The critically acclaimed new HBO series The Gilded Age airs its season finale tonight, and the show that was originally created a few years ago was not the same as what you ended up seeing, at least when it comes to Denèe Benton‘s character in the series.
Benton plays Peggy Scott, an upper-middle-class African-American woman, and a character she had a lot of input in shaping. She tells ABC Audio she pushed really hard to make sure Peggy wasn’t the typical screen representation of Black America in the late 1800s, and that wasn’t easy.
“I was definitely in inboxes and asking for meetings and conversations,” she recalls. “And the thing that I will commend everyone on is that they kept showing up to the conversation. And so, yeah, it was terrifying. I was clenching my butt cheeks with the all-white male creative team being like, this thing needs to change.”
The 30-year-old actress believes we’ve been “bamboozled into thinking Black people and Black women didn’t exist,” when in fact they’ve “existed at every level of society for all time.
She adds, “I am so excited to be a part of continuing to shatter that delusion of white supremacy.”
Benton thinks the whole show has benefited from Peggy being a secretary for the New York Globe and “getting to have these scenes with her mom in a Black café.” She says it “adds nuance [and] specificity, [which] is what storytelling is about.”
“I’m happy that we all showed up to take in that opportunity,” she adds.
Olivia Rodrigo has seven chances to win a Grammy next month, but she’s not taking anything for granted.
Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday, Olivia told ABC’s Juju Chang that she “hasn’t even begun to process” the fact that she’s nominated for Best New Artist, Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year, plus a bunch of other categories. “It’s that crazy?” she said of her nominations.
But when asked if there’s one thing in her career she’d like to accomplish, Olivia said, “Oh my Gosh…I mean, I would love to win a Grammy one day. We’ll see if it happens, fingers crossed.”
Olivia will find out April 3 if her dream of winning comes true. Meanwhile, Olivia also spoke on GMA about her frustration with those who’ve tried to compare her to other female artists, or put her down for allegedly “copying” other artists’ songs.
“I think sometimes when you’re, especially, a young woman in the industry, I think people are so quick to compare you to people or be like, ‘Oh she’s the next this’ or ‘She’s this mixed with this,'” Olivia told Chang. “And I just kinda wanna be me and do my own thing and write songs that resonate with who I am as a person.”
Olivia’s Disney+ documentary Driving Home 2 U (A Sour Film) debuts on Friday.
The Swedish metal outfit’s latest album, Impera, has debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, a career-high for frontman Tobias Forge and his band of Nameless Ghouls. They had previously peaked on the chart at number three, with 2018’s Prequelle.
In its first week, Impera moved a total of 70,000 equivalent album units. In terms of traditional album sales, Impera’s 62,500 copies gives it the best-selling week of any album in 2022.
According to Billboard, Impera is the Billboard 200’s highest-charting rock album since John Mayer‘s Sob Rock also debuted at number two in July 2021, though we’d hazard to guess that Ghost fans may not consider the “Your Body Is a Wonderland” artist as “rock.” Billboard also says that Impera‘s chart performance is the best for any “hard rock” album since AC/DC‘s comeback effort, Power Up, debuted at number one in November 2020.
Impera, the fifth Ghost album, was released March 11. It includes the singles “Hunter’s Moon” and “Call Me Little Sunshine.”
Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor is once again collaborating with fellow band frontman-turned-film composer Danny Elfman.
The two have released a reworked version of the song “Native Intelligence,” a cut from Elfman’s 2021 album, Big Mess. The joint recording had previously been exclusive the deluxe box set edition of Big Mess, but is now available as a standalone digital single.
Reznor and Elfman previously worked together on a new version of the Big Mess song “True,” which was released last August.
Meanwhile, you can catch Reznor and Nine Inch Nails on tour this spring beginning in April. The outing will mark the “Closer” outfit’s first live shows since 2018.
Luke Combs is starting the week off right by dropping an unreleased song, “Tomorrow Me.”
Sitting on a couch in his studio, the singer is accompanied by just his voice and his guitar, as the acoustic number finds him rejecting the advances of a former lover. Similar to “Hurricane,” the lead character is tempted to fall back into their arms, but this time, he’s summoned the will power to walk away, knowing it’s the right decision.
“‘Cause tomorrow me ain’t gonna like the way things go tonight/If I let you in and think that it’ll be different this time/So maybe we should let yesterday be/’Cause I gotta live with tomorrow me,” he sings with his rugged vocal chops.
“Let me know what y’all think!” Luke beckoned in the caption of the video, and his fans didn’t hold back with their positive reviews. “Love this! You have an amazing way of telling stories through your music,” one wrote, while another shares, “Just like all the songs before, this one is just as amazing!” “Unreleased, but a hit. Throw it out there,” yet another fan encouraged.
