Well-known podcaster Joe Rogan has called out Hollywood for being 'anti-gun' and yet glorifying guns in films. Rogan hosts 'The Joe Rogan Experience.' 
 
On Friday's episode, Rogan spoke to comedian Tim Dillon about Hollywood’s hypocrisy on firearms.

"Isn’t it f****ng wild that Hollywood, in general, is very anti-gun, but they promote guns more than any other media on the planet?" Rogan asked. 
 
"All their best movies, whether it’s 'The Gray Man', or whether you’re watching The 'Terminal List' or 'Mission Impossible. It’s all — ‘guns save the day.’ Guns kill aliens, guns kill werewolves, guns kill everyone. Everyone bad gets killed by guns," Rogan further elaborated.

Rogan then pointed out how off-screen Hollywood stars have often endorsed 'anti-gun policy. Rogan took a jibe at the politics around the term and said,"But guns are bad and you shouldn’t have guns.' It’s crazy."&nbsp;

In response, Dillon responded by calling out wealthy Hollywood elites for numerous political hypocrisies and said, "Well, these are also the same people that live in these 20,000 square foot homes and fly private jets, but talk endlessly about climate change. The same people." 
 
The comedian then offered a theory on how Hollywood stars have contradictory stances on what they advocate in person and what they show on the screen. 
 
"I get it. Because if they start paying you the kind of money they make to ‘play pretend,’ they start paying you that kind of money to play ‘dress up’ – $80 million a year, $40 million a year, you start to go crazy," Dillon said.

Well-known podcaster Joe Rogan has called out Hollywood for being 'anti-gun' and yet glorifying guns in films. Rogan hosts 'The Joe Rogan Experience.' On Friday's episode, Rogan spoke to comedian Tim Dillon about Hollywood’s hypocrisy on firearms.

Well-known podcaster Joe Rogan has called out Hollywood for being 'anti-gun' and yet glorifying guns in films. Rogan hosts 'The Joe Rogan Experience.' On Friday's episode, Rogan spoke to comedian Tim Dillon about Hollywood’s hypocrisy on firearms. "Isn’t it f****ng wild that Hollywood, in general, is very anti-gun, but they promote guns more than any other media on the planet?" Rogan asked. "All their best movies, whether it’s 'The Gray Man', or whether you’re watching The 'Terminal List' or 'Mission Impossible. It’s all — ‘guns save the day.’ Guns kill aliens, guns kill werewolves, guns kill everyone. Everyone bad gets killed by guns," Rogan further elaborated. Rogan then pointed out how off-screen Hollywood stars have often endorsed 'anti-gun policy. Rogan took a jibe at the politics around the term and said,"But guns are bad and you shouldn’t have guns.' It’s crazy." In response, Dillon responded by calling out wealthy Hollywood elites for numerous political hypocrisies and said, "Well, these are also the same people that live in these 20,000 square foot homes and fly private jets, but talk endlessly about climate change. The same people." The comedian then offered a theory on how Hollywood stars have contradictory stances on what they advocate in person and what they show on the screen. "I get it. Because if they start paying you the kind of money they make to ‘play pretend,’ they start paying you that kind of money to play ‘dress up’ – $80 million a year, $40 million a year, you start to go crazy," Dillon said.

Joe Rogan calls out Hollywood for its hypocrisy: They promote guns on screen

Jennette McCurdy, the star of Nickelodeon's famous shows ‘iCarly’ and ‘Sam &amp; Cat’, has opened up about her childhood trauma and how she was "exploited" by the studio in her new memoir, 'I'm Glad My Mom Died'. She candidly walks us through her stormy time on Nickelodeon and her toxic relationship with her mother. McCurdy was 16 when she made millions of young fans by playing the comic character of Sam Puckett on the hit teen sitcom ‘iCarly’.

According to an interview of her, she blamed her high-handed mother and the industry for "failing to protect her". "My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn’t know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing."

In her memoir, the 30-year-old McCurdy writes about humiliating moments during the show where she was asked to be "photographed in a bikini during a wardrobe fitting and being encouraged to drink alcohol by an intimidating figure she simply calls the Creator."

She also mentions that though her mother was present on the set, she never stopped any of it from happening and allegedly said, "Everyone wants what you have."

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/marvel-boss-kevin-feige-reaches-out-to-directors-bilall-adil-after-batgirl-shocking-cancellation-504341">Marvel boss Kevin Feige reaches out to directors Bilall &amp; Adil after 'Batgirl' shocking cancellation</a>

She also recalls im memoir that once she was auditioning for acting roles at the age of 6 and was "shepherded" into work by her overbearing mother. She also mentions that she was suffering from OCD, eating disorders, and anxiety.

The actress also reveals that after the success of ‘iCarly’, Nickelodeon had promised her a spinoff show of her own but didn't go through with it. Instead, they brought in Ariana Grande as her co-star on ‘Sam &amp; Cat.’

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/katy-perry-issues-public-apology-to-kim-kardashian-503842">Katy Perry issues public apology to Kim Kardashian</a>

McCurdy claims that Nickelodean made her feel undercut by discouraging her from pursuing other job prospects unrelated to the show. These guidelines were not applicable to Grande, though.

McCurdy wrote, "What finally undid me was when Ariana came whistle-toning in with excitement because she had spent the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’s house. That was the moment I broke."

Following the termination of 'Sam &amp; Cat,' which ran for only one season, McCurdy said that Nickelodeon made the former actress an offer of $300,000 in exchange for her confidentiality. She declined the proposal.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-kevin-spacey-ordered-to-pay-30m-to-house-of-cards-makers-over-alleged-sexual-misconduct-503885">Kevin Spacey ordered to pay $30M to 'House of Cards' makers over alleged sexual misconduct</a>

Jennette McCurdy, the star of Nickelodeon's famous shows ‘iCarly’ and ‘Sam & Cat’, has opened up about her childhood trauma and how she was "exploited" by the studio in her new memoir, 'I'm Glad My Mom Died'.

Jennette McCurdy, the star of Nickelodeon's famous shows ‘iCarly’ and ‘Sam & Cat’, has opened up about her childhood trauma and how she was "exploited" by the studio in her new memoir, 'I'm Glad My Mom Died'. She candidly walks us through her stormy time on Nickelodeon and her toxic relationship with her mother. McCurdy was 16 when she made millions of young fans by playing the comic character of Sam Puckett on the hit teen sitcom ‘iCarly’. According to an interview of her, she blamed her high-handed mother and the industry for "failing to protect her". "My whole childhood and adolescence were very exploited. There were cases where people had the best intentions and maybe didn’t know what they were doing. And also cases where they did — they knew exactly what they were doing." In her memoir, the 30-year-old McCurdy writes about humiliating moments during the show where she was asked to be "photographed in a bikini during a wardrobe fitting and being encouraged to drink alcohol by an intimidating figure she simply calls the Creator." She also mentions that though her mother was present on the set, she never stopped any of it from happening and allegedly said, "Everyone wants what you have." Marvel boss Kevin Feige reaches out to directors Bilall & Adil after 'Batgirl' shocking cancellation She also recalls im memoir that once she was auditioning for acting roles at the age of 6 and was "shepherded" into work by her overbearing mother. She also mentions that she was suffering from OCD, eating disorders, and anxiety. The actress also reveals that after the success of ‘iCarly’, Nickelodeon had promised her a spinoff show of her own but didn't go through with it. Instead, they brought in Ariana Grande as her co-star on ‘Sam & Cat.’ Katy Perry issues public apology to Kim Kardashian McCurdy claims that Nickelodean made her feel undercut by discouraging her from pursuing other job prospects unrelated to the show. These guidelines were not applicable to Grande, though. McCurdy wrote, "What finally undid me was when Ariana came whistle-toning in with excitement because she had spent the previous evening playing charades at Tom Hanks’s house. That was the moment I broke." Following the termination of 'Sam & Cat,' which ran for only one season, McCurdy said that Nickelodeon made the former actress an offer of $300,000 in exchange for her confidentiality. She declined the proposal. Kevin Spacey ordered to pay $30M to 'House of Cards' makers over alleged sexual misconduct

Jennette McCurdy of ‘iCarly’ and ‘Sam & Cat’ fame alleges exploitation on Nickelodeon sets in her new memoir

Hollywood star Woody Harrelson is currently in talks to star in Lionsgate's yacht rock musical comedy ‘Sailing’. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming project will follow the trials and tribulations of a group of 1970s musicians discovering the smooth sounds and lifestyle of yacht rock. The soft rock music genre dominated FM radio during that period.

"We’re thrilled to be working with Jeremy, Jonathan, Gillian, Chris, and Woody, and we’re confident that it will not only have a phenomenal soundtrack, but it will also put you in a summertime mood," Lionsgate’s president of production, Erin Westerman, said of the nostalgic musical comedy, reported the outlet.

Chris D’Arienzo, the creator of the Broadway musical ‘Rock of Ages’, sold the pitch for ‘Sailing’ along with Jeremy Plager, who will develop and produce with MegaMix (Jonathan Levine and Gillian Bohrer) and Harrelson.

Meredith Wieck and Jon Humphrey will oversee the project for Lionsgate. Bonnie Stylides negotiated the deals on behalf of the studio, as per The Hollywood Reporter. Harrelson recently starred in ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ and ‘The Man From Toronto’, opposite Kevin Hart. His upcoming projects include the HBO TV series ‘The White House Plumbers’.&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-allu-arjun-shares-the-story-behind-how-they-came-up-with-pushpa-swag-walk-498058">Allu Arjun shares how they came up with 'Pushpa' swag walk</a>

Hollywood star Woody Harrelson is currently in talks to star in Lionsgate's yacht rock musical comedy ‘Sailing’. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming project will follow the trials and tribulations of a group of 1970s musicians discovering the smooth sounds and lifestyle of yacht rock.

Hollywood star Woody Harrelson is currently in talks to star in Lionsgate's yacht rock musical comedy ‘Sailing’. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the upcoming project will follow the trials and tribulations of a group of 1970s musicians discovering the smooth sounds and lifestyle of yacht rock. The soft rock music genre dominated FM radio during that period. "We’re thrilled to be working with Jeremy, Jonathan, Gillian, Chris, and Woody, and we’re confident that it will not only have a phenomenal soundtrack, but it will also put you in a summertime mood," Lionsgate’s president of production, Erin Westerman, said of the nostalgic musical comedy, reported the outlet. Chris D’Arienzo, the creator of the Broadway musical ‘Rock of Ages’, sold the pitch for ‘Sailing’ along with Jeremy Plager, who will develop and produce with MegaMix (Jonathan Levine and Gillian Bohrer) and Harrelson. Meredith Wieck and Jon Humphrey will oversee the project for Lionsgate. Bonnie Stylides negotiated the deals on behalf of the studio, as per The Hollywood Reporter. Harrelson recently starred in ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ and ‘The Man From Toronto’, opposite Kevin Hart. His upcoming projects include the HBO TV series ‘The White House Plumbers’. Also Read: Allu Arjun shares how they came up with 'Pushpa' swag walk

Woody Harrelson in talks to star in rock music comedy 'Sailing'

After dating each other for six long years, American actress Kirsten Dunst, 40, and Jesse Plemons, 34, have finally taken the sacred vows. The adorable couple recently tied the knot in Jamaica. Kirsten and Jesse's romance dates back to 2016 when they were both working together for the second season of FX’s ‘Fargo’. The couple got engaged the following year during the Golden Globes weekend. Kirsten and Jesse’s wedding was delayed for several reasons, like the birth of their children and the pandemic.

Kirsten and Jesse share two sons together: Ennis, 4; and James, 14 months.

Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons' wedding&nbsp;

According to Page Six, actress Kirsten Dunst’s representative confirmed the news of the star’s wedding to Jesse Plemons, saying, "I can just confirm they got married." She further added, "No other details will be given." Though Kirsten’s rep did not give out any other details, it has been reported that the couple got married last weekend in Jamaica's Ocho Rios.

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Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons' relationship&nbsp;

After working together in the series ' Fargo ', Kirsten and Jesse’s romance began in 2016. The 'Spiderman' star was spotted wearing her engagement ring at the Palm Springs Film Festival in 2017, where she also discussed her wedding plans with her partner. However, the couple’s wedding got delayed due to Kirsten’s pregnancy.&nbsp;

The couple became parents to Ennis Howard Plemons, in 2018, and they had their second child in September 2021, who they named James Robert. While speaking to The New York Times, Dunst introduced her second son by calling him an angel. "This is the newest guy, the Big Kahuna. He's an angel, but he's a hungry angel. And a heavy angel," she said.&nbsp;

In another interaction with The Los Angeles Times in February, Dunst talked about making their relationship official. "We call each other husband and wife. But we have to get married at this point. It’s ridiculous. We just haven’t planned a wedding. There was COVID, then we had another child. I didn’t want to be pregnant, get married, have a party and not be able to have fun with everybody," the 40-year-old shared.&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-anthony-mackies-captain-america-4-finds-its-director-in-julius-onah-495722">Anthony Mackie's 'Captain America 4' finds its director in Julius Onah</a>

Meanwhile, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in November, Kirsten said she hopes to work with Plemons again. "We have some ideas, and Jesse and I definitely want to do another project."&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

After dating each other for six long years, American actress Kirsten Dunst, 40, and Jesse Plemons, 34, have finally taken the sacred vows. The adorable couple recently tied the knot in Jamaica.

After dating each other for six long years, American actress Kirsten Dunst, 40, and Jesse Plemons, 34, have finally taken the sacred vows. The adorable couple recently tied the knot in Jamaica. Kirsten and Jesse's romance dates back to 2016 when they were both working together for the second season of FX’s ‘Fargo’. The couple got engaged the following year during the Golden Globes weekend. Kirsten and Jesse’s wedding was delayed for several reasons, like the birth of their children and the pandemic. Kirsten and Jesse share two sons together: Ennis, 4; and James, 14 months. Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons' wedding According to Page Six, actress Kirsten Dunst’s representative confirmed the news of the star’s wedding to Jesse Plemons, saying, "I can just confirm they got married." She further added, "No other details will be given." Though Kirsten’s rep did not give out any other details, it has been reported that the couple got married last weekend in Jamaica's Ocho Rios. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kirsten Dunst (@kirstendunst) × Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons' relationship After working together in the series ' Fargo ', Kirsten and Jesse’s romance began in 2016. The 'Spiderman' star was spotted wearing her engagement ring at the Palm Springs Film Festival in 2017, where she also discussed her wedding plans with her partner. However, the couple’s wedding got delayed due to Kirsten’s pregnancy. The couple became parents to Ennis Howard Plemons, in 2018, and they had their second child in September 2021, who they named James Robert. While speaking to The New York Times, Dunst introduced her second son by calling him an angel. "This is the newest guy, the Big Kahuna. He's an angel, but he's a hungry angel. And a heavy angel," she said. In another interaction with The Los Angeles Times in February, Dunst talked about making their relationship official. "We call each other husband and wife. But we have to get married at this point. It’s ridiculous. We just haven’t planned a wedding. There was COVID, then we had another child. I didn’t want to be pregnant, get married, have a party and not be able to have fun with everybody," the 40-year-old shared. Also Read: Anthony Mackie's 'Captain America 4' finds its director in Julius Onah Meanwhile, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in November, Kirsten said she hopes to work with Plemons again. "We have some ideas, and Jesse and I definitely want to do another project."

Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons are finally married after dating for six long years

Exciting news for all the Top Gun die-hard fans as they might see Tom Cruise once again making his come back&nbsp;in the blockbuster franchise. Just a month after the second film of the series 'Top Gun: Maverick', which broke&nbsp;all the box office records, Miles Teller, has revaled major news that will surely send fans into a frenzy mode. 
&nbsp; 
During his exclusive chat with Entertainment Tonight, Teller spilt some beans about the next project by revealing that he and Tom had&nbsp;a small chat about the same.&nbsp;

<a href="http://13.235.153.162/entertainment/top-gun-maverick-becomes-highest-grossing-movie-of-the-year-globally-soars-past-1-billion-492092" hreflang="en">'Top Gun: Maverick' becomes highest-grossing movie of the year globally, soars past $1 billion</a> 
 
"That would be great, but that's all up to TC (Tom Cruise)," he said.&nbsp; 
 
Further, Miller, who plays the role of a&nbsp;pilot Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, said in&nbsp;last, ''It's all up to Tom.'' 
 
''I've been having some conversations with him about it. We'll see." 
 
Miller's statement comes a month after director Joseph Kosinski shockingly revealed that Cruise “really didn’t want to” make a 'Top Gun' sequel and reprise his iconic character of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. 
 
During his interview with Polygon, the director said as per New York Post, that. “Basically had 30 minutes to pitch this film … But when I got there, I found that Tom really didn’t want to make another ‘Top Gun.’”

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-exclusive-tom-cruise-can-do-everybodys-job-he-is-terrific-says-top-gun-maverick-producer-481890">Exclusive! Tom Cruise can do everybody's job, he is terrific, says 'Top Gun: Maverick' producer&nbsp;</a>

Meanwhile, talking about the 'Top Gun: Maverick' box office number, the movie has raked in moolah at the box office ever since the release. The sequel film of the 1986 superhit has crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office globally. 
 
Not only that, but 'Maverick' has also become Tom's first film in his career spanning over four decades to reach the billion-dollar box office collection. The&nbsp;film has also become extra special for Paramount, as it becomes&nbsp;the studio's second-highest-grossing film in the domestic market after 'Titanic' (1997) starring&nbsp;Leonardo DiCaprio and&nbsp;Kate Winslet.&nbsp;

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Exciting news for all the Top Gun die-hard fans as they might see Tom Cruise once again making his come back in the blockbuster franchise. Just a month after the second film of the series 'Top Gun: Maverick', which broke all the box office records, Miles Teller, has revaled major news that will surely send fans into a frenzy mode.

Exciting news for all the Top Gun die-hard fans as they might see Tom Cruise once again making his come back in the blockbuster franchise. Just a month after the second film of the series 'Top Gun: Maverick', which broke all the box office records, Miles Teller, has revaled major news that will surely send fans into a frenzy mode. During his exclusive chat with Entertainment Tonight, Teller spilt some beans about the next project by revealing that he and Tom had a small chat about the same. 'Top Gun: Maverick' becomes highest-grossing movie of the year globally, soars past $1 billion "That would be great, but that's all up to TC (Tom Cruise)," he said. Further, Miller, who plays the role of a pilot Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, said in last, ''It's all up to Tom.'' ''I've been having some conversations with him about it. We'll see." Miller's statement comes a month after director Joseph Kosinski shockingly revealed that Cruise “really didn’t want to” make a 'Top Gun' sequel and reprise his iconic character of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. During his interview with Polygon, the director said as per New York Post, that. “Basically had 30 minutes to pitch this film … But when I got there, I found that Tom really didn’t want to make another ‘Top Gun.’” Exclusive! Tom Cruise can do everybody's job, he is terrific, says 'Top Gun: Maverick' producer Meanwhile, talking about the 'Top Gun: Maverick' box office number, the movie has raked in moolah at the box office ever since the release. The sequel film of the 1986 superhit has crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office globally. Not only that, but 'Maverick' has also become Tom's first film in his career spanning over four decades to reach the billion-dollar box office collection. The film has also become extra special for Paramount, as it becomes the studio's second-highest-grossing film in the domestic market after 'Titanic' (1997) starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Wait, what! 'Top Gun 3' is in works with Tom Cruise? Here's what we know

Actor Peter Facinelli and fiancée Lily Anne Harrison are expecting their first child together. Taking to social media, Lily confirmed the news on Saturday and posted a selfie in which her growing baby bump was visible. She could be seen wearing a black and red floral top. The 33-year-old ‘Vanished’ star captioned the post saying: "Not a burrito belly." Meanwhile, her fiance, Facinelli, headed to the comment section and jokingly wrote, "You’re pregnant? Why didn’t you tell me?"

Facinelli also shared the same photograph on his Instagram Stories and wrote, "Glowing…," the "Twilight" followed by a red heart emoji.

Check out Lily Anne Harrison's post:-&nbsp;

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<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CfPmCvEpWT9/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">A post shared by 𝐋𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍 (@lilyanneharrison)</a>
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&nbsp;"’Can’t Hardly Wait’ to Add to my ‘coven.’ With u at my side," he wrote adding a hashtag "dadjokes".&nbsp;

The 48-year-old actor is a father to three daughters from his previous marriage to actress Jennie Garth, which ended after 12 years in 2013. The two got married in 2001.&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/alia-bhatt-ranbir-kapoor-expecting-their-first-child-together-actress-instagram-post-seem-to-suggest-so-492117">Alia Bhatt-Ranbir Kapoor expecting their first child together? Actress' Instagram post seem to suggest so</a>

As soon as the post was shared on Insta, Lily and Facinelli’s closest friends flooded its comment section with love and support for the growing family. Actress Sarah Wynter wrote, "so excited for you and @peterfacinelli LOVE this!!" DJ Lindsay Luv added, "Yessss!!!!! Can`t wait to meet this beautiful bb."&nbsp;

Facinelli and Harrison started dating in 2019. The ‘Twilight’ actor had proposed to her before ringing in 2020 during a romantic beachside dinner at the Estrella del Mar Beach and Golf Resort in Mazatlan, Mexico. Facinelli was previously engaged to actor Jaimie Alexander and dated for three years. They call it quits in 2016.&nbsp;

Actor Peter Facinelli and fiancée Lily Anne Harrison are expecting their first child together. Taking to social media, Lily confirmed the news on Saturday and posted a selfie in which her growing baby bump was visible.

Actor Peter Facinelli and fiancée Lily Anne Harrison are expecting their first child together. Taking to social media, Lily confirmed the news on Saturday and posted a selfie in which her growing baby bump was visible. She could be seen wearing a black and red floral top. The 33-year-old ‘Vanished’ star captioned the post saying: "Not a burrito belly." Meanwhile, her fiance, Facinelli, headed to the comment section and jokingly wrote, "You’re pregnant? Why didn’t you tell me?" Facinelli also shared the same photograph on his Instagram Stories and wrote, "Glowing…," the "Twilight" followed by a red heart emoji. Check out Lily Anne Harrison's post:- View this post on Instagram A post shared by 𝐋𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐍 (@lilyanneharrison) × "’Can’t Hardly Wait’ to Add to my ‘coven.’ With u at my side," he wrote adding a hashtag "dadjokes". The 48-year-old actor is a father to three daughters from his previous marriage to actress Jennie Garth, which ended after 12 years in 2013. The two got married in 2001. Also Read: Alia Bhatt-Ranbir Kapoor expecting their first child together? Actress' Instagram post seem to suggest so As soon as the post was shared on Insta, Lily and Facinelli’s closest friends flooded its comment section with love and support for the growing family. Actress Sarah Wynter wrote, "so excited for you and @peterfacinelli LOVE this!!" DJ Lindsay Luv added, "Yessss!!!!! Can`t wait to meet this beautiful bb." Facinelli and Harrison started dating in 2019. The ‘Twilight’ actor had proposed to her before ringing in 2020 during a romantic beachside dinner at the Estrella del Mar Beach and Golf Resort in Mazatlan, Mexico. Facinelli was previously engaged to actor Jaimie Alexander and dated for three years. They call it quits in 2016.

