Eternals star Gemma Chan said in a new interview that she once felt she had to hide her Asian roots in order to “blend in.”

Speaking to Porter magazine, the 38-year-old actress, who was born to Chinese immigrants, recalled growing up in a mostly-white neighborhood in Kent, England. Chan said she felt “like I was kind of between two cultures” when she was younger because she was regularly complimented on her “good English.”

In addition, she also grappled with wanting to “blend into the background,”especially when her grandmother started to haggle loudly during family shopping trips. “No one could out-haggle her, though,” Chan remarked.

The actress admitted her desire to fit into a particular mold lessened over the years and said, “One of the nicest things about getting older has been reconnecting and feeling like I can embrace and celebrate the Asian side of my heritage.”

“I’ve met so many incredible people, so many more Asians than I knew when I was growing up, in my line of work,” she continued, adding how proud she is to share her culture through movies that “define our own narratives”

“[It]ensures that we have our stories told and ensures that we have a place in popular culture and consciousnesses,” the Crazy Rich Asians star explained. “With the absence of that, stereotypes and prejudices grow.”

Chan also revealed how her family reacted to her global fame, saying, “I do know they’re incredibly proud. And more than anything, they’re relieved that both my sister [Helen] and I are okay.”

The actress then shared her Chinese name, saying her parents named her Chén Jìng and her sister Chén Ning.

“[The combination of Níngjìng] means tranquility, or quiet,” Chan said with a laugh. “So my parents called us ‘peace and quiet!'”

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While The Simpsons has poked fun at Disney over the years before ABC News’ parent company bought 20th Century Fox, Bart, Homer and company will soon be appearing with their synergistic siblings in a new short.

As part of Disney+ Day celebrations on November 12, the streaming service will debut The Simpsons in Plusaversary, the third in a series of Simpsons shorts that can be found on Disney+. 

This time around, the residents of Springfield will be attending a Disney+ party, and everyone from across the streaming service are invited…except Homer. 

A promotional image posted at Disney+’s social media pages shows Homer and Goofy gabbing at Moe’s Tavern.

This is the third crossover short featuring “Our Favorite Family” and Disney properties, including the previously released Maggie Simpson in the Star Wars-centered The Force Awakens from Its Nap and the Marvel-themed The Good, The Bart, and The Loki, which featured the voice of Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston.

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Director Christopher Nolan‘s movie Oppenheimer, about J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the creators of the atomic bomb, has just added some nuclear level star power. 

The Hollywood Reporter notes that Robert Downey Jr. and Matt Damon will join Nolan repeat player Cillian Murphy in the project; he’s playing the titular scientist.

The trade notes Damon will play Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, the military director of the secret Manhattan Project that was behind the atomic bomb’s creation. 

For his part, Downey, will reportedly play Lewis Strauss, the Atomic Energy Commissioner who ended up getting Oppenheimer’s security clearance revoked after the scientist felt conflicted about unleashing the devastating power on the world. 

Emily Blunt, who starred in this year’s hits A Quiet Place Part II and Jungle Cruise, will reportedly play Kitty Oppenheimer, the physicist’s wife, in the project that’s based on the Pulitzer-winning 2005 book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

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Jessica Simpson celebrated being four years sober on Monday by sharing an unflinching look at her battle with alcoholism.

To mark the milestone, the fashion mogul shared a haunting throwback photo where she looks almost unrecognizable and explained it was taken on the day she vowed to stop drinking. Simpson’s face is red, puffy and streaked with tears as she sits in what appears to be her living room.

“This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself,” the singer writes. “I had so much self discovery to unlock and explore. I knew in this very moment I would allow myself to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity. Personally, to do this I needed to stop drinking alcohol.”

Simpson said she knew in that moment that drinking “kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction” and that she “was exhausted” from the pain.

“I wanted to live as a leader,” she continued, noting that in order to do so, she had to never look back “with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make.”

Simpson then opened up about the “stigma around the word alcoholism” and explained what it means to commit to a sober lifestyle.

“The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self sabotage. The drinking wasn’t the issue. I was,” she said. “I didn’t love myself. I didn’t respect my own power. Today I do.”

Simpson says she now embraces every part of herself, including the “parts of my life that are just sad,” and that makes her “free.”

 

 

 

 

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When Peacock’s Saved by the Bell reboot returns for its upcoming second season on November 24, the show will pay tribute to original cast member Dustin Diamond, who died of lung cancer in February at the age of 44.

Diamond, who played Samuel “Screech” Powers from the show’s inception in 1989, through its College Years and New Class spinoffs — 12 years in all — was referenced in the first season of the reboot, though he was not invited onto it as a guest star.

Executive producer Franco Bario, who also produced the original series, tells Variety he spoke with Diamond ahead of the season one premiere to “fill him in on the Screech mentions in the first season and how those may lead us to possible stories that would include him in season two.” However, after learning of Diamond’s death, Bario and showrunner Tracey Wigfield decided to celebrate Dustin as an actor and Screech as a character in season two.

“I didn’t know him and I hadn’t met him,” Wigfield tells Variety. “Just thinking about it as a fan, I knew we wanted to do more than just putting a picture of him up at the end.”

After pitching the idea to original cast members Elizabeth Berkley Lauren, Mario Lopez, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Tiffani Thiessen and Lark Voorhies, who appear on the show in different capacities, Wigfield and Bario wrote a scene in which the five OG cast members would reunite at the group’s favorite hangout, The Max, to remember their friend.

The tribute to Diamond also includes clips of him in the original series, to demonstrate that he was not just “an outrageous character” or “the butt of a joke,” but “to show how important he was to the show the other characters.”

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