Entertainment

On Tuesday, ABC News obtained a countersuit that Angelina Jolie filed, accusing her ex-husband Brad Pitt of physically abusing her and two of their children during a flight aboard a private plane flight.

A source close to Pitt is now firing back, denying the allegations. “She continues to rehash, revise and reimagine her description of an event that happened six years ago by adding completely untrue information each time she fails to get what she wants,” the source said of Jolie. “Her story is constantly evolving.”

The source continued, “She had the opportunity to share information with law enforcement who made the decision not to press charges following their investigation. She had the chance to share this during the lengthy custody trial, which resulted in the judge granting 50-50 custody to Pitt following in-depth observations and analysis by doctors, therapists and other experts. Her and her team go back to the same thing month after month with new and false information.”

The abuse accusations were part of a counterclaim to Pitt’s February lawsuit against Jolie that alleged she sold their French estate and winery Château Miraval without his consent.

According to the lawsuit, Pitt called Jolie’s sale to a third party “unlawful.”

The cross-complaint, however, states Jolie’s attorneys claimed she and Pitt closed the transaction of Miraval without any agreement on how they could both sell their interests in the property.

In June 2020, Jolie began negotiating with Pitt on a potential sale of her interest in the winery, but when she submitted a sealed document titled “Offer of Proof and Authority re Testimony Regarding Domestic Violence” during the couple’s child custody case the following year, Pitt’s team notified Jolie’s that he would be “stepping back” from the Miraval deal, according to Jolie’s cross-complaint.

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The musical comedy Pitch Perfect turns 10 years old Wednesday, and to celebrate, Peacock released the teaser to its spinoff series, Bumper in Berlin.

Pitch Perfect series star Adam Devine introduces the teaser in character as Bumper Allen and proceeds to cover, a cappella style, the mash-up “Take On Me X 99 Luftballoons,” harmonizing with multiple versions of himself.

The streaming service teases the series “brings all the catchy music, laughter and friendship from the franchise and more as we follow Bumper’s quest from a capella amateur into bona fide superstar.”

As previously reported, Modern Family vet Sarah Hyland and She-Hulk star Jameela Jamil also star in the series, which sees Bumper re-teaming with Flula Borg‘s Piëter Krämer when one of Bumper’s songs goes big in Germany.

Hyland will play Heidi, their assistant, who “secretly harbors dreams of being a singer-songwriter herself, and moonlights by performing original songs in a Berlin cabaret.”

Jamil takes on the role of Gisela, “Piëter’s ex-girlfriend and Bumper’s main rival,” who is “a bombastic and flashy up-and-coming German pop star[who] will stop at nothing to beat him to stardom.”

Lera Abova will play Anna, Piëter’s “cool Berlin DJ sister.”

Workaholics vet Devine and Elizabeth Banks, the latter of whom directed Pitch Perfect 3, will executive produce the small-screen bow.

Originally starring Rebel Wilson, Anna Kendrick, Banks and Anna Camp, with Devine and Borg in supporting roles, the three Pitch Perfect movies have made more than $600 million worldwide.

All episodes of Bumper in Berlin premiere on Peacock November 23.

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Hilary Swank announced on Good Morning America that she is preparing for the biggest role of her career: mom.

The two-time Academy Award winner revealed at the end of her GMA interview Wednesday that she and husband Philip Schneider will soon be parents.

“I’m going to be a mom — and not just of one, but of two,” Swank announced. “I can’t believe it!”

While Swank awaits the arrival of her two little ones with Schneider, whom she married in 2018, she is gearing up for her return to network TV with ABC’s Alaska Daily.

The show, premiering Thursday, comes from Tom McCarthy, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind 2015 Best Picture, Spotlight.

Swank said she and McCarthy had a meeting, and he sent her a 2019 article called “Lawless” by Anchorage Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins “about true crimes in Alaska.”

“It was eye-opening, horrifying — all things at once, things you can’t believe are happening,” Swank said. “I want to shine a bright light on these issues, especially the missing [and] murdered Indigenous women that, I mean, no one’s doing anything about. It’s an extra responsibility, you know, to do justice for the underdogs, for the underserved,” she added. “It’s just something that I’m passionate about.”

Swank plays Eileen, a New York journalist who moves to Alaska to work for a daily newspaper in Anchorage, looking for a clean start both personally and professionally.

Hilary recently told ABC Audio how she relates to her character. “I feel like being an actor is being a journalist because you’re like digging into this character,” she said. “You’re asking a lot of questions about who this person is in order to tell a story.”

