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Kate Hudson has learned a lot about herself thanks to her relationships with others. That especially goes for her difficult breakup from Muse frontman Matt Bellamy, which the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery actress opened up about in a recent appearance on Josh Smith’s Reign podcast.
Things got deep when Smith asked Hudson about the ways she is similar to an onion, a funny reference to the title of her newest film, which arrives on Netflix Dec. 23 following a one-week theatrical release in November. “I’m still peeling back those layers,” she laughed.
“I think we all are,” continued the actress, who landed a spot on Billboard‘s Digital Song Sales chart in September 2012 when her feature on the Glee cast’s song “Americano/Dance Again” peaked at No. 61. “We all have to figure out what’s at the core of our own little onion. I think that’s when things started changing for me — when I started taking far more accountability for my own s–t.”
When Smith pressed the Almost Famous star for a life moment that prompted her to start taking accountability — something she said is “liberating” — Hudson brought up her split from Bellamy, with whom she shares 11-year-old son Bing.
“After my second failed baby-daddy relationship,” she said. “That moment for me was like, ‘Now I have to figure this out.’”
Hudson welcomed her first child, now 18-year-old son Ryder, in 2004 with The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, to whom she was married from 2000 to 2007. She was engaged to Bellamy from 2011 to 2014.
“That was really hard for me because I didn’t want that to end,” she said of her relationship with the Muse singer. “I need to figure out what this is in my life, this pattern I keep repeating, and take accountability for it. I think the issue is when people blame everybody else for any challenges or hardships. I don’t want to be friends with that person.”
The Bride Wars star is now engaged to Danny Fujikawa, and the two share 4-year-old daughter Rani.
Julie Andrews is sharing her thoughts on a potential role in the third Princess Diaries.
In an interview with Access Hollywood on Tuesday (Dec. 6), The Sound of Music actress addressed if she would appear in a chapter in one of her first public comments since the project was announced as being in development. In the first two films, Andrews played Queen Clarisse Renaldi, the grandmother of Anne Hathaway’s character, Mia Thermopolis.
“I think we know that it’s probably not going to be possible. It was talked about very shortly after two [The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement] came out, but it’s now how many years since then? And I am that much older and Annie the princess, or queen, is so much older. And I am not sure where it would float or run,” Andrews said. “In terms of us doing it, I doubt that now.”
In November, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Aadrita Mukerji is writing a script for a new installment of Princess Diaries for Disney. According to sources, the movie is a continuation of the series of films that Anne Hathaway starred in rather than a reboot.
THR reported that sources say Hathaway does not have a deal to return to the franchise but hope she would return if the film moves forward. In the past, the Les Misérables actress has shared her support publicly for a third film.
This isn’t the first time Andrews has expressed her thoughts about returning to the Princess Diaries franchise. In 2019, during a visit to Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, the Mary Poppins star responded to rumors surrounding the potential film, saying, “The truth is I haven’t heard. There’s been talk about it for quite awhile.”
More recently, in June 2022, Andrews spoke to THR ahead of receiving the AFI Life Achievement Award, calling her return a “lovely thought.”
But when asked if she would want to revisit the franchise, she said, “I think it would be too late to do it now. There was talk of a sequel many, many years ago. But I don’t think it ever came to pass. And Garry then did leave us. [Marshall died in 2016.] [For] especially me, it’s too far down the line now to go back to it.”
For the new film, Debra Martin Chase is returning to produce after working on the first two Princess Diaries. Melissa Stack, the screenwriter for The Other Woman and Godmothered, is executive producing.
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
The Weeknd has something in the works with Avatar: The Way of Water, the upcoming long-awaited sequel to 2009’s Avatar.
“12.16.22,” The Weeknd wrote on Sunday (Dec. 4) on Twitter, along with a 12-second music clip featuring the blue Avatar logo. Dec. 16 is the day the James Cameron-directed film is set to be released by Disney.
“#AvatarTheWayOfWater x @theweeknd,” the official Avatar account tweeted soon after.
Film producer Jon Landau also shared a snapshot with The Weeknd and wrote, “As the Na’vi say, ‘Zola’u nìprrte’ soaiane Avatar’… Welcome to the Avatar family.”
The original Avatar became the highest-grossing movie of all time ($2.92 billion worldwide) and received nine Oscar nominations, winning three of those awards: best art direction, best cinematography, and best visual effects.
The Weeknd last released new music with Dawn FM, his fifth studio album, which peaked at No. 2 on the Bllboard 200 albums chart in January 2022.
See the teaser tweets about The Weeknd’s involvement in the new Avatar film below.
George Jones and Tammy Wynette were both long gone by the time Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain began filming George & Tammy, a six-episode series that premieres on Showtime Dec. 4. However, the actors still found a way to commune with the legendary country artists.
