Sundance: After 29 Books, Judy Blume Finally Tells Her Own Story in New Doc
On a long road trip from New York to Nova Scotia a few years ago, documentarian Davina Pardo played an audiobook of Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to help pass the time for her kids, then 5 and 8. Blume’s effervescent voice, reading the same 1972 novel of grade school angst that […]
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Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Joseph Kosinski, Gina Prince-Bythewood and the THR Director Roundtable
The shot that nearly broke them, the pointlessness of auditions, the gift of final cut — the directors of some of this year’s most powerful movies got together and got real about their craft. In December, JD Dillard (Devotion), Todd Field (Tár), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths), Joseph Kosinski […]
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“We’re a Little Scary and Powerful”: THR’s Actress Roundtable With Michelle Williams, Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Yeoh and More
From how they’ve dealt with hearing no to how they’ve learned to say it themselves, the actresses who delivered some of this year’s most memorable performances are sharing their strategies for navigating a changing Hollywood — and a changing world. In November, Emma Corrin (Lady Chatterley’s Lover), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Claire Foy (Women Talking), Jennifer […]
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Making of ‘Women Talking’: Why Writer-Director Sarah Polley Originally Resisted Taking on the Awards Contender
A few years ago at a book club meeting, a friend took Sarah Polley aside in the kitchen. “She told me, ‘I found this book, and you have to make it into a film,’ ” Polley says. “She said, ‘I’m going to tell you the backstory of what happens before the book starts and you’re […]
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“This Is Not the Old HFPA”: Golden Globes’ Group Head Talks for First Time Since 2021 Boycott
For nearly two years, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been in the midst of an existential crisis, ever since a February 2021 Los Angeles Times story revealed a lack of Black members and a pattern of financial improprieties. The revelations sparked studios and talent to boycott the HFPA and prompted NBC, its longtime broadcasting […]
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She Wrote the Memo That Helped Take Down Harvey Weinstein. She’s Finally Ready to Talk.
Lauren O’Connor was alone at a deli in an office park in Santa Monica, having a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich while on her lunch break from Amazon Studios, when she suddenly, terrifyingly, found herself front-page news. It was Oct. 5, 2017, the day The New York Times published its first piece alleging that Harvey […]
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Inside James Cameron’s Billion-Dollar Bet on ‘Avatar’
A few years ago, after James Cameron finished the first Avatar film, his kids called a family meeting to deliver some notes on his parenting. Some of the kids, who today range in age from 15 to 32, had attended the MUSE school in Calabasas that Cameron’s wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, founded in 2006. At […]
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Academy Honors Michael J. Fox, Euzhan Palcy, Diane Warren and Peter Weir at Emotional Governors Awards
The Governors Awards seals it — awards season is officially back to its pre-pandemic level of glamour and frenzy. Martinique-born filmmaker Euzhan Palcy, American songwriter Diane Warren and Australian director Peter Weir were on hand to receive their honorary Oscars and Michael J. Fox to receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy’s event […]
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Steven Spielberg: The Origin Story
In March 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Steven Spielberg was watching his 103-year-old father, Arnold, deteriorate. After growing distant when the filmmaker, now 75, was in his 20s and early 30s, father and son had reconnected and become close. They lived near each other in Pacific Palisades, and Steven would go […]
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Lupita Nyong’o on the Intense Shoot for ’Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ and the Weight of Global Stardom
Lupita Nyong’o learned lots of valuable lessons as an acting student at the Yale School of Drama — on Shakespeare, accents, the Alexander technique — but there was one crucial omission from the curriculum. “We kept being told that it’s going to be one long, lonely, hard and fruitless journey, being an actor,” Nyong’o says. […]
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The Academy Museum Is Making Money and Luring a Younger-Than-Expected Audience
After decades of false starts and years of delays for construction and the pandemic, the $484 million, Renzo Piano-designed Academy Museum finally opened to the public in September 2021. Since then, the museum has exceeded expectations by drawing 700,000 visitors (20 percent more than its goal), and it is easily covering its operating expenses via […]
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#MeToo, Five Years Later: Why Time’s Up Imploded
When it was founded in the months after the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke in 2017, Time’s Up was supposed to put Hollywood’s considerable power and money — and its sudden outrage — to work fighting sexual harassment. Instead, today Time’s Up is a ghost organization, technically still operating, but with no CEO or programming offered […]
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