Entertainment

The film Rosaline, out October 14 on Hulu, is a reimaging of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, focusing on the character mentioned in the play as Romeo’s first love.

The character might not be familiar to you, just like it wasn’t for Kaitlyn Dever, who plays Rosaline.

“She’s mentioned and she’s talked about, but it’s not as nothing major,” she explains to ABC Audio. “And so I’m excited that in our movie, we really got to create her world and who she is.”

That’s not the only update to the classic story. Dever notes, “Even the guy that my dad is trying to set me up with…randomly has kind of a Southern accent…it makes no sense within the context of the era, [but] that’s what we’re doing with the story is we’re just having a lot of fun with it.”

Actress Isabelle Merced, who plays Juliet in the movie was also relieved to ditch the Shakespeare-ese.

Admittedly not much of a Shakespeare person, she says, “I wish I was. It’d probably be cool. But no I’m glad we did not have to do all that for this one.”

One of the themes of the movie, according to Dever: love is complicated.

“Sometimes you think you might be in love with somebody, and then it turns out to be either lust or infatuation, or you think that this is the person you are supposed to be and meant to be with for the rest of your life. And that doesn’t quite pan out always,” she says.

Adds Merced, “We have a tendency as Hollywood to represent love as some sort of perfect, unbreakable thing that triumphs above all…I think love’s a little bit more realistic than that…And I think that’s what Rosaline learns [and] what Juliet learns.”

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Liam Neeson may soon apply his “particular set of skills” to revive the Naked Gun movie series.

Variety reports that the Irish actor may very well succeed the late Leslie Nielsen in the lead of the slapstick cop films, with Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer co-writing, directing and executive producing the film for Paramount Pictures.

The 70-year-old Neeson has seen a career course change in the past decade or so into an AARP-eligible action hero, starting with 2008’s trilogy-spawning Taken, the man-vs.-wolves thriller The Grey in 2012, and more recently The Marksman and Blacklight.

Earlier this year, he joked to People TV that reviving The Naked Gun could “either finish my career or bring it in another direction,” adding, “I honestly don’t know.”

Spun from the cop-show-spoofing Police Squad! TV show starring Nielsen as bumbling Detective Frank Dreben, 1988’s The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! was a blockbuster and spawned a pair of hit sequels: 1991’s The Naked Gun 2 1⁄2: The Smell of Fear and 1994’s Naked Gun 33 1⁄3: The Final Insult.

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Olivia Wilde is addressing the drama behind her recent film Don’t Worry Darling.

In an interview with Elle for the magazine’s 2022 Women in Hollywood November issue, Wilde, who directs and stars in the movie, talked about her “disappointment” over the conversations about the film offscreen instead of the film’s message.

“This film is trying to ask questions, but [it’s], ‘Let’s just focus on this sideshow over here,'” Wilde said.

The film, which came in at #1 its opening weekend in September, has been at the center of tabloid gossip and fan speculation about what happened behind the scenes, including a rumored feud between Wilde and the film’s leading star, Florence Pugh.

“It’s brought my attention to the media and how it pits women against one another,” said Wilde, who praised Pugh’s work in Don’t Worry Darling. “She’s so generous in her acting in every scene. She makes everyone around her better.”

Harry Styles, Chris Pine and Gemma Chan star alongside Pugh and Wilde in Don’t Worry Darling, which is about a picture-perfect 1950s community called Victory, an experimental company town that houses the men who work on a top-secret project. The film’s underlying theme centers on women’s rights and feminism.

Wilde says, “I had no interest in making a feminist parable that was judgy or that defined men as bad and women as good. I was much more interested in that tense space where we recognize our own participation in the system that objectifies us.”

Wilde is one of eight stars featured in Elle for creative and cultural contributions in music, film and television.

Elle‘s 2022 Women in Hollywood November issue hits newsstands on Nov. 1, 2022.

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Netflix has debuted the trailer for the upcoming release of the sequel Enola Holmes 2.

Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill return as Enola and her brother Sherlock, and the preview, set to Jet‘s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl,” teases their upcoming adventure.

The streaming service states, “Now a detective-for-hire like her infamous brother, Enola Holmes takes on her first official case to find a missing girl, as the sparks of a dangerous conspiracy ignite a mystery that requires the help of friends — and Sherlock himself — to unravel.”

In between foot chases, and dodging blades and bullets, Enola gets some advice from her mother, Eudoria, played by Helena Bonham Carter. “Find your allies, work with them and you will find yourself becoming more of who you are,” she says. “You could be magnificent.”

She apparently takes the advice and at one point dispatches a group of men with her friend, Susan Wokoma‘s Edith, at her side.

“She likes causing trouble, doesn’t she?” Edith understates at another point.

Enola Holmes 2 debuts November 4 on Netflix.

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Recently, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav made it known the studio was looking for an executive to head up a unit that could turn its DC Comics properties into a blockbuster-minting machine the way Kevin Feige has done for Marvel Studios.

But could that person also be a DC superhero?

The question was put to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at Wednesday night’s New York City premiere of his upcoming Warner Bros. film, Black Adam. So will The Rock trade his superhero tights for a business suit?

Not exactly.

After pondering the question from Variety over a long pull from a bottle of water, Johnson said diplomatically, “The best position that I could be for DC is one as an adviser, where I can help. I love DC. It’s in my blood. In the spirit of growing up with the DC Universe, I’m here to help in any way I can, including looking for and finding that right leader or leaders.”

Johnson also weighed in on another long-shot prospect: Could movie fans one day see Disney-owned Marvel heroes alongside those from Warner Bros.’ DC Universe?