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“We came to Nashville and did some recording,” Shannon tells Billboard. “The studio that we recorded at was adjacent to the cemetery where George is buried and Tammy’s remains are. So, we would sing their songs and then go and visit them.” Wynette died in 1998 and Jones in 2013.
Playing the country icons was daunting, the actors admit, especially when it came to doing their own singing. “I had so much anxiety and stress about trying to sound like her, but that’s an impossible thing to do,” Chastain says. “She had a once-in-a-lifetime gift.”
Taking on the emotional weight of the troubled couple, who were married from 1969-1975, could also be taxing, so Shannon would try to lighten the mood “if you think fart noises are funny,” he says, cracking Chastain up. “We did actually do something that probably no one would ever expect,” she adds. “We had a bouncy castle day because it was someone’s birthday and I got Mike into the bouncy castle, which is a sight I thought I’d never see.”
The pair, who have been friends since they appeared together in 2011’s Take Shelter, sat down with Billboard recently in Nashville to discuss how they prepared for their roles, why they did their own singing and reveal their favorite Jones and Wynette songs.
Billboard: Jessica, Abe Sylvia, whom you worked with on The Eyes of Tammy Faye, is writer and co-executive producer of George & Tammy. Is that how you got involved?
Chastain: No, someone approached me in 2011 at the Golden Globes, and said, “Hey, do you want to play Tammy Wynette?” It was like my first awards show and I was like, “Yeah, that sounds great. I love that song.” (laughs) There were many, many iterations of it, different directors. And budget wise, it was so expensive with all the music and all the stories we wanted to tell in two hours, it just felt like it wasn’t going to happen. At one point, it just kind of disappeared because it was so expensive. And then, in the beginning of the pandemic, Abe called me and said, “What if we make it a mini-series?” And that sounded very exciting. I’ve been reading about Tammy Wynette for 11 years.
Michael, you’ve said you didn’t know that much about George and that you’re more into jazz. What was your interest in playing him?
Shannon: Jessica asked me about it. I read his autobiography. I was really seduced by his voice, by his singing and his songs. I felt a little self-conscious about it because I don’t think I really resemble George Jones much, but I was excited to have an opportunity to sing and tell a story through singing because I do like to sing.
You used to have your own band. How did that help you since you’ve been in front of an audience performing?
Shannon: I don’t get super nervous about being up in front of a bunch of people, but to try and sing like George is no small feat. I don’t really think anybody can sing like George. But I sure worked hard on it, and we had a vocal coach, Ron Browning, who helped us train for a few months before we even started shooting.
What was your approach in terms of capturing their vocal styles?
Shannon: We wanted to tell the story through singing. The part that really intrigued me is how George and Tammy would tell the story of their life every time they sang together or alone. Even though the songs oftentimes weren’t written by them, they were still communicating by singing them. You can pick the same song and watch 10 different performances of it and get 10 completely different stories just based on the way they’re looking at each other. We could have just lip-synced everything, but I think in order for us to inhabit the people, we had to perform.
When you were doing your research, was there one thing that you clued in on that helped you find the character?
Chastain: I don’t know that this is right at all–I never had the opportunity to meet her–but I felt like she was an incredibly sensuous person, watching her sing, watching her interviews. Everything about her, I think she loved being a woman. She loved cooking. She loved makeup and hair. I found that to be a way in. She loved men at a time where you get married and stay married forever, she married five times. I think a lot of that also has to do with the fact that she loved being around men. Again, my interpretation, but it was kind of my way into playing her.
What about for you, Michael?
Shannon: I don’t know. It’s such a complex journey, George’s life. Every day when I got to work, there was an interview I’d listen to. It was an interview that George and Tammy did together. It coincided with the release of record that they made together for Epic and George talks about finally getting to Epic 17 years (in). It was kind of my morning ritual, put that on and listen to his voice. Listen to him and Tammy together.
There’s a scene in Ken Burns Country Music documentary where record producer Billy Sherrill calls them wounded animals. These are really talented, but tragic people.
Chastain: I think what’s so interesting sometimes about people is when they’re not afraid of their darkness and they’re willing to live in it and willing to explore it and try to move through it. And I think a lot of times we live our lives trying to hide it from others, try to appear to be perfect and hide anything that feels ugly or might upset someone away. The thing about George and Tammy that you see when they sing together is they were just so open. She was in another time period, so she had to hide a lot about who she was, but I don’t think she had to hide from George. I don’t know how I would have been able to even approach playing this character without coming to set knowing that Mike was going to be there playing George because when you’re telling those kinds of stories, you need open people willing to go to dark places to do it.
Do you think they were the love of each other’s lives?
Chastain: We gotta be careful because there’s some people still alive. Do you know what I mean? Oof.