Lily Anne Harrison announces pregnancy with fiance Peter Facinelli on social media

American renowned band The Chicks recently broke all their fan's&nbsp;hearts&nbsp;who waited so long to&nbsp;groove in their rocking beats. But, concertgoers were left shocked after the girl's band, comprising of lead singer&nbsp;Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, unexpectedly&nbsp;ended their concert just after 30 minutes they started performing.&nbsp; 
 
On June 19, the&nbsp;group was set to perform at the Ruoff Music Center in Indiana and they performed, but just for half-hour. However, they issued an apology later to all their&nbsp;disheartened fans.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/clipse-duo-pusha-t-no-malice-reunite-for-pharrell-williams-something-in-the-water-festival-489975" hreflang="en">'Clipse' duo Pusha T, No Malice reunite for Pharrell Williams' Something in the Water festival</a> 
 
Sharing an update on their social media handles, they wrote, ''Indianapolis, we are so sorry we could not give you the show you deserved OR the show we wanted to give you. We will be back in Indianapolis!! Hold on to your tickets. Ticket holders will be contacted by the official point of purchase with further information. We love you Indianapolis.”

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Indianapolis Update <a href="https://t.co/aNCqv7jFrg">pic.twitter.com/aNCqv7jFrg</a>
— The Chicks (@thechicks) <a href="https://twitter.com/thechicks/status/1538715662947868672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
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No specific reasons have been shared by the group till now.&nbsp; 
 
The attendees were quick to share their shocking experiences on Twitter. One user wrote, ''Chicks cancel the show after a few songs. A new experience for me. 11,000 fans. ''

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Shortest concert ever with <a href="https://twitter.com/amkartman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@amkartman</a> tonight. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheChicks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TheChicks</a> got through 30 minutes at <a href="https://twitter.com/ruoffmusicenter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ruoffmusicenter</a>. Feel bad for Natalie Maines losing her voice.
— Alex Kartman (@ajkartman) <a href="https://twitter.com/ajkartman/status/1538697745875230720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Another wrote, ''Shortest concert ever with @amkartmantonight. #TheChicks got through 30 minutes at @ruoffmusicenter. Feel bad for Natalie Maines losing her voice.''

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Chicks cancel show after a few songs. New experience for me. 
11,000 fans. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/thechicks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#thechicks</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/thechicks?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@thechicks</a> <a href="https://t.co/IWh1VuGJKr">pic.twitter.com/IWh1VuGJKr</a>
— Dr. Rob Bell (@drrobbell) <a href="https://twitter.com/drrobbell/status/1538695810556252161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
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While many fans showed their support to the fans and guessed that Natalie may have some allergy issues.&nbsp;

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A bucket list for sure!! Feel better, indiana allergies are no joke. ❤️ <a href="https://t.co/d2SucABg9V">pic.twitter.com/d2SucABg9V</a>
— kylee marie (@k_shoultz) <a href="https://twitter.com/k_shoultz/status/1538723120890142720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
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“Feel better, indiana allergies are no joke,” one fan wrote.

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I feel ya Natalie, that Cottonwood is a Bitch! Thanks for giving it all you could, you’re a warrior! Feel better. Can’t wait to see the show when you ladies return!
— Robin Tignor (@rutigger2) <a href="https://twitter.com/rutigger2/status/1538854226528550913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2022</a></blockquote>
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“I feel ya Natalie, that Cottonwood is a B*tch! Thanks for giving it all you could, you’re a warrior! Feel better. Can’t wait to see the show when you ladies return!,” another wrote.&nbsp;

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American renowned band The Chicks recently broke all their fan's hearts who waited so long to groove in their rocking beats. But, concertgoers were left shocked after the girl's band, comprising of lead singer Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, unexpectedly ended their concert just after 30 minutes they started performing.

American renowned band The Chicks recently broke all their fan's hearts who waited so long to groove in their rocking beats. But, concertgoers were left shocked after the girl's band, comprising of lead singer Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, unexpectedly ended their concert just after 30 minutes they started performing. On June 19, the group was set to perform at the Ruoff Music Center in Indiana and they performed, but just for half-hour. However, they issued an apology later to all their disheartened fans. 'Clipse' duo Pusha T, No Malice reunite for Pharrell Williams' Something in the Water festival Sharing an update on their social media handles, they wrote, ''Indianapolis, we are so sorry we could not give you the show you deserved OR the show we wanted to give you. We will be back in Indianapolis!! Hold on to your tickets. Ticket holders will be contacted by the official point of purchase with further information. We love you Indianapolis.” Indianapolis Update pic.twitter.com/aNCqv7jFrg — The Chicks (@thechicks) June 20, 2022 × No specific reasons have been shared by the group till now. The attendees were quick to share their shocking experiences on Twitter. One user wrote, ''Chicks cancel the show after a few songs. A new experience for me. 11,000 fans. '' Shortest concert ever with @amkartman tonight. #TheChicks got through 30 minutes at @ruoffmusicenter. Feel bad for Natalie Maines losing her voice. — Alex Kartman (@ajkartman) June 20, 2022 × Another wrote, ''Shortest concert ever with @amkartmantonight. #TheChicks got through 30 minutes at @ruoffmusicenter. Feel bad for Natalie Maines losing her voice.'' Chicks cancel show after a few songs. New experience for me. 11,000 fans. #thechicks @thechicks pic.twitter.com/IWh1VuGJKr — Dr. Rob Bell (@drrobbell) June 20, 2022 × While many fans showed their support to the fans and guessed that Natalie may have some allergy issues. A bucket list for sure!! Feel better, indiana allergies are no joke. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/d2SucABg9V — kylee marie (@k_shoultz) June 20, 2022 × “Feel better, indiana allergies are no joke,” one fan wrote. I feel ya Natalie, that Cottonwood is a Bitch! Thanks for giving it all you could, you’re a warrior! Feel better. Can’t wait to see the show when you ladies return! — Robin Tignor (@rutigger2) June 20, 2022 × “I feel ya Natalie, that Cottonwood is a B*tch! Thanks for giving it all you could, you’re a warrior! Feel better. Can’t wait to see the show when you ladies return!,” another wrote.

American band The Chicks end their concert in just 30 minutes, fans shocked

'Jurassic World Dominion'&nbsp;again stomped to the top on North American movie screens this weekend, while the new release 'Lightyear'&nbsp;didn't quite make it to infinity, or beyond.

Universal's latest dinosaur fright fest -- the sixth in the 'Jurassic Park'&nbsp;franchise -- took in an estimated $58.7 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported. It stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum.

'Lightyear,'&nbsp;Pixar and Disney's latest computer-animated offering from the "Toy Story" empire, earned $51 million. David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research called that "a soft opening for a spinoff of one of the most successful animation series of all time."

Chris Evans voices title character Buzz Lightyear, who battles evil Emperor Zurg while trying to find his way home from a hostile planet. "Lightyear", which features a same-sex kiss, has been denied release in more than a dozen mainly Muslim countries, a source close to Disney told AFP this week.&nbsp;

Still soaring in third place was Paramount's "Top Gun: Maverick," with a $44 million take that Variety called "mammoth" for a film in its fourth week.&nbsp;

With total earnings of $466 million domestically and $419 million overseas, the action-adventure sequel to the original 1986 film has become the biggest hit of Tom Cruise's not-too-shabby career.

The fourth spot went to Disney's 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,'&nbsp;at $4.2 million. Domestic earnings for the Benedict Cumberbatch sci-fi film are now just north of $400 million.

And in fifth place was "The Bob's Burgers Movie" from&nbsp;20th Century. Based on the popular TV series, it took in $1.1 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were:

"The Bad Guys" ($980,000)

"Everything Everywhere All at Once" ($960,000)

"Downtown Abbey: A New Era" ($830,000)

"Sonic the Hedgehog 2" ($228,000)

"Brian and Charles" ($198,000)

'Jurassic World Dominion' again stomped to the top on North American movie screens this weekend, while the new release 'Lightyear' didn't quite make it to infinity, or beyond.

'Jurassic World Dominion' again stomped to the top on North American movie screens this weekend, while the new release 'Lightyear' didn't quite make it to infinity, or beyond. Universal's latest dinosaur fright fest -- the sixth in the 'Jurassic Park' franchise -- took in an estimated $58.7 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported. It stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum. 'Lightyear,' Pixar and Disney's latest computer-animated offering from the "Toy Story" empire, earned $51 million. David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research called that "a soft opening for a spinoff of one of the most successful animation series of all time." Chris Evans voices title character Buzz Lightyear, who battles evil Emperor Zurg while trying to find his way home from a hostile planet. "Lightyear", which features a same-sex kiss, has been denied release in more than a dozen mainly Muslim countries, a source close to Disney told AFP this week. Still soaring in third place was Paramount's "Top Gun: Maverick," with a $44 million take that Variety called "mammoth" for a film in its fourth week. With total earnings of $466 million domestically and $419 million overseas, the action-adventure sequel to the original 1986 film has become the biggest hit of Tom Cruise's not-too-shabby career. The fourth spot went to Disney's 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,' at $4.2 million. Domestic earnings for the Benedict Cumberbatch sci-fi film are now just north of $400 million. And in fifth place was "The Bob's Burgers Movie" from 20th Century. Based on the popular TV series, it took in $1.1 million. Rounding out the top 10 were: "The Bad Guys" ($980,000) "Everything Everywhere All at Once" ($960,000) "Downtown Abbey: A New Era" ($830,000) "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" ($228,000) "Brian and Charles" ($198,000)

'Jurassic World Dominion' is again top draw in N.American theaters

‘Loki’ star Tom Hiddleston has finally confirmed his engagement with actor Zawe Ashton. In an interview that was published on Tuesday, the actor said that he is in a "very happy" state. "I'm very happy," Hiddleston said in the interview, as reported by Page Six.&nbsp;

Speculations have been on the rise since March, during the BAFTA 2022 ceremony, after the star couple sparked engagement rumours, with the latter spotted wearing a diamond ring on her left ring finger.&nbsp;

The couple was all smiles as they arrived at the BAFTA 2022 in their stunning avatars. It was during a picture snapped at the ceremony featuring Hiddleston, Ashton and British TV presenter AJ Odudu, that Ashton was seen wearing a massive diamond ring, which took the Internet by storm.&nbsp;

However, the ‘Betrayal’ co-stars had not addressed their relationship status back at that time, reported Page Six.&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/rebel-wilson-seems-to-be-very-serious-secure-with-girlfriend-ramona-agruma-report-487169">Rebel Wilson seems to be 'very serious' &amp; 'secure' with girlfriend Ramona Agruma: Report</a>

For the unversed, Tom, 41, and Zawe, 37, have been dating since 2019 after starring in the West End play ‘Betrayal’ together. In the drama, they starred as on-screen husband and wife. The speculation about their romance was sparked when they were spotted on a romantic getaway together in September last year. However, the duo confirmed their romance after making their red carpet debut as a couple at the Tony Awards in New York City, last year.

Hiddleston had previously dated actor Susannah Fielding from the years 2008 to 2011, after which they broke up. The actor was also in a short-term relationship with singer Taylor Swift in the year 2016 as well.

‘Loki’ star Tom Hiddleston has finally confirmed his engagement with actor Zawe Ashton. In an interview that was published on Tuesday, the actor said that he is in a "very happy" state.

‘Loki’ star Tom Hiddleston has finally confirmed his engagement with actor Zawe Ashton. In an interview that was published on Tuesday, the actor said that he is in a "very happy" state. "I'm very happy," Hiddleston said in the interview, as reported by Page Six. Speculations have been on the rise since March, during the BAFTA 2022 ceremony, after the star couple sparked engagement rumours, with the latter spotted wearing a diamond ring on her left ring finger. The couple was all smiles as they arrived at the BAFTA 2022 in their stunning avatars. It was during a picture snapped at the ceremony featuring Hiddleston, Ashton and British TV presenter AJ Odudu, that Ashton was seen wearing a massive diamond ring, which took the Internet by storm. However, the ‘Betrayal’ co-stars had not addressed their relationship status back at that time, reported Page Six. Also Read: Rebel Wilson seems to be 'very serious' & 'secure' with girlfriend Ramona Agruma: Report For the unversed, Tom, 41, and Zawe, 37, have been dating since 2019 after starring in the West End play ‘Betrayal’ together. In the drama, they starred as on-screen husband and wife. The speculation about their romance was sparked when they were spotted on a romantic getaway together in September last year. However, the duo confirmed their romance after making their red carpet debut as a couple at the Tony Awards in New York City, last year. Hiddleston had previously dated actor Susannah Fielding from the years 2008 to 2011, after which they broke up. The actor was also in a short-term relationship with singer Taylor Swift in the year 2016 as well.

Tom Hiddleston confirms engagement to longtime girlfriend actor Zawe Ashton

Actor Sarah Silverman is the latest addition to the cast of Bradley Cooper-led Netflix movie "Maestro". The film also features actors Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer and Maya Hawke.

According to a press releases issued by Netlfix, Cooper is directing the film and has also co-writtern the script with Oscar-winning screenwriter Josh Singer.

"Maestro" tells the complex love story of iconic music composer Leonard Bernstein and actor Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein, a tale that spans over 30 years ? from the time they met in 1946 at a party and continuing through two engagements, a 25 year marriage, and three children: Jamie Bernstein, Alexander Bernstein and Nina Bernstein Simmons.

Bernstein rose to fame after he was tasked with conducting the New York Philharmonic when he was 25.

His career skyrocketed when he wrote and composed the music for 1961 classic "West Side Story".

Cooper developed the film, follow-up to his directorial debut "A Star is Born", together with Bernstein's family.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/priyanka-chopra-turns-cheerleader-for-husband-nick-jonas-ahead-of-jonas-brothers-vegas-concert-484941">Priyanka Chopra turns cheerleader for husband Nick Jonas ahead of Jonas' Brothers' Vegas concert</a>

The project is currently in production.

"Maestro" is produced by Cooper, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Fred Berner, and Amy Durning.

Actor Sarah Silverman is the latest addition to the cast of Bradley Cooper-led Netflix movie "Maestro". The film also features actors Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer and Maya Hawke.

Actor Sarah Silverman is the latest addition to the cast of Bradley Cooper-led Netflix movie "Maestro". The film also features actors Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer and Maya Hawke. According to a press releases issued by Netlfix, Cooper is directing the film and has also co-writtern the script with Oscar-winning screenwriter Josh Singer. "Maestro" tells the complex love story of iconic music composer Leonard Bernstein and actor Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein, a tale that spans over 30 years ? from the time they met in 1946 at a party and continuing through two engagements, a 25 year marriage, and three children: Jamie Bernstein, Alexander Bernstein and Nina Bernstein Simmons. Bernstein rose to fame after he was tasked with conducting the New York Philharmonic when he was 25. His career skyrocketed when he wrote and composed the music for 1961 classic "West Side Story". Cooper developed the film, follow-up to his directorial debut "A Star is Born", together with Bernstein's family. Also read: Priyanka Chopra turns cheerleader for husband Nick Jonas ahead of Jonas' Brothers' Vegas concert The project is currently in production. "Maestro" is produced by Cooper, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Fred Berner, and Amy Durning.

Sarah Silverman joins cast of Leonard Bernstein's biopic 'Maestro' starring Bradley Cooper

Tom Blyth, best known for `Billy the Kid' and `The Gilded Age,` has been cast as the young President Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The studio, Lionsgate, revealed that Blyth will play the role of Snow in the years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem; the character was essayed by Donald Sutherland in the original four Hunger Games movies from 2012-2015.

Based on the book released in 2020 of the same name, the story finds 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow as the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol.&nbsp;

With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem`s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favour.&nbsp;

Also Read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/black-mirror-new-season-is-in-works-at-netflix-479660">'Black Mirror' new season is reportedly in works at Netflix</a>

Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy`s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake, reported Deadline.&nbsp;

During the CinemaCon last month, Lionsgate had announced November 17, 2023, as the release date for the prequel. The sequels were directed by Francis Lawrence who is now returning to helm the latest instalment.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

Tom Blyth, best known for `Billy the Kid' and `The Gilded Age,` has been cast as the young President Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Tom Blyth, best known for `Billy the Kid' and `The Gilded Age,` has been cast as the young President Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The studio, Lionsgate, revealed that Blyth will play the role of Snow in the years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem; the character was essayed by Donald Sutherland in the original four Hunger Games movies from 2012-2015. Based on the book released in 2020 of the same name, the story finds 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow as the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem`s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favour. Also Read: 'Black Mirror' new season is reportedly in works at Netflix Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy`s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake, reported Deadline. During the CinemaCon last month, Lionsgate had announced November 17, 2023, as the release date for the prequel. The sequels were directed by Francis Lawrence who is now returning to helm the latest instalment.

Tom Blyth to star in 'Hunger Games' prequel 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes'

Gilbert Gottfried, a stand-up comic with a screwy voice and a penchant for pushing boundaries with jokes about the Sept. 11 attacks and the Japanese tsunami, has died at age 67, his family said on Tuesday. 
 
Gottfried, a former cast member on NBC`s 'Saturday Night Live'&nbsp;and the voice of a sarcastic parrot in the animated Disney film 'Aladdin,'&nbsp;suffered a long, unspecified illness, the family statement said. 
 
"In addition to being the most iconic voice in comedy, Gilbert was a wonderful husband, brother, friend and father to his two young children," the statement said. "Although today is a sad day for all of us, please keep laughing as loud as possible in Gilbert`s honor."

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-johnny-depp-became-monster-on-drugs-and-alcohol-court-hears-470637" hreflang="en">Johnny Depp became 'monster' on drugs and alcohol, court hears</a> 
 
Born in Brooklyn, and rising up through the New York City stand-up scene, Gottfried was known for edgy comedy that made some people squirm. 
Two weeks after the attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001, Gottfried joked about it during a roast of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, saying he could not book a direct flight from New York to California. 
 
"They said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first," Gottfried said, drawing laughs and moans of "too soon." 
Reflecting on the moment later, Gottfried said in a television interview, "That`s the way my mind works. I wanted to basically address the elephant in the room."

That style of humour also cost him a lucrative role as the Aflac duck in television commercials for the insurer, which severed ties with Gottfried after he made a series of jokes on Twitter about the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed 18,000 people in Japan. 
 
"I love to go where it`s a dark area. You never know what people will choose to be offended by," Gottfried told The New York Times in 2013. 
Tributes poured in from other comic actors.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/spotify-rebrands-live-audio-streaming-service-470633" hreflang="en">Spotify rebrands live audio streaming service</a> 
 
Seth MacFarlane, creator of the animated series 'Family Guy'&nbsp;and director of the comedy film "A Million Ways to Die in the West," said Gottfried`s outrageous send-up of Abraham Lincoln`s Gettysburg address in that movie made him laugh so hard on set that "I could barely do my job." 
"A wholly original comic, and an equally kind and humble guy behind the scenes," MacFarlane said on Twitter. "He will be missed." 
 
Jason Alexander, who played George on the television comedy "Seinfeld," said on Twitter, "Gilbert Gottfried made me laugh at times when laughter did not come easily. What a gift." 
 
One of Gottfried`s best-known movie roles was as the voice of Iago, the loud-mouthed, sarcastic talking parrot of the evil Jafar in Disney`s 1992 animated film hit 'Aladdin.' 
 
He also reached what would normally be considered the pinnacle for American comic actors by getting named to the cast of 'Saturday Night Live'&nbsp;in 1980, but the new cast was poorly received, having replaced highly popular players such as John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray. 
 
Gottfried said he could not enjoy the experience, telling interviewer Joe Rogan last year that he felt like a "sacrificial lamb." 
"You don`t want to be the replacement," Gottfried said. "You want to be the replacement of the replacement."

Gilbert Gottfried, a stand-up comic with a screwy voice and a penchant for pushing boundaries with jokes about the Sept. 11 attacks and the Japanese tsunami, has died at age 67, his family said on Tuesday.

Gilbert Gottfried, a stand-up comic with a screwy voice and a penchant for pushing boundaries with jokes about the Sept. 11 attacks and the Japanese tsunami, has died at age 67, his family said on Tuesday. Gottfried, a former cast member on NBC`s 'Saturday Night Live' and the voice of a sarcastic parrot in the animated Disney film 'Aladdin,' suffered a long, unspecified illness, the family statement said. "In addition to being the most iconic voice in comedy, Gilbert was a wonderful husband, brother, friend and father to his two young children," the statement said. "Although today is a sad day for all of us, please keep laughing as loud as possible in Gilbert`s honor." Johnny Depp became 'monster' on drugs and alcohol, court hears Born in Brooklyn, and rising up through the New York City stand-up scene, Gottfried was known for edgy comedy that made some people squirm. Two weeks after the attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people in 2001, Gottfried joked about it during a roast of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, saying he could not book a direct flight from New York to California. "They said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first," Gottfried said, drawing laughs and moans of "too soon." Reflecting on the moment later, Gottfried said in a television interview, "That`s the way my mind works. I wanted to basically address the elephant in the room." That style of humour also cost him a lucrative role as the Aflac duck in television commercials for the insurer, which severed ties with Gottfried after he made a series of jokes on Twitter about the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed 18,000 people in Japan. "I love to go where it`s a dark area. You never know what people will choose to be offended by," Gottfried told The New York Times in 2013. Tributes poured in from other comic actors. Spotify rebrands live audio streaming service Seth MacFarlane, creator of the animated series 'Family Guy' and director of the comedy film "A Million Ways to Die in the West," said Gottfried`s outrageous send-up of Abraham Lincoln`s Gettysburg address in that movie made him laugh so hard on set that "I could barely do my job." "A wholly original comic, and an equally kind and humble guy behind the scenes," MacFarlane said on Twitter. "He will be missed." Jason Alexander, who played George on the television comedy "Seinfeld," said on Twitter, "Gilbert Gottfried made me laugh at times when laughter did not come easily. What a gift." One of Gottfried`s best-known movie roles was as the voice of Iago, the loud-mouthed, sarcastic talking parrot of the evil Jafar in Disney`s 1992 animated film hit 'Aladdin.' He also reached what would normally be considered the pinnacle for American comic actors by getting named to the cast of 'Saturday Night Live' in 1980, but the new cast was poorly received, having replaced highly popular players such as John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Bill Murray. Gottfried said he could not enjoy the experience, telling interviewer Joe Rogan last year that he felt like a "sacrificial lamb." "You don`t want to be the replacement," Gottfried said. "You want to be the replacement of the replacement."

Gilbert Gottfried, boundary-pushing comedian, dead at 67

Black-and-white is the hot new trend in Hollywood, where directors of Oscars-contending films such as "Belfast" and "The Tragedy of Macbeth" are embracing monochrome for its storytelling power.

Kenneth Branagh's childhood drama and Joel Coen's Shakespeare adaptation are among a batch of recent acclaimed movies shot either entirely or mainly without color, as filmmakers seek to tap into the medium's inherent sense of historical authenticity and humanising intimacy.