It has happened in the pages of comic books several times over the years, beginning with Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man in the 1970s, and more recently when the heroes from DC’s Justice League faced off with Marvel’s Avengers. Movies, however, are far more complicated, with ownership rights and profit sharing just some of the tangles that would need to be smoothed out.

Johnson, however, took a “never say never” approach when asked. “Well, I’m always optimistic. I’d like to think that we would see that. My philosophy is anything can get done…”

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Netflix dropped the trailer to its upcoming Matilda the Musical, and Emma Thompson is turning heads as the production’s icy school headmistress, Miss Agatha Trunchbull.

It is hard to even recognize the Oscar winner, thanks to fearsome prosthetic makeup and a boxy, nearly Nazi-like uniform. “I like troublemakers,” she hisses at one point, as she’s seen swinging a student by her braids. “They make such a lovely sound when they snap.”

Following the plot of the Tony and Olivier award-winning stage production, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical “tells the story of an extraordinary girl, with a vivid imagination, who dares to take a stand to change her story with miraculous results.”

A relative newcomer, Irish actress Alisha Weir plays Matilda in the streaming giant’s take on the classic, with Lashana Lynch, of No Time To Die and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, playing Miss Honey, the kindly teacher who takes a liking to the gifted little girl.

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical debuts in select theaters and on Netflix December 25.

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Cuba Gooding Jr. pleaded guilty in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday to a count of second-degree harassment. 

After reaching a prearranged deal with prosecutors, Thursday’s plea replaces Gooding’s original plea in April, when the actor pleaded guilty to forcible touching.

Gooding has been sentenced to time served. He declined to address the court. 

The charges stem from Gooding’s sexual assault case in which prosecutors accused the actor of groping three women. Prior to April’s plea, Gooding had denied all charges. 

Gooding, 54, was arrested in June 2019 after a 29-year-old woman said he squeezed her breast at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge in Times Square.

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Apple icon Steve Jobs never appeared on Joe Rogan‘s podcast, but thanks to a Dubai-based tech company, you might be convinced he did.

The company, Play.ht, used its audio AI wizardry to create a fake podcast interview between the pair as a way to flaunt its voice synthesis technology.

Play.ht cloned the men’s voices to make it sound as if they once had a friendly, more than 19-minute chat that ranged from technology to Eastern mysticism. Evidently, it’s the first in what will be a series of such synthetic sit-downs, called Podcast.ai.

The company says its tech can “instantly convert text into natural-sounding speech,” and the results are pretty convincing, some technical limitations aside. “Joe Rogan” pronounces Patrick Swayze‘s name as Patrick “SWAYS” at one point, and much of “Steve Jobs'” dialogue centers on Apple and the tech market — evidence the company’s artificial intelligence was fed a diet comprised mostly of speeches the tech wizard gave in order to create his side of the conversation.

Similar audio AI technology made headlines recently when it was revealed James Earl Jones had given permission for his voice to be synthesized from now on by a Ukrainian tech company that recreated his Darth Vader voice, as heard in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. The audio wonks at Lucasfilm also used so-called machine learning to de-age Mark Hamill‘s voice as heard in other Star Wars shows.

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Kevin Hart is mourning the loss of his father, Henry Robert Witherspoon. The comedian shared news of Witherspoon’s death with a series of tribute posts on Instagram Thursday.

“RIP to one of the realest & rawest to ever do it…Love you dad. Gone but never forgotten….Give mom a hug for me….y’all did good man,” he wrote, sharing a slideshow of images of his father with his family over the years.

“Thank you for everything,” he added. “I’m a better father because of you 😢💪🏾🙏🏾 We will all make you proud….”

Hart’s tribute continued in a follow-up post in which he shared another image of him and his dad. “RIP spoon …..😢🙏🏾,” he captioned the special memory.

The 43-year-old comedian lost his mother, Nancy Hart, to cancer in 2007. In an interview for Oprah’s Masterclass at the time, he opened up about the tough loss and how he planned to keep her energy alive by way of his father and older brother, Robert. 

“All that energy went to my dad and to my brother. This is our little family,” Hart said. “If we don’t try to make this last name mean something, then we have nothing that’s going to live on. My last name means something now, but it’s because we made it mean something.”

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In the span of 24 hours, there was something of a he said-he said look at controversial former Glee star Lea Michele.

On Tuesday’s episode of The Michelle Collins Show, her former co-star on the one-time Fox musical phenomenon, Chris Colfer, was asked if he’d join the host in seeing Lea in her Broadway play Funny Girl.

Safe to say, he’s passing.

“Oh, no, are you seeing Funny Girl?” Colfer replied, with a huge laugh, adding, “Oh. My day suddenly just got so full.”

When Collins asked if he’d see the show at all, Colfer replied, sarcastically, “No, I can be triggered at home.”

Michele, of course, weathered accusations in 2020 from her former Glee co-stars Samantha Ware, Amber Riley and Alex Newell, that she was a bullying diva on the set of the hit show.

On the other hand, on Wednesday, Variety ran a glowing profile of Lea from her bestie, Frozen‘s Jonathan Groff, who called her “a force.”

Groff proclaimed in part, “When her undeniable star power lit up the stage in Funny Girl last month, the musical became the fifth-highest-grossing show on Broadway. By bringing big business back to Broadway, Lea isn’t just making audiences happy, she’s helping support the restaurants and hotels that thrive when Broadway draws a huge crowd.”

Michele apologized for the bullying accusations after they surfaced two years ago, and recently admitted to The New York Times that she can rub people the wrong way.

“I have an edge to me,” said Lea. “I work really hard. I leave no room for mistakes. That level of perfectionism, or that pressure of perfectionism, left me with a lot of blind spots.”

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