Entertainment

The nominations in 26 competitive categories for the American Theatre Wing’s 77th Annual Tony Awards were announced Tuesday by a pair of previous winners: Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Renée Elise Goldsberry.

Once again, Hollywood was well represented for the Broadway’s highest honor, with a collection of big and small screen stars who hit the boards of the Great White Way in 2023.

In the drama category, Succession veteran Jeremy Strong was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role category for his work in An Enemy of the People; Michael Stuhlbarg earned one for Patriots; William Jackson Harper for Uncle Vanya; Leslie Odom Jr. for Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, and Liev Schreiber was recognized for Doubt: A Parable.

Oscar and Tony winner Jessica Lange was nominated as Best Actress in a Leading Role for Mother Play — which also boasted a nomination for Big Bang Theory‘s Jim Parsons; Rachel McAdams earned a nom for her Broadway debut, Mary Jane; Emmy winner Sarah Paulson for Appropriate, and The Office alumna Amy Ryan for Doubt: A Parable.

Tony winner and Frozen vet Jonathan Groff was nominated in the Lead Actor in a Musical category for Merrily We Roll Along, for which Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe was nommed in the Best Featured Actor category.

Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne was recognized for Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, a musical that saw Tony winner and Frasier veteran Bebe Neuwirth nommed this year in the Best Featured Actress slot.

Overall, the productions Hell’s Kitchen and Stereophonic led with 13 nominations apiece.

The full list is on tonyawards.com/nominees/.

Hosted by Ariana DeBose, the Tony Awards takes place in New York City on Sunday, June 16, respectively airing and streaming live on CBS and Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. ET.

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Anne Hathaway was all smiles as she walked the purple carpet for the premiere of The Idea of You in New York City on Monday night.

The Oscar-winning actress, who stars in the film alongside Nicholas Galitzine, posed on the carpet with Galitzine, producer Gabrielle Union, and fellow stars Reid Scott and Ella Rubin.

Based on the book by Robinne Lee and directed by Michael Showalter, the film follows Hathaway’s Soléne, a 40-year-old single mom who attends Coachella — where she randomly meets-cute with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell, played by Galitzine, the leader of the boy band August Moon.

Hayes is instantly smitten with Soléne and dedicates a song to her while performing at the music festival.

When Soléne returns to her normal life — working at an art gallery and being a mom to her teenage daughter — Hayes finds her and the two begin a romance, but face scrutiny by the media.

While speaking to Good Morning America at the premiere, Hathaway, who is also a producer on the film, said she was “honored to be asked” to play Soléne.

“I read it and I love love stories,” she said. “I’ve been really lucky to be in a lot of them … And so, to find a love story at this stage of my career that rang as true, I just wanted to sign up immediately.”

“Also, I just thought [producer] Cathy Schulman and I were talking about it and I said, ‘I really want this to be my 40th birthday gift to myself,'” she added. “So, I can’t think of a better way to turn 40 and I actually turned 40 the day before we shot Soléne’s 40th birthday.”

The Idea of You streams globally on Prime Video beginning on May 2.

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General Hospital star Haley Pullos was booked into the Los Angeles County Jail on Monday, her lawyer tells People. The actress, 25, pleaded no contest to the charges stemming from a 2023 hit-and-run, followed by a wrong-way crash on a Los Angeles freeway, causing bodily injury and property damage. She’s set to be sentenced on July 29. Additionally, Pullos must serve five years of probation, 200 hours of community service and pay $8,260 in restitution to Courteney Wilder, the other driver involved in the crash, per her lawyer …

Guardians of the Galaxy‘s Karen Gillan and The Afterparty‘s Zoë Chao have been tapped to star in the feature comedy Let’s Have Kids!, according to Deadline. The movie follows two best friends who decide to try to have their first babies at the same time to experience new motherhood together, but find their friendship tested when only one of them gets pregnant, per the outlet. Sam Richardson, Max Greenfield, K.J. Apa, Ed Begley Jr. and Mary Steenburgen co-star …

Zack Norman, the veteran actor and producer who appeared in films like Romancing the Stone and Cadillac Man, died at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank Sunday, his family announced, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 83. Norman also notably appeared in nine of director Henry Jaglom’s movies, including Festival in Cannes, Hollywood Dreams and Ovation …

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The Handmaid’s Tale Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss stars in FX’s new spy thriller series The Veil, debuting with two episodes on Hulu on Tuesday.

She plays Imogen Salter, an agent with the U.K.’s MI6 agency who is tasked with trying to thwart a terror attack — and yes, she performs with an English accent.

Moss tells ABC Audio, “I worked on it for six months before we started shooting. And it was difficult to drop at the end, actually.”

“It was hard to come out of because I just did it so much by the end that I found it was actually getting harder to speak in my own voice, which I’ve never had happen with an accent,” Moss expresses.

The series was something of a bucket-list check for Moss, who is a fan of the genre. “There’s a glamor to it, obviously, when you’re talking about Bond or Bourne or Mission Impossible,” Moss says.

“I’ve always wanted to do something in the spy genre. I love that genre. I love spy movies, and I’ve always wanted to play a spy,” she continues. “But here was this kind of incredibly complicated character with so many layers to her and so much to discover.”

Recalling a real-life scene at a Paris bar that would have been at home in a spy series, producer Denise Di Novi revealed how The Veil came to be. “There was a retired French intelligence officer who’d had a few too many glasses, or bottles, of wine and started sharing stories with me,” she explains.

Even between spies from allied nations “there were a lot of conflict and, animosity and competition,” she says. “My producer brain just went: ‘Ding ding ding!'” 

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Producer Greg Berlanti, of Arrow-verse fame and whose new show Dead Boy Detectives just debuted on Netflix, is in business with the streamer for Scooby-Doo! The Live-Action Series, Deadline is reporting. 