Shannon: I’ll put it this way, I don’t really see the point in making this show if the basic premise of the show isn’t that George and Tammy were the love of each other’s [lives]. That’s kind of the Christmas tree that all the ornaments are hanging on, at least in this particular show. Now, there’s 555 million versions of the story and everybody’s got a different one. Neither one of us would say this is the absolute, irrefutable God’s honest truth of every single moment of George and Tammy’s life, but it’s the story that we signed on to tell.
Chastain: And sometimes being with a love of your life isn’t a healthy thing…It’s not written in any of the books, but people who were there said that they were still romantic later in life. So that’s in our show so I’m not speaking out of turn. So, there were a lot of surprises.
Whether musically or otherwise, after they split, they always found their way back to each other.
Chastain: And when she died, George wrote letters to DJs talking about the circumstances of her death. They were always connected.
What’s your favorite George song and favorite Tammy song?
Chastain: I love “The Race Is On.” I think that’s one of the best songs ever written. I love the lyrics. I love the music. And for her, “Apartment No. 9.” That’s pretty great.
Shannon: “Help Me Make It Through the Night” for Tammy. With George, “Bartender’s Blues.”
Lasting impressions of Nashville?
Chastain: I just loved the people that we got to work with. The guys in the band, a lot of them are session players here in Nashville. There were times I would come on to set and, Mike, I think you were getting ready to do “Beneath Still Waters” and in the breaks all the guys would just start playing and Michael started singing a different song and they would just be jamming. That was incredibly inspiring to be around that all the time. I loved the people here in Nashville and the kind of music history that I got to learn.
Joe Jonas opened up in a new interview on Tuesday (Nov. 22) about what it was like tackling his big screen acting debut in the new war drama Devotion.
“Yeah, there were nerves that would come into play here and there, but it’s good to feel something like that again,” the Jonas Brothers singer told Entertainment Weekly of his experience on the set of the Korean War epic. “It’s been a while since I was putting myself in rooms where you’re like, ‘Oh, okay, I’ve got to show up, I’ve got to show my worth in this, and the pressure is on now,’ and how do you bottle that up and utilize it and use it to your advantage, instead of letting it just eat you and take over.”
For the film, which hit theaters nationwide Wednesday (Nov. 23), Jonas also recorded “Not Alone,” his new collab with Khalid. Co-written with Ryan Tedder, the emotional ballad plays over the end credits of Devotion. “I got to see the movie early on, and I brought my friend Ryan Tedder,” he said. “There was a grand piano that happened to be in the screening room, so we started working on the song and brought in a friend of ours, Harv, and I brought in Khalid, and we finished the tune, and that became ‘Not Alone.’
“It really came down to the fact that the one thing [the characters] have is that they’re there for each other, regardless if they are there for them physically,” he added of the track’s thematic connection to the movie.
Telling the story of real-life fighter pilots Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner, Devotion also stars Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Christina Jackson, Ali Asghar Shah, Thomas Sadowski, Serinda Swan, Daren Kagasoff and more.
Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” won song – feature film at the 13th annual Hollywood Music in Media Awards ceremony, which was held at the Avalon in Hollywood on Wednesday, Nov. 16. Rihanna co-wrote the song from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with Tems, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson.
Terence Blanchard’s The Woman King won score – feature film.
Unlike the Oscars, which present just best original song and best original score, the HMMAs have five categories for songs and eight for scores. As a result, trophies here are much easier to come by. Even so, the HHMAs are seen as early indicators of the Oscars. Nominations-round voting for the Oscars extends from Jan. 12-17, 2023. Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 24.
The HMMAs also have a broader scope than the Oscars. They honor composers, songwriters and music supervisors for their work in film, television and video games.
Alexandre Desplat was the only double winner on the night. He won score – animated film for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio and song – animated film for “Ciao Papa” from that film. He composed the song, which has lyrics by Roeben Katz and del Toro.
Two of the most intriguing categories are ones where the Oscars don’t have an equivalent. The HMMAs have a separate category for song – onscreen performance. (Nominations go to the performers, not the songwriters.) The winner was Billy Eichner’s “Love Is Not Love” from Bros. Eichner co-wrote the song with film music veteran Marc Shaiman.
Billy Eichner at the 13th Annual Hollywood Music In Media Awards.
Robert Smith
The Oscars also don’t have an equivalent category for music-themed film, biopic or musical. At the Oscars, these films compete with all other films for best picture. The winner was Tár.
Nor do the Oscars have a category for music documentary/special program. At the Oscars, these films compete with all other docs for best documentary feature. The winner was Killing Me Softly With His Songs.
Musical highlights included Charles Fox performing a medley of his TV theme songs; Diane Warren performing “Applause,” her winning song from Tell It Like a Woman; Rita Wilson performing “Til You’re Home,” her original song from A Man Called Otto; and Iranian singer Mojgan Shajarian, daughter of Maestro Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, performing “Morghe Sahar.”
