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Jon M. Chu would love to tell you all about the Britney Spears biopic he’s working on. But speaking to Billboard on the red carpet at Sunday night’s (Jan. 5) Golden Globe Awards, the Wicked director said, for now, he can’t say much. “I really can’t talk about that yet,” he said of the upcoming Universal Pictures movie he working on based on the pop princess’ best-selling memoir, The Woman in Me.
“I’m a big fan of Britney. I’ve been a fan since I was young and she was young and she was one of 12 acts at the Shrine Auditorium,” Chu added in the video you can watch above. “So I want to do her justice and tell her story right. But we’ll see. We’re developing it now and it’s a long road ahead.”
Back in November, Chu told The Hollywood Reporter that the script for the Spears film was not written yet — and that no writer had been hired at that point — but that in its initial conception he expects it to be “a lot about how we treat people, young people, stars that we think we own, women, mothers.”
Variety has reported that Universal Pictures landed the rights to make a movie of the Spears memoir, which chronicles her rise to fame, her high-profile relationship with Justin Timberlake and her life under a very restrictive 13-year conservancy; Chu will direct with Marc Platt tapped to produce.
While it’s unknown where the script is at this point, in September Spears cryptically revealed in an Instagram post that it is “flattering to be in such good company like Jon Chu,” adding that “the project I might be doing isn’t a biopic story … it’s a fictional musical where I play an extremely intelligent character !!!”
Chu had (a little) more to say about the second installment of Wicked, which will bring fresh surprises, including a song co-written by co-star Cynthia Erivo. “I can say nothing other than I’ve very excited for people to see For Good,” Chu told Billboard when asked about the songs singer/actress Erivo penned for the eagerly anticipated sequel due out later this year. “It’s really good.”
In December, Erivo told Variety that in addition to prepping her debut album she has worked with composer Stephen Schwartz to write an original song for Elphaba that she said is “so special to me… when we filmed it, the entire crew was in tears. I hope audiences are ready — it’s a song that speaks to the heart of who Elphaba is.”
Billboard also asked about one of the most talked-about deleted scenes, the so-called “friendship montage” between Ariana Grande’s Glinda and Erivo’s Elphaba. “I might use it in another movie. I have another movie to go!” Chu said.
With the second part of the musical adaptation, Wicked: For Good, due out on November 21, Chu teased that “there’s certain footage that I can’t release because I don’t know if I’m going to use it yet.” But, joking that he’s already gotten in trouble with movie studio Universal Pictures for promising certain things, Chu said, “I’ll consider it.”
When asked to make the hardest choice of all: Team Elphaba or Team Glinda? Chu took the diplomatic route. “You’re gonna get me in trouble. These girls watch what colors I wear every day!” Chu said of his eagle-eyed co-lead actresses. “I love both of them so much,” he added. “Every day I’m a little Elphaba and a little bit Glinda.”
Bruce Springsteen has been spending time hanging around the set for the upcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere and so far he’s very impressed with the movie’s star, Jeremy Allen White. The actor best known for playing perpetually harried chef Carmy Berzatto on The Bear has been filming the movie that will tell the story behind the making of the Boss’ stark 1982 character-heavy album Nebraska.
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In a recent chat with SiriusXM E Street Radio’s Jim Rotolo, Springsteen, 75, talked about whether it’s been strange to be on set as he watches Allen portray a thirtysomething version of him. “A little bit at first, but you get over that pretty quick and Jeremy is such a terrific actor that you just fall right into it,” Springsteen said. “He’s got an interpretation of me that I think the fans will deeply recognize and he’s just done a great job, so I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve had a lot of fun being on the set when I can get there.”
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More importantly, at a time when Timothée Chalamet is earning praise for his original vocals in the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Rotolo wondered what The Boss thinks of White’s singing in the film. “He sings well. He sings very well,” Springsteen said. “You know, and Jeremy Strong [as Springsteen’s longtime manager Jon Landau] and Odessa Young [as then-girlfriend Faye], you know, it’s a tremendous cast of people. They cast the film beautifully, so it’s very exciting.”
Directed and written by Scott Cooper, the adaptation of Warren Zanes’ book of the same name, the movie has gotten full support from Springsteen. Last year, White told GQ that in addition to hours and hours of video study to nail Bruce’s signature raspy singing and speaking cadence he’s also been working with a vocal coach.
“I’ve got a really talented group of people helping me train vocally, musically, to get ready for this thing,” White told the magazine. “I’m also really lucky [that] Bruce is really supportive of the film, and so I’ve had some access to him and he’s just the greatest guy.” Before cameras started rolling, White was asked last June if he planned to do his own singing in the film, telling Variety, “we’re gonna try, we’re gonna try our best.”