Alaska Daily premieres Thursday, Oct. 6 at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

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The August, 2020 death of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman stunned friends and fans, who learned only then that he’d been suffering privately with terminal colon cancer. 

One of these was Boseman’s friend and Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, who tells Entertainment Weekly the unexpected tragedy shook him to the core. The 36-year-old had begun working on what would become the forthcoming sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever when he learned of Boseman’s death.

“I was at a point when I was like, ‘I’m walking away from this business,'” the filmmaker admits. “I didn’t know if I could make another movie period, [let alone] another Black Panther movie, because it hurt a lot. I was like, ‘Man, how could I open myself up to feeling like this again?'”

Coogler reconsidered after watching old footage with his fallen friend in which Boseman advocated so passionately for 2018’s Black Panther, which became not just a blockbuster, but a cultural touchstone. “I was poring over a lot of our conversations that we had, towards what I realized was the end of his life. I decided that it made more sense to keep going,” said Coogler.

With Boseman gone, and Marvel Studios determined not to recast the character, who the actor portrayed since 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, the sequel itself became a tribute.

“The movie is very much about how you move forward while dealing with a tragic loss,” explains producer Nate Moore. 

In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which opens November 11, the kingdom of Wakanda is mourning the death of Boseman’s King T’Challa, just as the cast and crew had to move on without their friend and leading man. 

Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

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Kaley Cuoco and Johnny Galecki‘s chemistry was so off the charts during The Big Bang Theory that they took their on-screen romance into the real world.

The pair respectively played Penny and Leonard on the sitcom for 12 seasons, from 2007 until 2019. While their characters ultimately ended up together, Cuoco and Galecki quietly dated early in the show’s run.

“There was chemistry and we were crushing on each other. That was the whole first season until we actually got together for real,” Cuoco said in a book excerpt from The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series, shared by Vanity Fair.

The pair pointed to a scene they filmed together during that first season — one where they are close together in an elevator — as when they couldn’t deny the sparks.

“I think we fell a little in love in that elevator shaft,” The Flight Attendant star and producer said.

Galecki adds, “At that point, both she and I knew that something mutual was felt, and that it was going to be more of a distraction…to try and continue to ignore it than to actually…surrender to it.”

The duo then quietly dated from 2008 to 2010; Galecki admitted they “did consider marrying.” So why didn’t their relationship pan out?

“I think one of the things that created a chasm…was my strict policies of privacy, and Kaley being very, very open about her life,” the Roseanne alum said. “I was very uncomfortable with being public about it, and I think that hurt Kaley’s feelings a little bit, and I can understand that.”

No worries, though. Cuoco said she and Galecki have remained close friends throughout the years due to the bond they formed on the show.

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Emily Watson, who stars in the upcoming film God’s Creatures, along with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire actress Shirley Henderson have been tapped for lead roles in the HBO Max Dune prequel series, Dune: The Sisterhood, according to Variety. The show, per its official logline, “follows the Harkonnen Sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, and establish the fabled sect known as the Bene Gesserit.” Watson will play Valya Harkonnen and Henderson will play Tula Harkonnen, two sisters who have “risen to power in the Sisterhood, a secret organization of women who will go on to become the Bene Gesserit”…

Jonás Cuarón — the son of filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón — is set to direct Sony Pictures’ El Muerto, which will star Grammy-winning artist Bad Bunny. The film, per The Hollywood Reporter, is about “a wrestler with superpowers passed down from generation to generation in a single family.” It follows El Muerto, a character originally from the Spider-Man universe, an antihero and the son of a luchador, or Mexican wrestler, and next in line to inherit the ancestral power of El Muerto. El Muerto will mark the first live-action Marvel Comics-based film to be led by a Latino character. The project is still in development…

Eva Longoria and George Lopez are set to star in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, a new, Latino-centric adaptation of Judith Viorst‘s best-selling children’s book, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The new version “follows a Mexican American family who have recently lost their connection to each other and their roots, as they embark on an epic road trip that immediately goes hilariously wrong,” according to the outlet. Longoria will play Alexander’s mother, “a travel writer who has lost her passion for work,” while Lopez has been cast as “the family’s grandfather, a tough biker”…

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David O. Russell wants to welcome you to Amsterdam.

His latest film, in theaters Friday, has two main themes — fascism and friendship —  running though this star studded film, featuring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Taylor Swift, and more. Mike Myers plays a mysterious government agent, and he tells ABC Audio the politics of Amsterdam play second fiddle to the story of Bale, Robbie, and Washington’s character’s friendship.

