Entertainment

No more dragons for a while. HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon concluded season 2 with its finale Sunday and the episode seemed to set up all-out war in season 3.

Ewan Mitchell, who plays Aemond Targaryen, the acting king of Westeros and the guy with the biggest dragon, tells ABC Audio what he loved about the season 2 finale.

“That’s the first time that you start to see Aemond break a little bit, and he gets desperate and he begs his sister to join him upon Dream Fire. And then he starts to overextend,” he says. “And I can’t wait to see more of that in season 3.”

We learn in the finale that Aemond used his dragon Vhagar to decimate the town of Sharp Point. While we don’t see the carnage, the implication is that it was an act of rage from a bitter ruler who feels his grasp on power is slipping. However, Mitchell thinks there was more to Aemond’s madness.

“Geographically where Sharp Point is situated is very close to The Gullet. And so I think Aemond kind of justifies that action by saying, look, I’m just warming up the blockade ahead of next season … I think Aemond, he does have that kind of strategic kind of justification for what he did,” he tells ABC Audio.

Mitchell doesn’t have any idea where season 3 is going, because he’s only read George R.R. Martin‘s Fire and Blood, the book the series is based on, to where season 2 ends. But if he did, even his family and friends aren’t getting anything out of him.

“I even kept the secret of my nude scene to my mom in episodes two and three,” he says. “I kept it all hush. And yeah, she screamed the house down. It was very funny.”

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KJ Apa fans, start your engines.

His new film, One Fast Move, races onto Prime Video on Thursday. Apa plays Wes, a down-on-his-luck thrill seeker who reaches out to his estranged father for help becoming a professional motorcycle racer. The actor told ABC Audio he learned how to ride for the film, with some help from director Kelly Blatz.

“I was very unfamiliar with how to ride a motorcycle, about all that world. I actually learned on Kelly’s bike. He gave it to me for the movie, and I learned how to ride for the movie,” Apa said.

What started as preparation for a role turned into a real-life passion.

“I made sure I rode every day for about two years leading up to the movie because I knew it was going to require a lot of getting to know the bike,” Apa said. “I’m obsessed with it now. I love motorcycles now.”

Not only does Apa star in One Fast Move, this also marks the first time he has executive produced a project.

“It was a lot of fun doing that just because I felt very close to the project at such an early time of it being developed,” Apa said. “I felt very close to it. In terms of work … this is a job that I feel most connected to. It’s one of those soul projects. … It just fit my soul, you know?”

He credits that soul connection to having two years to develop the story and character alongside Blatz.

“His mentorship in my life has been one of those kind of divine things that happen in life that I don’t think, you know, you don’t get too often,” Apa said.

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Colin Farrell is opening up about his son James‘ Angelman syndrome diagnosis and what he’s doing to help others with intellectual disabilities.

“I want the world to be kind to James,” Farrell told People of his eldest child, who is nonverbal. “I want the world to treat him with kindness and respect.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, Angelman syndrome is a genetic disorder primarily affecting the nervous system, which results in delayed development, intellectual disability, severe speech impairment, and problems with movement and balance, with seizures being typical occurrences.

The NIH estimates that 1 in 12,000 to 20,000 people are affected by Angelman syndrome and life expectancy “appears to be nearly normal.”

With James’ 21st birthday approaching in September, Farrell noted that many support systems for families with children with disabilities expire with this milestone.

“Once your child turns 21, they’re kind of on their own,” he said. “All the safeguards that are put in place, special ed classes, that all goes away, so you’re left with a young adult who should be an integrated part of our modern society and more often than not is left behind.”

To help combat this, Farrell is launching the Colin Farrell Foundation, which, according to the organization’s website, “is committed to transforming the lives of individuals and families living with intellectual disability through education, awareness, advocacy, and innovative programs.”

The actor said he’s wanted to do something like this for years and that it was a “no-brainer” decision to do something to honor James, and to help others like him succeed in having autonomy in their lives and a sense of community.

