Innholdsfortegnelse for 12/6/2023 i Variety

Our wish list for this year’s Actors on Actors had a single name at the very top — and it hadn’t budged since July. As soon as the global phenomenon known as “Barben-heimer” blew up the box office last summer, our staff — as well as readers posting on social media — began asking how we could bring together a pair of actors who played American icons. The two most-talked-about movies of the year shared more than a release date: Both shifted the culture of moviegoing, and both seem destined for Oscar glory. The idea of this pairing was so perfect, in fact, that we didn’t even need to pitch it: Before we said a word, Cillian Murphy of “Oppenheimer” reached out through his team to ask if he could…

Kathleen Finch is heading into her Super Bowl season: the holidays on Food Network. Finch is Warner Bros. Discovery’s top cable warrior, a lifestyle TV veteran who helped build HGTV and Food into TV juggernauts. This year, after a roller-coaster ride for her parent company, Finch is leading the charge to help remind investors that WB Discovery still has real heft and earnings potential with its linear TV channels. Food Network alone grabbed more than 63 million total viewers during the fourth quarter of 2022. This year, Finch expects to best that mark with a solid turnout for new series that have proven to be sweet and sticky with viewers: “Selena + Chef: Home for the Holidays” and “The Elf on the Shelf: Sweet Showdown.” “We have four big returning…

1 “I’m just gonna break the hands of three drunk kids. One of you has got to drive to the hospital.”—To four local hoodlums 2 “The only thing up my ass right now is you. So if you think you can perform the inspection without getting seriously injured, go for it.”— Declining a cavity exam in prison 3 “When I ask people to dance, it usually precedes a lot of punching.”— To his cop love interest at a bar 4 “I’ll end your life with one phone.”— Before strangling a man with a landline cord 5 “For the record, I’m not a vagrant, I’m a hobo.”— On being unhoused…

Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo first met 28 years ago, through their girlfriends at the time — before hunting a serial killer in David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” and well before battling Thanos in Marvel’s “Avengers” movies. The mileage on their friendship shows in their shared enthusiasm for their electrifying performances this year: Downey in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” as the calculating U.S. Atomic Energy Commission official Lewis Strauss, and Ruffalo in Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” as Duncan Wedderburn, an unscrupulous libertine. Both actors stretched far beyond their well-established movie-star personas, and they were eager to ask each other about how they’d done it. ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: We really met when Fincher cast us in “Zodiac.” MARK RUFFALO: What a wild ride that was. DOWNEY: I remember that was maybe the first…

As Jeffrey Wright and Taraji P. Henson sit down to discuss their acclaimed performances — as cantankerous novelist Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in “American Fiction” and sensuous singer Shug Avery in “The Color Purple” — Wright is eager to address one topic first: their shared hometown. It turns out both acting titans hail from Washington, D.C. “I’m wondering if we might be family,” Wright, an Emmy and Tony winner, jokes. But he’s truly curious about how growing up in the nation’s capital has informed Henson’s acting. She credits the city’s “tough audiences” — and her hard-earned diploma from Howard University — with giving her the thick skin she needed to create an iconic character like Cookie on “Empire,” as well as for her Oscar-nominated turn in “The Curious Case of Benjamin…

For two seasons, Colman Domingo and Jacob Elordi have passed each other on the set of the megahit HBO drama “Euphoria” without ever sharing a scene. That’s why Domingo, who won an Emmy for guest actor in the show, describes this conversation as “an overdue coffee” — just without the caffeine kick. As the actors discuss the pressures of portraying historical figures — Domingo embodying Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin as he plans the 1963 March on Washington in George C. Wolfe’s “Rustin,” and Elordi rendering the human side of Elvis in Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” — they realize another thing they have in common: They’re both mama’s boys. In this Actors on Actors meet-up, they talk about those deep attachments, which helped them through shooting back-to-back films — Domingo flying…

“Did we meet before the table read?” Emily Blunt asks Anne Hathaway. “This is so embarrassing,” Hathaway replies, “because I remember every second of the first time I met you. I’m so much more into you than you are into me. It’s fine. It’s fine.” Blunt may not recall the specifics of how the pair initially connected before working on 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada,” but the rest of us can’t forget the moment we first saw them together. Their chemistry — Blunt playing imperious aloofness as lead assistant Emily to Hathaway’s bumbling, frizzy charm as junior assistant Andrea — buoyed the workplace romantic comedy to $325 million at the global box office and made both women into megastars. Hathaway, emerging from “The Princess Diaries,” proved she could stand Manolo-to-Manolo…