“This dealt with that in the best possible way, which is three friends who make their own family together, set against this situation. And they’re wrongfully accused of a crime and they have to clear their name,” he explains. “And that’s my favorite delivery system of talking about big important things, is that the plot and the people you’re invested in.”

It’s those big ideas that drew Myers to the role of a mysterious government agent who is fighting fascism in the 1930s, ahead of World War II.

“You know, my parents were in World War Two. My dad was in the Royal Engineers and my mom was in the Royal Air Force,” Myers says. “And when they talked about World War Two, they didn’t talk about fighting the Germans or the Italians. They talked about fighting the fascists.”

Myers’ character also has a knack for cuckoo birds. What do cuckoo birds have to do with fascism?  

“The Cuckoo actually co-opts people’s nests, and I thought that was a great metaphor for what happens with fascism,” he shares. “Fascism is neither really a political system, nor is it an economic system. It’s a parasitic system. It’s an aesthetic movement. And generally, fascism will come in, steal somebody else’s nest.” 

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Matthew McConaughey understands the importance of a good mentor, because he had one in the late Don Phillips.

The actor told ABC Audio Phillips did far more than help him get cast in Dazed and Confused, his first major movie where he starred as Wooderson. “He’s the guy who said, ‘You can sleep on my couch when you get out to Hollywood,'” McConaughey recalled. It was mid-August, 1993, and he had “less than 500 bucks to my name.”

Phillips also gave McConaughey some tough love when he was anxious about getting an agent. The Oscar-winning actor recalled, “He … sat me down and actually cussed me out and said, ‘No. You’re not ready because you’re too anxious. You need an agent too much right now and they’re going to smell your desperation. And if they smell you’re desperate, you’ll never have a chance in Hollywood.'”

“He was right,” McConaughey remarked. “So I got patient and started doing some other work, forgot about getting an agent. And he comes by one day and he goes, ‘Now you’re ready.'”

“Next day [I] went in. Had that meeting, was relaxed, was myself [and I] got an agent in my first two reads and ended up getting the job. And that was how my career started,” McConaughey reflected.

Now, he’s paying it forward by teaming up with Wild Turkey and Spaceflight Records for a new mentorship program called 101 Bold Nights. Emerging artists or bands can apply to be mentored by Spaceflight and learn “the ways to make it forward and how to navigate getting into this game [from the right people],” said McConaughey, who added, “Getting in the door can be the hardest thing.” 

Phillips, a prolific casting director, passed away in November 2021. He was 80.

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Yellowstone fans apparently couldn’t wait to see what’s going to happen in the fifth season of the smash Paramount+ series: its new trailer was watched 14.4 million times in the 24 hours after it was released September 29. 

The coming attraction was watched four times more than the trailer to season 4, according to the streaming service.

What’s more, the trailer sparked loads of conversations online: The new snippet — which showed Kevin Costner‘s John Dutton being sworn in as the governor of Montana, caused 1.7 million engagements on social media on the day it debuted. 

Yellowstone‘s highly anticipated season 5 kicks off on Sunday, November 13, with two new episodes.

(Video contains uncensored profanity)

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A lawsuit stemming from the sale of one of the former couple’s properties has turned ugly, with Angelina Jolie accusing Brad Pitt of domestic violence. 

According to a countersuit obtained by ABC News, Jolie accuses her fellow Oscar winner of getting physical with her aboard a private plane flight in 2016 and then with some of their children, who “bravely” intervened.

Jolie and Pitt are parents to adopted children Maddox, 21, Pax, 18, and Zahara, 17, as well as 16-year-old Shiloh, and 14-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.

The scrum reportedly started as a verbal argument, with Pitt accusing his then-wife of being “too deferential” to the kids, according to the legal documents.

“Pitt grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall,” according to the document, which also said, “Pitt then punched the ceiling of the plane numerous times, prompting Jolie to leave the bathroom.”

“When one of the children verbally defended Jolie, Pitt lunged at his own child and Jolie grabbed him from behind to stop him,” the suit says.

“To get Jolie off his back, Pitt threw himself backwards into the airplane/s seats injuring Jolie’s back and elbow. The children rushed in and all bravely tried to protect each other … Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face. Some of the children pleaded with Pitt to stop …”

Pitt sued Jolie in February, claiming she sold their French estate and winery, Château Miraval, without his knowledge.

Variety reports negotiations broke down after the Bullet Train star sought a nondisclosure agreement to keep quiet about what the countersuit called “Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children.”

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