Entertainment

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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Ten years ago Wednesday, Lionsgate released The Hunger Games, the adaptation of author Susan Collins‘ 2008 bestselling dystopian novel. 

Co-written by Collins, Billy Ray, and director Gary Ross, the film centered on a life-or-death annual competition in which powerless young people are forced to compete to the death, to the delight of the elites in Panem’s Capitol city.

Grossing $155 million in its opening weekend alone — the start of a nearly $695 million worldwide run — the movie spawned three sequels, and turned Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson into young box office superstars.

Lawrence played Katniss Everdeen, one of the “tributes” from Panem’s District 12, a skilled hunter who takes her younger sister’s place in the deadly games. Katniss quickly rises to the top of the field, to the delight of the Capitol’s viewers.

Hemsworth played Gale Hawthorne, Katniss’ best friend, fellow hunter and eventual love interest. Hutcherson, meanwhile, played Peeta Mellark, Katniss’ fellow District 12 competitor, who gets “shipped” with Katniss by the organizers of the Games to goose viewership. 

The film also had stand-out supporting performances from a handful of stars. Woody Harrelson played Hamish, a former winner who has become a drunk in retirement, and who advises Katniss; Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, Katniss’ charismatic stylist, who gives her a camera-ready makeover befitting her celebrity status and who becomes a trusted confidante; Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket, the Games’ flamboyant escort; and Stanley Tucci as the blue-haired talk show host Caesar Flickerman, who covers the competition.

All the characters returned in the follow-up films — 2013’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 2014’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, and 2015’s Mockingjay Part 2 — which tracked Katniss quest to overthrow Panem’s autocratic rule and end the Games.

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Tom Hanks has been in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania while he’s shooting the film A Man Called Otto, and he’s apparently spreading smiles wherever he goes. 

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the two-time Oscar winner spotted a wedding party at the Fairmont Pittsburgh on Saturday, and approached photographer Rachel Rowland, explaining, “My name is Tom Hanks! Can I take a photo with the bride?”

Rowland told the Post-Gazette, “We all started screaming and were pretty much in shock.”

Bride-to-be Grace Gwaltney and her bridesmaids jumped out of their limo and posed for photos with the star. “He was just as wonderful and charming as you’d assume,” Rowland told the paper. “His wife, Rita [Wilson], was there and got in some photos, too.”

The famous couple wished the bride well, and she was whisked away to walk down the aisle.

Hanks is making the rounds, evidently. Days before, stay-at-home mom Ashley Glass saw Hanks and company shooting the film next door to her Pittsburgh home, and started recording the scrum of crew members and production vehicles. To her shock, the star spotted her and her 2-year-old son Charles, and addressed them through their window. 

“Hi, buddy boy!” Hanks said, waving enthusiastically at the tyke. “You gotta see the movie when the time comes.”

“I was in shock, honestly,” she told the paper. “I couldn’t even say anything but, ‘Oh my God, oh my God!'”

What’s more, Tom and Rita apparently posed for pictures with employees of a home improvement store on Monday, when shooting moved to the location.

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Good news, Sex and the City fans, you’ll get to see more of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and their pals in an all-new season of their “certain age” spin-off …And Just Like That. 

HBO Max announced that it’s picked up the show for a sophomore frame, following its February-wrapped first season. Show creator Michael Patrick King said in a statement that he’s “delighted and excited to tell more stories about these vibrant, bold characters — played by these powerful, amazing actors.” 

He added, “The fact is, we’re all thrilled. And Just like That… our Sex life is back.”

On her Instagram, Carrie Bradshaw herself, star and executive producer Sarah Jessica Parker, shared a cast photo, noting, “Thank you to our audience. Plain and simple. You are our heartbeat. We love you so.”

The good news was also shared on social media by SJP’s co-stars and co-executive producers Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, who play Miranda and Charlotte, respectively. Davis also thanked the fans and added, “What a thrill to be a part of a show like this! And so thrilled to get to continue.”

The show hasn’t been without controversy: Fans of Kim Cattrall‘s Samantha Jones were disappointed that Cattrall made good on a vow she was “done” with the series; Samantha remains unseen on the follow-up series, although she made plans via text to meet up with Carrie after the events of the first-season finale.

Meanwhile, Candace Bushnell, the author who wrote the column that inspired the original series Sex and the City, told The New Yorker that she was “really startled” by some of what transpired on And Just Like That…, explaining, “I mean, Carrie Bradshaw ended up being a quirky woman who married a really rich guy. And that’s not my story.”

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Bachelor alum Cassie Randolph is opening up about how she found out about her ex-boyfriend Colton Underwood’s sexual orientation.

Appearing on Tuesday’s Off The Vine podcast, Cassie revealed that she didn’t get a heads-up that the former Bachelor’s was going to publicly come out as gay during an interview on Good Morning America back in April 2021.

“I found out the same way that everyone else did,” she recalled. “I was actually in Mexico on vacation with friends…But yeah, I found out, I think, through Snapchat on GMA.”

“It was horrible,” Cassie added. “It was just, like, a shocking kind of feeling.”

