Entertainment

Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac are laughing off their viral red carpet interaction at the Venice Film Festival, where the internet collectively swooned over the Star Wars alum planting a tender kiss on Chastain’s arm.

The two were there to promote Scenes from a Marriage, an English-language remake of the critically acclaimed 1973 Swedish miniseries by Ingmar Bergman.

Speaking to ABC Audio, Chastain — who plays Mira — explained that she and Isaac first met in college and have remained great friends ever since.  However, she warns that their relationship people see in real life, or on the red carpet, will be a complete 180 in Scenes from a Marriage.

“In our day-to-day, we’re [a] romcom, silly, funny friendship,” the Golden Globe winner explained. “When we’re going to act [in this movie,] we’re really going to bring out the darkness.”

Scenes from a Marriage follows a marriage slowly falling apart. While it draws inspiration from its source material, creator Hagai Levi says his vision is not an exact replica of the original miniseries.

“I had this idea of the gender swap,” the director noted. “It immediately updated the whole thing just by doing [that].”

Isaac, who plays Jonathan, while affirming that he isn’t worried about being compared to the actor who originated his role, confessed that he lifted a few cues from Erland Josephson, who played Johan in the 1973 version.

“Steal, steal, steal. That’s what I say,” Isaac grinned. “Steal anything you can if it makes it better!”  

Scenes from a Marriage premieres on HBO on Sunday, September 12 at 9 p.m. ET.

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Jennifer Hudson won a Daytime Emmy Award on Thursday, and now she is just one award away from one of the most prestigious accomplishments in entertainment, the EGOT: that is an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.

The Respect star, who turns 30 years old this Sunday, September 12, won her Emmy for her role as executive producer and voice talent on the VR animated film Baby Yaga. The project was chosen Outstanding Interactive Media for a Daytime Program.

“I am so grateful for the opportunity to lend my voice to a character and executive produce alongside this innovative team,” Hudson wrote in an Instagram post celebrating her win. “You all inspired me doing what you do best. Receiving an Emmy for this special project is truly the icing on the cake!”

Hudson won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2007 for Dreamgirls. She received a Grammy in 2009 for Best R&B Album for her self-titled debut album, and a second Grammy in 2017, for the Best Musical Theater Album for The Color Purple.

Now she has an EGO — Emmy, Grammy and Oscar — and has a golden ring with those three letters.

“Wow God wow !!!!!!! I’ve had this ring for quite some time! For me it always represented this day, the day I would say I have an EGO! Emmy, Grammy and Oscar,” she continued on Instagram. “What a early bday gift ! U can’t limit God !!!! It’s only a story God could write and heights only God can top! U will always see me try! And I hope u will too!”

John Legend became one of the 17 EGOT winners when he received a a Daytime Emmy in 2018 for Outstanding Variety Special for his starring role in Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert.

 

 

 

 

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Before he found fame as an actor, Steve Buscemi was a New York City fireman, and after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, he volunteered to help recovery efforts on what first responders called “The Pile,” the ruins of the World Trade Center.

In an emotional conversation on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron, Buscemi revealed that he suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from his time there. 

Buscemi recalled reuniting with his old Engine 55 crew at the site that became known as Ground Zero.

“I asked if I could join them,” the now-63-year-old actor told Maron. “I could tell they were a little suspicious at first, but I worked with them that day.”

He added, “I was so grateful.”

All told, the eventual Emmy winner worked multiple 12-hour shifts on The Pile, as firemen pulled the bodies of their comrades and other victims from the rubble. 

Working there exposed thousands of first-responders to debris that caused cancer and other ailments. Buscemi revealed, “I haven’t experienced any health issues, and I get myself checked out — but…post-traumatic stress? Absolutely.”

The actor continued, “I was only there for like five days, but when I stopped going and…tried to just live my life again, it was really, really hard. I was depressed, I was anxious, I couldn’t make a simple decision.”

Buscemi said the experience is “still with me. There are times when I talk about 9/11 and I’m right back there. I start to get choked up.”

Saturday’s 20th anniversary is “a trigger,” he admitted.

Buscemi recently executive-produced the documentary Dust: The Lingering Legacy of 9/11, about the battle for health coverage for those still suffering and dying from 9/11-related diseases — a fight he’s been involved with for years. 

