Entertainment

Timothée Chalamet graces the cover of GQ for a third time, and he talks about “leveling up” in his career and his life.

He also leans into those who’ve been inspiring him, including his Dune: Part Two co-stars Austin Butler and Zendaya. Oh, and some guy named Tom Cruise.

“It started on Zoom,” Chalamet said of meeting Butler, who was already in character during a read-through. “I can’t overstate how inspiring it was to me personally.”

He says while Butler “takes the work incredibly seriously,” off-camera he’s a “tremendously affable, wonderful man.”

Chalamet also took a cue from Butler to play Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic A Complete Unknown. He snagged Butler’s entire Elvis team, including his former dialect, vocal and movement coaches. “I just saw the way he committed to it all — and realized I needed to step it up,” Chalamet says.

Also helping him step up was Cruise, who sent a “wonderfully inspiring” email after seeing him in Dune. The Mission: Impossible star included “a Rolodex . . . of experts” he might need, from stunt trainers to helicopter coaches.

“He basically said, in Old Hollywood, you would be getting dance training and fight training, and nobody is going to hold you to that standard today. So it’s up to you,” Chalamet recalls.

Chalamet also says it was “incredibly valuable” to spend time with Zendaya and her Spider-Man franchise co-star boyfriend, Tom Holland, who visited the Dune sequel set. “They’re level … They’re good-energy Hollywood. And then Austin and [co-star] Florence [Pugh]. I feel like I’m creating a community for myself of people who care about the right things.”

“Look at Zendaya,” Chalamet adds. “Just how much she’s able to achieve while also sort of letting everything roll off her back is mega-inspiring. She’s just doing.”

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On Tuesday, Disney+ dropped the trailer to the second season of The Santa Clauses. Once again, Tim Allen plays Scott Calvin aka the Man with the Bag, and this time around, he’s getting his family into the Santa business, priming his son Cal (Austin Kane) as his successor.

However, like most best-laid Christmas plans, there’s a snag: Magnus Antas aka The Mad Santa, played by Modern Family vet Eric Stonestreet.

Declaring himself the “rightful Santa,” the villainous version of the holiday character is out for revenge for being exiled from the North Pole.

The season premieres with two episodes Wednesday, November 8, followed by one new installment weekly.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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On Tuesday, Apple revealed a first-look photo from its upcoming holiday special Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas.

The Ted Lasso Emmy winner dons a gold gown, smiling broadly with a mic in hand, in front of a fully dressed Christmas tree.

The special will debut November 22 on the streaming service. Apple notes Waddingham “will ring in the holidays as she welcomes special guests for a musical extravaganza at the London Coliseum.” The guests have yet to be revealed.

“The special was recorded live in front of an audience, and audiences around the world will be able to join Waddingham in celebrating her favorite time of year on Apple TV+ as she performs festive classics accompanied by a spectacular big band,” Apple continues.

The producers of Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas, Done + Dusted, previously presented specials including Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration, The Little Mermaid Live! and John Legend‘s A Legendary Christmas with John and Chrissy.

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Two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey made a surprise appearance during an Oxford University lecture about cancel culture and was rewarded for his performance of a passionate, five-minute speech from William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens.

Author Douglas Murray headlined the lecture, speaking of the importance of free speech and paralleling The Bard’s words with our modern society.

He then introduced Spacey as “someone I’m very proud to call a friend,” and the actor strode into the room not in costume but in character.

The play centers on the title character, a nobleman who gives away his money to his friends only to have them shun him when he runs out. Spacey had index cards as a backup but apparently didn’t need them as he delivered the passionate speech, at times walking through the assembled crowd.

At its conclusion, he strode away from the audience and out of the room timed to thunder the passage’s powerful ending, “I am sick of this false world, and will love nought!”

The performance was thought to be his first since being acquitted of sexual assault charges in a U.K. courtroom, and came days after it was revealed the London premiere of his film Control was canceled by the theater owner.

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Millie Bobby Brown is ready to say farewell to Stranger Things.