In the same interview with Rotolo, Springsteen also confirmed a late 2024 press release teasing that this year will bring a new collection that will “look back at Springsteen’s storied recording career, featuring never-before-heard material.” When Rotolo asked about that release teasing unheard tunes, Springsteen simply confirmed, “there will be.” The singer also debuted a new song called “Girlfriend” in honor of late Replacement’s guitarist Slim Dunlap on the episode.
Listen to the interview below.
There is a very good reason you never seen Spider-Man star Tom Holland walking the red carpet with longtime girlfriend Zendaya. In a new cover story interview with Men’s Health the 28-year-old actor explained that for the same reason he can’t just drop in to see an afternoon matinee play without being swarmed by fans — or pulling attention from the actors on stage — he doesn’t want to distract from Z’s big day.
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“Because it’s not my moment, it’s her moment, and if we go together, it’s about us,” he told the magazine about why he tends to skip most non-mandatory public events and attends Zendaya’s premieres, but doesn’t do the step-and-repeat with her.
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Holland is re-emerging from a year-long break from acting and told the magazine that for the first time in nearly two decades he doesn’t have anything to promote (well, except for his new line of nonalcoholic beers, Bero). “It was just something I needed to do,” he said. “I had been acting flat out since I was 11.” The latter refers to his audition for Billy Elliot: The Musical in London, which was followed a few years later with a role in The Impossible with Naomi Watts, and then his first run at Spider-Man in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.
In addition to the fourth Spider-Man film, he is also slated to join Matt Damon and Zendaya in the upcoming Christopher Nolan adaptation of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. The star who has gotten into killer shape for his Marvel films is notorious for his dedication and focus, as well as for his signature parlor trick: a backflip. But even as he hovers at the edge of 30, Holland said age feels like it’s starting to catch up to him.
While visiting Cornwall with Zendaya and his family recently a cousin asked him to bust out one of his flips. “So I went outside and I was getting ready, and I was thinking, I can do this. I can totally do this. I’ve done this thousands of times. And Z was there, and she was like, ‘Are you sure you can still do this?,’” he recalled. After assuring her he could, Holland said he bent down and landed a perfect one. Well, almost perfect. “I actually did land it, but I pulled every muscle in my stomach, because when you do a backflip, it’s all about extending up as much as you can and then tucking,” he said. “For weeks, I could not laugh because my stomach was so sore.”
The actor also revealed that his new go-to workout anthem is Linkin Park 2.0’s comeback single, “The Emptiness Machine,” his favorite movie is, no shame, Avatar, but said he will not share his patented euphemism for sex. “That’s my lady,” he said. “I’m not getting into that!”
Ariana Grande has been in the spotlight for more than half of her life. In an interview with YouTube personality Sally this week, the Wicked star got very candid about what that has felt like, specifically how it feels to constantly have strangers evaluating and judging her body. And, in a super honest moment, she had a simple message for people who do that.
“There’s a comfortability people have with commenting on that [my body] that I think is really dangerous. And I think it’s dangerous for all parties involved,” she said, as her Wicked co-star, Cynthia Erivo, held the singer’s hand and comforted her as she appeared on the verge of tears while answering a question about the struggle for women to live up to society’s exacting, often unreasonable, beauty standards
“I’ve been kind of doing this in front of the public and kind of been a specimen in a petri dish since I was 16 or 17, so I have heard it all,” Grande said. “I’ve heard every version of it… of what’s wrong with me. And then you fix it, and then it’s wrong for different reasons. But that’s everything from – even just the simplest thing – your appearance, you know?”
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Grande, 31, said it’s hard to protect yourself from that noise and it’s uncomfortable no matter where you experience such pressures. “Even if you go to Thanksgiving dinner, and someone’s granny says, ‘Oh my God, you look skinnier! What happened?’ or ‘You look heavier! What happened?’” she said. “That is something that’s uncomfortable and horrible no matter where it’s happening… and I think in today’s society there’s a comfortability that we shouldn’t have, at all, commenting on other’s looks, appearance, what they think is going on behind the scenes, or health, or how they present themselves.”
Getting animated, Grande said those kinds of judgements about what women are wearing and how their bodies and faces look are “dangerous.” She counted herself lucky to have a good support system that allows her to “know and trust that I am beautiful… but I do know what the pressure of that noise feels like… I just don’t invite it in anymore. It’s not welcome. I have work to do. I have a life to live. I have friends to love on, I have so much love and it’s not invited.”