"Color allows you brilliantly to describe people, but black-and-white allows you to feel people," Branagh said of his deeply personal drama about violence in 1960s Northern Ireland, which is up for seven Oscars on Sunday including best picture.

While a "sweeping landscape of a desert or a mountain range" can be made epic by color, "an epic dimension of black-and-white photography, on a massive screen, is the human face."

The choice "makes for a poetic dimension to things that can otherwise seem a little banal," he told AFP.

Meanwhile, "Tragedy of Macbeth" cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel told The New York Times the effect was "meant to bring theatricality" and give the film a timeless quality. Its star Denzel Washington is in the running for best actor.

Monochrome movies have of course continued to exist since they fell out of mainstream favor during the 1950s, when cheaper color technology enabled more directors to emulate the bright tones that had dazzled audiences years earlier in "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind."

In 2012, "The Artist" -- a film that was not just black-and-white but also silent -- won best picture at the Oscars, while the likes of "Roma" and "Mank" have won Oscars for best cinematography more recently.

But this year's colorless contingent has grown.

"We all got together... it was a DGA [Directors Guild of America] meeting," joked Mike Mills, whose family drama "C'mon C'mon" starring Joaquin Phoenix also comes in grayscale, and was nominated at this month's BAFTAs.

"I love black-and-white. I'm super pretentious. I watch a lot of black-and-white films -- they're my heroes' films, right? I just adore them," Mills told AFP.

In "Passing" -- whose star Ruth Negga has been nominated for a batch of awards, winning at the Film Independent Spirit Awards earlier this month -- the format is used to tackle the issue of racism.

Rebecca Hall's directorial debut explores "racial passing," as two childhood friends of mixed racial heritage have a chance encounter in 1920s New York while both are pretending to be white.

"It wasn't just a stylistic choice. I felt that it was a conceptual choice -- to make a film about colorism... that drains the color out of it," Hall said at its Sundance film festival premiere.

"We look at faces, and then we immediately put them into these categorizations... the categorizations become important, but they are also in some senses absurd.

"Nobody is actually black-and-white. Film isn't black-and-white. It's gray."

- 'Crazy abstraction' -

So, why are directors getting on the black-and-white bandwagon now? Is it simply a coincidence?

Experts have pointed to broader trends such as the rise of Instagram and social media, that may explain why audiences -- which in recent times may have seen black-and-white films as "old-fashioned" or "boring" -- are now more willing to give it a go.

"Most Americans have become their own filmmakers and photographers with the ability to slap a filter onto an image and render it in grayscale or sepia or heightened color," wrote Alissa Wilkinson, who covers film and culture for Vox.

"Getting used to seeing color-adjusted images, including black-and-white videos and photos, could make us associate them with the past less. Instead of being bound by history and time, we start to see them as simply aesthetic choices."

The idea that black-and-white is a choice to deliberately look less real than the color-filled world we actually live in has been embraced by several of this year's efforts.

"Black-and-white is such a crazy abstraction, so does a great sort of magic trick on the viewer," said Mills. "'I'm not in the real world anymore. I'm a little kicked off into a story, into art.'"

And there was a more specific reason for his choice in "C'mon C'mon," a movie about an absent uncle -- played by Phoenix -- bonding with his precocious nephew.

"I have this really cute kid -- black-and-white helped just take the cute sting off of it."

Black-and-white is the hot new trend in Hollywood, where directors of Oscars-contending films such as "Belfast" and "The Tragedy of Macbeth" are embracing monochrome for its storytelling power.

Black-and-white is the hot new trend in Hollywood, where directors of Oscars-contending films such as "Belfast" and "The Tragedy of Macbeth" are embracing monochrome for its storytelling power. Kenneth Branagh's childhood drama and Joel Coen's Shakespeare adaptation are among a batch of recent acclaimed movies shot either entirely or mainly without color, as filmmakers seek to tap into the medium's inherent sense of historical authenticity and humanising intimacy. "Color allows you brilliantly to describe people, but black-and-white allows you to feel people," Branagh said of his deeply personal drama about violence in 1960s Northern Ireland, which is up for seven Oscars on Sunday including best picture. While a "sweeping landscape of a desert or a mountain range" can be made epic by color, "an epic dimension of black-and-white photography, on a massive screen, is the human face." The choice "makes for a poetic dimension to things that can otherwise seem a little banal," he told AFP. Meanwhile, "Tragedy of Macbeth" cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel told The New York Times the effect was "meant to bring theatricality" and give the film a timeless quality. Its star Denzel Washington is in the running for best actor. Monochrome movies have of course continued to exist since they fell out of mainstream favor during the 1950s, when cheaper color technology enabled more directors to emulate the bright tones that had dazzled audiences years earlier in "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind." In 2012, "The Artist" -- a film that was not just black-and-white but also silent -- won best picture at the Oscars, while the likes of "Roma" and "Mank" have won Oscars for best cinematography more recently. But this year's colorless contingent has grown. "We all got together... it was a DGA [Directors Guild of America] meeting," joked Mike Mills, whose family drama "C'mon C'mon" starring Joaquin Phoenix also comes in grayscale, and was nominated at this month's BAFTAs. "I love black-and-white. I'm super pretentious. I watch a lot of black-and-white films -- they're my heroes' films, right? I just adore them," Mills told AFP. In "Passing" -- whose star Ruth Negga has been nominated for a batch of awards, winning at the Film Independent Spirit Awards earlier this month -- the format is used to tackle the issue of racism. Rebecca Hall's directorial debut explores "racial passing," as two childhood friends of mixed racial heritage have a chance encounter in 1920s New York while both are pretending to be white. "It wasn't just a stylistic choice. I felt that it was a conceptual choice -- to make a film about colorism... that drains the color out of it," Hall said at its Sundance film festival premiere. "We look at faces, and then we immediately put them into these categorizations... the categorizations become important, but they are also in some senses absurd. "Nobody is actually black-and-white. Film isn't black-and-white. It's gray." - 'Crazy abstraction' - So, why are directors getting on the black-and-white bandwagon now? Is it simply a coincidence? Experts have pointed to broader trends such as the rise of Instagram and social media, that may explain why audiences -- which in recent times may have seen black-and-white films as "old-fashioned" or "boring" -- are now more willing to give it a go. "Most Americans have become their own filmmakers and photographers with the ability to slap a filter onto an image and render it in grayscale or sepia or heightened color," wrote Alissa Wilkinson, who covers film and culture for Vox. "Getting used to seeing color-adjusted images, including black-and-white videos and photos, could make us associate them with the past less. Instead of being bound by history and time, we start to see them as simply aesthetic choices." The idea that black-and-white is a choice to deliberately look less real than the color-filled world we actually live in has been embraced by several of this year's efforts. "Black-and-white is such a crazy abstraction, so does a great sort of magic trick on the viewer," said Mills. "'I'm not in the real world anymore. I'm a little kicked off into a story, into art.'" And there was a more specific reason for his choice in "C'mon C'mon," a movie about an absent uncle -- played by Phoenix -- bonding with his precocious nephew. "I have this really cute kid -- black-and-white helped just take the cute sting off of it."

How black-and-white became Hollywood's favorite new colour

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Wednesday agreed a deal to renew a long-lapsed law to strengthen domestic violence protections, just hours after Hollywood actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a tearful speech of support. 
 
Jolie`s voice broke as she acknowledged the women and children "for whom this legislation comes too late" in a speech in Washington D.C. 
 
"Standing here at the center of our nation`s power, I can think only of everyone who has been made to feel powerless by their abusers by a system that failed to protect them," Jolie, wearing a black suit and pearls, said. 
 
The Violence Against Women Act expired at the end of 2018 and U.S. President Joe Biden, who originally sponsored the bill as a senator in 1994, had campaigned on renewing it. 
 
The House of Representatives approved its renewal in a 244-172 vote almost a year ago, but legislation stalled in Congress amid partisan disputes over access to guns and transgender issues. 
 
"The reason many people struggle to leave abusive situations is that they have been made to feel worthless. When there is silence from a Congress too busy to renew the Violence Against Women Act for a decade, it reinforces that sense of worthlessness," said Jolie. "You think, I guess my abuser is right. I guess I`m not worth very much." 
 
Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Lisa Murkowski and Democrats Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein issued a joint media release confirming they had reached a "compromise" deal to get the bill moving. 
 
Biden said in a statement he was "grateful that this critical bipartisan bill is moving forward, and I look forward to Congress delivering it to my desk without delay." 
 
 
 
(Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Karishma Singh) 
&nbsp;

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Wednesday agreed a deal to renew a long-lapsed law to strengthen domestic violence protections, just hours after Hollywood actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a tearful speech of support.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Wednesday agreed a deal to renew a long-lapsed law to strengthen domestic violence protections, just hours after Hollywood actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie made a tearful speech of support. Jolie`s voice broke as she acknowledged the women and children "for whom this legislation comes too late" in a speech in Washington D.C. "Standing here at the center of our nation`s power, I can think only of everyone who has been made to feel powerless by their abusers by a system that failed to protect them," Jolie, wearing a black suit and pearls, said. The Violence Against Women Act expired at the end of 2018 and U.S. President Joe Biden, who originally sponsored the bill as a senator in 1994, had campaigned on renewing it. The House of Representatives approved its renewal in a 244-172 vote almost a year ago, but legislation stalled in Congress amid partisan disputes over access to guns and transgender issues. "The reason many people struggle to leave abusive situations is that they have been made to feel worthless. When there is silence from a Congress too busy to renew the Violence Against Women Act for a decade, it reinforces that sense of worthlessness," said Jolie. "You think, I guess my abuser is right. I guess I`m not worth very much." Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Lisa Murkowski and Democrats Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein issued a joint media release confirming they had reached a "compromise" deal to get the bill moving. Biden said in a statement he was "grateful that this critical bipartisan bill is moving forward, and I look forward to Congress delivering it to my desk without delay." (Writing by Jane Wardell; Editing by Karishma Singh)

Angelina Jolie advocates for US domestic violence law

Hollywood star Nicolas Cage is set to become a father for the third time. The 58-year-old actor and his wife Riko Shibata, 27, are expecting their first child together.&nbsp; 
 
A representative for the couple confirmed the news of Shibata's pregnancy to People magazine on Thursday. 
"The parents-to-be are elated!" the spokesperson said. 
 
Cage and Shibata got married in Las Vegas in a small ceremony on February 16, 2021, a date chosen to honour the birthday of Cage's late father. 
 
Cage is already a father to sons Kal-El, 16, and Weston, 31, from previous relationships. 
 
Cage's was earlier married to Patricia Arquette (1995 to 2001), Lisa Marie Presley (2002 to 2004) and Alice Kim (2004 to 2016). 
 
In March 2019, the "Con Air" star married Erika Koike in Las Vegas but four days later, the duo requested an annulment. Their divorce was granted in June 2019.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

Hollywood star Nicolas Cage is set to become a father for the third time. The 58-year-old actor and his wife Riko Shibata, 27, are expecting their first child together.

Hollywood star Nicolas Cage is set to become a father for the third time. The 58-year-old actor and his wife Riko Shibata, 27, are expecting their first child together. A representative for the couple confirmed the news of Shibata's pregnancy to People magazine on Thursday. "The parents-to-be are elated!" the spokesperson said. Cage and Shibata got married in Las Vegas in a small ceremony on February 16, 2021, a date chosen to honour the birthday of Cage's late father. Cage is already a father to sons Kal-El, 16, and Weston, 31, from previous relationships. Cage's was earlier married to Patricia Arquette (1995 to 2001), Lisa Marie Presley (2002 to 2004) and Alice Kim (2004 to 2016). In March 2019, the "Con Air" star married Erika Koike in Las Vegas but four days later, the duo requested an annulment. Their divorce was granted in June 2019.

Nicolas Cage to become a father for third time, expecting his first child with wife Riko Shibata

‘The Last Movie Ever Made’, a podcast series is in development and it will give a behind-the-scenes look at writer-director Adam Mckay’s recently released film ‘Don’t Look Up’. It will be composed of six episodes and will debut its first instalment on January 7, 2022.&nbsp;

Not only will the podcast explore the film’s production process but also feature an argument regarding the story’s parallels to how ruling institutions have mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-black-panther-wakanda-forever-tops-list-of-most-anticipated-films-of-2022-report-440607" hreflang="en">'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' tops list of most anticipated films of 2022: Report</a>

The film’s stellar star cast will feature on the podcast including Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Tyler Perry, Ariana Grande, Timothée Chalamet, Rob Morgan and Himesh Patel. <a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-dont-look-up-review-leonardo-dicaprio-jennifer-lawrence-headline-a-smart-satire-439599">Read our review of the film here</a>

The podcast’s logline reads: “In early 2020, Adam McKay set out to make a comedy. It was meant to make fun of, and point to, the forces stopping us from saving ourselves from climate change. 2020, of course, had other plans. This is what happened when a cast and crew came together to make a disaster comedy, while living through a series of very uncomedic disasters.”

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-this-is-bizarre-kanye-west-buys-mansion-opposite-kim-kardashians-amid-divorce-440572" hreflang="en">This is bizarre! Kanye West buys mansion opposite Kim Kardashian's amid divorce</a>

‘Don’t Look Up’ had a limited theatrical release on December 10 and is currently streaming on Netflix.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/yearender-2021-leonardo-dicaprio-to-samantha-big-ott-debuts-of-the-year-440411" hreflang="en">Yearender 2021: Leonardo DiCaprio to Samantha: Big OTT debuts of the year</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/yearender-2021-spider-man-no-way-home-to-hi-mom-10-highest-grossing-movies-of-the-year-439854" hreflang="en">Yearender 2021: 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' to 'Hi Mom': 10 highest grossing movies of the year</a>

‘The Last Movie Ever Made’, a podcast series is in development and it will give a behind-the-scenes look at writer-director Adam Mckay’s recently released film ‘Don’t Look Up’.

‘The Last Movie Ever Made’, a podcast series is in development and it will give a behind-the-scenes look at writer-director Adam Mckay’s recently released film ‘Don’t Look Up’. It will be composed of six episodes and will debut its first instalment on January 7, 2022. Not only will the podcast explore the film’s production process but also feature an argument regarding the story’s parallels to how ruling institutions have mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic. Also read: 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' tops list of most anticipated films of 2022: Report The film’s stellar star cast will feature on the podcast including Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Tyler Perry, Ariana Grande, Timothée Chalamet, Rob Morgan and Himesh Patel. Read our review of the film here The podcast’s logline reads: “In early 2020, Adam McKay set out to make a comedy. It was meant to make fun of, and point to, the forces stopping us from saving ourselves from climate change. 2020, of course, had other plans. This is what happened when a cast and crew came together to make a disaster comedy, while living through a series of very uncomedic disasters.” Also read: This is bizarre! Kanye West buys mansion opposite Kim Kardashian's amid divorce ‘Don’t Look Up’ had a limited theatrical release on December 10 and is currently streaming on Netflix. Yearender 2021: Leonardo DiCaprio to Samantha: Big OTT debuts of the year Yearender 2021: 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' to 'Hi Mom': 10 highest grossing movies of the year

'Don't Look Up' BTS podcast series in development

The star cast of 'Chippendales' is adding one good actor after another, and it does seem like an impressive outing in the making!

 
Reports confirm that the line-up not only involves BAFTA-winning actor Dev Patel but other known performers like Seth Rogen and Elle Fanning have also joined the 'Lion' actor.&nbsp;

 
Margot Robbie's 'I, Tonya' director Craig Gillespie is reportedly helming the project. &nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-cant-shake-this-taylor-swift-to-face-copyright-lawsuit-435966">Can't shake this: Taylor Swift to face copyright lawsuit</a>

 
Dev Patel, who was finalised to headline the film back in 2017, will play Steve Banerjee: an Indian immigrant who takes over the struggling LA club Destiny II and transforms it into the most sought-after place to hangout.&nbsp;

 
The club in question makes way for the then famous 'Chippendales' theatre group but takes a hit when Banerjee's co-creator Paul Snider kills Banerjee's playmate girlfriend Dorothy Stratten. The tragic event leaves the protagonist into a downward spiral as he fields one legal battle after another.

 
If reports are true, then this project would be the reunion of Rogen and Gillespie, who has just finished the production work on his highly anticipated 'Pam and Tommy' series for Hulu, as per reports.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-marvels-eternals-coming-to-disney-plus-next-year-check-out-the-date-435972" hreflang="en">Marvel's 'Eternals' coming to Disney Plus next year, check out the date</a>

 
Media outlets have reported that Fanning is in talks to for the role of Stratten, while Rogen will most&nbsp;likely take on the role of Nick De Noia: the choreographer who invented with Chippendales routine.&nbsp;

 
The script of the film is currently being re-written by Lauren Blum and Rebecca Angelo after the initial drafts were penned by Craig Williams and Isaac Adamson.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/yearender-2021-paris-hilton-to-varun-dhawan-a-look-back-at-beautiful-celebrity-weddings-435496" hreflang="en">Yearender 2021: Paris Hilton to Varun Dhawan- A look back at beautiful celebrity weddings</a>

The star cast of 'Chippendales' is adding one good actor after another, and it does seem like an impressive outing in the making! Reports confirm that the line-up not only involves BAFTA-winning actor Dev Patel but other known performers like Seth Rogen and Elle Fanning have also joined the 'Lion' actor.

The star cast of 'Chippendales' is adding one good actor after another, and it does seem like an impressive outing in the making! Reports confirm that the line-up not only involves BAFTA-winning actor Dev Patel but other known performers like Seth Rogen and Elle Fanning have also joined the 'Lion' actor. Margot Robbie's 'I, Tonya' director Craig Gillespie is reportedly helming the project. Also read: Can't shake this: Taylor Swift to face copyright lawsuit Dev Patel, who was finalised to headline the film back in 2017, will play Steve Banerjee: an Indian immigrant who takes over the struggling LA club Destiny II and transforms it into the most sought-after place to hangout. The club in question makes way for the then famous 'Chippendales' theatre group but takes a hit when Banerjee's co-creator Paul Snider kills Banerjee's playmate girlfriend Dorothy Stratten. The tragic event leaves the protagonist into a downward spiral as he fields one legal battle after another. If reports are true, then this project would be the reunion of Rogen and Gillespie, who has just finished the production work on his highly anticipated 'Pam and Tommy' series for Hulu, as per reports. Also read: Marvel's 'Eternals' coming to Disney Plus next year, check out the date Media outlets have reported that Fanning is in talks to for the role of Stratten, while Rogen will most likely take on the role of Nick De Noia: the choreographer who invented with Chippendales routine. The script of the film is currently being re-written by Lauren Blum and Rebecca Angelo after the initial drafts were penned by Craig Williams and Isaac Adamson. Also read: Yearender 2021: Paris Hilton to Varun Dhawan- A look back at beautiful celebrity weddings

Dev Patel to be joined by Seth Rogen, Elle Fanning in 'Chippendales'

“Landscapers,” premiering Monday on HBO, is a true-crime miniseries, but it doesn’t look or feel like any other did-they-or-didn’t-they dramatization you’ve watched recently.

 
They, in this case, are Susan and Christopher Edwards of Nottinghamshire, England, who are played, in a coup of casting, by Olivia Colman and David Thewlis. In 2014, Susan and Chris were each sentenced to at least 25 years in prison for killing Susan’s parents and burying them in their own backyard.

 
The Edwardses claimed that Susan’s mother had shot her husband and that Susan, who hated her abusive parents, had been provoked into shooting her mother — a crime of passion followed by years’ of guilt-ridden cover-up. Prosecutors said that Susan and Chris carried out a calculated execution for profit, an argument supported by the inconvenient fact that they opened a bank account the first business day after the killings and eventually siphoned off about 285,000 pounds of her parents’ money.

 
The case is full of fascinating and outlandish details — a straightforward retelling would have no trouble being greenlit — but one stands out: what they spent the money on. They were spendthrift collectors of autographed movie memorabilia. When they turned themselves in 15 years after the killings, all they had left was some spare change.

 
Ed Sinclair, a first-time screenwriter, and director Will Sharpe build their four-episode series around that detail, in imaginative and highly stylized ways that shift the focus away from true-crime investigation. “Landscapers” recounts the case, but the crime is one element in Susan and Chris’ love story, a star-crossed tale of two damaged people constructing a world in which they can survive, at least until the money runs out.

 
This involves a wide range of filmmaking tricks. Sharpe shoots some scenes as keyholes in a black screen, as if we’re watching a play. Others he stages like full-on Hollywood productions, echoing the films Susan loves, such as “High Noon” and “The Last Metro.” (Gary Cooper and Gérard Depardieu are significant, if imaginary, figures in the story.) At key moments Sharpe literally breaks the fourth wall, pulling back the camera to show us the soundstage as the actors, in and out of character, walk from one set to another.

 
In the hands of the gifted Sharpe, who directed the series “Flowers,” starring Colman, and the feature “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” (with Benedict Cumberbatch), these interventions are mostly engaging rather than distracting. They set up a theme of artifice and delusion, but “Landscapers,” thankfully, isn’t about the tyranny of modern media — it’s more about the ways in which ordinary, troubled people make sense of their lives by casting themselves in the stories of heroism and self-sacrifice that they’ve seen at the movies. The show doesn’t have to take a position on whether the Edwardses were telling the truth about what happened in the real world because it lives inside the reality they constructed.

 
If “Landscapers” doesn’t, in the end, entirely fulfill the promise of Sharpe’s visual wizardry, it’s down to the screenplay by Sinclair, who is also Colman’s husband and producing partner. It doesn’t match the inventiveness of the direction, and it’s also more murky (and sentimental) than it needs to be about Susan’s true nature, which slightly dampens Colman’s performance. She spends most of the series playing things down the middle, and she’s only able to break out her fierce, splendid technique in a few scenes.

 
The script does much better by Chris, though, and “Landscapers” is a showcase for Thewlis, with his angular frame and his distinctive style of commanding awkwardness. He perfectly captures Chris’ willing subservience to Susan and the way that his love for this “fragile” woman, who is also demanding and manipulative, shapes his personality in a manner that might seem pathetic to us but that is ennobling and ego-boosting to him.

 
Thewlis is phenomenal throughout — in a pinpoint moment when Chris is thrown off by evidence of Susan’s dishonesty or in the larger gestures of the movie-love scenes, as when he twirls a six-shooter like a pro (before dropping it, of course). “Landscapers” may be noncommittal on the Edwardses’ guilt, but Thewlis absolutely nails Chris.

“Landscapers,” premiering Monday on HBO, is a true-crime miniseries, but it doesn’t look or feel like any other did-they-or-didn’t-they dramatization you’ve watched recently.