Kurt Farquhar, prolific television composer and the recipient of the HMMA Career Achievement Award, gave an inspiring acceptance speech about growing up in Chicago and experiencing homelessness before beginning his career as a composer. He extended thanks to his brother, Ralph Farquhar, who helped him get his first jobs in television. He urged Hollywood to consider working with composers and creatives that aren’t the obvious choice.
Presenters included composers Justin Hurwitz, Nami Melumad and Amie Doherty and Ralph Johnson of Earth, Wind & Fire.
Here’s the complete list of nominees, with winners checked:
SONG AWARDS
Song – feature film
WINNER: “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Written by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Göransson. Performed by Rihanna.
“(You Made it Feel Like) Home” from Bones and All. Written by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. Performed by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Mariqueen Maandig Reznor.
“Love Is Not Love” from Bros. Written by Billy Eichner & Marc Shaiman. Performed by Billy Eichner.
“Do a Little Good” from Spirited. Written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Performed by Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, Sunita Mani, Patrick Page and Tracy Morgan.
“Stand Up” from Till. Written by Jazmine Sullivan and D’Mile. Performed by Jazmine Sullivan.
“Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick. Written by Lady Gaga & BloodPop. Performed by Lady Gaga.
“Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing. Written and performed by Taylor Swift.
“new body rhumba” from White Noise. Written by James Murphy, Nancy Whang, Patrick Mahoney. Performed by LCD Soundsystem.
“The Songcord” from Avatar: The Way of Water. Written by Simon Franglen. Performed by Zoe Saldana
“Time” from Amsterdam. Written by Jahaan Sweet, Aubrey Drake Graham, Daniel Pemberton, Giveon Evans. Performed by Giveon.
Song – animated film
“Sunny Side Up Summer” from The Bob’s Burgers Movie. Written by Loren Bouchard, and Nora Smith. Performed by Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, H. Jon Benjamin, John Roberts, and Kristen Schaal.
“Nobody Like U” from Turning Red. Written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. Performed by 4*TOWN (Finneas O’Connell, Grayson Villanueva, Jordan Fisher, Josh Levi, and Topher Ngo)
“Lift Your Wings” from My Father’s Dragon. Written by Mychael Danna, Jeff Danna, Frank Danna, Nora Twomey, Meg LeFauve. Performed by Anohni.
“Turn Up the Sunshine” from Minions: The Rise of Gru. Written by Jack Antonoff, Kevin Parker, Sam Dew, Patrik Berger. Performed by Diana Ross and Tame Impala
WINNER: “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio. Written by Alexandre Desplat, Lyrics by Roeben Katz and Guillermo del Toro. Performed by Gregory Mann
Song – documentary film
“My Mind and Me” from Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me. Written by Selena Gomez, Amy Allen, Jonathan Bellion, Michael Pollack, Stefan Johnson, Jordan K Johnson. Performed by Selena Gomez.
“At the Automat” from The Automat. Written and performed by Mel Brooks
WINNER: “Ready As I’ll Never Be” from The Return of Tanya Tucker – Featuring Brandi Carlile. Written by Brandi Carlile and Tanya Tucker. Performed by Tanya Tucker.
“Sing a Brand New Song” from Killing Me Softly With His Songs. Written by Charles Fox and Lonnie “Common” Rashid Lynn. Performed by Donald Webber, Jr.
“Dust & Ash” from The Voice of Dust and Ash. Written by J. Ralph. Performed by J. Ralph & Norah Jones
“We Are Art” from We Are Art Through the Eyes of Annalaura. Written by Annalaura di Luggo and Paky Di Maio. Performed by Annalaura di Luggo.
“A Sky Like I’ve Never Seen” from Wildcat. Written by Robin Pecknold. Performed by Fleet Foxes.
Song – independent film
WINNER: “Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman. Written by Diane Warren. Performed by Sofia Carson.
“Til You’re Home” from A Man Called Otto. Written by David Hodges and Rita Wilson. Performed by Rita Wilson and Sebastián Yatra
“This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once. Written By Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski. Performed By Son Lux with Mitski and David Byrne.
“We Two Made One” from The Silent Twins. Written by Marcin Macuk, Zuzanna Wrońska, June Gibbons, Jennifer Gibbons. Performed by Tamara Lawrance.
“Stand the Test of Time” from Tomorrow’s Game. Written and performed by Lionel Cohen and Stefni Valencia.