She added that however you have to block that noise out, whether it’s deleting a toxic social app or blocking trolls online, “you keep yourself safe. Because no one has the right to say s–t!”
The latter comment drew a clap from host Sally, as well as an “amen” seconded by Erivo. “Can you tell I needed that today?” Grande said with a smile as Erivo grabbed her arm and displayed yet another example of the way the two women have openly supported and big-upped each other during the exhaustive press tour in support of the hit movie musical which has already rolled up $372.9 million in ticket sales so far.
Grande has spoken before about fans’ concerns over her appearance, including in a TikTok video last year in which she had similar thoughts about people’s concerns about her body.
“I think we should be gentler and less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies — no matter what. If you think you’re saying something good or well-intentioned, whatever it is. Healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that, sexy, not sexy, I don’t… We just shouldn’t. We should really work towards not doing that as much,” she said at the time.
“But I also just wanted to say one, there are many different kinds of beautiful,” she added. “There are many different ways to look healthy and beautiful. I know personally for me, the body that you’ve been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body. I was on a lot of anti-depressants, and drinking on them and eating poorly, and at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my ‘healthy.’ But that, in fact, wasn’t my healthy. I know I shouldn’t have to explain that, but I do feel like maybe having an openness and some sort of vulnerability here, something good might come from it.”
Check out Grande and Erivo’s interview with Sally below.
Though the studio surely hopes that many people appreciate Timothée Chalamet‘s deep dive into his role as a young Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic about the folk bard in A Complete Unknown, the 28-year-old star said he has gotten the only thumbs up he needs. “Floored,” Chalamet tweeted on Thursday morning (Dec. 5) after […]
Amy Adams has always liked and appreciated Taylor Swift‘s music. But then the Nightbitch star went to see the Eras Tour, she proudly became “a Swiftie at 50,” the star told Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday’s (Dec. 3) Tonight Show. “I’m a Swiftie at 50, so I’m like a shifty 50 Swiftie… and I’m like ‘isn’t that nifty?’ And now my daughter’s going, ‘Ooh, I hate this for you.’”
Adams said the Eras experience was so profound that she went from “normal” to “‘I’ll take all the friendship bracelets!’”
When Fallon asked if Adams had ever met the singer, the Golden Globe winner said they did cross paths years ago at an awards show afterparty, where they sang karaoke together. In fact, they did a duet on 4 Non Blondes’ signature 1993 hit “What’s Up,” during Adams committed the ultimate karaoke faux pas.
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“And I may have… uh… sang it a little loud,” Adams admitted. “And I’m sure everybody was like, ‘Amy, shut up! Like, we want to hear Taylor sing.’ I was just in it.”
“The one that goes ‘hey, yeah, yeah, yeah’? You went for it? That one?” Fallon asked.
“I did,” Adams said. “When someone does that at karaoke I let them go,” Fallon said.
“But I should have sat down and just let Taylor sing,” Adams realized. “I had a blast. Now, in reflection, if I were to do it now I’d be so different I would like to think… I did the right thing. I sang really loud over Taylor Swift… and probably not great, either.”
Fallon also mentioned that there’s a long-running internet campaign suggesting that the six-time Oscar nominee would be the perfect choice to play Swift’s publicist, Tree Paine, in a biopic. “Uh, that would be amazing,” said Adams, whose red hair is a shade darker than Paine’s signature flame mane. Fallon then help up a tweet that said “Amy Adams will win an Oscar for Tree Paine’s biopic.”
“That would be so fun,” said Adams, mother to a 14-year-old daughter who (see above) she noted is now not embarrassed by her mom, but more embarrassed for her mom. “If it got me closer to Taylor then that would be fun,” Adams said.
Adams’ Nightbitch opens in theaters on Friday (Dec. 6).
Watch Amy Adams describe shouting over Taylor Swift during karaoke below.
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Henry Cavill isn’t the only big name attached to Amazon MGM Studios’ forthcoming Voltron movie.
Spotted on Deadline, Sterling K. Brown, Rita Ora, and John Kim have joined the cast of Amazon MGM Studios’ mysterious Voltron movie, based on the popular 80s anime cartoon.
Like with the announcement of Cavill and Daniel Quinn-Toye being a part of the film, Brown, Ora, and Kim’s roles in the upcoming film remain a mystery.
The film will be directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who also penned the script alongside Ellen Shanman. No details about the film’s plot were shared, but he did promise fans at Votlcon that his movie would keep the same energy as the classic cartoon.
“I want to make sure that we stay true to the heart and the spirit of Voltron. In this film, we’re going to be introducing an entirely new generation of pilots,” Huber said. “We’ve reimagined Voltron for the live-action world, but we’re going to stay true to … those iconic elements that you love, that I love. And I’m so excited to share it with you.”