The actress, who first gained recognition on the hit Netflix show in 2016, will end her time on the series with her castmates on the show’s forthcoming fifth and final season.

“I’m ready to say, ‘Thank you, and goodbye,'” Brown, one of Glamour‘s Global Woman of the Year honorees, said in an interview with the outlet published Monday.

“When you’re ready, you’re like … Let’s tackle this last senior year. Let’s get out of here.”

Brown, who plays Eleven on the award-winning show, has starred in Stranger Things since its first season. The 19-year-old said the show has given her “the tools and the resources to be a better actor.”

The UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, author, student at Purdue University, movie producer and even the owner of the makeup company Florence by Mills said she’s also ready to work on other projects.

“Stranger Things takes up a lot of time to film and it’s preventing me from creating stories that I’m passionate about,” she said, assuring fans that she will still “be able to see” her fellow cast members even after the show ends.

In addition to new work, Brown said she is looking forward to the next chapter of her personal life: marriage with fiancé Jake Bongiovi, to whom she became engaged in April.

Although she’s only 19 and Bongiovi is just 21, Brown said that marriage is “something that we both had that mutual drive for.”

“We were modeled wonderful, loving relationships,” Brown said, referring to her parents Robert and Kelly Brown and Bongiovi’s parents Dorothea Hurley and Bon Jovi frontman Jon Bon Jovi. “His family were so wonderfully accepting of me and embraced me and it’s so nice to find a second family in that.”

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Netflix on Monday released the first-look images for Part 1 of The Crown‘s sixth and final season, which will follow the blossoming romantic relationship between Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed — played respectively by Elizabeth Debicki and Salim Daw — leading up to their untimely deaths. Prince William — portrayed by Rufus Kampa — “returns to Eton in the wake of his mother’s death and ensuing controversy, and Imelda Staunton‘s Queen Elizabeth II, celebrating her Golden Jubilee, reflects on the future of the monarchy with the marriage of Charles and Camilla — played by Dominic West and Olivia Williams — and the beginnings of a new Royal fairytale in William and Kate — played by Meg Bellamy.” The Crown season 6 Part 1 premieres on November 16. Part 2 premieres December 14…

Nat Geo has greenlit a new series with the working title, Top Gun: The Next Generation, which follows a group of U.S. Navy student pilots as they train to become fighter pilots in the military’s Advanced Flight Training Program, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The production gained unprecedented access to the Navy’s most demanding training and selection programs to show what it takes to make it to the top and fly the world’s most advanced jet, the F-35C Lightning II, per the outlet. A premiere date has yet to be announced…

Actress Lara Parker, best known for playing the beautiful, but evil witch Angelique Bouchard Collins on ABC’s 1960s supernatural daytime soap, Dark Shadows, died in her sleep in Los Angeles on October 12 following a battle with cancer, producer Jim Pierson of Dan Curtis Productions, announced in a statement obtained by Deadline. She was 84. Parker’s character, Angelique — who doomed Jonathan Frid‘s Barnabus Collins to eternal life as a vampire after he seduced and abandoned her — earned her a legion of fans. Parker’s other TV credits included One Life to Live, The Rockford Files, S.W.A.T., Emergency!, Kojak and The Fall Guy. Her film roles included Save the Tiger, Race With the Devil and The Lazarus Syndrome…

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Jada Pinkett Smith revealed that her husband Will Smith‘s infamous Oscars slap at the 2022 ceremony, when he walked onstage and smacked Chris Rock across the face re-affirmed their marriage after years of separation.

“When I was sitting at the Oscars, it clicked in. I was like, ‘Oh snap, you hit Chris?’” Jada recalled during an in-person conversation in partnership with CAA and Vanity Fair at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City on Monday, October 16, according to Variety.

“I was like, I’m riding with you. I didn’t come into this place as your wife, but I’m leaving here as your wife because we have a storm that we’re going to have to deal with together,” she contuned. “I am not going to leave your side.”

Jada also told the audience that Will — along with their children Trey, Jaden and Willow — granted her permission to include anything about their lives in her memoir.