Song – onscreen performance
“Naatu Naatu” from RRR – Rahul Sipligunj, Kaala Bhairava
“Baby Let’s Play House” from Elvis – Austin Butler
“Cucamonga” from Knights of Swing – Knights of Swing
WINNER: “Love Is Not Love” from Bros – Billy Eichner
“On My Way (Marry Me)” from Marry Me – Jennifer Lopez
SCORE AWARDS
Score – feature film
Marcelo Zarvos – Emancipation
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Empire of Light
Nicholas Britell – She Said
Carter Burwell – The Banshees of Inisherin
WINNER: Terence Blanchard – The Woman King
Abel Korzeniowski – Till
Mychael Danna – Where the Crawdads Sing
Danny Elfman – White Noise
Hildur Guðnadóttir – Women Talking
Score – animated film
Steve Jablonsky – DC League of Super-Pets
WINNER: Alexandre Desplat – Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio
John Debney – Luck
Heitor Pereira – Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Daniel Pemberton – The Bad Guys
Finneas, Ludwig Göransson – Turning Red
Score – sci-fi film
Lorne Balfe – Black Adam
Ludwig Göransson – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
WINNER: Danny Elfman – Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Michael Giacchino – Spider-Man: No Way Home
Michael Giacchino – The Batman
Michael Giacchino and Nami Melumad – Thor: Love and Thunder
Score – fantasy film
Tom Holkenborg –Three Thousand Years of Longing
WINNER: Simon Franglen – Avatar: The Way of Water
James Newton Howard – Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Bruno Coulais – Wendell & Wild
Joseph Metcalfe, John Coda, Grant Kirkhope – The King’s Daughter
Score – horror film
Anna Drubich – Barbarian
John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies – Halloween Ends
WINNER: Michael Abels – Nope
Lance Treviño – Scream Legacy
Mark Korven – The Black Phone
Colin Stetson – The Menu
Score – documentary
Simon Poole – Black Ice
Ray Angry, Rhiannon Giddens, Dirk Powell – Descendant
Lisbeth Scott – Gratitude Revealed
Emilie and Peter Bernstein – Landis: Just Watch Me
WINNER: Jessica Jones – The Tinder Swindler
Clare Manchon, Olivier Manchon – Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb
Score – independent film
Xander Rodzinski – Dead for a Dollar
Jessica Weiss – Don’t Make Me Go
Son Lux – Everything Everywhere All at Once
WINNER: Emilie Levienaise – Farrouch – Living
Alexandre Desplat – The Outfit
Rob Simonsen – The Whale
Score – independent film (foreign language)
WINNER: Carlo Siliotto – Cuando Sea Joven (Spanish)
Paweł Mykietyn – EO (Polish)
Min He – Railway Heroes (Mandarin)
M. M. Keeravaani – RRR (Telugu)
Volker Bertelmann – War Sailor (Norwegian)
Music themed film, biopic or musical
Elvis – Produced by Gail Berman, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Patrick McCormick, Schuyler Weiss. Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio – Produced by Alexander Bulkley, Corey Campodonico, Guillermo del Toro, Lisa Henson, Gary Ungar. Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson
Spirited – Produced by Diana Pokorny, Daniel Silverberg, David Koplan, Sean Anders, John Morris, George Dewey, Jessica Elbaum, Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell. Directed by Sean Anders and John Morris.
WINNER: Tár – Produced by Todd Field, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Milchan. Directed by Todd Field.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story – Produced by Eric Appel, Lia Buman, Mike Farah, Joe Farrell, Zachary Halley, Tim Headington, Whitney Hodack, Henry R. Munoz III, Neil Shah, Max Silva, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic. Directed by Eric Appel.
Music documentary/special program
Halftime – Produced by Courtney Baxter, Jason B. Bergh, Bernardo Loyola, Christopher Rouse, Yong Yam. Directed by Amanda Micheli and Sam Wrench
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song – Produced and Directed by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine
WINNER: Killing Me Softly With His Songs – Produced by Danny Gold, Robert Bader, Lisa Lautenberg Birer, Mark Brown, Jay Firestone, Phil Ittner, Bruce Levine and Taryn Grimes. Directed by Danny Gold
Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blues – Produced by Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, Sacha Jenkins and Julie Anderson. Directed by Sacha Jenkins.
Selena Gomez My Mind & Me – Produced by Alek Keshishian p.g.a., Michelle An p.g.a., Katherine LeBlond. Directed by Alek Keshishian
Still Working 9 to 5 – Produced and Directed by Camille Hardman and Gary Lane
The Voice of Dust and Ash – Produced by Mandana Biscotti, Ben Biscotti, and Sam Changizi. Directed by Mandana Biscotti
Idina Menzel and James Marsden sang together on The Late Late Show with James Corden Wednesday night (Nov. 16), and you could definitely say it was shining, shimmering, splendid. Two days ahead of the premiere of their new film Disenchanted — sequel to 2007’s beloved Enchanted — the pair put their interview with James Corden on pause to perform a spontaneous duet of “A Whole New World” from Disney’s Aladdin.
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The impromptu musical moment started after Marsden shared how he and costar Amy Adams are both “super fans” of Menzel and recalled how they would frequently plead with the Frozen actress to sing with them on set. “He’s just a real pain in the ass, though,” Menzel joked. “Amy Adams too, they were always singing and dancing even when they’d said cut. You just behaved horribly!”
