Lil Tay’s Family Releases Statement Saying She’s Alive

Zack Sharf Digital News Director On the latest episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast (via Insider), “Harry Potter” actor Bonnie Wright admitted that her character’s lack of screen time in the Warner Bros. film franchise was “a little bit disappointing.” Wright played Ginny Weasley across the eight “Harry Potter” movies, and she was just 9 years old when she filmed “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Little did she know then that Ginny Weasley would become a prominent supporting character and the wife of Harry Potter in the books.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director The upcoming “Hunger Games” prequel movie “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” may not feature Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, but it does feature her longtime franchise director Francis Lawrence behind the camera. Francis Lawrences directed every “Hunger Games” sequel and is back for the Lionsgate prequel, which features “West Side Story” breakout Rachel Zegler in the lead role of Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute from District 12 who is mentored by a young Snow (Tom Blyth) for the 10th annual Hunger Games. “Katniss was an introvert and a survivor,” Lawrence told Empire magazine about the big difference between Katniss and Lucy.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jamie Bernstein, the eldest daughter of famed composer Leonard Bernstein, is defending Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of the music icon in the upcoming Netflix movie “Maestro,” which world premieres Sept. 2 at the Venice Film Festival. Cooper, who directed the film and stars as Bernstein, has come under fire in recent weeks due to his decision to wear a prosthetic nose.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director David Ayer appeared on the latest episode of Jon Bernthal’s “Real Ones” podcast and cited “Suicide Squad” as his biggest heartbreak in Hollywood. The director has been vocal over the last several years about the 2016 theatrical cut of “Suicide Squad” not being his preferred version of the film. That cut was widely panned by critics, but Ayer has long maintained that the studio changed the film’s entire tone from his original concept.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director In a Vulture oral history on the end of The CW’s “Riverdale,” cast member Lili Reinhart admitted that it’s been difficult to be the butt of so many jokes as the series has often been ridiculed on social media over the years. Reinhart starred as Betty Cooper on all seven seasons of the show, which comes to an end on Aug. 23 after 135 episodes.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Cillian Murphy’s decades-long collaboration with Christopher Nolan hit a new peak with “Oppenheimer,” his first leading role in a Nolan feature that has garnered him the best reviews of his career and Oscar buzz for best actor. “Oppenheimer” follows Murphy’s supporting turns in three Batman films, “Inception” and “Interstellar.” Recently asked by The Independent if there were any Christopher Nolan movies not featuring Cillian Murphy that he wished he could’ve starred in, Murphy selected the director’s 2014 space epic “Interstellar.” “I adore ‘Interstellar’ just because I find it so emotional,” Murphy said. “I remember seeing it in the cinema when I had little kids.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Millie Bobby Brown said in a recently published interview with Women’s Wear Daily that she is ready for “Stranger Things” to end with its upcoming fifth season. Production on the final run of episodes has been delayed because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Brown has been a fixture on “Stranger Things” as Eleven since its pilot episode, and the show’s popularity turned her and her young co-stars into global superstars.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Tron 3” director Joachim Rønning took to Instagram to reveal that production on the Disney-backed sequel was supposed to start this week but has been shut down amid the WAG and SAG-AFTRA strikes. As a result, more than 150 crew members have been laid off from the movie, he revealed. The film, which is officially titled “Tron: Ares,” is set to star Jared Leto, Evan Peters, Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director In a recent interview with Rolling Stone to promote his directorial effort “Shortcomings,” actor and comedian Randall Park criticized Hollywood for taking the wrong lessons from a massive blockbuster like Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.” The Margot Robbie-led comedy has earned over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, but Park said making more movies about toys should not be the industry’s takeaway. “I feel like, just in general, this industry is taking the wrong lessons,” Park said. “For example, ‘Barbie’ is this massive blockbuster, and the idea is: Make more movies about toys! No.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Michael Imperioli was recently asked by The Guardian to name the most brutal scene he’s ever had to film in his acting career, and his answer was any time his character on “The Sopranos,” Christopher Moltisanti, abused his fiancée, Adriana La Cerva (Drea de Matteo). “The most brutal, difficult stuff for me is when Christopher had to be physically abusive with Adriana, for obvious reasons,” Imperioli said. “On a technical level, you’re trying to be really careful so you don’t hurt the person.