Entertainment

Hours after her former Friends co-stars Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer opened up about the loss of Matthew Perry, the remaining main cast member, Lisa Kudrow, took to Instagram to share her thoughts.

Including a throwback picture of her and Perry, Kudrow began, “Shot the pilot, Friends Like Us, got picked up then immediately, we were at the NBC Upfronts. Then… You suggested we play poker AND made it so much fun while we initially bonded. Thank you for that.”

Kudrow continued, “Thank you for making me laugh so hard at something you said, that my muscles ached, and tears poured down my face EVERY DAY. Thank you for your open heart in a six way relationship that required compromise. And a lot of ‘talking.'”

Hinting at Perry’s yearslong struggle with addiction, she commented, “Thank you for showing up at work when you weren’t well and then, being completely brilliant.”

TV’s Phoebe Buffay added, “Thank you for all I learned about GRACE and LOVE through knowing you. Thank you for the time I got to have with you, Matthew.”

Aniston, Kudrow and Schwimmer’s tributes come a day after Matt LeBlanc and Courteney Cox shared touching and heartfelt posts of their own honoring Perry.

On October 30, the Friends cast issued a joint statement about losing Perry, two days after he was found dead at his Los Angeles home.

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Tallulah Willis has shared new photos with dad Bruce Willis amid his ongoing health issues.

“[D]amn, these photos are hitting tonight,” she captioned a slideshow of images of her with the Moonlighting actor.

In one photo, the duo are seen sitting in a chair together. Another shows them caught in a candid moment outside, with Bruce smiling for the camera while his daughter wears a Die Hard sweatshirt.

Elsewhere in her caption, Tallulah called her dad “my whole damn heart” and said she’s “so proud” to be named after him, even sharing a photo of her license with her full name: Tallulah Belle Bruce Willis.

She added #babybruce to the post.

Bruce’s family announced in March 2022 that he had been diagnosed with aphasia and would be “stepping away” from his career. In February 2023, they revealed he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, known as FTD.

“Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. While this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis,” they said at the time, calling FTD a “cruel disease” for which there is no treatment.

According to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, FTD currently has no cure.

Tallulah opened up on her dad’s current condition and ongoing health battle on The Drew Barrymore Show earlier this month, saying he’s doing “the same,” which she added “is he best thing I could ask for.”

“What I see is … love when I’m with him,” she continued. “He’s my dad and he loves me.”

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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced on Wednesday that it will present the 25th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor to Kevin Hart.

The presentation will take place at a gala event on March 24 in Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center Concert Hall and will see Kevin joining the ranks of previous Twain Prize winners, including stand-up legends like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Eddie Murphy and Dave Chappelle.

Kennedy Center President Deborah F. Rutter said in a statement, “For over three decades, Kevin Hart has been a source of laughter across America and throughout the world with his iconic characters, inimitable physical comedy, and relatable narratives.”

She added, “An accomplished writer, producer, actor, and comedian, he has made lasting contributions to the comedic landscape and represents our celebration of American humor at the Kennedy Center, expressing the organization’s “gratitude to Kevin for enriching American culture.”

For his part, Kev enthused, “I’ve been doing comedy since the inception of this award 25 years ago. To be honored in this commemorative year feels surreal.”

Hart said, “Comedy is my outlet for social commentary and observations on life” and expressed his gratitude to the Kennedy Center “for recognizing my voice and impact on culture.”

Kevin closed with, “I can’t wait to celebrate!”

Special guests honoring Kevin, as well as broadcast details for the ceremony, will be announced at a later date.

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While 2022 had the Depp vs. Heard trial, 2023’s celebrity collision with the justice system happened in a Utah courtroom, where Gwyneth Paltrow was on the stand over a 2016 ski accident. Now, that drama is playing out in musical form, thanks to a forthcoming staged production in the U.K. called Gwyneth Goes Skiing.

Running December 13 through 23 at London’s Pleasance Theatre, Gwyneth Goes Skiing is “a musical reimagining” of what took place on the slopes of Utah’s Deer Valley Ski Resort that fateful day when Paltrow accidentally met retired optometrist Terry Sanderson. The staged version has Linus Karp playing Paltrow and Joseph Martin as Sanderson.