The Voltron film isn’t the first new reimagining of the classic cartoon; Netflix’s 2016 animated series, Voltron: Legendary Defender from Dreamworks Animation, ran for 8 seasons and was a hit with fans of the giant fighting robot.
So, let the speculation begin. Fans have already been wondering who Cavill would play. Our guess would be Prince Lotor or maybe Keith, the leader of the Voltron Force, driver of the mighty black lion, and the one who forms the head.
As for Sterling K. Brown, we have no clue who he could be. Rita Ora, we can see her as Princess Allura.
We shall see.
Cynthia Erivo had some gratitude to share on Friday morning (Nov. 22) as she and Wicked co-star Ariana Grande reached the end of an exhaustive, full-court-press media tour promoting the first part of the Broadway-to-big-screen musical.
“This journey has been long, and paved with bright, yellow brick. We have laughed and cried, held hands and walked side by side, our lives intertwined, and because of that, we were irrevocably changed for good,” the Emmy, Grammy and Tony-winning singer/actress wrote in an Instagram post about the yearslong process of bringing the beloved Broadway re-telling of The Wizard of Oz onto movie screens.
With the film finally opening on Friday, Erivo opened up about the transformative experience of slipping into Elphaba’s green makeup and round glasses, confiding that this was more than just a role for her. “We gained more than a movie. We gained a love letter to love, friendship, the celebration of the things that make us different, special, and beautiful, and the bravery it takes to change your mind,” she said before offering targeted shout-outs to the movie’s key players, including her own character.
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“Elphaba, Thank you for the gifts you have brought me,” she wrote before heaping praise on Grande’s Glinda. “Galinda/ Glinda/ Ariana Grande-Butera, I love you. You are the truest, kindest, human being. It has been an honor to share this experience of a lifetime with you,” she added; Grande is credited with what she’s called her “little girl name” in the movie’s credits, which is how she was referred to when she first saw the Wicked musical on Broadway as a 10-year-old.
She also thanked her “dear captain,” director Jon M. Chu, for “your trust and your belief, your heart and imagination. You lead us with love and it is all over that screen.” And, as for the many fans who’ve been waiting three long years for the movie — which has been in development with a variety of directors and actors attached to it for nearly 15 years — to open after several delays, including one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Erivo wrote, “Wicked is now yours, from us with love. Your Elphie.”
The post included a number of photos from set, a time-lapse video of the intensive Elphaba makeup process, choreography rehearsals and moving behind-the-scenes snaps, including one of Erivo laying her head on Grande’s shoulder.
The second part of Wicked is slated to open on Nov. 21, 2025 and a Wicked sing-along is slated to his theaters this Christmas.
Check out Erivo’s post below.
Cynthia Erivo is doing a lot of press to promote her turn as Elphaba in Wicked. And in addition to always showing up for her interviews wearing an outrageously fierce outfit, the singer/actress is also sporting her signature long, lacquered fingernails.
Which brings us to this week’s episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, in which the actor asked Erivo the one question he thought everyone was dying to ask, but only he was uncouth enough to actually throw out there: how do you wipe with those long nails?
“Can I see your hands?” Shepard asked Erivo. “I couldn’t tell if it was your nails were so long or if you were wearing some kind of hand thing.” Once Erivo assured him that nothing was going on with her hands and that she just naturally has “very long fingers” and that her nails happen to be “very long” right now, the Buddy Games star wondered if he could ask a “really crazy question [that’s] inappropriate.”
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“Go on,” Erivo told him.
“When you’re wiping your butt…” he began as Erivo laughed, “I knew you would ask that question.”
“Everyone’s afraid to ask it,” Shepard responded. “No, no one’s afraid to ask it!” Erivo responded. “Everybody asks that question, and my answer is nobody uses just their fingers to wipe their backside. You use tissue, correct? And you wipe!”
“I guess my question is does the tissue go on the tip of the fingernails or do you try to get the tissue…,” Shepard asked, getting into the nitty gritty of the toileting habits of the actress who is an Oscar short of becoming an EGOT winner.
“Pads of the fingers,” Erivo confirmed.
“Great, great, great, we’re getting somewhere,” a somewhat embarrassed-sounding Shepard responded as he tried to get things back on track before his baser instincts bubbled up one more time. “And then you’re just feeling a little tickle of the nails on the crack of your butt sometimes?”
Erivo once again promised him that that was not the case, because the tissue is on the job, which led to Shepard — who said in 2021 that he and wife Kristen Bell sometimes don’t bathe their daughters for “five, six days” — proposing that if he had such formidable talons he would wrap his whole hand in TP to make a kind of bathroom “mitten.”