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Aaron Taylor-Johnson revealed to Esquire magazine that he turned down “big, huge franchises” after he started making a name for himself in Hollywood with roles in blockbusters such as “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Godzilla.” Those back-to-back releases made Taylor-Johnson one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood, but he actively rejected more franchises to spend time with his family. “There was ‘Kick-Ass’ and then there was ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Avengers,’ and all those things lined up for me,” Taylor-Johnson said. “But I didn’t really care for them…[I was up for movies] that nobody knows about—big, huge franchises that were in play.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Billy Porter revealed in a recent interview with Evening Standard that he has to sell his house amid the ongoing strikes in Hollywood in order to save money. Porter, an Emmy winner for his work on FX’s “Pose,” was speaking to the outlet to promote his music career and stayed clear of discussing any of his film and television work. When the topic of the strikes was brought up, Porter said he’s having to take cost-saving measures in his real life as various projects he was set to work on in September have been tabled.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Sex and the City” star Chris Noth spoke on the record for the first time to USA Today about the multiple sexual assault allegations made against him in 2021. The actor denied wrongdoing, but he admitted to cheating on his wife. “I strayed on my wife, and it’s devastating to her and not a very pretty picture,” he said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Adam Devine appeared on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast during his press tour for Netflix’s “The Out-Laws” and shared his theory that Marvel movies and other superhero films killed the traditional Hollywood comedy. The “Workaholics” and “Pitch Perfect” alum noted that because Marvel movies rely so much on humor (see the “Ant-Man” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchises, for instance), they ended up becoming Hollywood’s new de facto comedy films. “You watch comedies nowadays and you’re like, this is not a fucking comedy,” Devine said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director David Ayer is keeping hope alive for his “Suicide Squad” director’s cut, dubbed the “Ayer Cut” on social media. In a recent post on X, the director informed his fans that new DC Studios boss James Gunn told him that the Ayer Cut “would have its time to be shared.” Ayer provided no further information. Warner Bros.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Will Smith told Kevin Hart on a new episode of Peacock’s “Hart to Heart” talk show that he “went too far” as an actor while portraying a slave in the Apple drama “Emancipation.” The film, Smith’s first release after the notorious Oscars slap, centered on the true story of a runaway slave named Peter, a photograph of whom became a rallying call for the abolition of slavery as it depicted his mutilated back scars from several whippings. “I went too far in ‘Emancipation,’” Smith said. “Just bringing it up, I start to get teary.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Dwayne Jonson appeared on a new episode of Kevin Hart’s “Hart to Hart” talk show on Peacock (recorded prior to the strike, of course) and looked back at the rise and fall of “Black Adam.” His 2022 comic book tentpole was designed to launch a new chapter of storytelling within Warner Bros.’ DC Universe (the film ended with Henry Cavill’s return as Superman, and the franchise intended to build up to a face off between Johnson and Cavill), but DC Studios was overhauled soon after its release, with new leaders James Gunn and Peter Safran taking the reins. Johnson announced in December that “Black Adam 2” was not moving forward for now. “‘Black Adam’ got caught in a vortex of new leadership,” Johnson said when Hart asked how it felt for franchise to be stopped.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Oppenheimer” is Christopher Nolan’s longest movie at 180 minutes, but don’t expect it to get even longer whenever it arrives on home video. Neither a director’s cut of the atomic bomb epic nor deleted scenes from the movie exist, Cillian Murphy recently told Collider. “There’s no deleted scenes in Chris Nolan movies,” Murphy added.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Leslie David Baker, who starred as Stanley Hudson on all nine seasons of NBC’s popular sitcom “The Office,” announced on social media that he is returning all of the donations fans sent it via Kickstarter for his proposed Stanley spinoff. The exact donation total being returned is $110,629.81, Baker said. Back in 2020, Baker went viral for launching a Kickstarter campaign in an effort to create a spinoff of “The Office” centered around Stanley Hudson.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sophia Nahli Allison, whose short film “A Love Song for Latasha” (2019) was nominated at the Oscars for best documentary short subject, revealed on her social media pages that she exited her role as the director of a Lizzo documentary in 2019 after only two weeks because she “was treated with such disrespect” by the Grammy-winning pop star. Allison’s post went live several hours after a trio of former dancers for Lizzo filed a lawsuit against the singer accusing her of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment. “I usually do not comment on anything pop culture related,” Allison wrote in her post.