Colton, 30, gave Cassie, 26, his final rose during season 23 of The Bachelor, which aired in 2019. The pair dated until May 2020. Later, Cassie filed a restraining order claiming Colton was stalking and harassing her. The order was dropped in November 2020.

Since then, both have moved on romantically. Cassie with singer-songwriter Brighton Reinhardt and Colton with Jordan C. Brown, who he got engaged to last month.

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The Love Boat is expecting you once again, only this time, it’s returning as The Real Love Boat, a CBS reality dating competition series. Patterned after the hit 1970s scripted series that used Princess Cruises ships as its setting, the new series “brings singles together to cruise the Mediterranean on a luxury cruise ship while looking for love,” according to CBS. “Destination dates, challenges and surprise singles will test the couples’ compatibility and chemistry” and, just as in the original, “the indispensable crew members…will play pivotal roles in the matchmaking and navigation of the romantic — and sometimes turbulent — waters ahead.” The winning couple will take home a cash prize, plus a once-in-a-lifetime trip courtesy of Princess Cruises. CBS is now casting…

The CW has given early renewals to seven of its scripted schedule, including a fifth season of All American, The Flash for a ninth, Kung Fu for a third, Nancy Drew for a fourth, Riverdale for a ninth and Superman & Lois and Walker, each for a third. “As we prepare for the 2022-23 season, these dramas are also important to our overall digital strategy, as they are some of our most-streamed and socially-engaged programming, and we look forward to adding more new and returning series to help strengthen and expand our multiplatform footprint,” Mark Pedowitz, chairman and CEO, The CW Network, said in a statement on Tuesday. The Flash‘s renewal for a ninth season makes it the network’s longest-running Arrowverse series, replacing Arrow, which ended after eight seasons…

Netflix has set April 29 as the premiere date for the final episodes of Grace and Frankie, according to Deadline. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin will be back as the titular divorcées whose husbands, played by Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, left them to marry each other. The series also stars Baron Vaughn, Ethan Embry, Brooklyn Decker, June Diane Raphael, Peter Cambor, Lindsey Kraft, Marsha Mason, Tim Bagley, Peter Gallagher and Christine Woods. Grace and Frankie, now in its seventh season, first launched on Netflix in 2015…

Steven Weber will return to Chicago Med for the NBC medical drama’s upcoming eighth season, according to Deadline. Weber, whose Dr. Dean Archer — a hated, but undeniably great surgeon — joined as a recurring cast member for the show’s sixth season and upped to a series regular for season seven in a one-year deal, has closed a new deal to return as a regular in season eight, premiering later this year…

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Nicolas Cage is taking a different approach to naming his next child.

The actor, 58, is currently expecting a child with wife Riko Shibata, 27, and in a profile with GQ published Tuesday he revealed what they plan on naming their baby. If it’s a boy, the name will be Akira Francesco and Lennon Augie for a girl.

“Augie was my father’s nickname,” Cage explained, adding that Francesco comes from his uncle, the director Francis Ford Coppola. 

“And my uncle has decided to change his name to Francesco,” he said.

This will be the first child for the couple who wed in 2021. Cage has two children from previous relationships Weston, 31, and Kal-El, 16 with Christina Fulton and Alice Kim, respectively.  

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The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has just guaranteed West Side Story star Rachel Zegler‘s seat at the 94th Annual Academy Awards. 

The Hollywood Reporter notes that the actress, who was famously snubbed for a ticket to the Big Dance, now has been invited to join the festivities as a presenter. 

Doing so, obviously guarantees Zegler a seat.

The 20-year-old, who played María Vasquez in Steven Spielberg‘s remake, broke the “unvitation” news a few days ago on social media, when a fan made reference to what she’ll be wearing.

“I’m not invited so sweatpants and my boyfriend’s flannel,” she replied.

Zegler’s fans immediately protested, offering her ideas for a possible workaround.

The star replied, “i have tried it all but it doesn’t seem to be happening :’) i will root for west side story from my couch and be proud of the work we so tirelessly did 3 years ago.”

The actress added, “i hope some last minute miracle occurs and i can celebrate our film in person but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes.”

It looks like Rachel got her “miracle.” 

Zegler had told fans that she was currently overseas shooting, but the trade says the producers of her upcoming Snow White live-action film are moving her schedule so she can get to the podium on time. 

The 94th Annual Academy Awards airs this Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Joseph Gordon Levitt will play legendary talk show host Johnny Carson in an upcoming biographical series called King of Late Night.

Deadline reports that Levitt was already in the sights of Game Change and Austin Powers series director Jay Roach and co-producer David Milch — creator of Deadwood — some years ago, as the Carson series began to take shape. 

The series will be a deep dive into the Tonight Show host’s life, both onscreen and off. Levitt, who transitioned from the child actor in the long-running sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun to become an in-demand star of hit films like Inception and The Trial of the Chicago 7, will also executive produce the series, according to the trade.

Levitt can currently be seen playing Uber CEO Travis Kalanick in the Showtime series Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.

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