Showing remarkable patience, Erivo explained, “I fold.” Saying she was not offended by the question, but rather “annoyed,” she added, “I get it, but also, I’m a functioning adult and I’ve never walked around smelling like… you know… Here’s the thing, there are people who do not have nails who need to check how they’re wiping.”
The first part of Wicked opens in theaters on Friday (Nov. 22).
Listen to Erivo talk about nailing it in the loo below.
While Timothée Chalamet won’t say he went full method during the shoot for the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, the 28-year-old Dune star literally says he lost sleep over fears that he would lose even a “moment of discovery of the character.”
In a new Rolling Stone cover story, Chalamet describes the five years of prep work he did to play the folk rock icon in the film due out on Dec. 25, which included subsuming his not insignificant Hollywood star reality in order to crawl into the enigmatic singer/songwriter’s skin as a young man on the cusp of greatness.
“Losing a moment of discovery as the character — no matter how pretentious that sounds — because I was on my phone or because of any distraction. I had three months of my life to play Bob Dylan, after five years of preparing to play him,” Chalamet told the magazinbe. “So while I was in it, that was my eternal focus. He deserved that and then more.… God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy. I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!”
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Instead of the four months of prep Chalamet was supposed to have for the shoot, he ended up getting nearly half a decade to ruminate over the part due to the COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s Hollywood strikes. In that time, he went from a hip-hop head who knew very little about Dylan to a self-proclaimed “devoted disciple in the Church of Bob,” working with vocal, harmonica, guitar and dialect coaches so that he could credibly sing and play entire songs live on set.
His co-stars in the film all attest to the intense focus Chalamet brought to the role, with Oscar nominee Edward Norton — who plays Dylan’s hero folk singer Pete Seeger — calling the star’s performance “off-the-charts great.” Elle Fanning, 26, a fellow child actor who’s been a Dylan fan since director Cameron Crowe introduced her to the Bard’s work when she was 13, said playing Dylan’s early love interest activist Sylvie Russo was an emotional experience.
“We were in an auditorium, and I was sitting amongst all these background artists,” she said about tearing up the first time she heard Chalamet sing on set. “[Director] Jim [Mangold] would let Timmy come out and give the crowd a whole concert. He was singing ‘Masters of War’ and ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’ and I was like, ‘Jesus.’ All of us were kind of shaking, because it was so surreal hearing someone do that. So perfectly done, but it wasn’t a caricature. It was still Timmy, but it’s Bob, and this kind of beautiful meld. That gave me chills.”
The actress also recalled how after the gobsmacking performance she heard some extras having a debate about whether Chalamet was really singing or lip synching. “I tapped them on the shoulder and I was like, ‘He is singing. I know he’s singing!,’” she said. And though she knew Chalamet well after they played a couple in the 2019 film A Rainy Day in New York, Fanning said she was warned early on that her co-star might “keep to himself” on set except in scenes with her.
That might explain why Monica Barbaro, who plays another Dylan paramour, folk singer Joan Baez, wasn’t surprised when she met Chalamet a week before shooting began and he was already dressed in his character’s clothes. “I had a lot of friends who were like, ‘Have you met him yet? Have you met him?,’” she said. “But it just felt like the right thing to wait and just meet in the context of these characters… the way she saw Bob.”
Though Chalamet didn’t go so far as to insist the cast and crew refer to him as “Bob,” Barbaro said he did stay “in his own world” in the same way that the real Dylan seems to inhabit a different universe than the rest of us. “He was relentless,” said Norton of Chalamet’s focus on set. “No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing. ‘Nobody comes around us while we’re doing this.’ We’re trying to do the best we can with something that’s so totemic and sacrosanct to many people. And I agreed totally — it was like, we cannot have a f–king audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”
Chalamet still has not met or talked to the real Dylan, but he’s well aware that playing the mythical musical hero who was considered the Chosen One of folk rock is in keeping with one of his other recent roles as the golden child Paul Atreides in two Dune films. “The massive difference in the framing is, for Paul Atreides, the destiny is preordained, and it’s part of his resentment for his status. He feels like it had nothing to do with him, in a sense. And it’s a great source of existential strain,” said Chalamet. “And for Bob, it’s the mischievous joy in knowing, yeah, your talent, your special ability is your own doing, your own gift from God in a sense. I think there’s probably always a pride in that for him.”
Okay, but why, then, is Chalamet drawn to these voice of a generation savior roles? “Hey, man,” he laughed, “they’re finding me. Not the other way around.”