Innholdsfortegnelse for 06/12/2024 i Variety

It’s been more than 25 years since Kate Winslet sailed with Leonardo DiCaprio on “Titanic,” where he shouted some of the most famous words in film history: “I’m the king of the world!” But in the years since, Winslet’s done her share of running things too. Consider the places that she’s steered her career since 1997, from “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” to “Little Children” to the “Avatar” franchise. And most recently, Winslet brought a chilly air of dominance to her role as a dictator in HBO’s satirical “The Regime.” Winslet’s Elena Vernham is the germophobic chancellor of a Central European country, who is struggling to establish her authority over a people who don’t trust her — for good reason. Uptight and biting as Elena (think Miranda Priestly working…

Of the many blessings bestowed upon the world by the internet, there may be none greater than the revelation that, at some point in life, just about everyone has secretly lusted after a hot dad in an animated movie. Hot cartoon dads come in all shapes, sizes and ages — from gods, kings and superheroes to run-of-the-mill papas who just happen to be distressingly, distractingly attractive. To celebrate Father’s Day — and the return of the internet’s favorite foxy paterfamilias in Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” — here is a wildly subjective list of the hunkiest patriarchs in animated cinema. (And before you ask, no, we did not consider nonhuman fathers. Apologies to Mufasa stans everywhere.) INSIDE OUT Bill Andersen (aka Dad) At first glance, Riley’s dad is aggressively ordinary. But…

WeHo Pride Various locations, West Hollywood MAY 31-JUNE 2 Paris Hilton kicked off the annual rainbow-hued celebrations with a late-night appearance at Heart WeHo nightclub. “Happy Pride, everybody!” she said to the cheering crowd. “I can’t think of a better place to be.” The threeday Outloud Music Festival included headliners Kesha, Janelle Monáe (with a surprise appearance by Queen Latifah) and Kylie Minogue, who debuted a new song, “Midnight Ride,” with Orville Peck and Diplo. Kesha thanked her LGBTQ fans for their longtime support. “This community has been my home since I can remember,” the “Praying” hitmaker said. “I will be an ally until I’m six fucking feet underground. So thank you for having me. Thank you for being my home.” Cyndi Lauper was the grand marshal of the Pride…

IT’S often hard to pinpoint the precise origin of a cultural phenomenon. The opposite is true when it comes to Hollywood’s Brat Pack. The catchy moniker that came to define the ’80s cineplex can be traced to June 10, 1985, when New York Magazine published a cover story pegged to the release of “St. Elmo’s Fire.” The piece, written by David Blum, followed three of the film’s stars — Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson — over several nights of heavy boozing and douchey antics, like ogling Playmates, encouraging groupies and trash-talking their rivals. Blum dubbed the group of young movie stars the “Brat Pack,” a phrase still recognizable four decades later. The trio’s “St. Elmo’s Fire” co-star Andrew McCarthy remembers the exact moment when the film’s producer, Lauren…

IN 2022, KATE WINSLET WENT TO THE LONDON HOME of director Stephen Frears to discuss HBO’s political satire “The Regime.” ¶ She’d been cast in the role of Elena Vernham, a narcissistic European autocrat, and Frears had been pinpointed by the production as a potential director. ¶ “I was offered a cup of tea, which I then ended up making myself because he clearly had no intention of making the tea for me at all,” Winslet says. “In fact, he didn’t even seem to know where the cups were.” (The British use the phrase “Shall I be mother?” when offering to be in charge of the kettle at teatime, and Winslet, a mother of three, has some experience there.) Over the tea and some chocolate biscuits, she asked the director…

Perhaps the toughest takeaway from Ron Howard’s documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man” is the fact that his sudden death in 1990, at just age 53, robbed us all that “The Muppets” creator might have created in the computer age. Henson was already experimenting with technology before he died — and we can only imagine what he might have done with the tools we now have. “It would have been fantastic,” Howard says. “And he would have been cutting-edge. He would be learning to use those tools and then adapting them both to his sensibility, but also to the sensibilities of his key collaborators — and to what audiences were responding to.” There’s also the question: Where might the Muppets be today? Now owned by Disney, the intellectual property has seen…