“Tomorrow Me” is the one of many unreleased songs the superstar has shared over the past year, including “See Me Now,” “The Kind of Love We Make” and the fan-favorite, “Five-Leaf Clover.”
Luke shares the new track as his single, “Doin’ This,” is climbing the charts, and is currently inside the top 10.
Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Angela Bassett is hyping the upcoming Black Panther sequel.
During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres ShowMonday, the actress teases that Wakanda Forever is “amazing” and is going to “top” the first film.
Bassett, who plays T’Challa’s mother Ramonda, also addressed what it was like for the cast to come back without Chadwick Boseman, who played T’Challa, aka Black Panther, in the 2018 film and who passed away from colon cancer in 2020.
“He was such an example, such a leader, an amazing talent — we all know that,” Bassett said. “Big heart, great intellect, and we just hope to raise his standard.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is set to be released on November 11.
Santana‘s latest studio album, the star-studded collaborative project Blessings and Miracles, was initially released on CD and digital formats in October of 2021, but the record now also has been issued as a two-LP vinyl set.
A standard black-vinyl edition can be purchased at various online music sellers, including Santana’s official online store, while limited-edition colored-vinyl versions are available at Target and Barnes & Noble. Target is selling a white, blue and yellow LP collection, while Barnes & Noble’s version is pressed on blue-and-yellow splatter vinyl.
In addition, Santana’s online store is offering a black-and-blue-colored LP set that will be shipped in April.
The vinyl versions of Blessings and Miracles include one bonus track, a song titled “Yo Estare” featuring guest vocals by ex-Fifth Harmony member Ally Brooke.
Among the album’s most noteworthy tracks is “Move,” which features Carlos Santana re-teaming with his “Smooth” collaborator Rob Thomas, as well as contributions from pop band American Authors.
Blessings and Miracles also features collaborations with Steve Winwood, Metallica‘s Kirk Hammett, Living Colour‘s Corey Glover, country star Chris Stapleton, late jazz legend Chick Corea, hit songwriter Diane Warren and more.
Santana will kick off a new North American tour in support of the album this Friday, March 25, in Kennewick, Washington. Th etrek runs through an April 16 show in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The band’s upcoming 2022 schedule also includes Las Vegas residency performances in May, and a North American co-headlining tour with Earth, Wind & Fire running from June to August.
Here’s the full track list of the vinyl version of Blessings and Miracles:
Disc 1
Side A
“Ghost of Future Pull”/”New Light”
“Santana Celebration”
“Rumbalero” (featuring Salvador Santana & Asdru Sierra)
“Joy” (Carlos Santana & Chris Stapleton)
“Move” (Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas, Zac Barnett & American Authors)
Side B
“A Whiter Shade of Pale” (featuring Steve Winwood)
“Break” (featuring Ally Brooke)
“Yo Estare” (featuring Ally Brooke)
“She’s Fire” (Diane Warren, G-Eazy & Carlos Santana)
Disc 2
Side A
“Peace Power” (featuring Corey Glover)
“America for Sale” (featuring Kirk Hammett & Mark Osegueda)
“Breathing Underwater” (featuring Stella Santana, Avi Snow, MVCA)
“Mother Yes”
Side B
“Song for Cindy”
“Angel Choir” (featuring Gayle Moran Corea)/”All Together” (featuring Chick Corea)
“Ghost of Future Pull II”
(WASHINGTON) — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in its 233-year history, will appear on Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first of four days of high-profile confirmation hearings.
Monday’s session kicks off at 11 a.m. with 10-minute opening statements from Senate Judiciary Committee members, five-minute statements from outside introducers, and then, 10 minutes from Jackson herself.
Jackson, 51, who currently sits on the nation’s second most powerful court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, will face questions from the committee’s 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats over two days, starting Tuesday. On Thursday, senators can ask questions of the American Bar Association and other outside witnesses.
While Democrats have the votes to confirm President Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee on their own, and hope to by the middle of April, the hearings could prove critical to the White House goal of securing at least some Republican support and shoring up the court’s credibility. Jackson has been vetted twice previously by the Judiciary Committee and twice confirmed by the full Senate as a judge — most recently last year, with three Republican votes.
Jackson, who would replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer if confirmed, has spent the last month meeting with senators from both parties behind closed doors on Capitol Hill ahead of publicly testifying to her qualifications for the nation’s highest court.
Here is how the news is developing. Check back for updates:
Mar 21, 11:06 am
Jackson’s family in the room as confirmation hearings kick off
Confirmation hearings for Judge Jackson — Biden’s first nominee to the Supreme Court — are officially underway. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., gaveled them in just after 11 a.m.
To begin, the committee’s 22 members will each have 10 minutes each for opening statements ahead of two introducers to Jackson and an opening statement from Jackson herself.