What could have been a meet-cute in a romantic comedy Paltrow made earlier in her career instead saw Sanderson suing her for millions, claiming she “skied out of control” into him, “knocking him down hard, knocking him out, and causing a brain injury, four broken ribs and other serious injuries.”

Paltrow countersued for $1 plus legal fees, claiming it was Sanderson who “plowed into her back,” delivering a “full ‘body blow'” and leaving her “shaken and upset.”

The jury eventually sided with the Oscar-winning actor and Goop CEO, concluding that Paltrow was not at fault in the collision.

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The U.K.-based auction house Propstore’s massive auction of Hollywood memorabilia wrapped up over the weekend, and the numbers are in: The event that ran from November 9 – 12 fetched $16.4 million, with movie fans from all over the world shelling out big to own a piece of Hollywood history.

Some of the biggest earners were a light-up, screen-used head of the protocol droid C-3PO from 1977’s Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. The item, from the personal collection of Anthony Daniels, the actor who played him in every movie in the saga, sold for $838,750 — quite a step up from the low-end estimate of $575,000.

Harrison Ford‘s bullwhip from 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, estimated to go for anywhere from $115,000-$230,000, surpassed expectations by selling for $350,750.

Chris Evans‘ shield from 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger fetched $122,000 — higher than the highest predicted estimate of $115,000.

A cigarette lighter used by Sigourney Weaver‘s Ellen Ripley in 1986’s Aliens could have fetched anywhere from around $3,800 to $6,800, but it instead sold for more than $14,800.

Lee Van Cleef‘s Angel Eyes hat from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly went for more than $167,000 — nearly 70 grand more than expected, while a hand-painted Robert McGinnis poster from 1965’s James Bond film Thunderball was expected to fetch at least $99,000 and change but sold for a staggering $335,500.

Speaking of posters, the auction house has announced a new batch of movie artwork has gone on the block, between now and December 8.

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This year’s lineup for NBC’s annual special Christmas In Rockefeller Center has been revealed, and it’s the usual mix of stars from many musical genres.

Cher, who just released her first holiday album, will perform, as will Barry Manilow, who’s starring in his own NBC holiday special, Barry Manilow’s A Very Barry Christmas, December 11. Also on the bill are married couple David Foster and Katharine McPhee, who’ve expanded their 2022 holiday EP, Christmas Song, with seven new tracks.

The bill also includes Darlene Love, who is set to join Cher for “a special song.” It’s likely to be Love’s holiday classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” which the two recorded for Cher’s album. Singers and actresses Keke Palmer, Chloe Bailey and Liz Gillies, Family Guy creator, actor and singer Seth McFarlane and country star Carly Pearce round out the lineup.   

As previously reported, Kelly Clarkson will perform and host the show, which airs live on Wednesday, November 29, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and Peacock. 

In addition to the music, the show will spotlight the lighting of this year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree: an 80-foot-tall, 43-foot wide Norway Spruce from Vestal, New York, that’ll be decked out with 50,000 LED lights.

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Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer posted emotional tributes to their late Friends co-star Matthew Perry on Wednesday.

Aniston said his death “cut deep” and expressed, “Having to say goodbye to our Matty has been an insane wave of emotions that I’ve never experienced before.”

“Being able to really SIT in this grief allows you to feel the moments of joy and gratitude for having loved someone that deep. And we loved him deeply,” she added, calling Perry “such a part of our DNA.”

Aniston’s picture-filled post included a text exchange she had with Perry.

“Making you laugh just made my day. It made my day:),” Perry’s text to her reads, to which she responded, “Awww the first of THOUSANDS of times…”

Aniston wrote, “As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die. His life literally depended on it. And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard. In the last couple weeks, I’ve been pouring over our texts to one another. Laughing and crying then laughing again. I’ll keep them forever and ever.”

She concluded, “Rest little brother. You always made my day.”

Schwimmer posted one of his “favorite” photos with Perry: They’re wearing Miami Vice-inspired looks on set. “Now it makes me smile and grieve at the same time,” he expressed.