This is editor-at-large Kate Aurthur’s ninth time as an Actors on Actors moderator — yet she still hates jumping in to interrupt! Senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson pulled double duty for Actors on Actors this season: moderating a trio of conversations and co-hosting the PBS special. Visual director Jennifer Dorn’s favorite moment of the Actors on Actors photo shoot was having to scramble to raise the dining room table by a foot for Colman Domingo and Jacob Elordi’s cover. Very tall talent! Photographer Alexi Lubomirski, who describes shooting our Actors on Actors gallery as a “pleasure,” says, “From the serene Natalie Portman to the tornado that was RDJ, it was a wild ride!”…

Tony McNamara was a voracious reader as a kid growing up in a rural town outside Melbourne, Australia. But he never once considered becoming a writer. “I was always failing English,” he says. “I couldn’t get my head around grammar. Still can’t.” And yet today, McNamara, 56, is the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind some of the most sharp-witted, intricately articulated projects of the past five years, including 2018’s “The Favourite,” for director Yorgos Lanthimos; the 2020-23 Hulu series “The Great,” with Elle Fanning; and 2021’s “Cruella,” starring Emma Stone. Most recently, McNamara reunited with Lanthimos and Stone for “Poor Things,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival to a rapturous reception and opens in limited release on Dec. 8. It tells the fantastical story of Bella Baxter (Stone), a Victorian woman…

Our Actors on Actors portfolio has become the biggest franchise of awards season for one crucial reason — it’s where the most notable performers of the year come to really get candid, dissecting the secrets of their craft and dishing on the friendships they’ve made. This year has every bit of the insight readers have grown to expect, with a new emphasis on connection. Many of our stars don’t just share a profession with their conversation partner; they share a history too. It’s a formula that works: Just ask Anne Hathaway. “It’s you,” she says, glimmering with emotion, as she meets with “The Devil Wears Prada” co-star Emily Blunt to discuss their respective work in “Eileen” and “Oppenheimer” — and, of course, their time logged as assistants to Miranda Priestly.…

Shortly after Halle Bailey and Rachel Zegler were crowned real-life Disney princesses, they met for the first time at a ball — the 2021 Met Gala, to be exact. It was the beginning not only of a beautiful friendship, but of a new era for Disney. Bailey became the first Black Ariel in Rob Marshall’s live-action adaptation of "The Little Mermaid," based on Disney's beloved 1989 animated film. Zegler — who used to dress up as Snow White as a little girl — will embody a Latina fairy-tale heroine who befriends seven CGI-created dwarves in 2025's "Snow White." The singer-actors are also showcasing their golden voices in literary adaptations: Bailey, as young Nettie in “The Color Purple”; Zegler, as Lucy Gray Baird in the “Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of…

"Coopsy Poopies!” That’s how Emma Stone greets Bradley Cooper, whom she’s known since 2007. They both played supporting roles in the indie heavy metal comedy “The Rocker,” starring Rainn Wilson, and then reunited on Cameron Crowe’s 2015 commercial misfire “Aloha.” In all those years, they’ve became such good friends that Stone brought her mother to Cooper’s house to watch a cut of “Maestro,” his second film as a writer-director after “A Star Is Born.” In “Maestro,” Cooper plays legendary stage and screen composer Leonard Bernstein opposite Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife, Felicia. Cooper, meanwhile, was bursting with praise for Stone’s tour-de-force performance in “Poor Things” as Bella Baxter. In her latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos — with whom Stone first worked in 2018’s “The Favourite” — she plays a Victorian…

Natalie Portman and Paul Mescal are actors whose craft inspires as much admiration as the finished product on-screen. Portman, whose career now spans more than 30 years, including films like “Black Swan” and “Thor: Love and Thunder,” keeps us enthralled — this time, with her simmering performance in Todd Haynes’ psychodrama “May December.” The Oscar winner portrays an actress preparing to play a tabloid fascination (Julianne Moore), who became romantically involved with her husband (Charles Melton) when he was 13. Mescal, whose meteoric rise began in 2020 as a tortured young man in love with a damaged introvert in Hulu’s “Normal People,” delivers another poignant turn in Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers.” A meditation on grief and regret, the film sees Mescal as the free-spirited neighbor and potential mate…

Greta Lee and Andrew Scott’s instant rapport when meeting for the first time makes sense: At the heart of their astonishing, often wordless performances this year is a deeply felt chemistry they each had to create with their co-stars. In “Past Lives,” from writer-director Celine Song, Lee plays Nora, a first-generation Korean American torn between her first love in Korea (Teo Yoo) and her white American husband (John Magaro), with whom she lives in New York. In “All of Us Strangers,” from writer-director Andrew Haigh, Scott plays Adam, whose lonely life in his London flat is pierced by a flirtatious neighbor (Paul Mescal) and mysterious, dreamlike visits with his late parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy). ANDREW SCOTT: Congratulations on “Past Lives.” It’s such a beautiful film. It makes me…

Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy — she the star of “Barbie,” he of “Oppenheimer” — have shared an experience, one unique in film history. On July 21, 2023, their two movies came out, and instead of cannibalizing one another during a time when box office receipts were sluggish, they actually boosted each other, creating the global phenomenon known as “Barbenheimer.” On paper, the two movies couldn’t be more different. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” produced by Robbie’s company LuckyChap Entertainment, is the story of the world’s most popular doll, who, after going on a journey to recover from an existential crisis, becomes a woman; Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is a biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who oversaw the invention of the atomic bomb. What they have in common, though, is that…

In “Nyad,” Annette Bening portrays the famed athlete Diana Nyad during her quest to swim from Cuba to Florida — a feat she achieved in 2013 at age 64 after multiple attempts. In Todd Haynes’ “May December,” Julianne Moore plays Gracie, whose marriage is upended when a TV star named Elizabeth, played by Natalie Portman, embeds herself in Gracie’s life in order to study her for a part. For Elizabeth, Gracie is a plum role because she’s famous for all the wrong reasons: At 36, Gracie preyed upon — or, as Gracie would say, fell in love with — Joe, a 13-year-old boy, and went to prison for molesting him, sparking a national tabloid sensation. More than 20 years later, with Gracie and Joe (Charles Melton) married with three kids,…

In “Maestro” and “The Killer,” the characters played by Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender exist in different worlds. Mulligan’s Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, an up-and-coming actress who becomes conductor Leonard Bernstein’s wife and soul mate, breathes rarefied air among East Coast artists from the 1950s through the ’70s. Fassbender’s tightly coiled, mostly silent assassin, meanwhile, travels the world seeking vengeance, while keeping his focus by doing push-ups on his fingertips. Twelve years ago, though, Fassbender and Mulligan inhabited the same toxic universe, as dysfunctional siblings in 2011’s “Shame.” The film was writer-director Steve McQueen’s bleak, sexually explicit examination of sex addiction through the eyes of Fassbender’s character, Brandon, a New York City executive brought low by his self-destructive desires. Mulligan’s Sissy, a lounge singer, was sorrowful and also boundary-less. Having shared…

“Busy” is a relative concept in Hollywood, but it’s safe to say actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Alden Ehrenreich haven’t taken many vacation days recently. She’s the breakout star of Alexander Payne’s heartwarming comedy “The Holdovers,” where she portrays Mary, the head cook of a boarding school in the 1970s. (She also showed her range as the jaded manager to a troubled pop star in HBO’s controversial summer series “The Idol.”) He’s the familiar face who played a young Han Solo in the “Star Wars” franchise and, this year, shows off his dramatic chops as a toxic boyfriend and financial analyst in Chloe Domont’s Sundance darling “Fair Play.” Here, they compare notes on preparation, keeping momentum and dating other actors. ALDEN EHRENREICH: How did you get involved with Alexander Payne?…

In January, the 28th annual Critics Choice Awards celebrated several winners in the film category but perhaps none as memorable as Brendan Fraser’s victory in a competitive best actor field for his career comeback in “The Whale.” A visibly moved Fraser was already emotional just getting to the stage — hugging several well-wishers along the way — and fought back tears delivering a powerful speech that brought the crowd to its feet. While Fraser’s victory celebration would continue on through both the SAG Awards and an Oscar triumph, it was the Critics Choice Awards who got there first. The 29th annual Critics Choice Awards will air on Jan. 14. Chelsea Handler will host the ceremony, which will be held at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, and broadcast…

TV REVIEW Drama: Netflix (10 episodes; all reviewed); Dec. 7 Starring: Nikki Rodriguez, Ashby Gentry, Noah LaLonde One of the most challenging aspects of navigating the teen years is the constant changes young people must confront. In Netflix’s new YA series “My Life With the Walter Boys,” based on Ali Novak’s 2014 novel of the same name, the entire world of 15-year-old Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez) comes undone instantly. Unfortunately, generic storylines, a massive cast and puzzling choices from the adults and teens alike make for a middling tale. Adapted for television by Melanie Halsall and the team behind the “Kissing Booth” film trilogy, “My Life With the Walter Boys” opens on a lively evening in Manhattan. Jackie is on the planning committee for her high school event and is…