found a hidden audio recording device and told police she feared the musician planted it there.
Continue reading...Oscar-winning actor hits back at critics over negative reviews of her performance as Michelle Obama in drama series The First Lady
Viola Davis has responded to widespread criticism of her latest performance by stating that critics “serve no purpose”.
The Oscar-winning actor has received negative feedback from both critics and on social media for playing Michelle Obama in the Showtime series The First Lady. In an interview with the BBC, Davis called the response “incredibly hurtful”.
Continue reading...The standup comic, also known for voicing Iago in Disney’s animated Aladdin, has died after a long illness
Comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried has died at the age of 67.
His family announced his death after a long illness via his Twitter page. Gottfried was known for his standup comedy and for roles in films including Aladdin and Problem Child.
Continue reading...The specter of Oscars chaos loomed over the music awards – a mega-concert which included a message of hope from the Ukrainian president
Teenage pop phenom Olivia Rodrigo and R&B duo Silk Sonic dominated the major categories, and Jon Batiste won album of the year at the 64th annual Grammys – a three-and-a-half-hour mega concert that mostly steered clear of politics or the pandemic, save for a virtual message from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and an emotional tribute to victims of the Russian invasion.
A week after one of the most chaotic Oscars in recent memory – during which Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage – the Grammys seemed to revel in its technical proficiency and lack of controversy. “We’re gonna be listening to some music, we’re gonna be dancing, we’re gonna be singing, we’re gonna be keeping people’s names out of our mouths,” said host Trevor Noah in his opening monologue, acknowledging the elephant in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
Continue reading...Candidate for governor in Georgia and self-confessed superfan makes appearance in season four finale of Star Trek: Discovery
The Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams has been made president – of United Earth.
The honour was bestowed by the Paramount+ TV series Star Trek: Discovery, in its season four finale.
Continue reading...He found fame in The English Patient before becoming a huge TV star. Now he is tackling the Theranos fraud scandal. But addiction in the 90s nearly cost him everything
If your abiding image of Naveen Andrews is as Sayid from Lost – the soulful Iraqi officer whose sad eyes, powerful biceps and luxuriant hair set many mid-00s hearts a-flutter – you might be in for a shock seeing him in The Dropout. Paunchy, bespectacled, greying, with shockingly normal-length hair, he is less a strapping man of action and more a middle-aged man of business – and not a very good one at that. Andrews portrays Sunny Balwani, the partner and alleged co-conspirator of Elizabeth Holmes, who was once the world’s youngest female billionaire and is now a convicted corporate fraudster.
On a video call from his home in Santa Monica, California, Andrews, 53, looks more Sayid than Sunny. His black gym vest exposes reassuringly well-toned biceps; the hair is returning to its trademark resplendence. He gained 9kg (1st 6lb) for The Dropout, he explains, to make his face fuller and his belly paunchier. He also modified his movements to seem slower and older. “Well, I did at least want to resemble the character I was playing,” he says, a little sting of sarcasm in his inflection.
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