“Landscapers,” premiering Monday on HBO, is a true-crime miniseries, but it doesn’t look or feel like any other did-they-or-didn’t-they dramatization you’ve watched recently. They, in this case, are Susan and Christopher Edwards of Nottinghamshire, England, who are played, in a coup of casting, by Olivia Colman and David Thewlis. In 2014, Susan and Chris were each sentenced to at least 25 years in prison for killing Susan’s parents and burying them in their own backyard. The Edwardses claimed that Susan’s mother had shot her husband and that Susan, who hated her abusive parents, had been provoked into shooting her mother — a crime of passion followed by years’ of guilt-ridden cover-up. Prosecutors said that Susan and Chris carried out a calculated execution for profit, an argument supported by the inconvenient fact that they opened a bank account the first business day after the killings and eventually siphoned off about 285,000 pounds of her parents’ money. The case is full of fascinating and outlandish details — a straightforward retelling would have no trouble being greenlit — but one stands out: what they spent the money on. They were spendthrift collectors of autographed movie memorabilia. When they turned themselves in 15 years after the killings, all they had left was some spare change. Ed Sinclair, a first-time screenwriter, and director Will Sharpe build their four-episode series around that detail, in imaginative and highly stylized ways that shift the focus away from true-crime investigation. “Landscapers” recounts the case, but the crime is one element in Susan and Chris’ love story, a star-crossed tale of two damaged people constructing a world in which they can survive, at least until the money runs out. This involves a wide range of filmmaking tricks. Sharpe shoots some scenes as keyholes in a black screen, as if we’re watching a play. Others he stages like full-on Hollywood productions, echoing the films Susan loves, such as “High Noon” and “The Last Metro.” (Gary Cooper and Gérard Depardieu are significant, if imaginary, figures in the story.) At key moments Sharpe literally breaks the fourth wall, pulling back the camera to show us the soundstage as the actors, in and out of character, walk from one set to another. In the hands of the gifted Sharpe, who directed the series “Flowers,” starring Colman, and the feature “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” (with Benedict Cumberbatch), these interventions are mostly engaging rather than distracting. They set up a theme of artifice and delusion, but “Landscapers,” thankfully, isn’t about the tyranny of modern media — it’s more about the ways in which ordinary, troubled people make sense of their lives by casting themselves in the stories of heroism and self-sacrifice that they’ve seen at the movies. The show doesn’t have to take a position on whether the Edwardses were telling the truth about what happened in the real world because it lives inside the reality they constructed. If “Landscapers” doesn’t, in the end, entirely fulfill the promise of Sharpe’s visual wizardry, it’s down to the screenplay by Sinclair, who is also Colman’s husband and producing partner. It doesn’t match the inventiveness of the direction, and it’s also more murky (and sentimental) than it needs to be about Susan’s true nature, which slightly dampens Colman’s performance. She spends most of the series playing things down the middle, and she’s only able to break out her fierce, splendid technique in a few scenes. The script does much better by Chris, though, and “Landscapers” is a showcase for Thewlis, with his angular frame and his distinctive style of commanding awkwardness. He perfectly captures Chris’ willing subservience to Susan and the way that his love for this “fragile” woman, who is also demanding and manipulative, shapes his personality in a manner that might seem pathetic to us but that is ennobling and ego-boosting to him. Thewlis is phenomenal throughout — in a pinpoint moment when Chris is thrown off by evidence of Susan’s dishonesty or in the larger gestures of the movie-love scenes, as when he twirls a six-shooter like a pro (before dropping it, of course). “Landscapers” may be noncommittal on the Edwardses’ guilt, but Thewlis absolutely nails Chris.

Review: ‘Landscapers’ is not your typical true-crime love story

The industrial stretch of south Brooklyn where Sandbox Percussion makes its home was nearly silent on a cool, clear Sunday afternoon at the end of September. Not so inside, where the Sandbox quartet had put in earplugs to rehearse Andy Akiho’s clangorous “Seven Pillars,” a lush, brooding celebration of noise.

 
Akiho, 42, an increasingly in-demand composer who rose as a steel pan virtuoso, sat watching, with a surfer’s laid-back demeanor but intently focused. He isn’t part of the group, but over the years has grown so close with its members, and has spent so much time in their studio, that he installed an espresso machine to fuel his work marathons there.

 
“That’s my bedroom,” he said, pointing to a tiny soundproofed recording space walled off in the corner.

 
Akiho has written substantial works for steel pan, for percussion, for marimba and string quartet, for snare drum and sampled dog barking, and many other configurations — even a concerto for onstage Ping-Pong players and orchestra. But “Seven Pillars” is a breakthrough for him, in its 80-minute length and its conceptual complexity.

 
It is being unveiled as a live theatrical event staged by Michael McQuilken, with striking lights synchronized with the music, in Seattle on Friday, and will tour in the coming years, including to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York in April. But because of the pandemic, it was first released in September as a recording, with accompanying short films. The album has been nominated for two Grammy Awards: One of the categories, best contemporary classical composition, specifically honors Akiho, and the other, best chamber music/small ensemble performance, Sandbox Percussion.

 
This is an appropriate balance, since “Seven Pillars” is an auteur’s vision that was also shaped through an unusually close collaboration with its performers. (Displaying a video clip of a 2019 workshop session, time-stamped at 12:59 a.m., Sandbox player Ian David Rosenbaum said, “We were just getting started.”) Akiho and the group bundled together for stretches of the lockdown with their producer, Sean Dixon, working on the recording at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in rural New Hampshire.

 
“We’re not interested in that kind of relationship where we just get a piece,” said Victor Caccese, another Sandbox member, who for “Seven Pillars” developed a customized table of tuned metal pipes. (Jonny Allen and Terry Sweeney round out the ensemble.)

 
The 11-part work has a palindromic structure, with the “pillars” — all written for more than one musician — interspersed with four solos, each of which introduces a new instrument into the mix. Starting with a pair of pounding, echoing beats, the raucous relentlessness of “Pillar I” gives way to the first of the solos: the gentle, jeweled reticence of “Amethyst,” for vibraphone.

 
In the otherworldly “Pillar II,” which dissolves into a dizzying kaleidoscope of high-pitched chirps, the edges of a vibraphone are bowed — not an unusual effect in contemporary percussion music. What is&nbsp;unusual is that Akiho asks not for a generalized airy sound, but for precisely notated rhythms.

 
“I didn’t know it was possible to play those rhythms with a bow,” Rosenbaum said. “He will create a vocabulary, and then create beautiful music using that vocabulary.”

 
Akiho has an uncanny gift for intricate rhythmic counterpoint, though the mathematical precision of the final product emerged through epic stretches of stream-of-consciousness play. Developing “Seven Pillars,” he would keep his iPhone camera trained on himself as he banged and noodled, making something like eight hours of improvised video at a time and sleeping at the foot of whichever instrument he was working on.

 
“Pillar III,” mixing antsy chimes and a low-slung beat below, is an interplay of lines that shouldn’t fit together but do. After the piece builds in force, it finally collapses in ferocious shudders, explosions and shivers before an ominous lullaby. The score asks one of the players to run sticks along the vibraphone pipes. But on that September Sunday, Akiho also experimented with hammering on the pipes.

 
“For someone to be playing one of these instruments with a hammer is, even for us, unconventional,” Caccese said with a grin.

 
“Spiel” conveys both the toylike quality and jittery anxiety, the sweet tones and clipped tapping, of the glockenspiel. “Pillar IV,” the center of the palindrome — and, at 11 1/2 minutes, the longest section — is the grandest expression of the work’s mixture of sinister darkness, stained-glass glinting and communal energy.

 
After that intensity comes the relief of “mARImbA,” which is, as the title hints, a longing aria for its instrument, an exploration of the different textures of bowed and struck tones, trembling waves of sound and lonely echoes. The sly, light “Pillar V,” with its cascades of chimes, leads to “Pillar VI,” more ruminative than the others; the shadowy tangle of “carTogRAPh”; and the fluttering hush of “Pillar VII.”

 
Akiho lived in Italy in 2014 and ’15 as a winner of the Rome Prize, and he mused that there may be some subconscious connection between the Pantheon’s pillars and his musical ones. But “Seven Pillars” is pretty much as pure as music gets — it’s only “about” its own structure and self-imposed constrictions.

 
He and Sandbox admit that the work would be an easier sell to grant makers and presenters if there was a narrative behind it, and at one point in the writing process he flirted with imposing a concept based on the seven Japanese gods of fortune.

 
“But that’s not really who I am,” he said. “I would be lying to myself and the audience.”

 
It wasn’t so many years before his Rome Prize that Akiho didn’t think of himself as a composer at all. He grew up in Columbia, South Carolina; his white Southern mother met his father, a Japanese hibachi chef, when she went out to eat.

 
Akiho’s father wasn’t in the picture for much of his childhood, and his older sister helped raise him; she was into rock drumming and introduced him to her kit. In high school, he dived into the world of drum lines, and at the University of South Carolina stumbled on an unexpectedly rich musical environment for a school without a conservatory. There was West African drumming, jazz ensembles and, crucially, steel pan, for which Akiho quickly showed an affinity.

 
“I became the steel pan guy,” he said over onigiri after the Sandbox rehearsal. Akiho traveled to Trinidad to experience large pan ensembles, then moved to New York in 2003. He played with bands in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; did cocktail party and wedding gigs; and helped to organize a steel pan program in two public schools.

 
Reunited a few years later with his father, who was living in Washington, Akiho briefly went to work there as a sushi chef. “It’s like music,” he recalled realizing. “I could devote the rest of my life to doing this. But I have to pick one or the other; I can’t do both. So I picked music.”

 
He hadn’t had to read a score in years, but was accepted into the contemporary performance program at Manhattan School of Music as his class’s only percussionist, which placed him in high demand as a player. The program didn’t focus on composition, but after full days of classes, he would go home and write.

 
Having met renowned composer Julia Wolfe, he began to study with her on the side, bartering rhythm lessons for her children. “I had creative ideas, but I didn’t know what I was doing yet,” he said. “And her vibe was not trying to sculpt me into a specific dogma.”

 
Wolfe, one of the Bang on a Can trio of composers, offered entree to that group’s rock-tinged and proudly genre-crossing world. Then, in 2009, Akiho started a master’s program in composition at Yale University. He began to write pieces in which he wasn’t also featured as a performer.

 
A few years ago, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he knew some people, including a friend who plays timpani with the Oregon Symphony. “He’s a year or two younger than me,” Akiho said, but the timpanist and his wife “kind of almost adopted me. They feel like family to me.”

 
That grounding has helped — as has hiring an assistant — as Akiho tries to get more of a handle on a booming career that has escalated almost out of control. He is an inveterate procrastinator, regularly crashing deadlines only to face others he’s blown past.

 
“I would go a year without looking at email,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Like, it was bad. I had an email from Jon Batiste for, like, months, and I didn’t even see it, talking about maybe doing a recording. And I was like, I need to get my life together.”

 
“A lot of times you can think you need that hectic kind of life or your stuff won’t be good,” he added. “But I think when I’m healthy, I write better, and I’m happier with what I’m doing. It’s more about enjoying the journey than trying to get to the finish line and crashing.”

 
He dreams about collaborations beyond the classical world with artists like Batiste and — the ideal — Kendrick Lamar. He wrote music for a coming dance by Benjamin Millepied. And with the Industry, an avant-garde opera company in Los Angeles, he workshopped an adaptation of Brecht’s “Life of Galileo.” (He’s also just a dissertation away from earning his doctorate from Princeton.)

 
“I want to go to Japan for a while, maybe several months or something, and collaborate over there,” he said. “Get more in touch with those roots and the traditional music.”

 
The deadline for “Seven Pillars,” the premiere of which was scheduled for last year, was suddenly lifted because of the pandemic. So it got around Akiho’s usual practice of rushing works to completion, and allowed for the communal development with Sandbox that now infuses it. His past music lacked neither vigor nor reverie, but here he casts a new kind of spell, a trance experienced by four players at once.

 
“It wouldn’t have been as personal” without the space the piece was given, Akiho said. “It wouldn’t have been as deep.”

The industrial stretch of south Brooklyn where Sandbox Percussion makes its home was nearly silent on a cool, clear Sunday afternoon at the end of September. Not so inside, where the Sandbox quartet had put in earplugs to rehearse Andy Akiho’s clangorous “Seven Pillars,” a lush, brooding celebration of noise.

The industrial stretch of south Brooklyn where Sandbox Percussion makes its home was nearly silent on a cool, clear Sunday afternoon at the end of September. Not so inside, where the Sandbox quartet had put in earplugs to rehearse Andy Akiho’s clangorous “Seven Pillars,” a lush, brooding celebration of noise. Akiho, 42, an increasingly in-demand composer who rose as a steel pan virtuoso, sat watching, with a surfer’s laid-back demeanor but intently focused. He isn’t part of the group, but over the years has grown so close with its members, and has spent so much time in their studio, that he installed an espresso machine to fuel his work marathons there. “That’s my bedroom,” he said, pointing to a tiny soundproofed recording space walled off in the corner. Akiho has written substantial works for steel pan, for percussion, for marimba and string quartet, for snare drum and sampled dog barking, and many other configurations — even a concerto for onstage Ping-Pong players and orchestra. But “Seven Pillars” is a breakthrough for him, in its 80-minute length and its conceptual complexity. It is being unveiled as a live theatrical event staged by Michael McQuilken, with striking lights synchronized with the music, in Seattle on Friday, and will tour in the coming years, including to the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York in April. But because of the pandemic, it was first released in September as a recording, with accompanying short films. The album has been nominated for two Grammy Awards: One of the categories, best contemporary classical composition, specifically honors Akiho, and the other, best chamber music/small ensemble performance, Sandbox Percussion. This is an appropriate balance, since “Seven Pillars” is an auteur’s vision that was also shaped through an unusually close collaboration with its performers. (Displaying a video clip of a 2019 workshop session, time-stamped at 12:59 a.m., Sandbox player Ian David Rosenbaum said, “We were just getting started.”) Akiho and the group bundled together for stretches of the lockdown with their producer, Sean Dixon, working on the recording at Avaloch Farm Music Institute in rural New Hampshire. “We’re not interested in that kind of relationship where we just get a piece,” said Victor Caccese, another Sandbox member, who for “Seven Pillars” developed a customized table of tuned metal pipes. (Jonny Allen and Terry Sweeney round out the ensemble.) The 11-part work has a palindromic structure, with the “pillars” — all written for more than one musician — interspersed with four solos, each of which introduces a new instrument into the mix. Starting with a pair of pounding, echoing beats, the raucous relentlessness of “Pillar I” gives way to the first of the solos: the gentle, jeweled reticence of “Amethyst,” for vibraphone. In the otherworldly “Pillar II,” which dissolves into a dizzying kaleidoscope of high-pitched chirps, the edges of a vibraphone are bowed — not an unusual effect in contemporary percussion music. What is unusual is that Akiho asks not for a generalized airy sound, but for precisely notated rhythms. “I didn’t know it was possible to play those rhythms with a bow,” Rosenbaum said. “He will create a vocabulary, and then create beautiful music using that vocabulary.” Akiho has an uncanny gift for intricate rhythmic counterpoint, though the mathematical precision of the final product emerged through epic stretches of stream-of-consciousness play. Developing “Seven Pillars,” he would keep his iPhone camera trained on himself as he banged and noodled, making something like eight hours of improvised video at a time and sleeping at the foot of whichever instrument he was working on. “Pillar III,” mixing antsy chimes and a low-slung beat below, is an interplay of lines that shouldn’t fit together but do. After the piece builds in force, it finally collapses in ferocious shudders, explosions and shivers before an ominous lullaby. The score asks one of the players to run sticks along the vibraphone pipes. But on that September Sunday, Akiho also experimented with hammering on the pipes. “For someone to be playing one of these instruments with a hammer is, even for us, unconventional,” Caccese said with a grin. “Spiel” conveys both the toylike quality and jittery anxiety, the sweet tones and clipped tapping, of the glockenspiel. “Pillar IV,” the center of the palindrome — and, at 11 1/2 minutes, the longest section — is the grandest expression of the work’s mixture of sinister darkness, stained-glass glinting and communal energy. After that intensity comes the relief of “mARImbA,” which is, as the title hints, a longing aria for its instrument, an exploration of the different textures of bowed and struck tones, trembling waves of sound and lonely echoes. The sly, light “Pillar V,” with its cascades of chimes, leads to “Pillar VI,” more ruminative than the others; the shadowy tangle of “carTogRAPh”; and the fluttering hush of “Pillar VII.” Akiho lived in Italy in 2014 and ’15 as a winner of the Rome Prize, and he mused that there may be some subconscious connection between the Pantheon’s pillars and his musical ones. But “Seven Pillars” is pretty much as pure as music gets — it’s only “about” its own structure and self-imposed constrictions. He and Sandbox admit that the work would be an easier sell to grant makers and presenters if there was a narrative behind it, and at one point in the writing process he flirted with imposing a concept based on the seven Japanese gods of fortune. “But that’s not really who I am,” he said. “I would be lying to myself and the audience.” It wasn’t so many years before his Rome Prize that Akiho didn’t think of himself as a composer at all. He grew up in Columbia, South Carolina; his white Southern mother met his father, a Japanese hibachi chef, when she went out to eat. Akiho’s father wasn’t in the picture for much of his childhood, and his older sister helped raise him; she was into rock drumming and introduced him to her kit. In high school, he dived into the world of drum lines, and at the University of South Carolina stumbled on an unexpectedly rich musical environment for a school without a conservatory. There was West African drumming, jazz ensembles and, crucially, steel pan, for which Akiho quickly showed an affinity. “I became the steel pan guy,” he said over onigiri after the Sandbox rehearsal. Akiho traveled to Trinidad to experience large pan ensembles, then moved to New York in 2003. He played with bands in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; did cocktail party and wedding gigs; and helped to organize a steel pan program in two public schools. Reunited a few years later with his father, who was living in Washington, Akiho briefly went to work there as a sushi chef. “It’s like music,” he recalled realizing. “I could devote the rest of my life to doing this. But I have to pick one or the other; I can’t do both. So I picked music.” He hadn’t had to read a score in years, but was accepted into the contemporary performance program at Manhattan School of Music as his class’s only percussionist, which placed him in high demand as a player. The program didn’t focus on composition, but after full days of classes, he would go home and write. Having met renowned composer Julia Wolfe, he began to study with her on the side, bartering rhythm lessons for her children. “I had creative ideas, but I didn’t know what I was doing yet,” he said. “And her vibe was not trying to sculpt me into a specific dogma.” Wolfe, one of the Bang on a Can trio of composers, offered entree to that group’s rock-tinged and proudly genre-crossing world. Then, in 2009, Akiho started a master’s program in composition at Yale University. He began to write pieces in which he wasn’t also featured as a performer. A few years ago, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he knew some people, including a friend who plays timpani with the Oregon Symphony. “He’s a year or two younger than me,” Akiho said, but the timpanist and his wife “kind of almost adopted me. They feel like family to me.” That grounding has helped — as has hiring an assistant — as Akiho tries to get more of a handle on a booming career that has escalated almost out of control. He is an inveterate procrastinator, regularly crashing deadlines only to face others he’s blown past. “I would go a year without looking at email,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Like, it was bad. I had an email from Jon Batiste for, like, months, and I didn’t even see it, talking about maybe doing a recording. And I was like, I need to get my life together.” “A lot of times you can think you need that hectic kind of life or your stuff won’t be good,” he added. “But I think when I’m healthy, I write better, and I’m happier with what I’m doing. It’s more about enjoying the journey than trying to get to the finish line and crashing.” He dreams about collaborations beyond the classical world with artists like Batiste and — the ideal — Kendrick Lamar. He wrote music for a coming dance by Benjamin Millepied. And with the Industry, an avant-garde opera company in Los Angeles, he workshopped an adaptation of Brecht’s “Life of Galileo.” (He’s also just a dissertation away from earning his doctorate from Princeton.) “I want to go to Japan for a while, maybe several months or something, and collaborate over there,” he said. “Get more in touch with those roots and the traditional music.” The deadline for “Seven Pillars,” the premiere of which was scheduled for last year, was suddenly lifted because of the pandemic. So it got around Akiho’s usual practice of rushing works to completion, and allowed for the communal development with Sandbox that now infuses it. His past music lacked neither vigor nor reverie, but here he casts a new kind of spell, a trance experienced by four players at once. “It wouldn’t have been as personal” without the space the piece was given, Akiho said. “It wouldn’t have been as deep.”

One composer, four players, ‘Seven Pillars’

In the fictionalized movie version of his life, Jonathan Larson ignores the ringing phone and lets the answering machine pick up. Crouched on the bare wooden floor of his shabby apartment in 1990 New York City, he listens as Stephen Sondheim leaves a message — instant balm to his battered artist’s soul.

 
“Jon? Steve Sondheim here,” the voice says in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s biomusical “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” and it really is Sondheim’s voice we hear, offering a bit of badly needed praise for the prodigiously talented, profoundly discouraged Larson.

 
Sondheim scripted that voicemail for the film himself, and goodness knows he’d had decades of practice, offering just the right words to buoy the spirits of Larson and countless other young artists. When Sondheim died on Nov. 26 at 91, the American stage lost not only a composer and lyricist nonpareil but also its longtime encourager-in-chief.

 
The story of his own early tutelage under Oscar Hammerstein II has been told and retold, but much less known — at least outside professional theater — is the rigorous dedication with which Sondheim passed that tradition on.

 
As a mentor, as a letter writer, as an audience member who showed up far beyond Broadway to witness new work, he quietly, faithfully nurtured generations of theater makers.

 
Miranda, who first met Sondheim at 17 and began corresponding with him in earnest while writing “Hamilton,” said he was initially afraid of intruding on Sondheim’s time.

 
“It took me a while to realize he was serious when he said, ‘Reach out if you ever want to talk about anything,’ ” Miranda said.

 
The letters Sondheim wrote over the decades were so numerous that they might seem cheap currency if they weren’t so powerfully affecting to the recipients. Imagine the hand of God reaching toward Adam in Michelangelo’s fresco and you have some idea of the vital charge they could carry.

 
After Sondheim died, Twitter was flooded with images of them. Notes to students and professionals and fans, they were thoughtful and specific, full of gratitude and good wishes, each on letterhead, each with the elegant, sloping signature that’s familiar now from the Stephen Sondheim Theater marquee.

 
“He was always concerned about the future of the art form, and he wanted it to survive,” said director Lonny Price, who played one of the leads in the original Broadway production of Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” More than three decades later, he directed the documentary “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” about the making of that show, a notorious flop.

 
But it was as a Sondheim-obsessed 14-year-old in 1973 that he struck up a decades long correspondence with his hero, and discovered that Sondheim was kind enough to take him seriously.

 
“He didn’t have biological children,” Price said. “But there are so many of us that are his kids.”

 
You make me want to write more’

 
Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld of Fiasco Theater got a cherished letter from Sondheim in 2013, after he saw their company’s production of “Into the Woods.” Declaring it “inventive and exhilarating,” he ended with a breathtaking line: “You make me want to write more.”

 
“It was the most important thing that’s ever happened in our professional lives,” Steinfeld said, calling it “unspeakably meaningful” to learn “that the cycle of inspiration might have actually flowed in the other direction.”

 
After that, Sondheim opened his archives to the company as he collaborated with them on their 2019 off-Broadway revival of a reworked “Merrily We Roll Along.”

