Entertainment

The 94th Academy Awards are upon us! Let’s take a look at what could make history at this year’s Oscars ceremony.

Troy Kotsur is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the heartwarming drama CODA. He’s already picked up crucial wins at the Gotham and SAG Awards. If he wins the Oscar, he will become the first deaf man and the second deaf actor to ever be awarded by the Academy.  

Two real-life couples were honored with nominations that spanned all four acting categories this year. Oscar winners Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem were nominated for their work in Parallel Mothers and Being the Ricardos, respectively, while first-time nominees Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons were nominated for their work in The Power of the Dog.

The Power of the Dog earned 12 nominations in all, including Jane Campion for Best Director. She’s the only woman to have ever been nominated in this category twice — the first time was in 1994, for The Piano. If Campion comes out on top, she will become only the third woman to ever win the award, after Kathryn Bigelow and Chloé Zhao.  

It’s easier to list the awards Lin-Manuel Miranda hasn’t won at this point — the man has two Emmys, three Tonys and three Grammys, but still no Oscar statue. If he wins Best Original Song for “Dos Oruguitas,” from Encanto, he will finally achieve the coveted EGOT status, a feat only 16 others have accomplished.

Find out what history will be made during the live Academy Awards ceremony Sunday, March 27 at 8pm, only on ABC.

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The long road to bring The Godfather to life is the stuff of Hollywood Legend: The adaptation of Mario Puzo‘s bestselling novel was fraught with protests against the film, budget woes, and casting clashes between the studio and a director who was getting a no-confidence vote by Paramount execs. Yes, Francis Ford Coppola was skating on very thin ice during the production.

“There was a director in the wings, who was gonna take over in case Coppola didn’t work out,” says Robert Duvall, who played Corleone family consigliere Tom Hagen in the film, which marks its 50th anniversary today.

Duvall tells ABC Audio that the then-32-year-old filmmaker had to endure “great pressure” to bring his vision to life, “and because of that I gained a tremendous amount of respect for Francis Coppola for working under those conditions.”

He adds, “He stuck to his guns and made the film he wanted to make, and as an actor I was certainly alongside of him.”

In the end, Coppola and his cast turned in a film that would become one of the most revered, beloved and quoted pieces of modern cinema, and made stars out of actors like Al Pacino, James Caan, Talia Shire and John Cazale. It didn’t hurt Duvall’s career either, plus he got a chance to work with Marlon Brando, who starred in the now-legendary role of Don Vito Corleone.

“[It] wasn’t that intimidating, it was nice, because once you got in a scene with him, it became equal,” Duvall says of working with the iconic actor. “He was very giving. So it was a give-and-take process that worked out fine.” 

The Godfather Trilogy, newly restored in 4K Ultra HD, is now available on Blu-Ray from Paramount Home Entertainment.

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Gabrielle Union has joined the cast of Apple TV+’s drama Truth Be Told as a new co-lead opposite Octavia Spencer for the show’s third season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The anthology series, based on Kathleen Barber‘s novel of the same name, follows Spencer’s journalist-turned-true crime podcaster Poppy Scoville as she risks everything — including her life — to pursue truth and justice. The Cheaper by the Dozen star will play Eva, an outspoken high school principal who becomes embroiled in a problematic incident. Union follows Aaron Paul, Lizzy Caplan and Kate Hudson, who shared top billing with Spencer in the show’s first and second seasons, respectively…

Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden is in final talks to replace Geena Davis in CBS’ as yet untitled ‘Mother & Son Legal Drama Pilot,’ according to Deadline. She would star opposite Skyler Astin‘s “talented but directionless PI” and “black sheep of the family” who agrees to work as the in-house investigator for his recently divorced, overbearing mother, whom Harden would play…

NYPD Blue alum Jimmy Smits has been tapped to star as the male lead opposite The Leftovers‘ Amanda Warren in the CBS pilot East New York, according to Variety. The pilot follows Regina Haywood — played by Warren — the newly promoted deputy inspector in an impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood whose creative methods of serving and protecting don’t sit well with some of the diverse group of officers and detectives. Smits will star as 3-Star Chief John Suarez, whose “experience, commanding presence and strong moral center helps oversee the melding of communities and the precincts that serve them”…

King Richard‘s Tony Goldwyn is the latest actor to join the star-packed cast of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The star-studded roster already includes Jason Clarke, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, and Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy, the latter of whom plays the title role as J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the creators of the atomic bomb. The project has been filming for several weeks in New Mexico…

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It’s a big week for Bridgerton fans! The hit Netflix show returns Friday for season two, with all the scandal and sexiness we’ve come to expect from the period drama.

