Entertainment

Have no fear, your reality roundup is here! Here’s a look at what’s happened in the world of reality television this week.

Vanderpump Rules (Bravo)

— In an extended version of Wednesday’s reunion Part 1, Scheana Shay alleged that Tom Sandoval first made advances towards co-star Raquel Leviss during Coachella in April 2022 — four months earlier than previously stated. According to a mutual friend, Scheana heard that Sandoval told Raquel that he had an open relationship with his longtime partner Ariana Madix. However, Sandoval denied the accusations.

— After reports that Raquel Leviss could be pregnant, one of the show’s executive producers, Alex Baskin, set the record straight, telling Page Six, “She’s not pregnant by the way.”

Selling Sunset (Netflix)

— Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause speaks out after newcomer Nicole Young received alarming death threats following the exposure of their feud in the show’s latest season. Taking to Instagram Stories Thursday, Chrishell wrote, “It’s been brought to my attention that Nicole’s camp is reporting receiving death threats to several outlets. Being on a reality show on such a huge platform makes for an influx of feedback and I am certainly not a stranger to death threats after 6 seasons. Your opinions help make this show what it is & clearly I have my own. But let’s keep it fun please.”

Real Housewives of Atlanta (Bravo)

— In new court documents, obtained by Page Six, Kroy Biermann accuses Kim Zolciak of financially ruining their family through her gambling habits. As evidence of the former RHOA star’s gambling addiction, Biermann submitted scanned bank statements and checks showing thousands in withdrawals. He’s also requesting a psychological evaluation due to her compulsive behavior

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One of the most critically acclaimed series of the past few years says goodbye Sunday night: The final episode of Succession will air on HBO.

The show is TV’s reigning top drama champ at the Emmys, nominated for 48 of the shiny gold statues during its run. Arian Moayed picked up one of those nods last season, for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. His character, Stewy, is back for the finale and he tells ABC Audio the last episode is “going to so blow your mind.”

Of course, that shouldn’t come as any surprise, according to Moayed. 

“To show so many truths in, like, how society is actually functioning by the .000001%, I think that just for that in itself, the show is one of the great things,” he says. “But I think the last episode will leave us feeling, y’know, both satisfied and everything else in between.”

Saying goodbye to the show won’t be easy for Moayed, who shares, “The saddest part about letting it go is that the people were just spectacular. Crew, cast, writers, everyone — everything about it was just…[it was] so much fun to be with those people and to make the show.”

Moayed also stars in the new movie You Hurt My Feelings, out this weekend, alongside Julia Louis Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies.

(Trailer contains uncensored profanity.)

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Much of comedian Sebastian Maniscalco‘s stand-up centers around culture clashes with his Italian immigrant father, and the comic and actor’s wealthy in-laws.

That made for good grist for his new movie opening Friday, About My Father. Sebastian plays a guy about to pop the question to his girlfriend, who insists his eccentric Italian immigrant dad (Robert De Niro) accompany him on a vacation to her wealthy family’s summer estate.

Maniscalco and De Niro both appeared together in Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman, but Maniscalco tells ABC Audio he was too nervous to pitch the acting icon then. “For myself and Robert De Niro, we don’t have like a friendship where I could call him and say, ‘Hey, I got an idea. We should do it.’ It’s just not how it is,” he smiled.

“Of course, after we filmed the movie, we were a lot more friendly than we were prior to going into this thing,” he allows.

De Niro plays Salvo, named after Maniscalco’s real dad, who got to consult with De Niro about playing him. De Niro explains, “Salvo came to visit me in Oklahoma when I was shooting Killers of the Flower Moon…I had questions for him and got to know him a little bit…and…then after that I took him to the set to meet Scorsese because, you know, I thought he might enjoy that.” 

The experience went right to his head, Sebastian laughs to ABC Audio. “I’m sitting here doing interviews with my dad and someone brings him in a large Evian water and a double espresso,” he says. “I go, ‘What are you doing?’ I mean…pretty soon he’s going to have his own dressing room and his own tour bus….This guy really slipped into this world nice.”

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Lionsgate is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Quentin Tarantino‘s action-crime film Kill Bill later this year with a remastered 4K edition, according to Variety. There’s no word yet on any extras and added footage the rerelease may or may not include. Kill Bill starred Uma Thurman as a former assassin who swears revenge on her ex-teammates — played by Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah and Vivica A. Fox — and their leader, Bill — portrayed by David Carradine — who left her for dead…

Deadline reports Euphoria‘s Hunter Schafer has been tapped to star opposite Anne Hathaway and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever‘s Michaela Coel in Mother Mary, an “epic pop melodrama” about “a fictional musician and her relationship with an iconic fashion designer — played respectively by Hathaway and Coel.” Schafer will reportedly play Hilda, the assistant of Coel’s designer, Sam. Schafer will next be seen in Lionsgate’s Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes…

Actor, writer, director and producer Jon Favreau, whose numerous credits include Elf, Iron Man and Iron Man 2, Cowboys and Aliens, The Jungle Book, The Lion King and The Mandalorian, will receive an Honorary Doctorate at the Queens College Commencement exercises on June 1. Favreau attended the college from 1984-1987…

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The live action remake of The Little Mermaid is expected to easily swim to the top of the box office in its debut this weekend. The film stars Halle Bailey in the lead role, and when her casting was announced there was some grumbling from anonymous corners of the internet about an African-American woman getting the role.

Daveed Diggs voices Sebastian the crab in the film, and he thinks the diversity celebrated in the film is a beautiful thing, telling ABC Audio, “The characters are all built from the inside out. The relationships are built from the inside out. And like, everybody’s sort of preliminary stresses about the ethnicities of people like immediately seem stupid.”