Farrell said James has “worked so hard all his life” adding, “I’m proud of him every day, because I just think he’s magic.”

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Whoopi Goldberg is heading to the stage as part of the world-renowned musical Annie.

Goldberg, a co-host on The View, will play the role of Miss Hannigan in the New York City performances of Annie, which will run at The Theater at Madison Square Garden for a limited engagement from Dec. 4, 2024, through Jan. 5, 2025, according to a press release.

“I love the theatre, and in my mind, there is no better way to spend the holidays than to get back on stage,” Goldberg said in a statement included in the release. “I can’t wait to step in to the delicious role of Miss Hannigan and perform for the greatest audiences in the world — in my hometown of New York City.”

Miss Hannigan, the show’s antagonist, runs the orphanage in which the main character, Annie, lives; Hannigan sings the song “Little Girls” in the production.

Goldberg achieved EGOT status — an acronym for the four biggest awards in the entertainment industry, the Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, Academy Awards and Tony Awards — in 2002 after taking home a Tony Award for Best Musical for Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Jenn Thompson, who played Pepper in the original production of Annie, directs the show. Annie has been revived on Broadway two times and turned into a movie on three separate occasions.

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After haunting audiences at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, director Steven Soderbergh‘s movie Presence let its presence be known with a creepy teaser on Wednesday. 

The teaser doesn’t give away anything about the plot: It’s just a overhead shot of a suburban street, punctuated by a high-pitched whine.

As the shot rises, eventually entering a home through the window, the screen is slowly filled with titles from the director’s filmography, from 1989’s Sex, Lies and Videotape through Ocean’s Eleven, the Oscar winners Erin Brockovich and Traffic, and finally to the new movie’s title. 

The movie stars Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan and Julia Fox, and is a ghost story visually told from the ghost’s point of view.

The release from NEON opens in January 2025.

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(NOTE LANGUAGE) Playing concerts isn’t the only thing Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea does naked.

During an episode of the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, hosted by Cheers costars Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson, the musician and Obi-Wan Kenobi actor recalls the time he and Harrelson went snowboarding together without wearing any clothes.

“I have footage of Woody Harrelson and I snowboarding stark naked down a big, snowy mountain,” Flea shares.

“It’s actually great footage!” Harrelson adds.

Apparently, Flea and Harrelson take snowboarding trips together quite frequently. Flea also tells a story of a time he and Harrelson were racing when the bassist almost hit a woman on the mountain. He says he offered her a sincere apology, though she didn’t accept.

“She takes her ski pole and sticks it in my face,” Flea recalls. “At this point I’m like, ‘Well, look, I’m f****** sorry, but get your f****** pole out of my face.'”

“Woody comes up and he just sees her pole in my face, and he comes to my defense like a good friend,” he continues. “Then she goes, ‘My husband’s gonna come down here and he’s gonna show you what for.’ And that’s when [Harrelson’s] like, ‘Bring the f****** husband!'”

We can only assume that all of this inspired the RHCP song “Snow (Hey Oh).”

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Vanity Fair has just published a feature piece on Saturday Night, the comedy that depicts the goings on at Studio 8H before the very first broadcast of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 11, 1975.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman called the shots on what he calls a “thriller comedy,” which takes place in real time starting at 10 p.m. that historic night, and runs through the first show’s open. 

Amid the clashes of ego, there is the volatile comedy cocktail of various comedy styles, from Chevy Chase to Dan Aykroyd, as well as drugs and an 11:30 deadline: “This is a movie where the villain is time,” Reitman says. “It’s like our Sauron. Our Darth Vader is a clock, and you feel its presence at all times.”

Also glimpsed in the feature is the rest of the cast in costume, including Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner and Cory Michael Smith as Chase.

Incidentally, ABC Audio recently caught up with Aykroyd to confirm the legend that he still watches every episode of SNL. Turns out, that’s not exactly the case.

“No, not every night,” he says. 