Schwimmer added, “I will never forget your impeccable comic timing and delivery. You could take a straight line of dialogue and bend it to your will, resulting in something so entirely original and unexpectedly funny it still astonishes.”

He said Perry’s “heart” helped them “create a family out of six strangers.”

“I imagine you up there, somewhere … looking around— [saying] ‘Could there BE any more clouds?'” Schwimmer concluded.

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On Wednesday, Sony Pictures released the trailer to its latest Spider-Man adjacent adventure, Madame Web.

Based very loosely on the Marvel Comics character Cassandra Webb, the movie has Dakota Johnson playing the title character, a paramedic in Manhattan who begins to have clairvoyant visions.

Set to Billie Eilish‘s “bury a friend,” the trailer sees Webb in a diner when a black-clad, Spider-Man clone enters to terrorize the patrons. She tries to fight back and is killed. We then see her revived and able to live that moment again with better results.

Cassandra Webb soon finds her life is entangled with both the baddie and a trio of young women.

According to Sony Pictures, the “standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing’s most enigmatic heroines” sees Webb “forced to confront revelations about her past” as “she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures…if they can all survive a deadly present.”

Some of those futures involve them wearing Spidey-like suits, which is apparently why the big, bad Ezekiel Sims (played by Tahar Rahim) wants to use his own clairvoyant powers to stop them from becoming heroes.

Cassandra Webb was first introduced in the pages of Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man #210 in 1980.

She’s not a female Spider-Man. Instead, Cassandra was actually a frail mutant with psychic and other abilities, whose powerful mind was trapped in a body confined to a hospital bed due to the degenerative neuromuscular condition myasthenia gravis.

Her powers were then transferred to another, Julia Carpenter, Sydney Sweeney‘s character in this movie.

Adam Scott, Zosia Mamet, Emma Roberts and Isabela Merced also star in Madame Web, which swings into theaters February 14.

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She co-wrote and directed the highest-grossing movie of the year, but to Vanity Fair, Greta Gerwig explains the movie’s runaway success was certainly not a sure thing.

“I always had a hope that it would connect. I had a sense that it might. But Barbie doesn’t fit neatly into a preordained category,” she admits. 

“We had these hopeful-looking metrics, but no one knew what they meant. It wasn’t until the end of the second weekend that I thought, ‘Oh, this is going well.'”

She adds, “I mean, Wonder Woman was hugely successful, but superheroes exist in a different bubble.”

The filmmaker expresses she wasn’t about to let studio execs change what she had in mind for the genre-bending Margot Robbie–Ryan Gosling hit. “Honestly, there was nothing but fear around all of it from the outset,” she says adding, ” … the whole undertaking was definitely like ‘Drive it like you stole it.’ Go, go, go. Don’t tell them, don’t tell them where we’re going.”

She also admits to being “chuffed” at the Barbenheimer phenomenon, calling Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan “one of my heroes, a proper auteur.” 

Greta says, “It was an odd pairing, but it’s kind of like a film festival where you watch three movies a day.”

With Barbie‘s success now in the record books, however, Gerwig says she still can’t bring herself to read any reviews. “I’ll probably sit down with a binder [of them] sometime in February,” she says. “But right now it’s too fresh.”

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Robert Downey Jr. is the latest star named who will be feted by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The event, which recently announced it was honoring Ryan Gosling, will be giving Oppenheimer co-star Downey the Maltin Modern Master Award on Friday, February 9th, 2024. The trophy, re-named in honor of festival’s moderator Leonard Maltin, hails, “individuals who have enriched our culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry.” The 39th annual festival runs from February 7-17…

Praise Petey, the Freeform adult-themed animated show has been canceled by Hulu after just one season. The show’s creator Anna Drezen sarcastically noted the news on social media, explaining, “I have heard that making a non-IP show during covid that premieres during a double strike in the dead of summer was not ideal for viewership.” The show starred the voice of Schitt’s Creek‘s Annie Murphy as a New York City “it girl” who takes over her dad’s small town cult…

Deadline reports Dexter co-star C.S. Lee will appear in the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai. The trade reports he will portray Master Kim Sun-Young, a character who appeared in flashback in the original Karate Kid movie, and was previously played by Don Lee in Cobra Kai…

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