 
Sondheim cultivated the field by founding the Young Playwrights Festival, where theater and television writer Zakiyyah Alexander recalls him having “a proud dad vibe” about her and the other teenage winners.

Elsewhere he championed emerging composer-lyricists like Larson and Miranda and Dave Malloy. For years, he was the president of the Dramatists Guild Council.

 
Revered as the closest thing we had to a theatrical deity, Sondheim didn’t retreat to reign alone on some Olympus. He ambled down from the mountaintop fully aware of the power and responsibility that came with his position.

 
And so it was immensely moving, but utterly unsurprising, that he spent his last day of theatergoing, two days before he died, taking in a pair of form-bending documentary plays that were struggling at the Broadway box office and about to close: a matinee of “Is This a Room” and an evening performance of “Dana H.,” both at the Lyceum Theater.

 
He had told a New York Times journalist his plan, and after he died, Michael Paulson reported what he had said in anticipation: “I can smell both of those and how much I’m going to love them.”

 
To Emily Davis, the star of “Is This a Room,” the fact of Sondheim having been there — which she said she learned about only when she read it in the newspaper — felt like “the biggest and most grand actual welcome to Broadway that there could have been.”

 
And when she noticed, the day after his death, an unusually large number of audience members doing doubleheaders — spending their Saturday catching both plays — it seemed to her like people paying tribute to him by doing as he had done.

 
Children will listen. He got that right.

 
'Forgive me'

 
Composer Jeanine Tesori, who spent many hours alongside Sondheim as the supervising vocal producer on the new “West Side Story” movie, got her first letter from him in the 1980s, when she was just out of college. To her retrospective mortification, she had mailed him some music she had written.

 
“That’s what we all did,” she said. “We just cold sent him our stuff because we didn’t know not to do that: send a cassette, and then you would just sort of wait and hope.”

 
He wrote back, gently, apologizing that he had been unable to listen to her tape — and somehow even that felt like a kind of validation, because he had noticed she was there.

 
“The beautiful thing was, it didn’t go into the ether,” she said. “He could have easily ignored it. But what he did was acknowledge that he had gotten it, and he returned it. I’ll never forget those words, typewritten: ‘Forgive me.’”

 
To a legion of fans Sondheim was and is the be-all and end-all. But his own horizons as a theatergoer were significantly broader than that. In an art form that is so much about being present for the unrepeatable moment, he not only showed up, but he also often did so to experience work that was offbeat and obscure, challenging conventions just as his own work did.

 
When the Chicago-based experimental shadow-puppetry troupe Manual Cinema brought “Ada/Ava” to New York in 2015, Sondheim headed downtown to see what they were up to — “the ultimate pinch-me moment,” said Ben Kauffman, one of the company’s composers.

 
When Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers performed their loopy Matt Damon-Ben Affleck sendup “Matt &amp;amp; Ben” at P.S. 122 in 2003, Sondheim went backstage afterward to celebrate its unknown, 20-something playwright-stars.

 
Kaling tweeted last weekend that she had told him she hoped someday to star in one of his shows; Withers, by phone, recalled his grace in focusing the encounter on them, not him.

 
“He made the effort to stay and talk to us and see our eyes get wide and let us ask him a couple questions,” she said. “He wasn’t there because his publicist told him to be there, and to be nice. He was there because he wanted to be.”

 
But Sondheim, far too famous simply to blend into an audience, was cautious about making such appearances. Jason Eagan, the artistic director of the artist incubator Ars Nova, said that Sondheim went to shows there but never to openings, because he didn’t want to be a distraction on someone else’s big night. 
And while there was nowhere for him to hide when he first saw the immersive “Natasha, Pierre &amp;amp; the Great Comet of 1812” at Ars Nova’s tiny space in Hell’s Kitchen, when he went to see it on Broadway, he sat in the mezzanine to be as inconspicuous as possible.

 
However much that theatergoing nourished him, as it nourishes all of us when the work is good, it was also frequently an obligation, and he fulfilled it diligently. Tesori remembers him showing up at City Center just after his close friend, the author and composer Mary Rodgers, died in 2014.

 
He had promised that he would listen to some young artists perform his music, so he did — “even though he was heartbroken,” Tesori said. He asked her to give him the performers’ addresses, “because he wanted to write to all of them, to encourage them.”

 
Even in freshest grief, that was his habit.

 
‘Why I wanted to write for the theater’

 
Playwright Lynn Nottage, now a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was returning to the theater after a seven-year absence when Sondheim wrote to her out of the blue in 2004, praising her new play “Intimate Apparel” and telling her: “It reminded me of why I wanted to write for the theater in the first place.”

 
“I entered back into New York theater sort of tiptoeing and frightened and not sure whether there was a space for me,” Nottage said. “And so when I received this letter from one of the giants, it just was the kind of affirmation that I needed in the moment. What it said to me more than anything is that I belong in this community.”

 
From then on, at all of her plays, she said, “at some point I’d look out in the audience, and there he would be.”

 
Sondheim’s letters generally weren’t long, but it’s the little things, right? Except that the little things combine to eat up who knows how many hours of a life. And even when a genius lives to 91, it’s easy to lament — as Miranda recently did, in an interview in The New Yorker — the works that went uncreated because of finite energies expended elsewhere.

 
Over the phone a few days after Sondheim’s death, though, Miranda said he didn’t truly feel that way. 
“Obviously it’s to theater’s enormous benefit that he took that time, and I think it fed him to encourage others,” he said. “He succeeded on both fronts because he left a legacy of immortal works that we’ll be doing forever — I mean, just look at this season alone — and he also left behind a generation of artists who got encouragement from him, and support.”

 
It was part of Sondheim’s gift to understand not only the encompassing job description of great artist but also his singular effect on his colleagues — how even a few words of appreciation, or moments of attention, could prove enduring sustenance over the long slog of a career in an often pitiless field.

 
It was unglamorous work, and Sondheim did it exquisitely.

 
No single theater artist right now is as revered as he was. No one else can yet step into those shoes. We nonetheless could, artists and audience members alike, seek to borrow from his example — by being adventurous, by being generous, by showing up.

 
That would be one way to honor the giant.

In the fictionalized movie version of his life, Jonathan Larson ignores the ringing phone and lets the answering machine pick up. Crouched on the bare wooden floor of his shabby apartment in 1990 New York City, he listens as Stephen Sondheim leaves a message — instant balm to his battered artist’s soul.

In the fictionalized movie version of his life, Jonathan Larson ignores the ringing phone and lets the answering machine pick up. Crouched on the bare wooden floor of his shabby apartment in 1990 New York City, he listens as Stephen Sondheim leaves a message — instant balm to his battered artist’s soul. “Jon? Steve Sondheim here,” the voice says in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s biomusical “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” and it really is Sondheim’s voice we hear, offering a bit of badly needed praise for the prodigiously talented, profoundly discouraged Larson. Sondheim scripted that voicemail for the film himself, and goodness knows he’d had decades of practice, offering just the right words to buoy the spirits of Larson and countless other young artists. When Sondheim died on Nov. 26 at 91, the American stage lost not only a composer and lyricist nonpareil but also its longtime encourager-in-chief. The story of his own early tutelage under Oscar Hammerstein II has been told and retold, but much less known — at least outside professional theater — is the rigorous dedication with which Sondheim passed that tradition on. As a mentor, as a letter writer, as an audience member who showed up far beyond Broadway to witness new work, he quietly, faithfully nurtured generations of theater makers. Miranda, who first met Sondheim at 17 and began corresponding with him in earnest while writing “Hamilton,” said he was initially afraid of intruding on Sondheim’s time. “It took me a while to realize he was serious when he said, ‘Reach out if you ever want to talk about anything,’ ” Miranda said. The letters Sondheim wrote over the decades were so numerous that they might seem cheap currency if they weren’t so powerfully affecting to the recipients. Imagine the hand of God reaching toward Adam in Michelangelo’s fresco and you have some idea of the vital charge they could carry. After Sondheim died, Twitter was flooded with images of them. Notes to students and professionals and fans, they were thoughtful and specific, full of gratitude and good wishes, each on letterhead, each with the elegant, sloping signature that’s familiar now from the Stephen Sondheim Theater marquee. “He was always concerned about the future of the art form, and he wanted it to survive,” said director Lonny Price, who played one of the leads in the original Broadway production of Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” More than three decades later, he directed the documentary “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” about the making of that show, a notorious flop. But it was as a Sondheim-obsessed 14-year-old in 1973 that he struck up a decades long correspondence with his hero, and discovered that Sondheim was kind enough to take him seriously. “He didn’t have biological children,” Price said. “But there are so many of us that are his kids.” You make me want to write more’ Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld of Fiasco Theater got a cherished letter from Sondheim in 2013, after he saw their company’s production of “Into the Woods.” Declaring it “inventive and exhilarating,” he ended with a breathtaking line: “You make me want to write more.” “It was the most important thing that’s ever happened in our professional lives,” Steinfeld said, calling it “unspeakably meaningful” to learn “that the cycle of inspiration might have actually flowed in the other direction.” After that, Sondheim opened his archives to the company as he collaborated with them on their 2019 off-Broadway revival of a reworked “Merrily We Roll Along.” Sondheim cultivated the field by founding the Young Playwrights Festival, where theater and television writer Zakiyyah Alexander recalls him having “a proud dad vibe” about her and the other teenage winners. Elsewhere he championed emerging composer-lyricists like Larson and Miranda and Dave Malloy. For years, he was the president of the Dramatists Guild Council. Revered as the closest thing we had to a theatrical deity, Sondheim didn’t retreat to reign alone on some Olympus. He ambled down from the mountaintop fully aware of the power and responsibility that came with his position. And so it was immensely moving, but utterly unsurprising, that he spent his last day of theatergoing, two days before he died, taking in a pair of form-bending documentary plays that were struggling at the Broadway box office and about to close: a matinee of “Is This a Room” and an evening performance of “Dana H.,” both at the Lyceum Theater. He had told a New York Times journalist his plan, and after he died, Michael Paulson reported what he had said in anticipation: “I can smell both of those and how much I’m going to love them.” To Emily Davis, the star of “Is This a Room,” the fact of Sondheim having been there — which she said she learned about only when she read it in the newspaper — felt like “the biggest and most grand actual welcome to Broadway that there could have been.” And when she noticed, the day after his death, an unusually large number of audience members doing doubleheaders — spending their Saturday catching both plays — it seemed to her like people paying tribute to him by doing as he had done. Children will listen. He got that right. 'Forgive me' Composer Jeanine Tesori, who spent many hours alongside Sondheim as the supervising vocal producer on the new “West Side Story” movie, got her first letter from him in the 1980s, when she was just out of college. To her retrospective mortification, she had mailed him some music she had written. “That’s what we all did,” she said. “We just cold sent him our stuff because we didn’t know not to do that: send a cassette, and then you would just sort of wait and hope.” He wrote back, gently, apologizing that he had been unable to listen to her tape — and somehow even that felt like a kind of validation, because he had noticed she was there. “The beautiful thing was, it didn’t go into the ether,” she said. “He could have easily ignored it. But what he did was acknowledge that he had gotten it, and he returned it. I’ll never forget those words, typewritten: ‘Forgive me.’” To a legion of fans Sondheim was and is the be-all and end-all. But his own horizons as a theatergoer were significantly broader than that. In an art form that is so much about being present for the unrepeatable moment, he not only showed up, but he also often did so to experience work that was offbeat and obscure, challenging conventions just as his own work did. When the Chicago-based experimental shadow-puppetry troupe Manual Cinema brought “Ada/Ava” to New York in 2015, Sondheim headed downtown to see what they were up to — “the ultimate pinch-me moment,” said Ben Kauffman, one of the company’s composers. When Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers performed their loopy Matt Damon-Ben Affleck sendup “Matt &amp; Ben” at P.S. 122 in 2003, Sondheim went backstage afterward to celebrate its unknown, 20-something playwright-stars. Kaling tweeted last weekend that she had told him she hoped someday to star in one of his shows; Withers, by phone, recalled his grace in focusing the encounter on them, not him. “He made the effort to stay and talk to us and see our eyes get wide and let us ask him a couple questions,” she said. “He wasn’t there because his publicist told him to be there, and to be nice. He was there because he wanted to be.” But Sondheim, far too famous simply to blend into an audience, was cautious about making such appearances. Jason Eagan, the artistic director of the artist incubator Ars Nova, said that Sondheim went to shows there but never to openings, because he didn’t want to be a distraction on someone else’s big night. And while there was nowhere for him to hide when he first saw the immersive “Natasha, Pierre &amp; the Great Comet of 1812” at Ars Nova’s tiny space in Hell’s Kitchen, when he went to see it on Broadway, he sat in the mezzanine to be as inconspicuous as possible. However much that theatergoing nourished him, as it nourishes all of us when the work is good, it was also frequently an obligation, and he fulfilled it diligently. Tesori remembers him showing up at City Center just after his close friend, the author and composer Mary Rodgers, died in 2014. He had promised that he would listen to some young artists perform his music, so he did — “even though he was heartbroken,” Tesori said. He asked her to give him the performers’ addresses, “because he wanted to write to all of them, to encourage them.” Even in freshest grief, that was his habit. ‘Why I wanted to write for the theater’ Playwright Lynn Nottage, now a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was returning to the theater after a seven-year absence when Sondheim wrote to her out of the blue in 2004, praising her new play “Intimate Apparel” and telling her: “It reminded me of why I wanted to write for the theater in the first place.” “I entered back into New York theater sort of tiptoeing and frightened and not sure whether there was a space for me,” Nottage said. “And so when I received this letter from one of the giants, it just was the kind of affirmation that I needed in the moment. What it said to me more than anything is that I belong in this community.” From then on, at all of her plays, she said, “at some point I’d look out in the audience, and there he would be.” Sondheim’s letters generally weren’t long, but it’s the little things, right? Except that the little things combine to eat up who knows how many hours of a life. And even when a genius lives to 91, it’s easy to lament — as Miranda recently did, in an interview in The New Yorker — the works that went uncreated because of finite energies expended elsewhere. Over the phone a few days after Sondheim’s death, though, Miranda said he didn’t truly feel that way. “Obviously it’s to theater’s enormous benefit that he took that time, and I think it fed him to encourage others,” he said. “He succeeded on both fronts because he left a legacy of immortal works that we’ll be doing forever — I mean, just look at this season alone — and he also left behind a generation of artists who got encouragement from him, and support.” It was part of Sondheim’s gift to understand not only the encompassing job description of great artist but also his singular effect on his colleagues — how even a few words of appreciation, or moments of attention, could prove enduring sustenance over the long slog of a career in an often pitiless field. It was unglamorous work, and Sondheim did it exquisitely. No single theater artist right now is as revered as he was. No one else can yet step into those shoes. We nonetheless could, artists and audience members alike, seek to borrow from his example — by being adventurous, by being generous, by showing up. That would be one way to honor the giant.

Cherished words from theater’s encourager-in-chief

Animation takes viewers where movie cameras don’t easily travel — to the upper reaches of the world’s highest mountains — in “The Summit of the Gods,” a French-language adaptation of a Japanese manga.

 
The object that sets the plot in motion is, fittingly, a camera: At a bar in Kathmandu, a photojournalist named Fukamachi (voiced by Damien Boisseau) is approached by a stranger eager to sell him what he claims was the camera George Mallory brought to Everest in 1924. Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, didn’t survive, but whatever images they shot might answer the question of whether they reached the summit. When Fukamachi subsequently sees a reclusive Japanese climber, Habu (voiced at different ages by Éric Herson Macarel and Lazare Herson Macarel), snatch the Vest Pocket Kodak, he suspects the device might be legit.

 
Employing a faintly “Citizen Kane”-like approach to structure, the movie’s first half alternates between Fukamachi’s investigations into what motivated Habu’s disappearance and flashbacks to Habu’s life, with the contents of the camera serving as the functional equivalent of Rosebud. Patrick Imbert, making his feature-directing debut, works with a plainness of line and motion and a subdued color palette that appear to owe more to certain anime artists than the textured illustrations of the original manga. Imbert is said to have drawn inspiration from the “Grave of the Fireflies” filmmaker Isao Takahata, among others.

 
The present action of this time-hopping film is subtly placed several years before the unmentioned real-life discovery of Mallory’s body, sans camera, in 1999. On limited terms — capturing the physicality of mountain climbing within the ethereal medium of animation — “The Summit of the Gods” is distinctive.

Animation takes viewers where movie cameras don’t easily travel — to the upper reaches of the world’s highest mountains — in “The Summit of the Gods,” a French-language adaptation of a Japanese manga.

Animation takes viewers where movie cameras don’t easily travel — to the upper reaches of the world’s highest mountains — in “The Summit of the Gods,” a French-language adaptation of a Japanese manga. The object that sets the plot in motion is, fittingly, a camera: At a bar in Kathmandu, a photojournalist named Fukamachi (voiced by Damien Boisseau) is approached by a stranger eager to sell him what he claims was the camera George Mallory brought to Everest in 1924. Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, didn’t survive, but whatever images they shot might answer the question of whether they reached the summit. When Fukamachi subsequently sees a reclusive Japanese climber, Habu (voiced at different ages by Éric Herson Macarel and Lazare Herson Macarel), snatch the Vest Pocket Kodak, he suspects the device might be legit. Employing a faintly “Citizen Kane”-like approach to structure, the movie’s first half alternates between Fukamachi’s investigations into what motivated Habu’s disappearance and flashbacks to Habu’s life, with the contents of the camera serving as the functional equivalent of Rosebud. Patrick Imbert, making his feature-directing debut, works with a plainness of line and motion and a subdued color palette that appear to owe more to certain anime artists than the textured illustrations of the original manga. Imbert is said to have drawn inspiration from the “Grave of the Fireflies” filmmaker Isao Takahata, among others. The present action of this time-hopping film is subtly placed several years before the unmentioned real-life discovery of Mallory’s body, sans camera, in 1999. On limited terms — capturing the physicality of mountain climbing within the ethereal medium of animation — “The Summit of the Gods” is distinctive.

‘The Summit of the Gods’ review: In the (mountain) heights

The past year in California has been the driest in a century. But on a recent mid-November afternoon, California was starting to look a lot like … Ireland.

 
At least it was in the edit bay for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” where visual effects artists were diligently tweaking the color scheme to better resemble that of the Emerald Isle. Slowly, the parched cliffs of Bodega Bay began to look like the grassy Slieve League cliffs. The golden, dusty hills of Sonoma County took on the verdant, rain-soaked hues of County Donegal. Several episodes of the coming season are set in Ireland, where they were also supposed to be shot before the pandemic intervened. That meant adding a lot of green and gray in post.

 
Clad in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a raised fist in support of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Rob McElhenney jumped up from the couch, as if yanked by an invisible string. He poked the screen with a decisive finger.

 
“Can we make the mountain closer to a darker rock?” He sat down, then jumped up again. “Can we darken the sky?” Then again. “Is that enough of a pinnacle?”

 
A big sigh. A pause. “I love this job,” he said.

 
Off-screen, McElhenney, who created and stars in “Sunny,” is in the midst of his own transformation, and it’s a lot harder when what you’re poking at is yourself. When the show returns to FXX for its 15th season on Wednesday, it will officially dethrone “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” as the longest running live-action comedy series in American TV history, and it has already been renewed through Season 18.

 
For McElhenney, it’s a milestone. But it’s also a midpoint, and a cause for reflection.

 
He is embarking on what he calls “the second half” of his career. Thanks largely to the longevity of “Sunny,” he is financially set for life — he doesn’t really &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; to do anything more. And yet, in the past two years, he has co-created and stars in the Apple TV Plus comedy “Mythic Quest”; codeveloped and sold a third, to-be-announced scripted show; recorded a “Sunny” recap podcast; and is currently filming the docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham,” which will chart his journey as the new co-owner of a Welsh soccer team.

 
“I’m only 44,” he said. “So, am I going to sit back and just wait to die?”

 
Those who know McElhenney know complacency was never an option. They describe him as “the most driven man I’ve ever met” (“Sunny” executive producer and star Charlie Day); “the captain that you want on your ship” (his “Sunny” co-star and wife of 13 years, Kaitlin Olson); and “the ‘Rocky’ soundtrack in human form” (Megan Ganz, who created “Mythic Quest” with McElhenney and Day and is also an executive producer on “Sunny”).

 
Indeed, the boundaries between work and home seem blurry. Earlier that morning, McElhenney had ushered me into a detached home office behind the house he and Olson share with their two sons in Brentwood, California. His workspace, loosely inspired by a Pennsylvania log cabin, was recently enhanced with a section of the Paddy’s Pub set — complete with stools, flooring and a football-helmet-shaped neon sign — that he paid the “Sunny” art department to install.

 
A voracious reader — or, more often, listener — of memoirs by successful people (recent selections include one by Nike co-founder Phil Knight), McElhenney speaks with a measured, academic eloquence. He pauses only to sip water from an oversized Mason jar or tend to Moose, his and Olson’s rescue cat, who has a penchant for breaking the “no countertops” rule.

 
He’s not actually funny. Or so he repeatedly insists. And he is given more to soft-spoken contemplation than to punchlines as he drifts through philosophical musings about power and ethics, about where he’s from and where he’s heading.

 
“Sometimes I find myself doing too many things because I’m just like, Oh, I’m here, and I have this opportunity and this access — I want to take it all before I die,” he said, adding later, “At what point does the accumulation of experience become greedy?”

 
The McElhenney origin story he tells is a hero’s journey built in the grand tradition of the American dream: An outsider from a working-class Philadelphia family defies the odds to charm the Hollywood suits and achieve huge success with his buddies by his side.

 
Growing up in South Philly, McElhenney clung to TV comedies as a source of escape and connection. When he was 9, his mother moved out to be with the woman who is now his stepmother, and he and his two younger siblings sought stability in NBC’s Thursday night lineup, religiously watching “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties” with their father. During weekends at their moms’ house, it was “Golden Girls.”

 
Acting was initially a last resort. Small and not athletic but longing deeply for connection, the teenage McElhenney eventually abandoned his attempts to play a sport at his all-boys Catholic high school and answered the siren song of a nearby sister school, which needed boys for its production of Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.” After a brief stint at Temple University, he moved to New York and eventually Los Angeles to pursue acting.

 
The idea for one of TV’s most successful comedies was born modestly enough, coming to McElhenney in the middle of the night in 2004, two years after he moved to Los Angeles. He envisaged a scene in which a guy knocks on his friend’s door to ask for some sugar for his coffee. The friend tells him he has cancer. The first guy is really sorry to hear that — but he still needs the sugar.

 
As McElhenney put it, if the “maxim” of “Friends” was “I’ll be there for you,” then the one for “Sunny” would be “I’ll never be there.”

 
While living in a converted West Hollywood garage and working as a waiter, McElhenney approached his fellow aspiring actors Day, Glenn Howerton and Jordan Reid (then McElhenney’s girlfriend) with a script, and they shot the original pilot for “Sunny” on a hand-held camcorder. They shopped it around and, according to McElhenney, the fledgling FX offered the best chance for the team to retain creative control and to do the low-budget show their way.