“[Will] was like, ‘You haven’t been able to have your authentic voice through and through,’” she explained. “‘I will be comfortable with whatever you have to share, I trust you.’”

Will read the book before she gave it to her editor, Jada noted, adding, “he didn’t change a word. He changed nothing.”

In an excerpt from her upcoming memoir, Worthy, out on Tuesday, October 17, Jada revealed she and Will “had been living separate lives and were at the Oscars as family, not as husband and wife.”

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National Geographic has tapped Oscar nominees Angela Bassett and Jeremy Renner, and Emmy nominee Awkwafina to narrate a trio of shows bound for Disney+. 

Bassett, who was nominated for playing Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, will produce and narrate Queens, which “features matriarchies and female leaders around the world to tell a story of sacrifice and resilience but also of friendship and love.”

Marvel movie star Renner lends his voice to Incredible Animal Adventures, which “puts viewers in the action as they soar, fly and swim from the Antarctic to the African Savanna and the Pacific Ocean to Alaska.”

For her part, The Little Mermaid‘s Awkwafina will voice A Real Bug’s Life, which NatGeo calls “an incredible adventure into nine different micro bug worlds around the globe, where the forces of nature play out on a miniature scale and where tiny creatures rely on amazing powers and extraordinary alliances to make it through each day.”

National Geographic’s Tom McDonald says, “The narrator’s voice is such a crucial part of what makes a Natural History series successful. Angela, Awkwafina and Jeremy, each in their own way, bring such an enormous amount of charisma, personality and passion to these distinctive projects.”

He adds, “From Awkwafina’s wit to Jeremy’s warmth and Angela’s Shakespearean sense of drama, we feel both very excited and very proud to have such powerful storytellers guiding our audiences on these epic wildlife journeys.”

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On Sunday night’s season 7 premiere of Rick and Morty, viewers noticed a pair of new names in the credits: Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden.

Cardoni is the new voice of Rick Sanchez, while Belden portrays Morty Smith; both men replaced show co-creator Justin Roiland, who was let go from the Adult Swim show after domestic assault and various other allegations were leveled against him.

Charges against Roiland were eventually dropped, but this season’s showrunner, Scott Marder, and show co-creator Dan Harmon took part in an “exhaustive” search to find his replacement.

Marder explained they were specifically looking for two actors to play both parts, both with an eye on the show’s longevity and the “sheer quality of life” on Justin’s replacement. “We watched it over the years wear down on Roiland’s voice …,” he commented.

Mader explained the show’s producers heard thousands of hopefuls over six months.

“Rick was a lot harder than I expected,” Mader explained, adding, “everyone sounded like Macho Man Randy Savage or like a cousin of his. No one sounded exactly like Rick…People had it in splashes but once you bring them back in, they couldn’t do it conversationally, which is what we needed.”

Harmon likened it to people imitating Dana Carvey‘s imitation of George W. Bush. “[T]his character has to be angry, sad, despondent and all those things,” he says, which proved difficult for people who do a mean Rick to pull off.

Marder explains of the new cast members, “They feel like they just won the lottery. They just brought this show 30 more years. We just got these eager, young guys who are so excited to attack every episode.”

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Jurassic Park star Sam Neill is living with non-Hodgkin blood cancer — angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma — but he doesn’t give it much thought.

“I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it,” Neill, 76, tells Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Australian Story.

“It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it,” he explains.

As reported, the actor had sought chemotherapy for the illness but stopped responding to it, forcing his doctors to use a different treatment. Infusions every two weeks has put the cancer in remission for the past 12 months.

That said, he knows it could return, but he declares, “I’m prepared for that,” adding he’s “not remotely afraid” of dying.

Instead, what scares the still-working actor is someday not being able to perform. That, he says, “fills me with horror.”

Neill says when he was undergoing chemo, “I started to look at my life and realize how immensely grateful I am for so much of it.” He then put pen to paper for his book, Did I Ever Tell You This?

“I don’t pretend to be a writer, but I am a conversationalist. I love chatting,” the actor says. “Here are some stories that amuse me. You might like them, too.”

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