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Rebel Wilson celebrated her 41st birthday in March, but she just got a chance to party with some of her Pitch Perfect co-stars to mark the occasion.

Rebel recently uploaded a snap to her Instagram of her and her friends, including fellow Bellas Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow, on the beach in Tahiti. “Bellas be ballin'” Rebel captioned the pic, adding, “could not love these ladies more! 10 years since we met and instantly harmonized,” complete with a musical emoji.

The gang wore ’80s-throwback beach attire, complete with day-glo colors and sunglasses. Rebel, for her part, wore a hot pink shirt reading “Let’s get physical.”

With all striking a pose, flanking the birthday girl, Rebel noted, “Love you ladies! ps love that I’m the tall one amongst you shorties!” adding “#RebelIsland” and “#Bellas4Life.”

The first Pitch Perfect film debuted on September 28, 2012, and the hit spawned two sequels, released in 2015 and 2017.

 

 

 

 

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Megan Fox didn’t shy away from discussing her mental health in a new interview, where she candidly discussed overcoming a “pretty severe eating disorder” that was triggered by childhood trauma.

Speaking to CR Fashion Book for their forthcoming CR PARADE issue, the Transformers actress opened up about her complicated relationship with body image and self-love.

“I came into the world really bright and sunny and happy,” she began, according to Daily Mail. “However, at a certain point, I went through some trauma in childhood and I developed a pretty severe eating disorder and manic depression, which runs in my family, so there was definitely some wrestling with chemical imbalance going on.”

Fox, 35, related her inner struggle to the character she played in the 2009 film Jennifer’s Body by telling the outlet, “As I got into my early 20s, that hell-hath-no-fury, a woman scorned demon did rise up in me…I did tap into that archetype a few times as well.”

“That’s kind of what you see in Jennifer [of Jennifer’s Body] — that sort of nasty streak that can exist if you align yourself with that ancient energy,” she said. 

Fox also opened up about being typecast as the vapid and pretty love interest in movies, and told the outlet, “I had always known that I was smart, so it was weird to have that one thing taken away from me now that I’m famous.”

“All of these other reasons that people recognize me, all of which I don’t resonate with or believe, and then to have the one thing that I do believe about myself be taken away, has been very challenging,” she said, slamming the “archaic slut-shaming, mom-shaming” in pop culture.

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Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of 2,977 people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The attacks left New York City at a standstill for weeks — but just 48 hours after the horrors in Lower Manhattan, all Broadway theaters were re-opened. New York City’s then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani saw the Great White Way’s return as a key to the city’s recovery. 

One of the performers that night was Tony winner Idina Menzel, then a struggling actress.

“I was going into Aida at the time, and…I was replacing Taylor Dayne … I was sort of at a low point in my career, and I was really excited about it,” she recalls to ABC Audio. “And then the day I was supposed to get on stage was 9/11.”

“When we finally did come back. I remember my dad was in the audience, and it was quarter filled, people were just not in the mood or weirded out or scared to be in a public space together,” she adds. “And it…felt, I remember, awkward to be up there. Is it OK to be singing and celebrating and making the attention about ourselves? But yes, it’s good for people because they…needed to heal.”

“I remember we all sang ‘America the Beautiful’ at the curtain call, and I remember my dad was with my husband at the time, he just started bawling, and he’s not a very emotional man. And my…ex-husband Taye [Diggs], he didn’t know what to do with my father,” Idina recalls, laughing.

She adds, “So…I feel incredibly lucky to be a part of those kinds of moments and to provide some kind of sanctuary when we’re all going through things.”

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With the 2021 Met Gala just days away, Zendaya announced that she’ll be sitting out this year’s festivities.

Speaking to Extra from the Venice Film Festival, the 25-year-old fashion icon and actress revealed, “I will unfortunately not be able to attend [the Met Gala] because I’ll be working for Euphoria. I got my time off to come here and do this Venice experience, which has been really, really special.”

Noting that her “fans are going to be very upset with me” because she will not be going, Zendaya expressed, “I wish I could, especially since this fashion icon [Timothée Chalamet] is going to be hosting,” referring to her Dune co-star.

The upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home star has gained a reputation for being one of the best-dressed attendees at the Met, rocking looks such as a Joan of Arc-inspired Versace dress from 2018 and a Tommy Hilfiger illuminated Cinderella gown in 2019. Reflecting on the latter, she quipped, “That one almost took me out, let me tell you.”

Chalamet will be serving as co-chair of Monday night’s Met Gala, along with tennis star Naomi Osaka, singer Billie Eilish and inaugural poet Amanda Gorman.

This year’s theme will highlight an exhibition of the same name, “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” which opens September 18 at the Anna Wintour Costume Center, exploring “a modern vocabulary of American fashion.” The 2021 event will also commemorate the Costume Institute’s 75th birthday.

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Kelly Clarkson‘s daytime talk show will fill the time slot vacated by Ellen DeGeneres‘ when its 19th and final season concludes next year.  However, Clarkson is making it clear she doesn’t want to be compared to the talk show legend — or anyone, for that matter.

In a candid conversation with The New York Times, the singer expressed, “No one can take over for Ellen. It’s an iconic show.”

“I’m never going to be Whitney Houston — I’m never going to be Cyndi Lauper, Reba or Trisha [Yearwood] or Mariah [Carey],” Clarkson further declared. “I’m going to be me. I think that’s fine. There’s room for everyone at the table.”

The Kelly Clarkson show, now in its third season, draws an average daily audience of 1.3 million viewers, which currently puts it ahead of Ellen‘s totals. Clarkson credits her hosting chops to her time on American Idol, saying it prepared her to helm something as chaotic as a daytime television talk show.

“We were on TV all the time,” she cracked. “Doing random things — being interviewed, interviewing other people, doing skits.”  Those unscripted moments, Kelly says, desensitized her to having a camera in her face and even inspired her be a little bit unpredictable.

“I don’t really feel pressure from that. That can be scary for other people sometimes, like, ‘Oh God, what’s she going to say?'” Clarkson laughed.

However, her biggest hurdle came last year, when she shot her show remotely from her Montana cabin because of the pandemic.

“We were in the middle of nowhere…I’m in snow up to my thighs. And I’m like, well, I have a camera,” she recalled. “I’m trying to be America’s cheerleader. And I never completely broke down about it, but I definitely laughed hysterically at several moments.”

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The new comedy Queenpins, opening in select theaters on Friday and streaming on Paramount+ September 30th, stars Kristen Bell as a suburban housewife drawn into the dangerous world of extreme couponing — a world in which she starts a criminal empire.

The movie is based on a true story,and Bell tells ABC Audio that husband and wife filmmakers Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly managed to pull off the impossible.

“The challenge they had is to introduce two women, get the audience to root for them so that when the women started making criminal decisions, you were still on their side. And I think they did a really great job of that,” says the Frozen star.

The word “coupon” is pronounced several different ways in the film.  So which does Bell think is correct — “coo-pon” or “cyoo-pon?”

“It depends on your level of Arthur Lessac training in voice and speech school,” she suggests. “I mean, I say ‘coo-pon’, but I understand and love a liquid ‘u,’ OK? So I’m fine with a ‘cyoo-pon’ as well.” (AUDIO IS ABC 1-ON-1)

Queenpins, from executive producer by Ben Stiller, also stars Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Paul Walter Hauser and Vince Vaughn.

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Rotimi is about to become a father for the first time.

The Power and Coming 2 America star made the announcement with a series of Instagram maternity photos with his pregnant fiancée, Vanessa Mdee.

“My greatest gift has been you. You changed my life and now we are beautifully linked forever to raise a little us.” Rotimi commented. “I pray our son has your glow Your heart, Your mind, and your spirit. I will protect you and our son with everything I have.”

He added, “You belong in a museum, baby…. Buttascotch prince on the way.”

Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child commented, “Simply beautiful!!”

“We are super excited to welcome our son. As first-time parents, everything about this experience has been a brand-new challenge,” the couple told People. “We love it.”

The actor/singer and the songwriter from Tanzania met at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. They were engaged on December 30, 2020 in Atlanta.

Rotimi, who released his debut solo album, All or Nothing, on August 27, will appear in the upcoming remake of the classic 1990 film House Party, which starred Kid ‘n Play, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, A.J. Johnson and the late Robin Harris, plus Full Force members Paul Anthony and Bow-Legged Lou.

 

 

 

 

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