Akyroyd continues, “I go to bed earlier than I have been [in the past]. I watch it from time to time. And I think the writing is spectacular. And there’s a great new cast on there, and I enjoy it when I watch it.”

He continues, “I like to watch it live, so I have to stay up till 11:30 to do that.” 

Saturday Night hits theaters 49 years to the day Saturday Night Live debuted: Oct. 11.

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In a cover story in Better Homes & Gardens, Pamela Anderson shows off a different side of herself: She could give Martha Stewart a run for her money.

The former Baywatch bombshell, 57, tells the magazine that during the pandemic she sold her Malibu home and returned to the same small town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where she was born and raised.

“I kind of gave up at some point and needed a change,” she said. “I was not in a good space when I moved back to Canada.”

She added she felt “very sad and lonely,” offering, “I felt like I had really screwed up, that my whole life was a bundle of mistakes. I was hard on myself … I put my … kids through so much.”

Back in Canada, she perfected the art of baking, completely renovated her family’s rundown hotel, and began a lot of self-reflection with the help of her now-adult sons, Brandon and Dylan.

From the latter came her bestselling 2023 autobiography, Love, Pamela, and her Netflix documentary, Pamela, A Love Story.

Pamela says gardening was an escape: “[W]hen I started building the garden, it was really like a metaphor of putting my life back together. I began planting seeds,” she said.

She gives flowers to her “hardworking … gentlemen” sons, adding that “over the years, as they learned about things in my past, both age-appropriate and not age-appropriate, unfortunately, they thought I was taken advantage of in some ways.”

She added, “[I]t hurt them to think that those other things are the only things people think of their mom. Yes, she’s been in Playboy … but we know who she is. It’s different now.”

“They told me, ‘We’re going to try and find ways for you to keep doing what you love but also sharing it with people in a way where it benefits you too.'”

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Three big Hollywood stars are tackling The Bard on London’s West End.

Sigourney Weaver is starring in a revival of Shakespeare‘s The Tempest for an eight-week engagement starting on Dec. 7. The Jamie Lloyd Company will stage the classic at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and tickets are now on sale.

Weaver is a Tony-nominated Broadway veteran, but The Tempest will mark her West End debut.

Meanwhile, Marvel movie stars Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell are gearing up to lead Shakespeare’s classic comedy Much Ado About Nothing.

Held at the same venue for eight weeks starting Feb. 10, 2025, Marvel’s Loki and Peggy Carter will be playing, respectively, Benedick and Beatrice in The Bard’s timeless romantic battle of wits.

Ticket info for that performance is not yet available.

Both Hiddleston and Atwell have trod the boards at the West End before: Hiddleston became an Olivier Award winner early in his career for a 2007 performance in Cymbeline and has starred in multiple productions, including Harold Pinter‘s celebrated drama Betrayal in 2019.

Atwell is a thrice-Olivier-nominated West End veteran, beginning with a heralded 2009 performance in A View from the Bridge.

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Lily Collins is sharing how she saw herself in her Emily in Paris character on the upcoming season of the hit show.

In an interview with InStyle as the magazine’s Fall 2024 cover star, Collins shared how she “found more of myself in Emily this season.”

“Seeing Emily’s confidence rise in her job and taking new risks in fashion,” she added in a video interview. “New risks that some people might think are not as risky as her first ones — that to Emily is more risky. So being more pared down and minimalistic is more risky to Emily.”

“And that’s a little more closer to home for me,” Collins said.

When Collins first started to play Emily in the show, she said she struggled with how to “make her different,” as well as Emily’s perfectionist tendencies.

“This idea of perfection, needing to just always feel ready to go, always feeling like your perfect self,” she said. “That’s not how I want to live my life, especially at 35.”

While the actress said she struggled with that in the beginning with Emily, she said that the character has also helped her find her sense of style.

Collins teases “the season of vulnerability” for the hit show. “I’m excited for people to see the transition this season,” she said. “I’m proud of it.”

Part one of Emily in Paris season four arrives on Netflix on Aug. 15. Part two will follow on Sept. 12.

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