After a successful season one, some might worry about a sophomore slump, but not this cast. Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington on the show, tells ABC Audio that everyone was “so excited just to be back at work.”

“We hadn’t gotten to celebrate in person the success the show had been. So to be back at work…We were all just like, ‘Oh, this is great,'” she explains. 

Additional perks of having a successful debut season is that “we know what this show is now,” Coughlan says.

“We know what to expect and we know what to give to our audience,” she adds. “So even though it maybe should have been intimidating, we were all just more excited.”

At the end of season one it was revealed that Coughlan’s character was living a double life, and she was also the town gossip columnist Lady Whistledown. Now that the secret’s out, she says “it was fun to get to play the Whistledown side of her and the conniving side of her and the businesswoman side of her. I just think she’s sort of a ball of contradictions.”

As for getting back into character after so much time off, that wasn’t an issue at all, because once you put on those clothes and step on those sets “you feel immediately different,” the actress shares. 

Coughlan also picked up a new skill: calligraphy. 

“I had to learn calligraphy, I had to learn how to write with a quill because it needed to look convincingly like I was writing at certain points,” she shares. “But mostly there is a hand double.” 

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

It’s a big week for Bridgerton fans! The hit Netflix show returns Friday for season two, with all the scandal and sexiness we’ve come to expect from the period drama.

After a successful season one, some might worry about a sophomore slump, but not this cast. Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington on the show, tells ABC Audio that everyone was “so excited just to be back at work.”

“We hadn’t gotten to celebrate in person the success the show had been. So to be back at work…We were all just like, ‘Oh, this is great,'” she explains. 

Additional perks of having a successful debut season is that “we know what this show is now,” Coughlan says. “We know what to expect and we know what to give to our audience. So even though it maybe should have been intimidating, we were all just more excited.”

At the end of season one, it was revealed that Coughlan’s character was living a double life, and she was also the town gossip columnist Lady Whistledown. Now that the secret’s out, she says “it was fun to get to play the Whistledown side of her and the conniving side of her and the businesswoman side of her. I just think she’s sort of a ball of contradictions.”

As for getting back into character after so much time off, that wasn’t an issue at all, because once you put on those clothes and step on those sets “you feel immediately different,” the actress shares. 

Coughlan also picked up a new skill: calligraphy. 

“I had to learn calligraphy, I had to learn how to write with a quill because it needed to look convincingly like I was writing at certain points,” she shares. “But mostly there is a hand double.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A woman who was working with comedian Bob Saget before his untimely death on January 9 revealed to investigators that Saget said, “I don’t feel good,” before his final stand-up performance.

Page Six reports Rosalie Cocci, who assists performers at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall in Florida, apparently told investigators, “I did hear [Saget] say, ‘I don’t feel good but I’m ready to do the show. This is what I do this for.'”

According to the publication, Cocci expressed that she felt Saget “seemed to be talking himself up” before what would become his final show. “He said that his hearing had been off and that was the case that night. He was asking the sound guys to turn everything up,” Cocci maintained.

While Saget told her that his body was “taking a long time to get over COVID,” she noted that the comic “seemed OK,” and was “cracking jokes” before the curtain went up, and didn’t slur or act in any other revealing way onstage. “He came out very energetic [sic],” she noted. 

Saget, 65, was found unresponsive in his hotel room hours after performing.

A police report obtained by ABC News detailed that Saget suffered multiple skull fractures on that back of his head severe enough that “the orbital bones at the front of the skull” were broken.

That led to a reexamining of the comic’s hotel room so that investigators could determine what could have caused the injuries.

Police closed the case after not finding anything contradicting that he was injured in an accidental fall.

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Voltron, the beloved ’80s Japanese anime series that got a recent Netflix reboot with Voltron: Legendary Defender, is coming to the big screen — in live-action form. 