 
“It was absolutely, 100% not what I was looking for,” John Landgraf, who was then president of entertainment at FX, said as he emphasized McElhenney’s total lack of experience as a writer, producer or showrunner. “But it was funny. He had a voice.”

 
FX paid them to shoot a more polished pilot and suggested it might have a better chance of standing out if they changed the characters from a group of self-involved actors in Los Angeles to a group of self-involved bar owners in McElhenney’s native Philadelphia.

 
As McElhenney, Howerton and Day waited to hear if the show would be picked up, FX came back with a question: Would they be willing to hire a different actress for the sole female lead, Sweet Dee, who served originally as a moralizing foil?

 
The guys agreed to find someone else, and Reid, who by then had split with McElhenney, was bumped, an experience she described in a 2016 essay for Observer as feeling like a betrayal by her friends. (Reid no longer begrudges the men for seizing their opportunity, she wrote in an email, and she and McElhenney each now say that they are once again friends. FX declined to comment on the casting issue.)

 
Olson auditioned and won the part, which was then reworked to match the debauchery of the male characters.

 
“Rob actually apologized to me that they didn’t do that already,” Olson said. “He definitely had a vested interest in making this character equal to the male characters, and it was very refreshing at the time.” 
Sixteen years after its debut, “Sunny” remains resolutely committed to its brand of crass nihilism in an age of kinder, gentler comedies like “Ted Lasso” and “Schitt’s Creek.” But while “Sunny” remains intent on “satirizing ignorance,” as McElhenney put it, he also admits there have been missteps, like the treatment of a recurring transgender character, who was referred to as a slur in a way that made it seem as if the show, rather than the characters, was advocating her mistreatment.

 
“We can’t retroactively change things,” he said. “What we’ve done is adjust for them.”

 
For example, McElhenney’s character, Mac, went on a rocky coming out journey across Seasons 11 to 13 that then culminated in a tonal shift as he performed a poignant, 4 1/2-minute interpretive dance after revealing his sexuality to his imprisoned father.

 
And then there was the blackface. In the wake of last year’s nationwide racial justice protests, Hulu, which streams “Sunny” in the United States, removed several episodes that depict characters, including McElhenney’s, in blackface. Rather than let the episodes disappear from collective memory, however, the “Sunny” team confronted them in a Season 15 episode that dives into issues of cancel culture, atonement and white saviorism as the characters film their latest sequel to the “Lethal Weapon” franchise.

 
This time, however, there are Black actors instead of blackface — including Geoffrey Owens, best known for playing Elvin on “The Cosby Show,” who had appeared in earlier episodes and in “Mythic Quest.” The new episode also has a Black director (Pete Chatmon) and Black co-writer (Keyonna Taylor).

 
Over the last few years, public discourse and their own evolving thinking convinced McElhenney and the rest of the creative team that they should diversify the show’s perspectives, although it was initially unclear how that would serve their bigoted main characters.

 
“At its foundation, it’s a show about five ignorant white people, right?” McElhenney said. “So, at first we thought, well, how does it even make sense to have different points of view in there?”

 
“Then we were like, Oh my God, of course,” he added. “Who could better understand how it feels to be in the wake of ignorant white people than people who aren’t ignorant white people? Ignorant white men, specifically.”

 
Women and people of color have increasingly been added to the “Sunny” fold, a course McElhenney continued when staffing and casting “Mythic Quest,” which was recently renewed for a third and fourth season. A workplace comedy set at a video game company, it stars McElhenney as an egomaniacal game creator opposite Charlotte Nicdao, a Filipina Australian actress in her first major Hollywood role.

 
Beyond McElhenney’s diversification efforts, Nicdao and Ganz said, he has also worked hard to offer guidance and opportunities for people who perhaps didn’t have as clear of a path forward in the industry as he did.

 
“As a woman, I’ve always felt uncomfortable asking anyone to take time out of what they’re doing to teach me something,” Nicdao said. “The thing that Rob has done is create this environment where I’ve never had to ask.”

 
“I have, for the first time, considered, oh, maybe I want to produce,” she added. “Maybe I want to direct. Maybe I would actually be capable of that.”

 
Likewise, Ganz, who met McElhenney when she joined “Sunny” as a writer and co-producer in 2016, said it was McElhenney who pushed her to make her directorial debut, in the second season of “Mythic Quest.” 
“Rob’s like a supportive bully, in that he encourages you very aggressively to step outside of your comfort zone,” she said. “He believes in you maybe a few feet further than you believe in yourself.”

 
His belief in others overflows from the abundance of confidence he has long had in himself and in his ideas. And that self-confidence is infectious. A few years ago, actor Ryan Reynolds slid into McElhenney’s direct messages. He was a fan of “Sunny,” and they developed an online friendship strong enough for McElhenney to ask Reynolds if he wanted to join him in buying a Welsh soccer club called Wrexham and make a documentary series about the experience. This was before they had even met in person. 
Reynolds said yes, and they’re currently shooting “Welcome to Wrexham,” for FX. It’s about an underdog soccer team but also about “community and what we inherit and what we leave behind,” McElhenney said — the type of big-picture questions he often finds himself pondering in the hours between his 5 a.m. wake-up time and his current nightly routine of drinking a large Manhattan and re-watching “Succession.”

 
As earnest as McElhenney is about the generous aspect of his second act — using his own success to create security and opportunity for others — he is aware that he’s partly motivated by self-interest. By elevating new talent around him, he is making his own projects better. It also makes him feel good.

 
“Am I doing it all in the service of something positive or good? I’d like to say that the answer is yes,” he said. “But sometimes, if I’m being honest with myself, maybe it is just that I don’t know what it is I’m looking for. Maybe when I find it, I’ll know.”

The past year in California has been the driest in a century. But on a recent mid-November afternoon, California was starting to look a lot like … Ireland. At least it was in the edit bay for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” where visual effects artists were diligently tweaking the color scheme to better resemble that of the Emerald Isle.

The past year in California has been the driest in a century. But on a recent mid-November afternoon, California was starting to look a lot like … Ireland. At least it was in the edit bay for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” where visual effects artists were diligently tweaking the color scheme to better resemble that of the Emerald Isle. Slowly, the parched cliffs of Bodega Bay began to look like the grassy Slieve League cliffs. The golden, dusty hills of Sonoma County took on the verdant, rain-soaked hues of County Donegal. Several episodes of the coming season are set in Ireland, where they were also supposed to be shot before the pandemic intervened. That meant adding a lot of green and gray in post. Clad in a black T-shirt emblazoned with a raised fist in support of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Rob McElhenney jumped up from the couch, as if yanked by an invisible string. He poked the screen with a decisive finger. “Can we make the mountain closer to a darker rock?” He sat down, then jumped up again. “Can we darken the sky?” Then again. “Is that enough of a pinnacle?” A big sigh. A pause. “I love this job,” he said. Off-screen, McElhenney, who created and stars in “Sunny,” is in the midst of his own transformation, and it’s a lot harder when what you’re poking at is yourself. When the show returns to FXX for its 15th season on Wednesday, it will officially dethrone “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” as the longest running live-action comedy series in American TV history, and it has already been renewed through Season 18. For McElhenney, it’s a milestone. But it’s also a midpoint, and a cause for reflection. He is embarking on what he calls “the second half” of his career. Thanks largely to the longevity of “Sunny,” he is financially set for life — he doesn’t really need to do anything more. And yet, in the past two years, he has co-created and stars in the Apple TV Plus comedy “Mythic Quest”; codeveloped and sold a third, to-be-announced scripted show; recorded a “Sunny” recap podcast; and is currently filming the docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham,” which will chart his journey as the new co-owner of a Welsh soccer team. “I’m only 44,” he said. “So, am I going to sit back and just wait to die?” Those who know McElhenney know complacency was never an option. They describe him as “the most driven man I’ve ever met” (“Sunny” executive producer and star Charlie Day); “the captain that you want on your ship” (his “Sunny” co-star and wife of 13 years, Kaitlin Olson); and “the ‘Rocky’ soundtrack in human form” (Megan Ganz, who created “Mythic Quest” with McElhenney and Day and is also an executive producer on “Sunny”). Indeed, the boundaries between work and home seem blurry. Earlier that morning, McElhenney had ushered me into a detached home office behind the house he and Olson share with their two sons in Brentwood, California. His workspace, loosely inspired by a Pennsylvania log cabin, was recently enhanced with a section of the Paddy’s Pub set — complete with stools, flooring and a football-helmet-shaped neon sign — that he paid the “Sunny” art department to install. A voracious reader — or, more often, listener — of memoirs by successful people (recent selections include one by Nike co-founder Phil Knight), McElhenney speaks with a measured, academic eloquence. He pauses only to sip water from an oversized Mason jar or tend to Moose, his and Olson’s rescue cat, who has a penchant for breaking the “no countertops” rule. He’s not actually funny. Or so he repeatedly insists. And he is given more to soft-spoken contemplation than to punchlines as he drifts through philosophical musings about power and ethics, about where he’s from and where he’s heading. “Sometimes I find myself doing too many things because I’m just like, Oh, I’m here, and I have this opportunity and this access — I want to take it all before I die,” he said, adding later, “At what point does the accumulation of experience become greedy?” The McElhenney origin story he tells is a hero’s journey built in the grand tradition of the American dream: An outsider from a working-class Philadelphia family defies the odds to charm the Hollywood suits and achieve huge success with his buddies by his side. Growing up in South Philly, McElhenney clung to TV comedies as a source of escape and connection. When he was 9, his mother moved out to be with the woman who is now his stepmother, and he and his two younger siblings sought stability in NBC’s Thursday night lineup, religiously watching “The Cosby Show” and “Family Ties” with their father. During weekends at their moms’ house, it was “Golden Girls.” Acting was initially a last resort. Small and not athletic but longing deeply for connection, the teenage McElhenney eventually abandoned his attempts to play a sport at his all-boys Catholic high school and answered the siren song of a nearby sister school, which needed boys for its production of Noël Coward’s “Blithe Spirit.” After a brief stint at Temple University, he moved to New York and eventually Los Angeles to pursue acting. The idea for one of TV’s most successful comedies was born modestly enough, coming to McElhenney in the middle of the night in 2004, two years after he moved to Los Angeles. He envisaged a scene in which a guy knocks on his friend’s door to ask for some sugar for his coffee. The friend tells him he has cancer. The first guy is really sorry to hear that — but he still needs the sugar. As McElhenney put it, if the “maxim” of “Friends” was “I’ll be there for you,” then the one for “Sunny” would be “I’ll never be there.” While living in a converted West Hollywood garage and working as a waiter, McElhenney approached his fellow aspiring actors Day, Glenn Howerton and Jordan Reid (then McElhenney’s girlfriend) with a script, and they shot the original pilot for “Sunny” on a hand-held camcorder. They shopped it around and, according to McElhenney, the fledgling FX offered the best chance for the team to retain creative control and to do the low-budget show their way. “It was absolutely, 100% not what I was looking for,” John Landgraf, who was then president of entertainment at FX, said as he emphasized McElhenney’s total lack of experience as a writer, producer or showrunner. “But it was funny. He had a voice.” FX paid them to shoot a more polished pilot and suggested it might have a better chance of standing out if they changed the characters from a group of self-involved actors in Los Angeles to a group of self-involved bar owners in McElhenney’s native Philadelphia. As McElhenney, Howerton and Day waited to hear if the show would be picked up, FX came back with a question: Would they be willing to hire a different actress for the sole female lead, Sweet Dee, who served originally as a moralizing foil? The guys agreed to find someone else, and Reid, who by then had split with McElhenney, was bumped, an experience she described in a 2016 essay for Observer as feeling like a betrayal by her friends. (Reid no longer begrudges the men for seizing their opportunity, she wrote in an email, and she and McElhenney each now say that they are once again friends. FX declined to comment on the casting issue.) Olson auditioned and won the part, which was then reworked to match the debauchery of the male characters. “Rob actually apologized to me that they didn’t do that already,” Olson said. “He definitely had a vested interest in making this character equal to the male characters, and it was very refreshing at the time.” Sixteen years after its debut, “Sunny” remains resolutely committed to its brand of crass nihilism in an age of kinder, gentler comedies like “Ted Lasso” and “Schitt’s Creek.” But while “Sunny” remains intent on “satirizing ignorance,” as McElhenney put it, he also admits there have been missteps, like the treatment of a recurring transgender character, who was referred to as a slur in a way that made it seem as if the show, rather than the characters, was advocating her mistreatment. “We can’t retroactively change things,” he said. “What we’ve done is adjust for them.” For example, McElhenney’s character, Mac, went on a rocky coming out journey across Seasons 11 to 13 that then culminated in a tonal shift as he performed a poignant, 4 1/2-minute interpretive dance after revealing his sexuality to his imprisoned father. And then there was the blackface. In the wake of last year’s nationwide racial justice protests, Hulu, which streams “Sunny” in the United States, removed several episodes that depict characters, including McElhenney’s, in blackface. Rather than let the episodes disappear from collective memory, however, the “Sunny” team confronted them in a Season 15 episode that dives into issues of cancel culture, atonement and white saviorism as the characters film their latest sequel to the “Lethal Weapon” franchise. This time, however, there are Black actors instead of blackface — including Geoffrey Owens, best known for playing Elvin on “The Cosby Show,” who had appeared in earlier episodes and in “Mythic Quest.” The new episode also has a Black director (Pete Chatmon) and Black co-writer (Keyonna Taylor). Over the last few years, public discourse and their own evolving thinking convinced McElhenney and the rest of the creative team that they should diversify the show’s perspectives, although it was initially unclear how that would serve their bigoted main characters. “At its foundation, it’s a show about five ignorant white people, right?” McElhenney said. “So, at first we thought, well, how does it even make sense to have different points of view in there?” “Then we were like, Oh my God, of course,” he added. “Who could better understand how it feels to be in the wake of ignorant white people than people who aren’t ignorant white people? Ignorant white men, specifically.” Women and people of color have increasingly been added to the “Sunny” fold, a course McElhenney continued when staffing and casting “Mythic Quest,” which was recently renewed for a third and fourth season. A workplace comedy set at a video game company, it stars McElhenney as an egomaniacal game creator opposite Charlotte Nicdao, a Filipina Australian actress in her first major Hollywood role. Beyond McElhenney’s diversification efforts, Nicdao and Ganz said, he has also worked hard to offer guidance and opportunities for people who perhaps didn’t have as clear of a path forward in the industry as he did. “As a woman, I’ve always felt uncomfortable asking anyone to take time out of what they’re doing to teach me something,” Nicdao said. “The thing that Rob has done is create this environment where I’ve never had to ask.” “I have, for the first time, considered, oh, maybe I want to produce,” she added. “Maybe I want to direct. Maybe I would actually be capable of that.” Likewise, Ganz, who met McElhenney when she joined “Sunny” as a writer and co-producer in 2016, said it was McElhenney who pushed her to make her directorial debut, in the second season of “Mythic Quest.” “Rob’s like a supportive bully, in that he encourages you very aggressively to step outside of your comfort zone,” she said. “He believes in you maybe a few feet further than you believe in yourself.” His belief in others overflows from the abundance of confidence he has long had in himself and in his ideas. And that self-confidence is infectious. A few years ago, actor Ryan Reynolds slid into McElhenney’s direct messages. He was a fan of “Sunny,” and they developed an online friendship strong enough for McElhenney to ask Reynolds if he wanted to join him in buying a Welsh soccer club called Wrexham and make a documentary series about the experience. This was before they had even met in person. Reynolds said yes, and they’re currently shooting “Welcome to Wrexham,” for FX. It’s about an underdog soccer team but also about “community and what we inherit and what we leave behind,” McElhenney said — the type of big-picture questions he often finds himself pondering in the hours between his 5 a.m. wake-up time and his current nightly routine of drinking a large Manhattan and re-watching “Succession.” As earnest as McElhenney is about the generous aspect of his second act — using his own success to create security and opportunity for others — he is aware that he’s partly motivated by self-interest. By elevating new talent around him, he is making his own projects better. It also makes him feel good. “Am I doing it all in the service of something positive or good? I’d like to say that the answer is yes,” he said. “But sometimes, if I’m being honest with myself, maybe it is just that I don’t know what it is I’m looking for. Maybe when I find it, I’ll know.”

It’s always sunny with Rob McElhenney

Whether you are a fan of the sport of Tennis or not, most bibliophiles know and would tell you that Andre Agassi's memoir 'Open' is one of the finest, most trite yet egoistically well-written look-back-at-my-famous-life there ever was. Will Smith's penchant for detail--from the beltings at home by his raging alcoholic father to that life-altering moment with Arnold Schwarzenegger, this man has the memory of a whale--is similar in language. The loud, self-derogation tonality of the biography is nothing but a curtain raiser to the self-obsessed, extremely talented and one of the finest salesman of Hollywood, ladies and gentleman: Will Smith for you!&nbsp;

<img alt="vjlnljbvjhbnk" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="10f8fc88-da4f-479e-9892-e394bcc8489f" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/pjimage%20-%202021-11-27T195542.495.jpg" /> 
'Will' impresses for two reasons: the actor presents the self-help rhetoric at periodic intervals to satiate his readers' need for a good cry, and, despite his best efforts to keep ego massages in check, his preachy anecdotes about the glorious life he gets to live as one of the biggest Black stars of all time. Will Smith sure as shell knows it's not easy being Will Smith, but success is self-admittedly his heroine and he isn't in it for rehabilitation, so he masks his insecurities and plays the game. Every single day, or so he says.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-chhorii-review-nushrratt-bharuccha-takes-one-for-the-team-431971" hreflang="en">'Chhorii' review: Nushrratt Bharuccha takes one for the team</a>

 
The chapters dedicated to his tender years and the subsequent bravado at home--he quit school to be a rapper, one of the firsts to win a Grammy in fact--are carefully planted emotional snippets from the life of a Black success story who catapulted to superstardom at a time when inclusion was a topic people did not talk even at support group meetings.&nbsp;

 
'Men in Black', 'Enemy of the State', Oscar nominated 'Ali' and 'The Pursuit of Happyness', again 'Men in Black II', 'Independence Day' and even 'Hancock', Will Smith will proudly have you know he has made outrageous amounts of money that he could retire tomorrow if he wants to.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-wion-exclusive-carryminati-my-alter-ego-made-me-from-being-invisible-to-widely-recognised-430716" hreflang="en">WION exclusive! CarryMinati: My alter ego made me from being invisible to widely recognised</a>

 
Entertainment must really be running thick in his blood veins for he gets candid about love and sex, slightly held back in portions where he talks about his polygamous marriage to Jada Pinkett-Smith, and his unapologetic tendency for success. "Skeptics call it self-delusion (referring to 'Summertime'); I call it ‘another Grammy’ and ‘my first #1 record.’ ” Will Smith is boastful and wants his life to serve as case study to those on the brink of giving up, or not. The intention is noble, the tone could have been mildly modest.&nbsp;

<img alt="vbjkllb.lm." data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="5c2944e5-74e0-47c5-bbc8-667483393229" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/pjimage%20-%202021-11-27T195620.495.jpg" /> 
Yes, a recurring theme in Smith's memoir--which he has written with able help from 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck' author, Mark Manson--is the constant tussle between the invincible Hollywood star and the 'coward' buried under layers of 'overcompensation and fake bravado'. But the most honest Will Smith ever gets in this self-deprecating, megalomaniacal memoir is the part where he gets around to talking about the driving force in his life--the absolute desire to win. We learn that even when he is just playing Monopoly with his children, he is in it to win. The 'King Richard' star--one of the Oscar hopefuls this year--has zero, and we really mean 'zero', qualms about his characteristic trait of wanting to be somebody, reach somewhere in life. So, this piece of information should come as no surprise that when one of his movies smashed all Box-Office records, he wanted to surpass the actor who was making all the noise at the time: Jim Carrey. If Carrey was making $20 million a movie, Smith started bidding at 21. As a reader and lover of cinema, one cannot help but respect Will Smith's unquenchable thirst for success, and he being so brutally open about it.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-tiger-king-2-review-joe-exotics-life-is-now-a-reality-show-with-more-drama-than-the-kardashians-430587" hreflang="en">'Tiger King 2' review: Joe Exotic's life is now a reality show with more drama than the Kardashians</a>

 
In one of the first pages, Smith describes his persona as "the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction — a carefully crafted and honed character — designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward"--which, frankly, is a bit over the top of an introduction even by Smith's standards, but it does drive home a strong point: you love Will Smith for all the charm he sprinkles all over you whenever he is on camera, and not the sob stories that seem to have defined his formative years.

 
Both 'Will' and Will Smith are put ups that you love to love, sexual drama or shameful tax fiascos or not.&nbsp;

'Will' is now available on Audible India.&nbsp;

Whether you are a fan of the sport of Tennis or not, most bibliophiles know and would tell you that Andre Agassi's memoir 'Open' is one of the finest, most trite yet egoistically well-written look-back-at-my-famous-life there ever was.

Whether you are a fan of the sport of Tennis or not, most bibliophiles know and would tell you that Andre Agassi's memoir 'Open' is one of the finest, most trite yet egoistically well-written look-back-at-my-famous-life there ever was. Will Smith's penchant for detail--from the beltings at home by his raging alcoholic father to that life-altering moment with Arnold Schwarzenegger, this man has the memory of a whale--is similar in language. The loud, self-derogation tonality of the biography is nothing but a curtain raiser to the self-obsessed, extremely talented and one of the finest salesman of Hollywood, ladies and gentleman: Will Smith for you! 'Will' impresses for two reasons: the actor presents the self-help rhetoric at periodic intervals to satiate his readers' need for a good cry, and, despite his best efforts to keep ego massages in check, his preachy anecdotes about the glorious life he gets to live as one of the biggest Black stars of all time. Will Smith sure as shell knows it's not easy being Will Smith, but success is self-admittedly his heroine and he isn't in it for rehabilitation, so he masks his insecurities and plays the game. Every single day, or so he says. Also read: 'Chhorii' review: Nushrratt Bharuccha takes one for the team The chapters dedicated to his tender years and the subsequent bravado at home--he quit school to be a rapper, one of the firsts to win a Grammy in fact--are carefully planted emotional snippets from the life of a Black success story who catapulted to superstardom at a time when inclusion was a topic people did not talk even at support group meetings. 'Men in Black', 'Enemy of the State', Oscar nominated 'Ali' and 'The Pursuit of Happyness', again 'Men in Black II', 'Independence Day' and even 'Hancock', Will Smith will proudly have you know he has made outrageous amounts of money that he could retire tomorrow if he wants to. Also read: WION exclusive! CarryMinati: My alter ego made me from being invisible to widely recognised Entertainment must really be running thick in his blood veins for he gets candid about love and sex, slightly held back in portions where he talks about his polygamous marriage to Jada Pinkett-Smith, and his unapologetic tendency for success. "Skeptics call it self-delusion (referring to 'Summertime'); I call it ‘another Grammy’ and ‘my first #1 record.’ ” Will Smith is boastful and wants his life to serve as case study to those on the brink of giving up, or not. The intention is noble, the tone could have been mildly modest. Yes, a recurring theme in Smith's memoir--which he has written with able help from 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck' author, Mark Manson--is the constant tussle between the invincible Hollywood star and the 'coward' buried under layers of 'overcompensation and fake bravado'. But the most honest Will Smith ever gets in this self-deprecating, megalomaniacal memoir is the part where he gets around to talking about the driving force in his life--the absolute desire to win. We learn that even when he is just playing Monopoly with his children, he is in it to win. The 'King Richard' star--one of the Oscar hopefuls this year--has zero, and we really mean 'zero', qualms about his characteristic trait of wanting to be somebody, reach somewhere in life. So, this piece of information should come as no surprise that when one of his movies smashed all Box-Office records, he wanted to surpass the actor who was making all the noise at the time: Jim Carrey. If Carrey was making $20 million a movie, Smith started bidding at 21. As a reader and lover of cinema, one cannot help but respect Will Smith's unquenchable thirst for success, and he being so brutally open about it. Also read: 'Tiger King 2' review: Joe Exotic's life is now a reality show with more drama than the Kardashians In one of the first pages, Smith describes his persona as "the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction — a carefully crafted and honed character — designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward"--which, frankly, is a bit over the top of an introduction even by Smith's standards, but it does drive home a strong point: you love Will Smith for all the charm he sprinkles all over you whenever he is on camera, and not the sob stories that seem to have defined his formative years. Both 'Will' and Will Smith are put ups that you love to love, sexual drama or shameful tax fiascos or not. 'Will' is now available on Audible India.