If confirmed, Jackson would become the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court.
A Monmouth University Poll released this morning found a majority of Americans (55%) say Jackson should be confirmed as an associate justice on the Supreme Court. Only 21% say she should not be confirmed, and 24% offered no opinion.
Jackson’s husband, Patrick, two daughters, Talia and Lelia, and her parents, Johnny Brown and Ellery Brown, are all in attendance for the historic event.
In a sign of pandemic restrictions easing across the country and in Washington, almost no one in the hearing room was wearing a mask.
Mar 21, 10:31 am
Ketanji Brown Jackson: The meaning behind the name
Judge Jackson recounted in a 2017 speech that her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, wanting to show pride in their African ancestry, asked her aunt, who was then in the Peace Corps in West Africa, for a list of African girl names.
Taking one of her suggestions, Jackson’s parents named her Ketanji Onyika, which translates to “lovely one.”
Jackson’s parents grew up in South Florida under segregation, “but never gave up hope that their children would enjoy the true promise of America,” Biden said at a White House event last month introducing Jackson.
Biden said Jackson was a “star student” who fell in love with a law career while watching her own father going to law school at the University of Miami, often drawing on coloring books at the dining room table next to her father’s homework. Jackson went on to attend Harvard Law School herself, despite some cautioning her against setting her sights too high.
“My life has been blessed beyond measure and I do know that one can only come this far by faith,” Jackson said at the White House. “Among my many blessings, the very first is the fact that I was born in this great country. The United States of America is the greatest beacon of hope and democracy the world has ever known.”
She married Patrick Jackson, a general surgeon, in 1996, and the couple has two daughters, Talia, 21, and Leila, 17.
Mar 21, 10:22 am
In nominating Jackson, Biden fulfilled campaign pledge
With Biden’s nomination of Judge Jackson, he officially followed through on his 2020 campaign promise to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court and his vow to make the high court look more “like America.”
“For too long our government, our courts haven’t looked like America,” Biden said at a White House event last month introducing his historic pick. “And I believe it is time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications. And that we inspire all young people to believe that they can one day serve their country at the highest level.”
A former clerk to retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, Jackson has more than eight years experience on the federal bench, following a path through the judiciary traveled by many nominees before her. If confirmed, she would be the first federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court and the first justice since Thurgood Marshall to have criminal defense experience.
“She listens. She looks people in the eye, lawyers, defendants, victims and families. And she strives to ensure that everyone understands why she made a decision, what the law is and what it means to them,” Biden said. “She strives to be fair, to get it right, to do justice.”
While the White House was eager to follow through on Biden’s pledge, an ABC News/Ipsos poll from January found just 23% of Americans said they wanted him to automatically follow through on his history-making commitment. Over three-quarters of Americans (76%) said they wanted Biden to consider “all possible nominees.”
Mar 21, 10:02 am
Jackson preps for intense hearings by — knitting
While Judge Jackson has more experience fielding questions during high-intensity Senate hearings than any Supreme Court nominee since Clarence Thomas in 1991, she has described the process as “extremely nerve-wracking,” although she’s seen Senate confirmation three times.
To offset that nervous energy, Jackson says she took up — knitting.
“The lights are as bright as they are in here, in terms of cameras and attention, and you do your best not to make a fool of yourself in front of the senators,” Jackson said in a conversation for the D.C. Circuit Historical Society in 2019.
She said that she “started so many scarves I could have outfitted a small army,” recalling her first Senate confirmation process in 2012, when she was nominated by then-President Barack Obama to serve on the U.S. District Court in Washington. She currently sits on currently sits Washington’s federal appellate court.
Ahead of this week’s marathon questioning, Jackson met one-on-one with 44 senators ahead of her hearings next week, including all members of the Judiciary Committee and its 11 Republican members, according to former Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, the White House “sherpa” for the nominee, escorting her on Capitol Hill.
Mar 21, 9:40 am
Some in GOP paint Jackson as ‘soft on crime,’ White House rejects accusation
Several GOP senators have telegraphed plans to question Judge Jackson’s defense of detainees at Guantanamo Bay as a private defense attorney, her support of reduced sentences for convicted drug offenders and the backing of her nomination by outside progressive advocacy groups.
In a sign the hearings could get contentious, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri — a former Supreme Court clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts and a potential presidential hopeful — suggested in a barrage of tweets Thursday that Jackson has a “long record” of letting child porn offenders “off the hook” and suggested she is “soft on crime.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed back last week, calling it a “last-ditched eve-of-hearing desperation attack.”
“The facts are that, in the vast majority of cases involving child sex crimes, broadly, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. probation [authorities] recommended. And so, this attack that we’ve seen over the last couple of days relies on factual inaccuracies and taking Judge Jackson’s record wildly out of context,” Psaki said.