“In the makeup trailer, we’d go to Idina and say, ‘Hey, will you sing a song with me?’” Marsden added.
Then, recreating what those between-takes makeup trailer sing-alongs looked like, he dove right into Aladdin’s opening lines of “A Whole New World” — staring hopefully at Menzel the entire time so that she would indulge him in singing Princess Jasmine’s part in the song.
“A whole new world,” she obliged once it came to her turn, prompting loud cheers from the audience.
And, ever the professional, the Wicked Broadway star added a harmony over the final lines of the song. “Let me share this whole new world with you,” the two sang, staring into each other’s eyes.
Prior to his adorable duet with Menzel, the 27 Dresses actor had also shown off his musical impression of John Legend. “All of me, loves all of you,” Marsden sang, nailing Legend’s rich vibrato in his Hot 100 No. 1 “All Of Me.” “All your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections.”
Watch Idina Menzel and James Marsden sing on The Late Late Show below.
Bill Oakes, who was president of RSO Records in the 1970s, remembers the first time he heard Bee Gees’ demos for the songs that would end up on the label’s blockbuster 1977 soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. He and Robert Stigwood, the Bee Gees manager and founder of RSO, were visiting brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb at the Château d’Hérouville recording studio in northern France as the trio were mixing a live album. Stigwood requested that the Bee Gees come up with some new songs for a disco movie he was producing, starring an emerging actor named John Travolta. Following the meeting, Oakes went to Paris; a short period of time later, he received a cassette from Bee Gees’ personal manager Dick Ashby.
“I put it on in my hotel room,” Oakes recalls. “It was one after the other — No. 1 records. Even in their demo form, it was quite obviously a staggering success. It started with ‘More Than a Woman,’ ‘Night Fever,’ ‘If I Can’t Have You,’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ and ‘How Deep Is Your Love.’ I said to Robert, ‘We’ve got the score. We’ve got it.’”
Those new songs that the Bee Gees came up with in short order catapulted both the movie and the soundtrack to massive commercial success, transformed the Gibb brothers into superstars and further popularized disco. Released 45 years ago on Nov. 15, 1977, the double album of disco standards is one of the best-selling soundtracks ever; in the last five years, the soundtrack’s songs have racked up 1.9 billion on-demand U.S. streams, per Luminate.
“As the years go on, it makes me more proud in a way,” says Oakes, who is credited with “album supervision and compilation” in the Fever liner notes. “Anything that stands the test of time must be, by its very essence, worth it. Other things I’ve done have disappeared and you don’t usually get satisfaction, 40 years later, out of what you did back then. But [the Fever soundtrack] does hold up.”
During his time as RSO Records president, Oakes oversaw a roster that included Bee Gees and Eric Clapton. He was friends with the British journalist Nik Cohn, who wrote a 1976 New York Magazine story, “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,” which centers on an Italian-American working-class youth named Vincent who spends his Saturday nights at the 2001 Odyssey disco club in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Through Oakes and Stigwood’s assistant Kevin McCormick, Stigwood became acquainted with Cohn’s article and bought the film rights that would serve as the basis for Saturday Night Fever. For the movie’s lead character Tony Manero, Stigwood signed Travolta — who was best known as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter — to a multi-picture deal.
“Robert saw [Travolta] and he just made a note, ‘This is the guy who could play the lead in Saturday Night Fever,’” says Oakes. “He said [to Travolta’s manager], ‘I’ll make you an offer for three pictures for a million dollars.’ That was Robert just basically taking everyone else out of the market. It turned out to be actually a very good deal because, from the million dollars, he got him for Saturday Night Fever and Grease, which turned out well.”
Stigwood suggested to Oakes that the soundtrack would be a two-record set of disco’s greatest hits featuring Bee Gees. “That was an inspired move of saying, ‘We’re gonna do a gatefold double album and fill it up with all the best soundtrack goods,’” says Oakes. “It didn’t really matter if you didn’t see the movie. It became an iconic thing in itself, because if you were giving a party in 1978, all you needed was that album. I sequenced the album specifically so it would be that way.”
Before their involvement in Saturday Night Fever, Bee Gees were slowly making a comeback after a commercial and creative dry spell, starting with such Billboard Hot 100 toppers as 1975’s “Jive Talkin’” and 1976’s “You Should Be Dancing” (both of which also appeared on the soundtrack). “I presided over a bad time in their career with [the 1974 album] Mr. Natural,” says Oakes. “They couldn’t really get a hook on how to sell themselves. It was [producer] Arif Martin who really brought their sound into a modern R&B world.”