'Will' book review: Will Smith, the superstar, confronts Will Smith, the coward

Actor Steve Burton of the hit show 'General Hospital' has reportedly has been dropped from the soap opera after he refused to follow the show’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, reports claim.&nbsp;

 
On Tuesday, Burton posted a video on Instagram to talk about his exit from the long-running show.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/jay-z-leads-list-of-most-nominated-artists-in-grammys-history-431535" hreflang="en">Jay-Z leads list of most-nominated artists in Grammys history</a>

 
"I know there’s been a lot of rumors and speculations about me and ‘General Hospital’ and I wanted you to hear it from me personally. Unfortunately, ‘General Hospital’ has let me go because of the vaccine mandate," the actor confirmed the news over a two-minute video clip.&nbsp; 
A source confirmed to The Post that Burton was no longer a part of the cast as he refused to comply with the show's vaccine mandate. The last episode the actor has reportedly filmed for the show was on October 27. The date of its airing is yet to be known.

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Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/interview-jeremy-renner-calls-hawkeye-grandpa-says-his-biggest-superpower-isnt-archery-431403" hreflang="en">Jeremy Renner on new show 'Hawkeye' and why archery isn't his biggest power</a>

 
The 'The Young and the Restless' actor has alleged that he had asked for exemptions from the vaccine mandate on medical and religious grounds. However, the production unit reportedly denied both. "Which, you know, hurts. But this is also about personal freedom to me," he continued.&nbsp;

 
"I’ll always be grateful for my time on ‘General Hospital.’ I love it there, I grew up there. I believe that when one door closes, multiple doors open … so I am excited to see what the future brings. And maybe one day, if these mandates are lifted, I can return and can finish my career as Jason Morgan," Burton added.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/adeles-new-album-30-breaks-years-top-selling-record-within-three-days-of-release-431547" hreflang="en">Adele's new album '30' breaks year's top-selling record in just three days</a>

Actor Steve Burton of the hit show 'General Hospital' has reportedly has been dropped from the soap opera after he refused to follow the show’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, reports claim.

Actor Steve Burton of the hit show 'General Hospital' has reportedly has been dropped from the soap opera after he refused to follow the show’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, reports claim. On Tuesday, Burton posted a video on Instagram to talk about his exit from the long-running show. Also read: Jay-Z leads list of most-nominated artists in Grammys history "I know there’s been a lot of rumors and speculations about me and ‘General Hospital’ and I wanted you to hear it from me personally. Unfortunately, ‘General Hospital’ has let me go because of the vaccine mandate," the actor confirmed the news over a two-minute video clip. A source confirmed to The Post that Burton was no longer a part of the cast as he refused to comply with the show's vaccine mandate. The last episode the actor has reportedly filmed for the show was on October 27. The date of its airing is yet to be known. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Steve Burton (@1steveburton) × Also read: Jeremy Renner on new show 'Hawkeye' and why archery isn't his biggest power The 'The Young and the Restless' actor has alleged that he had asked for exemptions from the vaccine mandate on medical and religious grounds. However, the production unit reportedly denied both. "Which, you know, hurts. But this is also about personal freedom to me," he continued. "I’ll always be grateful for my time on ‘General Hospital.’ I love it there, I grew up there. I believe that when one door closes, multiple doors open … so I am excited to see what the future brings. And maybe one day, if these mandates are lifted, I can return and can finish my career as Jason Morgan," Burton added. Also read: Adele's new album '30' breaks year's top-selling record in just three days

Steve Burton fired from 'General Hospital' over flouting Covid vaccine mandate

The latest James Bond film ‘No Time To Die’ might be the highest-grossing Hollywood movie of the year 2021, it is also the most pirated one. From November 15- 21, No Time To Die and Amazon’s adaptation of the Robert Jordan fantasy novel ‘The Wheel of Time’ was the most pirated.

These numbers were tabulated by piracy analytics firm MUSO. These are based on the numbers of the most-shared files between piracy peer-to-peer networks.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-james-bond-to-lose-millions-despite-being-highest-grossing-hollywood-film-of-2021-431428" hreflang="en">James Bond to lose millions despite being highest-grossing film of 2021?</a>

With theaters closed in certain parts of the world like China at 20%, and certain movies such as Disney films like Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals not being available -- it has resulted in piracy.&nbsp;

As for No Time To Die, Daniel Craig’s last stint as James Bond started showing up as the top-torrented movie as soon as a clean copy of the film was made available. Meanwhile, a film like ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ is safe from piracy because its exclusive theatrical window is protecting it from being rampantly streamed.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-kevin-spacey-to-pay-31-million-in-losses-to-house-of-cards-producer-over-sexual-assault-allegations-431420" hreflang="en">Kevin Spacey to pay $31 million in losses to House of Cards producer</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interview--abhimanyu-dassani-bollywood-has-taught-me-how-to-deal-with-different-people-431264" hreflang="en">Abhimanyu Dassani to WION on films &amp; making mom Bhagyashree 'proud'</a>

The latest James Bond film ‘No Time To Die’ might be the highest-grossing Hollywood movie of the year 2021, it is also the most pirated one. From November 15- 21, No Time To Die and Amazon’s adaptation of the Robert Jordan fantasy novel ‘The Wheel of Time’ was the most pirated.

The latest James Bond film ‘No Time To Die’ might be the highest-grossing Hollywood movie of the year 2021, it is also the most pirated one. From November 15- 21, No Time To Die and Amazon’s adaptation of the Robert Jordan fantasy novel ‘The Wheel of Time’ was the most pirated. These numbers were tabulated by piracy analytics firm MUSO. These are based on the numbers of the most-shared files between piracy peer-to-peer networks. James Bond to lose millions despite being highest-grossing film of 2021? With theaters closed in certain parts of the world like China at 20%, and certain movies such as Disney films like Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals not being available -- it has resulted in piracy. As for No Time To Die, Daniel Craig’s last stint as James Bond started showing up as the top-torrented movie as soon as a clean copy of the film was made available. Meanwhile, a film like ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ is safe from piracy because its exclusive theatrical window is protecting it from being rampantly streamed. Also read: Kevin Spacey to pay $31 million in losses to House of Cards producer Abhimanyu Dassani to WION on films & making mom Bhagyashree 'proud'

‘No Time To Die’, ‘Wheel Of Time’ are the most-pirated film/shows

The T-shirt says it all: “This body was built on arroz con gandules.”

 
Arroz con gandules, or rice with pigeon peas, is a Puerto Rican classic, and Robin de Jesús wears the shirt with pride under a burnt orange jacket. When mounds of maduros (fried sweet plantains) arrive with our entrees, each is topped with a tiny Puerto Rican flag. De Jesús, 37, approves.

 
The actor’s family is from rural Puerto Rico, and he grew up in a working-class community in Norwalk, Connecticut. Known for larger-than-life roles like a gay teenager who dabbles in drag in the movie “Camp,” a spirited maid in the Broadway revival of “La Cage aux Folles” and a boisterous interior decorator in both the play and film versions of “The Boys in the Band,” he wanted to diversify his work.

 
Then along came “Tick, Tick … Boom!.” De Jesús was deeply intentional in auditioning for the role of Michael, an actor turned advertiser, in the film, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. 
“What kept coming up for me was, ‘I want a quiet performance.’ I want a quiet, subtle, nuance,” de Jesús said at lunch. “And I know that, if I do that, I can showcase maturity.”

 
The movie (in theaters and on Netflix) is an adaptation of a musical about the writing of a musical. The original “Tick, Tick … Boom!” was written by Jonathan Larson — who would later go on to write the rock musical “Rent” — and first performed in 1990. The film tells the tale of an aspiring composer (also named Jonathan and played by Andrew Garfield) pouring himself into yet another musical, this one called “Superbia.” It takes place in the early ’90s, against the stark backdrop of the AIDS epidemic.

 
As his 30th birthday looms, Jonathan’s anxiety manifests as a persistent ticking. He worries about the upcoming workshop of “Superbia,” upon which everything seemingly hinges — and about whether he can succeed in the performing arts at all.

 
Michael, his former roommate and best friend since childhood, has tapped out of the threadbare artist lifestyle, opting instead for a plush career in advertising and a glittering high-rise apartment. He was tired of waiting for hours in line for an audition, just to be cut off after six measures of a song and called the wrong name: “Juan, Pedro, Carlos, lo que sea.”

 
That’s not to say that Michael has hardened into a formal shell; he stays playful and supportive of Jonathan’s dreams. We first meet him visiting Jonathan at work in the Moondance Diner, where he drops off copies he made of the “Superbia” script.

 
“Boo-boo, you need to ask yourself,” Michael tells Jonathan, “In this moment, are you letting yourself be led by fear? Or love?”

 
De Jesús said, “I knew that Michael did not have to be pulled and buttoned up, that he was someone who navigated being an artist, a creative, someone who was down and hip, and cool with also doing advertising.”

 
“It didn’t have to just be one thing,” he continued.

 
Although de Jesús has appeared in many major movies, he assumed some other, bigger film star might snag the role of Michael. So he took a risk in his audition. Miranda was impressed.

 
“I’ve seen a lot of productions of ‘Tick, Tick … Boom!’ and a lot of the time the guy that gets cast as Michael is someone who looks very at home being a business guy, very dapper, very smooth,” Miranda said in a phone call. “What’s fun about Robin as a choice is that you 100% believe this is an artist who thrives in this world. It’s an artist with a business suit on.”

 
Miranda and de Jesús go way back. (So far, in fact, that de Jesús sang at Miranda’s wedding.) In 2005, de Jesús made his Broadway debut in “Rent” as a member of the ensemble and an understudy for Angel, a young drag queen. That same year, he joined the original cast of “In the Heights,” Miranda’s first musical, with a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes.

 
“Quiara and I realized every time he had the ball, he just put a crazy spin on it and knocked it out of the park,” Miranda said of de Jesús. “I am mixing my tennis and baseball metaphors, but so would Robin.”

 
De Jesús earned a Tony nomination for his role as Sonny in “In the Heights.” He received subsequent nominations for “La Cage aux Folles” in 2010 and “The Boys in the Band” in 2019. This year, he presented at the Tony Awards with Andrew Garfield.

 
But so many of his roles came across as youthful or outsize. De Jesús was ready for something fresh.

 
“My other characters are like two-liter soda bottles that you shake up and you open,” he said. “Michael, you shake, but you leave closed. And I don’t get to play that often. I’ve always known I’m capable of it.”

 
He was just waiting for someone to give him the opportunity — like many Black and brown artists, he points out.

 
“The fact that I’ve been in New York since 2002, and my first month in New York, I repeatedly heard, ‘It’s a good time to be a person of color in theater,’” he said. “And here we are 20 years later.”

 
And yet, to be Black and brown in New York’s arts and entertainment industry is a thing of beauty, he said, in “the way we’ve created our own cultures, and the way we uplift and promote joy for one another.”

 
De Jesús’ best friend, his “nonsexual lifetime partner,” Dominic Colón, is part of that group of artists, too. Both men are gay and queer Latinos who live in the Bronx, so close they can see each other's apartments (intentionally). After “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” de Jesús hopes to act in Colón’s play, “The War I Know,” a working-class, Puerto Rican story that mirrors their own.

 
“I think he is a teacher,” Colón said. “I think he is a valuable lesson for artists of any age to trust in the journey. And it may not look exactly how you thought it was going to look when you were 18, but it works out in the way that it needs to, and it will continue to.”

The T-shirt says it all: “This body was built on arroz con gandules.” Arroz con gandules, or rice with pigeon peas, is a Puerto Rican classic, and Robin de Jesús wears the shirt with pride under a burnt orange jacket.

The T-shirt says it all: “This body was built on arroz con gandules.” Arroz con gandules, or rice with pigeon peas, is a Puerto Rican classic, and Robin de Jesús wears the shirt with pride under a burnt orange jacket. When mounds of maduros (fried sweet plantains) arrive with our entrees, each is topped with a tiny Puerto Rican flag. De Jesús, 37, approves. The actor’s family is from rural Puerto Rico, and he grew up in a working-class community in Norwalk, Connecticut. Known for larger-than-life roles like a gay teenager who dabbles in drag in the movie “Camp,” a spirited maid in the Broadway revival of “La Cage aux Folles” and a boisterous interior decorator in both the play and film versions of “The Boys in the Band,” he wanted to diversify his work. Then along came “Tick, Tick … Boom!.” De Jesús was deeply intentional in auditioning for the role of Michael, an actor turned advertiser, in the film, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. “What kept coming up for me was, ‘I want a quiet performance.’ I want a quiet, subtle, nuance,” de Jesús said at lunch. “And I know that, if I do that, I can showcase maturity.” The movie (in theaters and on Netflix) is an adaptation of a musical about the writing of a musical. The original “Tick, Tick … Boom!” was written by Jonathan Larson — who would later go on to write the rock musical “Rent” — and first performed in 1990. The film tells the tale of an aspiring composer (also named Jonathan and played by Andrew Garfield) pouring himself into yet another musical, this one called “Superbia.” It takes place in the early ’90s, against the stark backdrop of the AIDS epidemic. As his 30th birthday looms, Jonathan’s anxiety manifests as a persistent ticking. He worries about the upcoming workshop of “Superbia,” upon which everything seemingly hinges — and about whether he can succeed in the performing arts at all. Michael, his former roommate and best friend since childhood, has tapped out of the threadbare artist lifestyle, opting instead for a plush career in advertising and a glittering high-rise apartment. He was tired of waiting for hours in line for an audition, just to be cut off after six measures of a song and called the wrong name: “Juan, Pedro, Carlos, lo que sea.” That’s not to say that Michael has hardened into a formal shell; he stays playful and supportive of Jonathan’s dreams. We first meet him visiting Jonathan at work in the Moondance Diner, where he drops off copies he made of the “Superbia” script. “Boo-boo, you need to ask yourself,” Michael tells Jonathan, “In this moment, are you letting yourself be led by fear? Or love?” De Jesús said, “I knew that Michael did not have to be pulled and buttoned up, that he was someone who navigated being an artist, a creative, someone who was down and hip, and cool with also doing advertising.” “It didn’t have to just be one thing,” he continued. Although de Jesús has appeared in many major movies, he assumed some other, bigger film star might snag the role of Michael. So he took a risk in his audition. Miranda was impressed. “I’ve seen a lot of productions of ‘Tick, Tick … Boom!’ and a lot of the time the guy that gets cast as Michael is someone who looks very at home being a business guy, very dapper, very smooth,” Miranda said in a phone call. “What’s fun about Robin as a choice is that you 100% believe this is an artist who thrives in this world. It’s an artist with a business suit on.” Miranda and de Jesús go way back. (So far, in fact, that de Jesús sang at Miranda’s wedding.) In 2005, de Jesús made his Broadway debut in “Rent” as a member of the ensemble and an understudy for Angel, a young drag queen. That same year, he joined the original cast of “In the Heights,” Miranda’s first musical, with a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes. “Quiara and I realized every time he had the ball, he just put a crazy spin on it and knocked it out of the park,” Miranda said of de Jesús. “I am mixing my tennis and baseball metaphors, but so would Robin.” De Jesús earned a Tony nomination for his role as Sonny in “In the Heights.” He received subsequent nominations for “La Cage aux Folles” in 2010 and “The Boys in the Band” in 2019. This year, he presented at the Tony Awards with Andrew Garfield. But so many of his roles came across as youthful or outsize. De Jesús was ready for something fresh. “My other characters are like two-liter soda bottles that you shake up and you open,” he said. “Michael, you shake, but you leave closed. And I don’t get to play that often. I’ve always known I’m capable of it.” He was just waiting for someone to give him the opportunity — like many Black and brown artists, he points out. “The fact that I’ve been in New York since 2002, and my first month in New York, I repeatedly heard, ‘It’s a good time to be a person of color in theater,’” he said. “And here we are 20 years later.” And yet, to be Black and brown in New York’s arts and entertainment industry is a thing of beauty, he said, in “the way we’ve created our own cultures, and the way we uplift and promote joy for one another.” De Jesús’ best friend, his “nonsexual lifetime partner,” Dominic Colón, is part of that group of artists, too. Both men are gay and queer Latinos who live in the Bronx, so close they can see each other's apartments (intentionally). After “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” de Jesús hopes to act in Colón’s play, “The War I Know,” a working-class, Puerto Rican story that mirrors their own. “I think he is a teacher,” Colón said. “I think he is a valuable lesson for artists of any age to trust in the journey. And it may not look exactly how you thought it was going to look when you were 18, but it works out in the way that it needs to, and it will continue to.”

In ‘Tick, Tick … Boom!,’ Robin de Jesús knew he could do it

Celebrity couple, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, recently decided to part ways after over two years of dating.&nbsp;

 
On Wednesday, both the singers took to their respective Instagram Stories to share the sad news of their <a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-shawn-mendes-camila-cabello-break-up-will-continue-to-be-best-friends-430151">break-up</a>.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-kim-seon-ho-un-cancels-himself-after-abortion-controversy-back-doing-ads-and-movies-430762" hreflang="en">Kim Seon Ho un-cancels himself after abortion row, back doing ads and movies</a>

 
"We’ve decided to end our romantic relationship but our love for one another as humans is stronger than ever. We started our relationship as best friends and will continue to be best friends. We appreciate your support from the beginning and moving forward," they both wrote.

 
The singer-actress was photographed horseback riding with friends in Los Angeles on Wednesday itself, seemingly enjoying her personal time with her loved ones. &nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-batwoman-3-first-look-of-nicole-kang-as-poison-ivy-revealed-430785" hreflang="en">Batwoman 3: First look of Nicole Kang as Poison Ivy revealed!</a>

 
For her day out with friends, Cabello was seen dressed in a pair of high-waisted jeans, an Elvis Presley tank top and a flannel on top.

 
Cabello and Mendes crossed paths for the first time back in 2014 while she was still a member of the band Fifth Harmony. At the time, the former couple was opening for Austin Mahone. Mendes has said in interviews that he was in love with Cabello since the first time they met and revealed that all his songs were about her.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-scarlett-johansson-is-working-on-top-secret-marvel-project-after-feud-over-black-widow-430711" hreflang="en">Scarlett Johansson is working on a 'top secret' Marvel project</a>

 
News of their break up has come as a shock to many as the 'Señorita' singers were seen being touchy-feely on a beach in Miami just recently.&nbsp;

Celebrity couple, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, recently decided to part ways after over two years of dating. On Wednesday, both the singers took to their respective Instagram Stories to share the sad news of their break-up.

Celebrity couple, Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, recently decided to part ways after over two years of dating. On Wednesday, both the singers took to their respective Instagram Stories to share the sad news of their break-up. Also read: Kim Seon Ho un-cancels himself after abortion row, back doing ads and movies "We’ve decided to end our romantic relationship but our love for one another as humans is stronger than ever. We started our relationship as best friends and will continue to be best friends. We appreciate your support from the beginning and moving forward," they both wrote. The singer-actress was photographed horseback riding with friends in Los Angeles on Wednesday itself, seemingly enjoying her personal time with her loved ones. Also read: Batwoman 3: First look of Nicole Kang as Poison Ivy revealed! For her day out with friends, Cabello was seen dressed in a pair of high-waisted jeans, an Elvis Presley tank top and a flannel on top. Cabello and Mendes crossed paths for the first time back in 2014 while she was still a member of the band Fifth Harmony. At the time, the former couple was opening for Austin Mahone. Mendes has said in interviews that he was in love with Cabello since the first time they met and revealed that all his songs were about her. Also read: Scarlett Johansson is working on a 'top secret' Marvel project News of their break up has come as a shock to many as the 'Señorita' singers were seen being touchy-feely on a beach in Miami just recently.

Camila Cabello steps out for some quality time after break-up with Shawn Mendes

So far this season, five plays by Black authors have opened on Broadway, each with something urgent to say. Whether despairing (“Pass Over”) or lighthearted (“Chicken &amp;amp; Biscuits”), broadly representative (“Thoughts of a Colored Man”) or laser-beam specific (“Lackawanna Blues”), they are talking to us now, like a newspaper come to life. Like newspapers, too, they are remade every day; when I caught up with “Thoughts of a Colored Man” recently, it had been updated with a hot take on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

 
Yet for sheer crackling timeliness, the play most of the moment is in fact the oldest: Alice Childress’ “Trouble in Mind,” which opened Thursday at the American Airlines Theater. Originally produced in 1955 in Greenwich Village, but derailed on its path to becoming the first play by a Black woman to reach Broadway — a distinction that went to Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” four years later — it is only now getting the mainstream attention it deserves, in a Roundabout Theater Company production that does justice to its complexity.

 
And justice, both broadly and narrowly, is the point. What begins as a backstage satire of white cluelessness and Black ingratiation gradually broadens and darkens into something far more mysterious: a peculiarly American tale of lost opportunity.

 
Because Childress uses the play’s structure to express her theme, the ingratiation naturally comes first, and Charles Randolph-Wright’s lively staging leads with warmth and humor. As a mostly Black cast assembles on a perfectly period set (by Arnulfo Maldonado) to begin rehearsing an “anti-lynching” melodrama called “Chaos in Belleville,” their high-spirited chatter is often about fabricated résumés, mutual acquaintances and glorious triumphs past.

 
Yet for Wiletta Mayer (LaChanze) — and for us as we listen — that past is already beginning to crack open. Though she rhapsodizes to the stage doorman (Simon Jones) about a song she once performed in a show called “Brownskin Melody,” she and her colleague Millie Davis (Jessica Frances Dukes) have more often been reduced to “flower” or “jewel” roles: stereotyped Black women with names like Gardenia, Magnolia, Crystal and Opal. In her most recent job, Millie says, “All I did was shout ‘Lord, have mercy!’ for almost two hours every night.”

