More from Rebecca Keegan
Why Megan Ellison Saved ‘Nimona’: “I Needed This Movie”
In January of 2021, Megan Ellison got a call from Erik Lomis, the former head of distribution at her company, Annapurna Pictures, asking if she’d like to take a look at a movie whose filmmakers needed a lifeline. Disney was days away from announcing that it planned to shutter Blue Sky Studios, the 500-person, Greenwich, […]
- By
Is the Embattled Young ‘Rust’ Armorer Getting a Fair Shot?
On Oct. 21, 2021, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, then 24, arrived at the Bonanza Creek Ranch just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, an hour or so before sunrise and reported to her job as the armorer and props assistant on the set of the low-budget indie Western Rust. She took a COVID test, swung by the catering […]
- By
U.S. ‘Avatar’ Workers Vote to Unionize In Boost for VFX Organizing Effort
U.S.-based visual effects artists who help bring James Cameron’s Avatar epics to life have voted to unionize in a National Labor Relations Board election. Of an eligible 88 workers at Walt Disney Studios subsidiary TCF US Productions 27, Inc. who assist with productions for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment, 57 voted to join the union and 19 […]
- By
The Rare Hollywood Interview Where Celebs Actually Get Real (While Sweating It Out): ‘Hiking With Kevin’
In 2017, Kevin Nealon and his friend Matthew Modine were huffing and puffing their way up a steep grade in Temescal Canyon, a tranquil trail that’s a kind of unofficial backyard for many industry figures on L.A.’s Westside. Their breathless conversation amused Nealon, so he whipped out his iPhone and started recording. Among the oaks […]
- By
Amazon Labor Doc Tells David and Goliath Battle of Our Time
In March of 2020, Amazon fired Chris Smalls, an employee who led a walkout at its Staten Island, New York, warehouse known as JFK8 over pandemic working conditions. A memo that later was leaked to Vice News revealed that an Amazon executive dismissed Smalls as “not smart or articulate” in a strategy meeting with Jeff […]
- By
‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ Is Having a Moment
Perhaps it was when Jennifer Lawrence reenacted a scene from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season four closer on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, calling the episode “the best finale I have ever seen on reality TV.” Maybe it was when California Congressman Robert Garcia quoted Housewife Heather Gay’s diva-caliber finale […]
- By
Lionel Richie: Writing “We Are the World” Was a “Train Wreck in My Head”
As a global pop culture event, it’s hard to match the release of “We Are the World,” the charity single that sold more than 20 million copies in 1985 and united 46 musical stars as enormous and disparate as Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Diana Ross at an all-night secret recording session. The story of […]
- By
“Don’t You Lie for a Living?”: Margot Robbie, Emma Stone and THR’s Actress Roundtable
As girls, they dreamed of growing up to perform like Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicolas Cage, Goldie Hawn — even an Ewok. As women, they have turned in some of this year’s most daring and moving performances. In November, Annette Bening (Nyad), Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon), Greta Lee (Past Lives), Carey Mulligan (Maestro), Margot […]
- By
“Every Day I Was Like, ‘What Am I Doing?’”: The Making of ‘Poor Things’
In a scene early in the movie Poor Things, Emma Stone gleefully flings some kippers across a dining table at Ramy Youssef’s face. It’s a weird and important moment, one in which Stone is establishing her character as a childlike Victorian woman, someone oblivious to social mores and free of shame. Stone and her director, […]
- By
Greta Gerwig, Bradley Cooper and the THR Director Roundtable: “Final Cut Is a State of Mind”
The preshoot rituals they can’t live without, the studio negotiations they’ve learned to finesse and the creative choices they still can’t believe they got away with — the directors of six of this year’s most remarkable movies got together and talked shop. In November, Blitz Bazawule (The Color Purple), Bradley Cooper (Maestro), Ava DuVernay (Origin), […]
- By
“I Felt an Atonement”: The Making of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
Martin Scorsese had already been working on Killers of the Flower Moon for a few years when he had a startling revelation. He and screenwriter Eric Roth were adapting David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book about a series of murders of Osage people in Oklahoma in the early 1920s with the intention that Leonardo DiCaprio would […]
- By
Sean Ono Lennon and Peter Jackson Partner on Animated Film Inspired by John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (Exclusive)
In 2021, Sean Ono Lennon was looking for a way to make a music video for one of his parents’ signature songs and feeling creatively stuck—until he had a meeting with former Pixar animator Dave Mullins. The song, 1971’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over), is probably the most popular piece of music John Lennon and […]
- By