Diggs thinks Bailey’s casting was “perfect,” adding “her performance throughout is so undeniable.”

The Hamilton star goes on to say that Halle’s casting means a lot to him and he’s sure it’ll mean a lot to others too.

“When you’re my age, Oh man, I never had that. You know, all the little girls my age didn’t have that,” he shares. “We weren’t able to see ourselves in this story in this way.”

Adds Diggs, “Our kids shouldn’t have to question that, right? We want them to be able to imagine themselves as anything. And so having films like this are a step towards that.”

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On a new episode of Hot Ones, Ted Lasso Emmy winner Jason Sudeikis broke down his career, his inspiration for the shades-wearing soccer, er, football coach, and what he felt about Saturday Night Live — before he was on it.

As is the show’s requirement, he did so while eating a selection of increasingly spicy wings.

Sudeikis didn’t shy away from the accusation he used to “hate” on the show, particularly when he learned that eventual SNL writer-turned-Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk also admitted to it. “I take pride in that,” Jason told host Sean Evans. “I love that dude.”

“Metaphorically it feels like that girl in school that you have a crush on that you hate on until you realize that … she was asking about you,'” he said with a laugh. “It was a little bit of that youthful ignorance and arrogance.”

He added, “They would never let me play football at Notre Dame, I would never get to play basketball at KU, so how would I ever get to work on Saturday Night Live?” he recalled thinking.

“So yeah, let’s hate on it.”

He confesses, “It wasn’t so much hating on it, ’cause I had heroes on that show. I had friends on that show at the time. I had a specific reason that I tried to articulate why, but I think deep down inside, I was just protecting myself from the possibility of not achieving something that ‘boy oh boy wouldn’t it be neat if I did.'”

Of course, Sudeikis eventually got hired on SNL, first as a writer in 2003, then as a cast member from 2005 to 2013.

Oh, and he also defeated all 10 wings.

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While Fast X is currently the number one movie in the world, it’s also driven into the record books again.

Receipts for the 10th film in the Fast saga — plus its Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham spinoff two-hander Hobbs & Shaw — have pushed the global take of the series that started in 2001 past $7 billion.

That places the franchise at #5 on the biggest movie series of all time, tied with Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter movies and its Fantastic Beasts spinoffs, Deadline reports. 

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Idris Elba plays an expert in negotiations who puts all his skills to use in the upcoming Apple TV+ series Hijack.

The show takes place in real time after gunmen take control of a plane on the seven-hour flight from Dubai to London.

In the coming attraction, Elba’s character appears to be working both sides, stalling to keep the terrorists calm while preparing the passengers to take the plane back. He circles the ad copy “Get ready to shake things up” on a beverage container before passing it to other passengers.

One man wraps his fist in a seat belt extender to use the metal buckle as makeshift brass knuckles. A female passenger removes a gold hair pin.

“It’s either us or them,” he tells a frightened passenger. “And I can tell you it’s not gonna be us.”

On the ground, The Good Wife‘s Archie Panjabi plays a counterterrorism leader trying to uncover who the bad guys are — and discovers that it’s more than your standard terrorism plot.

Idris co-produced the tense series, which debuts on the streaming service on June 28.

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The main trailer for the highly anticipated Barbie film is here.

The new trailer gives fans more of an in-depth look at Barbie’s world — filled with pink cars, pink houses and palm trees.

It opens with Ken (Ryan Gosling) asking if he can come over to Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) house. Barbie says yes and that she’s just having a “giant blowout party with all the Barbies and planned choreography and a bespoke song.”

The trailer then takes off with Barbie and Ken dancing to a new song by Dua Lipa in the background, Barbie driving in her pink convertible, and more scenes in Barbie Land filled with pink beaches and houses.

Things take a turn when Barbie seemingly has an existential crisis, which features a clip of her iconic tip-toe feet falling flat and another clip of Barbie going to the real world.

A synopsis for the film says, “To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken.”

The Greta Gerwig-directed film includes a star-studded cast playing different versions of Barbies and Kens.

Ritu Arya, Nicola Coughlan, Ana Cruz Kayne, Dua Lipa, Emma Mackey, Kate McKinnon, Hari Nef and Issa Rae are among the Barbies, while Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa and Simu Liu play Kens.

Earlier this week, the film released the lineup of artists who will be featured on the album. Along with Dua Lipa, fans can expect to hear Ava Max, Charli XCX, Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice, HAIM, Ryan Gosling and more.

Barbie arrives in theaters July 21.

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Quentin Tarantino is at the Cannes International Film Festival, and he shed some light to Deadline on The Movie Critic, his 10th and supposedly final film as a director. 

Tarantino says the movie is “based on a guy who really lived, but was never really famous, and he used to write movie reviews for a porno rag … He wrote about mainstream movies.” 

From his research, the real-life person died in his late 30s, the filmmaker says, from what he explained were likely the effects of alcoholism.

“I think he was a very good critic. He was as cynical as hell,” he continued. “His reviews were a cross between early Howard Stern and what Travis Bickle [Robert DeNiro‘s Taxi Driver character] might be if he were a film critic.”

The movie is set in 1977, and Tarantino says he goes into pre-production in about a month.

He says it will “definitely be a new leading man for me,” as many of his recurring stars, like 59-year-old Brad Pitt and 48-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio, are too old to play the 35-year-old. 

However, one subset of actors shouldn’t wait for their phone to ring.

“The truth of the matter is, yes, obviously, a Brit could pull it off, but I don’t want to cast a Brit,” Tarantino says.

“Obviously, nothing against the Brits … I think when people look back on this era of cinema, and it’s just all these British actors pretending to be Americans and all these Australian actors pretending to be Americans, it’s like phantoms. Nobody is acting in their own voice.”

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