The Hollywood Reporter explains that Rawson Marshall Thurber, the writer-director of the streaming service’s hit action comedy Red Notice, starring Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, has kicked off a bidding war with movie studios looking to back him. 

According to the trade, Thurber sent around a demo reel of what a live-action version could look like, and studios including Warner Bros., Amazon and Universal have been champing at the bit to make a deal.

Incidentally, THR points out, Netflix “isn’t in the running.”

For the uninitiated, Voltron was the name of a giant robot made up of robotic lions, piloted by a team of young heroes. Voltron: Defender of the Universe was the English-dubbed import of the Japanese original, Beast King GoLion.

The show was a cultural touchstone for actors and filmmakers of a certain age: it has been referenced in movies like Deadpool, and TV shows including Family Guy, Rick and Morty, and Bones, while recording artists from Eminem to Letters to Cleo have name-dropped the bot.

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The family drama CODA, which was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, is now getting the stage musical treatment. 

Deaf West Theatre, which declares they’re dedicated to “bridging the gap between the Deaf and hearing worlds,” is aiming to take the film about a young woman raised in a deaf family to the Broadway stage. 

“In the movie, there’s a scene where the Deaf members of the Rossi family are confronted with an inaccessible school performance, so they experience Ruby’s song through the joy of other people in the audience,” recalls the theater group’s Artistic Director D.J. Kurs.

“This live adaptation is an opportunity to bring the story full-circle by bringing it back to the Deaf community, making the show fully accessible in both ASL [American Sign Language] and spoken English,” Kurs notes. “[W]e are both honored and excited to embark on this live iteration of a story that brings together both sides of the aisle and addresses the different ways that we move throughout the world.”

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The Oscars are this Sunday night! Here’s a look at the leading contenders for Best Supporting Actor and Actress.

This category seems to be the easiest to predict this year: CODA’s Troy Kotsur and West Side Story’s Ariana DeBose have the most momentum going into Sunday’s ceremony.

Kotsur and the cast of CODA were both winners at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Kotsur also won the BAFTA for his role as the deaf father of a hearing teenage daughter.  If Kotsur wins the Oscar, he’ll be the first deaf male actor to do so.

In the role of Anita, Ariana DeBose sang and danced her way through Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. She’s already won the Screen Actor’s Guild Award, the BAFTA and the Golden Globe for her performance.
But of course, with the Oscars, you never know.

Besides Kotsur, the field for Best Supporting Actor includes Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee, both for The Power of the Dog, J.K. Simmons for Being the Ricardos, and Ciarán Hinds for Belfast.

In the Best Supporting Actress category, the other nominees are Jessie Buckley for The Lost Daughter, Kirsten Dunst for The Power of the Dog, Judi Dench for Belfast and Aunjanue Ellis for King Richard.

Tune into the 94th Annual Academy Awards March 27 on ABC to see whether the predictions come true.

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CBS’ reality competition series Beyond the Edge has an all-new episode tonight at 9 p.m. In the series, a group of celebrities is pitted against the unforgiving jungles of Panama, all to benefit their favorite charities. 

Among the marooned stars are country superstars Lauren Alaina and Craig Morgan, supermodel Paulina Porizkova, Full House actress Jodie Sweetin, NFL legend Mike Singletary, Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis, NBA champ Metta World Peace, former The Bachelor star Colton Underwood, and Real Housewives of New York City vet Eboni K. Williams.

Colton tells ABC Audio that after the splash he made in the news — as the only Bachelor to come out as gay — he welcomed a chance to unplug: “Honestly…getting rid of your devices and being isolated in the jungle was the most humbling but also refreshing thing…”

Williams agreed, saying with a laugh, “I just was at a place in my personal life, in my career where I needed to just go out the box and this was, Beyond the Edge was about as out the box as you could get!”

She continues, “So I immediately said yes. And then, you know, they put you on the…initial business class flight because it’s work and you’re going from…New York to Panama City. But then you get on the puddle jumper,” she laughs, “and then it gets a little real.”

“When my feet touched the ground of the jungle I was like, “I might need to go back home!”

Colton is raising money for his Colton Underwood Legacy Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting and providing resources for people living with cystic fibrosis. Eboni’s charity is Safe Horizons, which provides shelter and support for the homeless and victims of domestic violence, sex assault and human trafficking.

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