Nominees BEST MUSICAL THE OUTSIDERS Book by Adam Rapp BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL THE OUTSIDERS Book by Adam Rapp BEST PLAY  JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING Written by Jocelyn Bioh BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG Based on the Play by Moss Hart BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL MICHAEL GREIF HELL’S KITCHEN BEST DIRECTION OF A PLAY LILA NEUGEBAUER APPROPRIATE SPECIAL TONY AWARD: HAIR & WIG DESIGN NIKIYA MATHIS JAJA’S AFRICAN HAIR BRAIDING BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL GAYLE RANKIN CABARET AT THE KIT KAT CLUB BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY  WILLIAM JACKSON HARPER UNCLE VANYA LIEV SCHREIBER DOUBT: A PARABLE BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL…

When Variety broke down the 100 greatest TV shows of all time late last year, 12 creators were invited to discuss the series that inspired them. Among those welcomed was Lena Waithe, who didn’t waste a beat to credit “The Cosby Show” spinoff, “A Different World,” for sparking her early interest and getting her creative juices flowing. “When it came time to name my production company, Hillman Grad just felt right,” Waithe says of the fictional college in the sitcom. “It represented a lot about who I was and how ‘A Different World’ was so inspirational to me as a writer, as a kid, as a person. It just made sense.” On June 29, Waithe will be honored with the Variety Creative Conscience Award at the 48th San Francisco International…

JUNE 6 LOS ANGELES GO INSIDE THE EVENT PREMIER PARTNERS OFFICIAL PARTNERS SUPPORTING PARTNER…

My colleague Emily Longeretta had a Variety scoop recently that was such a perfect sign of the times. As she reported, FX’s Emmy-winning “The Bear” — which is debuting its third season at the end of June — finally had its series premiere on FX at the start of the month, via a four-night marathon of Season 1 episodes. “Hit FX Series to Finally Premiere on FX,” we joked should be the headline. If you’re not in the industry — or even if you are, but don’t pay attention to the branding stuff that we Reporters Who Cover the Entertainment Business obsess over — you might be scratching your head. Hasn’t “The Bear” always been on FX? Well, yes and no. In recent years, the lion’s share of new FX…

IN THE SUMMER OF 1999 Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard were trapped in a strange sort of limbo. “The Blair Witch Project,” their debut feature, had exploded out of the Sundance Film Festival that January to become one of the most influential horror movies of the past 25 years — and, with a $35,000 budget, one of the most profitable independent films ever made. And yet Donahue was still puttering to her temp job in a 1984 Toyota Celica, before it broke down right underneath a billboard with her face on it. Williams’ boss kept asking him why he was still moving furniture when he was on the cover of Newsweek. And Leonard found himself serving food to his agent at a catering gig days before he…

“Sunday in the Park With George,” “Nine,” “Red”: Stories about artists and the process of making art have long fascinated theater audiences. This season’s Tony nominations add new tales of creativity and collaboration to the canon — and conversations with the creators of these shows offer insights into the universal appeal of the subject, even for those who might not consider themselves artistic. Take “Hell’s Kitchen,” the new musical nominated for 13 Tony Awards, including best musical. Creator Alicia Keys says she chose the setting — the real-life Manhattan Plaza, an artist housing complex near Times Square — as a way of honoring the “diverse community of opera singers, composers, actors, writers and percussion players,” where she grew up. The show’s main character is a 17-year-old girl discovering the piano…

Kate Winslet has, in recent years, learned to free dive and to hold her breath for more than seven minutes for 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” and its upcoming sequel. But at the start of her career, the way of water was far less forgiving. In 1995’s “Sense and Sensibility,” Winslet shot roughly 50 takes of a scene in which she trips and falls in the rain; she has said that she fainted and suffered hypothermia during that day. (Shortly thereafter, Winslet would be making her way through flooding stage sets in “Titanic,” the movie that established her fame. She’s said that the “Titanic” water was really cold too.) But “Sense and Sensibility” marked a starting point for Winslet’s willingness to take big risks in service of the story.…