Oakes recalls that after he and Stigwood met with the Bee Gees at the Château d’Hérouville, he realized that the film script remained unopened on the studio console. “They hadn’t even looked at it,” he says. “What Robert did tell them in broad terms is it’s about a guy who works in a paint store and blows all his wages on a Saturday night, and he goes to a club and they do the hustle…Robert’s mission was [to] get the Bee Gees to write a disco track that you cannot stop dancing to, with a great melody. And that’s how they came up with ‘Night Fever,’ for instance. These are great melodies that happened to be in the disco mold. That was the breakthrough. It was interesting: they just simply dropped the live album they were mixing and went straight into it.”
With Bee Gees compositions taking up side one, Oakes now had three more sides of the record to fill. Aside from contributions by Kool & the Gang (“Open Sesame”) and KC and the Sunshine Band (“Boogie Shoes”), the soundtrack consisted of mostly relatively unknown acts. One of them was singer and Oakes’ then-wife Yvonne Elliman, who recorded the Bee Gees-penned “If I Can’t Have You.” “The Bee Gees originally wanted her to do ‘How Deep Is Your Love,’” Oakes says. “But Robert said no — he wanted the Bee Gees to do that. So Yvonne got ‘If I Can’t Have You.’ It just happened she was on the label, so there’s a bit of nepotism there (laughs).”
In addition to Bee Gees’ recording of “More Than a Woman,” R&B group Tavares’ version of that song also appeared on the soundtrack and peaked at No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100. Says Oakes: “We wanted another act doing a Bee Gees song, so Tavares seemed the logical choice. I remember calling [their producer] Freddie Perren, and he took it in a different direction. He of course made it into a hit on his own. That was a very fairly easy one because I knew Freddie. He produced two hits with Yvonne: ‘Love Me’ and ‘Hello Stranger.’”
Other numbers, such as Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven,” MFSB’s “K-Jee,” Ralph MacDonald’s “Calypso Breakdown” and the Trammps’ “Disco Inferno,” had been released prior to Fever but enjoyed renewed popularity when they were included on the soundtrack. They were augmented with instrumental scores composed by David Shire such as “Manhattan Skyline” and “Night on Disco Mountain.” However, not every artist that Oakes sought for the soundtrack came on board — including Boz Scaggs, whose 1976 hit “Lowdown” was initially used in the film’s dance rehearsal scene involving the characters Tony and Stephanie (played by Karen Lynn Gorney).
“I just thought Irving Azoff, who managed Boz Scaggs, would let me have the track,” Oakes remembers. “Why wouldn’t he? Of course, his response to me after we shot the scene was: ‘Bill, I don’t want my artist in your little disco movie,’ which was a phrase that I was assailed with throughout the production. In those days, music artists didn’t really want to be in movies. Now it’s completely different. Artists actually upfront tout their songs to get into a movie because they know how good it is for their sales.”
As he was wrapping up work on the album, Oakes saw something one day that told him the disco trend was on its last legs. “I was finishing up after listening to the tracks for a straight 14 hours for any defects at the mastering lab. And then I put the masters in my car, which would become the album. I was stuck behind a truck [whose bumper sticker said] ‘Death to disco,’ and it dawned on me. I told Robert, ‘We might have missed this one.’ We didn’t coin the word ‘disco’ — disco was around. What [the soundtrack] did was just when disco seemed to be dying, it gave it a new lease on life. We certainly didn’t create disco–we created a real global, across-the-board demand for it. That’s what Fever did.”
Three months ahead of the film’s Dec. 14, 1977 premiere in Los Angeles, Stigwood had the foresight to release the soundtrack’s first single, Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love.” “One of the things that Stigwood initiated with film companies was how a record could promote a movie,” Oakes explains. “Paramount said they were thinking of [Fever] as a strictly token release — 50 cinemas for this indie picture. [Stigwood] said, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If we’re putting out a single in September three months in advance, and everybody plays the record, we’ll say it’s “From the forthcoming film Saturday Night Fever.” That will sell the movie.’ He was right about that because by the time ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ went to No. 1, Paramount did have to increase the screens. That was entirely due to Stigwood tying in the record with a promotion for the film.”
Released on Nov. 15, 1977, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed there for 24 consecutive weeks. It gave the Bee Gees three Hot 100 No. 1s with “How Deep Is Your Love,” “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever,” with Yvonne Elliman’s version of the group’s “If I Can’t Have You” also topping the chart.
“When ‘Stayin’ Alive’ went straight to No. 1, that’s when I thought, ‘We really got something here,’ because the album was shipping that next week and the orders were coming in,” Oakes says. “We didn’t know still until the movie opened whether it would open big. It was only after it opened that the cinema owners were calling Paramount saying, ‘We are having people dancing the aisles. We gotta call security.’ Paramount was taken aback. They said that every screening was sold out. It was just an extraordinary thing. So that’s when we knew that the record had really promoted it.”
The Fever movie and soundtrack launched Bee Gees into superstardom. The trio’s next record, 1979’s Spirits Having Flown, also topped the Billboard 200 chart and gave them three more Hot 100 No. 1 songs: “Tragedy,” “Love You Inside Out” and “Too Much Heaven.” “Their following went up through the roof after Fever,” Oakes says of the Gibb brothers. “They were the biggest artists in the world by that point.”