While court records show that Jackson did impose lighter sentences than federal guidelines suggested, Hawley’s insinuation neglects critical context, including the fact that the senator himself has voted to confirm at least three federal judges who also engaged in the same practice. ABC News’ Devin Dwyer fact checks Hawley here.
-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer
Mar 21, 9:23 am
Will any Republicans vote for Jackson?
Judge Jackson has been vetted twice previously by the Judiciary Committee and twice confirmed by the full Senate as a judge — most recently last year, with three Republican votes. She was also confirmed by the Senate in 2010 as vice-chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
GOP Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Lindsey Graham voted in favor of Judge Jackson’s confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2021, but after private meetings with Jackson this month, all three were noncommittal about supporting her again.
While Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin has said he is hopeful more than three Republicans will support the nomination this time around, GOP Whip Sen. John Thune said last week he would be surprised it that were the case.
“I think it’s important to recognize that she has been confirmed three times now, so this is not a candidate who is a blank slate to us,” Collins said after spending more than 90 minutes one-on-one with Jackson. “I will, of course, await the hearings before the Judiciary Committee before making a decision.”
No Republican senator has publicly disputed Jackson’s qualification to be a justice, though several have raised concerns about her rulings and presumed judicial philosophy.
-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer
Mar 21, 9:06 am
What to expect at Monday’s hearings
Monday marks the first day of four high-profile hearings where the Senate Judiciary Committee and American people will hear from Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — President Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee and the first Black woman nominated to the nation’s highest court in its 233-year history.
The hearings will gavel in at 11 a.m. with 10-minute statements from the committee’s 11 Republican and 11 Democratic members. Following member opening statements, Judge Thomas Griffith, formerly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and professor Lisa Fairfax of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School will have five minutes each to introduce Jackson, whom they know personally.
Finally, Judge Jackson will then deliver an opening statement in the afternoon for 10 minutes. ABC News will air special coverage of her remarks.
And for the first time since the pandemic, for each half-hour of the proceeding, up to 60 members of the public invited by senators will also be allowed to attend.
Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
Surviving BeatlesPaul McCartney and Ringo Starr were among the winners at 33rd annual Producers Guild Awards, which took place on Saturday, March 19, in Los Angeles.
Billboard reports that the producers for the Disney+ documentary series The Beatles: Get Back were honored with the award for outstanding producer of non-fiction television. McCartney and Starr, along with the respective widows of John Lennon and George Harrison — Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison — were part of the Get Back production team, as was series director Peter Jackson.
The Beatles: Get Back, which premiered last November as a three-part event on Disney+, focused on the January 1969 sessions that yielded the band’s Let It Be album and the group’s historic surprise rooftop concert in London.
Another honoree at the event was Peter Afterman, the producer of the documentary Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers, who was presented with the award for outstanding producer of televised or streamed motion pictures.
The film, which looks at the recording of the late Tom Petty‘s 1994 solo album Wildflowers, got its worldwide premiere in November as a free streaming event on Petty’s official YouTube channel.
Another music-related film the producers of which were acknowledged at the ceremony was Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), which won the award for outstanding producer of documentary motion pictures.
That movie, which also is nominated this year for the Oscar for Documentary (Feature), focused on the 1969 New York City event The Harlem Cultural Festival, a six-week-long, star-studded series of concerts that included performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, The 5th Dimension, B.B. King and many others.
The 94th annual Academy Awards will air live on ABC on March 27. Here’s a rundown of which films are up for the biggest award of the night: Best Picture. For the first time in 10 years, there are a whopping 10 nominees in this category:
The leading nominee, with 12 nods in all, is Jane Campion‘s Western psychological drama, The Power of the Dog, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
The sci-fi epic Dune, starring Timothee Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa and Zendaya, has 10 nominations.
Tied with seven nominations each: Kenneth Branagh‘s semi-autobiographical dramedy Belfast, and Steven Spielberg‘s new take on the classic musical West Side Story.
King Richard, starring Will Smith as the father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams, is up for six Oscars overall.
Drive My Car, a Japanese drama about a theater director and the woman hired to drive him around, has four nominations. So does the Netflix black comedy Don’t Look Up, which boasts a star-studded cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett and more.
Nightmare Alley, a dramatic thriller starring Bradley Cooper as an immoral carnival worker, also has four nominations.
At the bottom of the pack with three nominations each: Paul Thomas Anderson‘s 1970s coming-of-age film Licorice Pizza, and CODA, a heartwarming story about a musically talented teenager and her relationship with her deaf parents and deaf brother.
Which film will take home the Oscar? Tune in to ABC on March 27 to find out.