Officially, Netflix is still mum at this time.

According to the trade, however, the show will be written by Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg, who brought another animated property to real life for Netflix with Cowboy Bebop.

Berlanti’s production company also shepherded You and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina shows to the streamer.

The titular dog, his pal Shaggy, and the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang were seen in live-action on the big screen in 2002’s hit Scooby-Doo and 2004’s Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed, both written by eventual Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn.

The Scooby gang was also seen in the flesh in a pair of TV movies: Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins in 2009 and 2010’s Scooby Doo! Curse of the Lake Monster. 

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The comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is turning 20, and that’s kind of a big deal. To celebrate, Paramount Home Entertainment is bringing the hit comedy to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc for the first time.

It makes its format debut on July 2, 2024.

Written by director Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, the classic had Ferrell in the title role, a newsman who’s a big fish in the small pond of local journalism in 1970s San Diego, California.

Ferrell is joined by a deep bench of comedy talent: Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and David Koechner play the rest of his Channel 4 news team, which is upended when Christina Applegate‘s Veronica Corningstone is installed as Burgundy’s co-anchor.

Also appearing in the film are the late Fred Willard, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Luke Wilson and Tim Robbins, among others.

The new release is loaded with two hours’ worth of extras, including auditions, deleted scenes, bloopers and Wake Up, Ron Burgundy, a 92-minute movie featuring outtakes and storylines that had been left on the editing room floor.

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Jeff Bridges, the original star of 1982’s Tron, who played against a digitally de-aged version of himself in 2010’s Tron: Legacy, has revealed he will be back for Tron: Ares.

He told the Film Comment podcast, “I’m heading off this Saturday to play a part in the third installment of the Tron story.” Bridges added, “Jared Leto is the star of this third one. … I’m really anxious to work with him. I’ve admired his work.”

Bridges even commented on his last Tron outing, which had him at his age reprising as Kevin Flynn, battling against a digital doppelgänger of his younger self — or at least that was the idea. 

“I didn’t like the way I looked in it,” Bridges admitted of his supposed twin, the nefarious Clu. “I felt like I looked more like Bill Maher than myself. It was kind of bizarre.”

For Tron: Ares, Bridges said the world inside a computer in which his character lived is much more grounded. He noted there will be less artificial intelligence this time around and there are “practical” — that is non-CG — environments.

“There are beautiful sets that I’ve seen,” Bridges said. “So we’ll see.”

Fans will have to see how Bridges will fit into the story: Tron: Legacy ended with Flynn seemingly sacrificing himself by absorbing Clu so that his son Sam, played by Garrett Hedlund, could escape back into the real world with Olivia Wilde‘s digital human Quorra. 

Tron: Ares debuts October 10, 2025, from Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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Zendaya has already become a fashion icon, and now the Emmy-winning star might be responsible for influencing people to take up tennis.

At least that’s according to research from the casino website Vegas Gems, which noted worldwide searches for “tennis lessons” spiked with the release of her new film Challengers, which aced the box office over the weekend.

According to the search data, interest in tennis lessons jumped 54%, reaching their highest point in 12 months when the sultry sports film from Luca Guadagnino debuted. 

Granted, the French Open and Wimbledon will be played soon. But considering Zendaya has 184 million Instagram followers, it’s quite plausible she’s the main source of the search spike.

If you doubt Zendaya’s influence, consider that the film, in which she stars with Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, has amassed over 114 million views on TikTok worldwide, according to the website’s research.

Methodology and results have not been verified or endorsed by ABC News or The Walt Disney Company.

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Jerry Seinfeld, whose eponymous sitcom is always listed among the all-time TV greats, is lamenting the loss of television comedy. He tells The New Yorker Radio, “People always need [comedy]. They need it so badly and they don’t get it.”

Jerry continues, “It used to be that you’d go home at the end of the day, most people would go, “Oh, Cheers is on. Oh, M.A.S.H. is on. Oh, [The] Mary Tyler Moore [Show]’ is on, All in the Family is on.’ You just expected [there will] be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.”

“Well, guess what? Where is it? Where is it?” the Unfrosted director asks rhetorically, venting, “This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap and people worrying so much about offending other people.”

He adds, “When you write a script, and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups – ‘Here’s our thought about this joke’ – well, that’s the end of your comedy.”

Incidentally, Jerry mentions Curb Your Enthusiasm, former Seinfeld co-creator Larry David‘s recently-wrapped show, was immune to that interference, noting, “He’s old enough [to say], ‘I don’t have to observe those rules, because I started before you made those rules.'”

Jerry notes that to get their fix of comedy, audiences are turning to stand-up comics “because [comedians] are not policed by anyone. The audience polices us. We know when we’re off track. We know instantly. And we adjust to it instantly.”

“With certain comedians now, people are having fun with them stepping over the line, and us all laughing about it,” he continues, adding if it “doesn’t go down well … He or she can take all the blame.”

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Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have made underdog Welsh football club Wrexham AFC a winner, and Variety reports they are apparently hoping to put their Midas touch on Mexico’s century-old Club Necaxa.

According to the trade, one of the team’s investors, Eva Longoria, brought the pair into the fold, and Rob and Ryan purchased a stake in the team.

The co-chairs of Wrexham spun their enthusiasm — and money — into team promotions for Wrexham, as well as five Emmys for their FX docuseries Welcome to Wrexham. The trade reports their role inside the team isn’t yet known, but Variety speculates they could be eyeing a similar series spotlight for Necaxa, which like Wrexham is beloved, but hasn’t been competitive in years.

The team is currently 14th in Mexico and 23rd in North America, according to FootballDatabase.com.

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