In addition to Bee Gees, the blockbuster success of the Saturday Night Fever movie and soundtrack marked a triumphant period for Stigwood, who enjoyed massive success again in 1978 with another film he produced: Grease, also starring Travolta. The following year, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack won the Grammy for album of the year. But the Fever hysteria also marked the end of an era: in the 1980s, disco was out; Bee Gees never had another No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100; and RSO Records folded. Still, the legacy of the soundtrack endures: in 2013, the U.S. Library of Congress added it to its National Recording Registry; five years later, the album was reissued as a deluxe box set for its 40th anniversary.
Oakes admits that he is surprised by the soundtrack’s longevity decades after the fly-away collars and bell bottoms became passé. “It’s easy to see how it resonates with people who were young at the time. When you go to a party or a wedding anywhere in the world, they’ll still play ‘More Than a Woman,’ ‘Night Fever’ and ‘Stayin’ Alive.’
“’Stayin’ Alive’ is probably one of the most-played songs ever—I get that. What is interesting to me is how is it that young people today are finding it. I think because it is a classic combination of melody and dance. The Bee Gees combined the tune with the dance record. There is something haunting about their hook lines and choruses, which is unique. That’s really down to their music, it’s down to their combining melody with dance and rhythm. I think that’s the combination that still hasn’t been surpassed.”
Harry Styles took a night off from performing at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Nov. 1) to swing by the red carpet premiere of his new movie My Policeman, where he got candid about his character’s emotional story.
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Located at L.A.’s Regency Bruin Theater, the premiere came just three days before My Policeman is slated to become available for streaming Friday (Nov. 4) on Amazon Prime Video. Styles plays a closeted gay police officer named Tom in the 1950s-set film, and enters a secret relationship with a man named Patrick (David Dawson) while married to a woman named Marion (Emma Corrin).
In between posing for photos on the red carpet, the “As It Was” singer answered questions about the film submitted by fans to Prime Video’s Twitter account. “I think the story’s about wasted time, and that it’s never too late to follow your heart and do what you want,” he said, responding to those wondering what My Policeman means to him.
“I hope that people take that away from it,” he continued. “It’s never too late to follow your happiness and be brave in love.”
Harry Styles attends the Los Angeles Premiere of “My Policeman” at Regency Bruin Theatre on November 01, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Once inside the theater, Styles stood in front of the audience to deliver a couple heartfelt remarks. “I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who was involved in the making of this film,” he said. “I had such a wonderful experience making it and being a part of this. It’s something I’m really proud to be a part of.”
The Grammy winner went on to shout out his two co-stars and director Michael Grandage. “It was a really special thing for me,” he added. “This film is about love and wasted time, and how hard it can be to be in love.”
My Policeman marks the second of two films in which Styles has played the leading man this year. In September, he starred opposite Florence Pugh in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, for which he made appearances with his cast mates at the film’s Venice International Film Festival world premiere and its New York City premiere. He’s currently about halfway through a 15-night concert residency at the Kia Forum in L.A., which follows similar residencies in New York City, Austin and Chicago for his Love On Tour.
See clips of Harry Styles at the My Policeman premiere in Los Angeles below.
Ariana Grande is becoming even more “Popular” thanks to her wicked new look. In a Wednesday (Oct. 26) Instagram post, the 29-year-old musician unveiled her newly blonde hair — dyed to match the golden tresses of Wicked character Glinda, whom Grande is set to play in an upcoming film adaptation of the musical — and her friends and fans alike are freaking out about it.
In her latest IG photo, Grande poses with her eyes closed, head turned to the side to show off her brand new, soft yellow ponytail. Her eyebrows appear to be dyed to match the shade of her hair, mimicking the Good Witch of the North’s naturally blonde look.
In spite of her gravity-defyingly big reveal, however, the “Positions” singer played coy in her caption. “New earrings,” she simply wrote.
Nevertheless, people in the comments knew exactly what she was doing. “GLINDA ERA,” replied one fan.
“Good news, She’s HERE,” commented Jordan Barrow, who plays Boq in the Broadway cast of Wicked, referencing lyrics to the musical’s opening number.
Cynthia Erivo, on the other hand, played along with the pop star’s slyness. “Earrings are AMAZING!! 💚😏,” commented the actress, who will star opposite Grande in Wicked as the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba. So did Jon M. Chu, the director of the musical’s film adaptation — “Earrings look great!” he quipped.
Based on the Broadway musical of the same name by Stephen Schwartz, Wicked follows two magical enemies-turned-best friends played by Grande and Erivo. The project will be split into two separate films, the first of which is slated to hit theaters in December 2024.
Check out Ariana Grande’s thrillifying new look below.