 
“Chaos in Belleville,” by a white playwright, is no better, despite its supposedly sympathetic theme. In it, Wiletta is set to play Ruby, and Millie to play Petunia: women working for a white family in the Jim Crow South. When Ruby’s son, Job, gets in trouble after daring to vote, the women are left, as usual, to wail and sing.

 
Wiletta has no question that the play “stinks.” But then so does any mainstream play she can reasonably hope to book. An idealistic young actor like John Nevins (Brandon Micheal Hall) — who has been cast, in his first Broadway outing, as Job — may feel pride on becoming a part of the theater, but Wiletta knows better.

 
“Colored folks ain’t in no theater,” she says. They are merely in a business.

 
As such, she and Millie — soon joined by Sheldon Forrester (Chuck Cooper), an old hand playing Ruby’s husband — are experts at not rocking the boat. They dress beautifully (in costumes by Emilio Sosa) and feign enthusiasm. In a hilarious yet devastating scene, Wiletta advises John that, in order to feel comfortable, white producers and directors need Black actors to be walking contradictions. They should be “natural” talents yet experienced, not too needy and yet not too cocky, have no opinions except good ones and laugh at every joke.

 
If this seems extreme, read about the experiences of Black theater artists today. The question they have been asking, in manifestoes and Twitter threads, is whether the systemic imbalance of power backstage is in any meaningful sense different from racism.

 
Some 66 years ago, that was precisely Childress’ question as well, and once the white characters appear it starts to get answered. We see that even the most powerless of them — a put-upon stage manager (Alex Mickiewicz), a Yale-trained ingénue (Danielle Campbell) and a neurotic journeyman (Don Stephenson) — have more agency in their profession than any of the Black characters do.

The journeyman, though not very good, never lacks for work. (Stephenson, though, is expert.) The ingénue complains that if “Chaos in Belleville” fails she’ll have to move back to her parents’ house in Connecticut, blithely unaware that Sheldon is probably one week’s salary short of homelessness. 
But it is of course the director, Al Manners (Michael Zegen), who sits at the top of the pecking order, pecking away at everyone’s nerves. An egoist whose veneer of open-mindedness is easily stripped away, he regularly explodes in nasty snits that today would be understood (and yet perhaps tolerated) as big-man harassment. Though he calls Wiletta “darling” and “my sweetheart,” his growing intransigence in response to her growing dissatisfaction is the primary source of conflict within the play.

 
Their fight is a fascinating knot of racial politics and dramatic theory. In Zegen’s apt take, Manners has the reptilian insouciance of a would-be Elia Kazan, bringing to the stage the new techniques of Method acting he has learned as a hack in Hollywood. Yet Manners’ demands are completely incoherent, and as Wiletta fails to satisfy him despite “justifying” and “relating to” the nonsensical dialogue she’s given, she realizes that “Chaos in Belleville” is in fact racist — and, in defending it, so is he.

 
LaChanze gets that arc just right in a wonderfully rangy and compelling performance. At first confident that she can continue to game an unfair system, her Wiletta becomes almost existentially confused as insight floods in; when finally she regains her clarity and resolves not to participate in her own degradation, it has the weight of both victory and defeat in one choice.

 
By then, we understand that “Trouble in Mind,” its title taken from a classic blues song about suicide, is, for all its backstage comedy, a tragedy of waste — not, like lynching, the waste of what happens so much as the waste of what doesn’t.

 
All the Black characters, but none of the white ones, know that tragedy intimately. At one point, Sheldon, who spends most of “Chaos in Belleville” saying “Yes, sir” and “Thank you, sir” and whittling pointlessly at a stick, casually remarks that unlike that play’s author and director he has actually witnessed a lynching. Cooper then gives us a brilliant, horrific aria, filled with Method detail, that makes you see as if you were behind his eyes, and at the same time makes you understand how much of America’s talent has been squandered.

 
That includes Childress, a figure who looks in hindsight a lot like Wiletta. It was because she refused to license a softened ending that “Trouble in Mind” did not make the move to Broadway after its off-Broadway success; none of her later work made it to Broadway either. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important — or that, in our day, as this eye-opening production demonstrates, we can’t make it important again.

So far this season, five plays by Black authors have opened on Broadway, each with something urgent to say. Whether despairing (“Pass Over”) or lighthearted (“Chicken &amp; Biscuits”), broadly representative (“Thoughts of a Colored Man”) or laser-beam specific (“Lackawanna Blues”), they are talking to us now, like a newspaper come to life.

So far this season, five plays by Black authors have opened on Broadway, each with something urgent to say. Whether despairing (“Pass Over”) or lighthearted (“Chicken &amp; Biscuits”), broadly representative (“Thoughts of a Colored Man”) or laser-beam specific (“Lackawanna Blues”), they are talking to us now, like a newspaper come to life. Like newspapers, too, they are remade every day; when I caught up with “Thoughts of a Colored Man” recently, it had been updated with a hot take on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. Yet for sheer crackling timeliness, the play most of the moment is in fact the oldest: Alice Childress’ “Trouble in Mind,” which opened Thursday at the American Airlines Theater. Originally produced in 1955 in Greenwich Village, but derailed on its path to becoming the first play by a Black woman to reach Broadway — a distinction that went to Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” four years later — it is only now getting the mainstream attention it deserves, in a Roundabout Theater Company production that does justice to its complexity. And justice, both broadly and narrowly, is the point. What begins as a backstage satire of white cluelessness and Black ingratiation gradually broadens and darkens into something far more mysterious: a peculiarly American tale of lost opportunity. Because Childress uses the play’s structure to express her theme, the ingratiation naturally comes first, and Charles Randolph-Wright’s lively staging leads with warmth and humor. As a mostly Black cast assembles on a perfectly period set (by Arnulfo Maldonado) to begin rehearsing an “anti-lynching” melodrama called “Chaos in Belleville,” their high-spirited chatter is often about fabricated résumés, mutual acquaintances and glorious triumphs past. Yet for Wiletta Mayer (LaChanze) — and for us as we listen — that past is already beginning to crack open. Though she rhapsodizes to the stage doorman (Simon Jones) about a song she once performed in a show called “Brownskin Melody,” she and her colleague Millie Davis (Jessica Frances Dukes) have more often been reduced to “flower” or “jewel” roles: stereotyped Black women with names like Gardenia, Magnolia, Crystal and Opal. In her most recent job, Millie says, “All I did was shout ‘Lord, have mercy!’ for almost two hours every night.” “Chaos in Belleville,” by a white playwright, is no better, despite its supposedly sympathetic theme. In it, Wiletta is set to play Ruby, and Millie to play Petunia: women working for a white family in the Jim Crow South. When Ruby’s son, Job, gets in trouble after daring to vote, the women are left, as usual, to wail and sing. Wiletta has no question that the play “stinks.” But then so does any mainstream play she can reasonably hope to book. An idealistic young actor like John Nevins (Brandon Micheal Hall) — who has been cast, in his first Broadway outing, as Job — may feel pride on becoming a part of the theater, but Wiletta knows better. “Colored folks ain’t in no theater,” she says. They are merely in a business. As such, she and Millie — soon joined by Sheldon Forrester (Chuck Cooper), an old hand playing Ruby’s husband — are experts at not rocking the boat. They dress beautifully (in costumes by Emilio Sosa) and feign enthusiasm. In a hilarious yet devastating scene, Wiletta advises John that, in order to feel comfortable, white producers and directors need Black actors to be walking contradictions. They should be “natural” talents yet experienced, not too needy and yet not too cocky, have no opinions except good ones and laugh at every joke. If this seems extreme, read about the experiences of Black theater artists today. The question they have been asking, in manifestoes and Twitter threads, is whether the systemic imbalance of power backstage is in any meaningful sense different from racism. Some 66 years ago, that was precisely Childress’ question as well, and once the white characters appear it starts to get answered. We see that even the most powerless of them — a put-upon stage manager (Alex Mickiewicz), a Yale-trained ingénue (Danielle Campbell) and a neurotic journeyman (Don Stephenson) — have more agency in their profession than any of the Black characters do. The journeyman, though not very good, never lacks for work. (Stephenson, though, is expert.) The ingénue complains that if “Chaos in Belleville” fails she’ll have to move back to her parents’ house in Connecticut, blithely unaware that Sheldon is probably one week’s salary short of homelessness. But it is of course the director, Al Manners (Michael Zegen), who sits at the top of the pecking order, pecking away at everyone’s nerves. An egoist whose veneer of open-mindedness is easily stripped away, he regularly explodes in nasty snits that today would be understood (and yet perhaps tolerated) as big-man harassment. Though he calls Wiletta “darling” and “my sweetheart,” his growing intransigence in response to her growing dissatisfaction is the primary source of conflict within the play. Their fight is a fascinating knot of racial politics and dramatic theory. In Zegen’s apt take, Manners has the reptilian insouciance of a would-be Elia Kazan, bringing to the stage the new techniques of Method acting he has learned as a hack in Hollywood. Yet Manners’ demands are completely incoherent, and as Wiletta fails to satisfy him despite “justifying” and “relating to” the nonsensical dialogue she’s given, she realizes that “Chaos in Belleville” is in fact racist — and, in defending it, so is he. LaChanze gets that arc just right in a wonderfully rangy and compelling performance. At first confident that she can continue to game an unfair system, her Wiletta becomes almost existentially confused as insight floods in; when finally she regains her clarity and resolves not to participate in her own degradation, it has the weight of both victory and defeat in one choice. By then, we understand that “Trouble in Mind,” its title taken from a classic blues song about suicide, is, for all its backstage comedy, a tragedy of waste — not, like lynching, the waste of what happens so much as the waste of what doesn’t. All the Black characters, but none of the white ones, know that tragedy intimately. At one point, Sheldon, who spends most of “Chaos in Belleville” saying “Yes, sir” and “Thank you, sir” and whittling pointlessly at a stick, casually remarks that unlike that play’s author and director he has actually witnessed a lynching. Cooper then gives us a brilliant, horrific aria, filled with Method detail, that makes you see as if you were behind his eyes, and at the same time makes you understand how much of America’s talent has been squandered. That includes Childress, a figure who looks in hindsight a lot like Wiletta. It was because she refused to license a softened ending that “Trouble in Mind” did not make the move to Broadway after its off-Broadway success; none of her later work made it to Broadway either. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important — or that, in our day, as this eye-opening production demonstrates, we can’t make it important again.

Review: ‘Trouble in Mind,’ 66 years late and still on time

Ace filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is now facing a copyright infringement lawsuit for selling NFTs based on the screenplay of his film ‘Pulp Fiction’. Miramax has filed a lawsuit against the filmmaker.&nbsp;

Tarantino had first announced the NFTs at a recent crypto-art convention that took place in New York. He had said, “I’m excited to be presenting these exclusive scenes from ‘Pulp Fiction’ to fans.”

As the auction takes place, the contents of the screenplay will thus be available exclusively by the owner. It is based on the excerpts from <a data-ctorig="https://www.wionews.com/topics/quentin-tarantino" data-cturl="https://www.google.com/url?client=internal-element-cse&amp;cx=006054055338965708568:09spwrlibei&amp;q=https://www.wionews.com/topics/quentin-tarantino&amp;sa=U&amp;ved=2ahUKEwi82vat4p70AhXYwzgGHXN0A20QFnoECAcQAQ&amp;usg=AOvVaw1zYObL_FcUW-VdImJPsCjE" dir="ltr" href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/quentin-tarantino" target="_blank">Quentin Tarantino</a>’s original handwritten script for the film. However, Miramax is not happy as they insist that the filmmaker did not consult them before announcing the NFTs. They still own the rights of the 1994 classic film ‘Pulp Fiction’.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-amitabh-bachchans-nft-collection-records-highest-ever-bidding-in-india-426566">Amitabh Bachchan's NFT collection records highest-ever bidding in India</a>

Miramax’s attorneys have sent a cease and desist letter seeking to block the sale, but that has not stopped Tarantino and his team from moving forward. Miramax argues that NFTs are a one-time sale, and are not equivalent to publication of a screenplay, and that therefore Miramax owns the NFT rights. The suit states claims of breach of contract, copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition.

Quentin Tarantino and team are yet to respond to this lawsuit.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-heres-why-quentin-tarantino-vowed-as-a-kid-to-never-share-film-proceeds-with-mom-404194" hreflang="en">Here's why Quentin Tarantino vowed as a kid to never share film proceeds with mom</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-quentin-tarantino-reveals-his-favourite-scene-from-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-didnt-make-it-to-the-final-cut-396990" hreflang="en">Quentin Tarantino reveals his favourite scene from 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood' didn't make it to the final cut</a>

Ace filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is now facing a copyright infringement lawsuit for selling NFTs based on the screenplay of his film ‘Pulp Fiction’. Miramax has filed a lawsuit against the filmmaker.

Ace filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is now facing a copyright infringement lawsuit for selling NFTs based on the screenplay of his film ‘Pulp Fiction’. Miramax has filed a lawsuit against the filmmaker. Tarantino had first announced the NFTs at a recent crypto-art convention that took place in New York. He had said, “I’m excited to be presenting these exclusive scenes from ‘Pulp Fiction’ to fans.” As the auction takes place, the contents of the screenplay will thus be available exclusively by the owner. It is based on the excerpts from Quentin Tarantino’s original handwritten script for the film. However, Miramax is not happy as they insist that the filmmaker did not consult them before announcing the NFTs. They still own the rights of the 1994 classic film ‘Pulp Fiction’. Amitabh Bachchan's NFT collection records highest-ever bidding in India Miramax’s attorneys have sent a cease and desist letter seeking to block the sale, but that has not stopped Tarantino and his team from moving forward. Miramax argues that NFTs are a one-time sale, and are not equivalent to publication of a screenplay, and that therefore Miramax owns the NFT rights. The suit states claims of breach of contract, copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition. Quentin Tarantino and team are yet to respond to this lawsuit. Also read: Here's why Quentin Tarantino vowed as a kid to never share film proceeds with mom Quentin Tarantino reveals his favourite scene from 'Once Upon A Time in Hollywood' didn't make it to the final cut

Quentin Tarantino served copyright infringement lawsuit over 'Pulp Fiction' NFT auction

On Thursday, Will Smith embarked on a book tour for his memoir 'Will' and hopped on the stage of Dolby Theatre where he talked about his life, career and the choices that shaped up his existence.&nbsp;

 
Smith’s started with his native Philadelphia, then to Brooklyn, Chicago, and Los Angeles before he goes global: to London.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-julia-roberts-drops-out-of-reese-witherspoons-production-jennifer-garner-steps-in-428913" hreflang="en">Julia Roberts drops from Reese Witherspoon's production, Jennifer Garner joins</a>

 
Smith has written his memoir in collaboration with Mark Manson, author of 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck'.

 
"The book tracks my journey from fear to love," the actor said.&nbsp;

 
“Over time I started to see that focusing on the wall made it seem like an impossible task. But when you bring your mind down to laying one brick perfectly, you can even have fun in that moment,” Smith said.&nbsp; 
This lesson has been a guiding force in his career throughout.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/whats-next-for-britney-spears-clues-are-in-her-own-words-428921" hreflang="en">What's next for Britney Spears? Clues are in her own words</a>

 
During this no-hollds-barred chat, Smith mentioned something interesting about his personal life: that performing arts was an escape for him. “I started performing as a way to keep peace in my house. It turned into something where I was able to assert myself in the material world," he said.&nbsp;

 
The memoir also touches upon the domestic violence he has seen and faced as a young boy.&nbsp;

 
“I learned what love is…you can’t punish people for mistakes. You have to forgive people, and a big part of that is forgiving yourself," he explained.&nbsp;

 
Smith also joked about media's portrayal of his unconventional marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith, saying: “What you’re watching is an experiment in unconditional love.”

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hollywood/news-finally-britney-spears-conservatorship-dissolved-by-judge-428908">Finally! Britney Spears' conservatorship dissolved by Judge</a>

The actor-musician wrapped up the talk with a rap performance in what they dubbed as 'the true style of Will Smith'.&nbsp;

On Thursday, Will Smith embarked on a book tour for his memoir 'Will' and hopped on the stage of Dolby Theatre where he talked about his life, career and the choices that shaped up his existence.

On Thursday, Will Smith embarked on a book tour for his memoir 'Will' and hopped on the stage of Dolby Theatre where he talked about his life, career and the choices that shaped up his existence. Smith’s started with his native Philadelphia, then to Brooklyn, Chicago, and Los Angeles before he goes global: to London. Also read: Julia Roberts drops from Reese Witherspoon's production, Jennifer Garner joins Smith has written his memoir in collaboration with Mark Manson, author of 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck'. "The book tracks my journey from fear to love," the actor said. “Over time I started to see that focusing on the wall made it seem like an impossible task. But when you bring your mind down to laying one brick perfectly, you can even have fun in that moment,” Smith said. This lesson has been a guiding force in his career throughout. Also read: What's next for Britney Spears? Clues are in her own words During this no-hollds-barred chat, Smith mentioned something interesting about his personal life: that performing arts was an escape for him. “I started performing as a way to keep peace in my house. It turned into something where I was able to assert myself in the material world," he said. The memoir also touches upon the domestic violence he has seen and faced as a young boy. “I learned what love is…you can’t punish people for mistakes. You have to forgive people, and a big part of that is forgiving yourself," he explained. Smith also joked about media's portrayal of his unconventional marriage to Jada Pinkett Smith, saying: “What you’re watching is an experiment in unconditional love.” Also read: Finally! Britney Spears' conservatorship dissolved by Judge The actor-musician wrapped up the talk with a rap performance in what they dubbed as 'the true style of Will Smith'.

Will Smith on childhood woes: I started performing as a way to keep peace in my house

Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Indian-origin college student, who was critically injured in the stampede at the Astroworld festival in Houston, has died, bringing the death toll to nine.&nbsp;The family’s lawyer confirmed the news on Thursday.

 
Shahani, who was set to graduate from Texas A&amp;M University in the spring, died on Wednesday night. She was previously declared brain dead by doctors.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;Mathew McConaughey's not in for mandatory COVID vaccine for kids

Watch I&nbsp; Astroworld concert stampede: What we know

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/astroworld-concert-tragedy-what-we-know-so-far-428552/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

 
The concertgoers who died following the Friday night's tragic show were aged between 14 and 27. According to reports, a nine-year-old boy, who was also injured at the sold-out festival of 50,000 people, remained in a medically induced coma.

 
"For the first time in her life she just wanted to have fun, and that was taken from her," said Namrata Shahani, her sister, who had attended the concert along with Bharti and their cousin.

 
Namrata Shahani reportedly said that her sister’s last words to her were, “Are you OK?”

Also read:&nbsp;Unisex hijab? Italian fashion brand new launch leaves netizens confused

 
Reportedly, concertgoers have described that the packed audience was still growing and had taken a dangerous shape even before headliner Travis Scott took to stage, and seeing people collapse while the rapper reportedly performed. Scott’s attorneys have said he did not know about the deaths and injuries until after the show.

 
On Thursday, Scott’s representatives said Scott is “distraught by the situation” and has been trying to connect with the affected families to extend his condolences and provide them aid.

 
A criminal investigation into the deaths at Astroworld is underway as hundreds were injured during the stampede.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;Woah! Tom Hanks' volleyball in Oscar-nominated 'Cast Away' sold for an unbelievable sum

 
Scott was minutes into his set when at least one Houston officer reportedly radioed over a police channel informing that the main stage had been compromised by a massive crowd surge.

 
Recordings of police radio traffic, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, reveal law enforcement became aware of the rising danger shortly after the star rapper began performing at the sold-out music festival. Scott, however, took on his hometown stage of Houston shortly after 9 p.m.

 
The rapper kept performing his set that lasted for about an hour. Newspaper Houston Chronicle reported that officers spotted people leaving the crowd but that their voices remained calm through the first 30 minutes of his set.&nbsp;

 
On Wednesday, Scott’s attorneys pointed to an operational plan for the event that states only the festival director and executive producers have the authority to stop the show, “neither of which is part of Travis’s crew.”

Also read:&nbsp;Zoya Akhtar to direct ‘The Archies’ comic book adaptation for Netflix

 
“Investigations should start proceeding over finger-pointing so that together, we can identify exactly what transpired and how we can prevent anything like this from happening again,” attorney Edwin F. McPherson said in a statement.

Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Indian-origin college student, who was critically injured in the stampede at the Astroworld festival in Houston, has died, bringing the death toll to nine.

Bharti Shahani, a 22-year-old Indian-origin college student, who was critically injured in the stampede at the Astroworld festival in Houston, has died, bringing the death toll to nine. The family’s lawyer confirmed the news on Thursday. Shahani, who was set to graduate from Texas A&M University in the spring, died on Wednesday night. She was previously declared brain dead by doctors. Also read: Mathew McConaughey's not in for mandatory COVID vaccine for kids Watch I Astroworld concert stampede: What we know The concertgoers who died following the Friday night's tragic show were aged between 14 and 27. According to reports, a nine-year-old boy, who was also injured at the sold-out festival of 50,000 people, remained in a medically induced coma. "For the first time in her life she just wanted to have fun, and that was taken from her," said Namrata Shahani, her sister, who had attended the concert along with Bharti and their cousin. Namrata Shahani reportedly said that her sister’s last words to her were, “Are you OK?” Also read: Unisex hijab? Italian fashion brand new launch leaves netizens confused Reportedly, concertgoers have described that the packed audience was still growing and had taken a dangerous shape even before headliner Travis Scott took to stage, and seeing people collapse while the rapper reportedly performed. Scott’s attorneys have said he did not know about the deaths and injuries until after the show. On Thursday, Scott’s representatives said Scott is “distraught by the situation” and has been trying to connect with the affected families to extend his condolences and provide them aid. A criminal investigation into the deaths at Astroworld is underway as hundreds were injured during the stampede. Also read: Woah! Tom Hanks' volleyball in Oscar-nominated 'Cast Away' sold for an unbelievable sum Scott was minutes into his set when at least one Houston officer reportedly radioed over a police channel informing that the main stage had been compromised by a massive crowd surge. Recordings of police radio traffic, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, reveal law enforcement became aware of the rising danger shortly after the star rapper began performing at the sold-out music festival. Scott, however, took on his hometown stage of Houston shortly after 9 p.m. The rapper kept performing his set that lasted for about an hour. Newspaper Houston Chronicle reported that officers spotted people leaving the crowd but that their voices remained calm through the first 30 minutes of his set. On Wednesday, Scott’s attorneys pointed to an operational plan for the event that states only the festival director and executive producers have the authority to stop the show, “neither of which is part of Travis’s crew.” Also read: Zoya Akhtar to direct ‘The Archies’ comic book adaptation for Netflix “Investigations should start proceeding over finger-pointing so that together, we can identify exactly what transpired and how we can prevent anything like this from happening again,” attorney Edwin F. McPherson said in a statement.

Astroworld: Indian student Bharti Shahani becomes 9th victim to lose her life following the concert

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