Ethan Shanfeld Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Ethan Shanfeld Emily Carey, who plays young Alicent Hightower in HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” opened up about being “scared” of doing sex scenes in the “Game of Thrones” prequel due to the “violence upon women” in its predecessor. In Sunday night’s episode, titled “King of the Narrow Sea,” Carey appears in two intimate scenes — one in which Alicent bathes her husband, the much older King Viserys (Paddy Considine), and another in which she has sex with him. In the latter scene, it is clear Alicent is reluctant to engage with Viserys and is not enjoying their intimacy. Carey, who was 17 upon reading the scripts and 18 when filming, told Newsweek that the scene “scared” her “because at that point I still hadn’t met Paddy, I didn’t know how much of a joy he was and how easy he was going to make [the scene], and all I saw was, you know, a 47-year-old man and me. I was a bit concerned.”

Ethan Shanfeld Barack Obama is officially three-fourths of the way to an EGOT, as the former president of the United States nabbed his first Emmy for outstanding narrator. Obama lent his voice to the Netflix docuseries “Our Great National Parks,” narrating its five episodes that span from Patagonia, Chile, to Tsavo, Kenya. Netflix submitted the first episode, “A World of Wonder,” for Emmy consideration. In 2020, both Barack and Michelle Obama took home Oscars for the documentary “American Factory,” which they produced under their banner, Higher Ground. The doc tells the story of what happens when a Chinese company opens an automotive glass plant at a former General Motors location in Ohio, facing intense community skepticism and cultural differences.

Ethan Shanfeld Courtenay Valenti, president of production and development for Warner Bros. Pictures, will depart from the studio after 33 years. Valenti will carry out her role until the end of October. “We’ve known Courtenay and been admirers of her work for many years,” said Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, co-chairs and CEOs of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, in a joint statement provided to Variety. “She’s been an integral part of Warner Bros. Pictures’ success for over three decades and has had a hand in guiding some of the studio’s most popular and successful films. She’s well-respected across the creative community, she’s beloved here on the lot, and she will be greatly missed. We know that she’ll be hugely successful in her next endeavor and join all of her colleagues in wishing her the very best.”  

Ethan Shanfeld Florida Georgia Line waved goodbye to an era, as Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley played their final show as a country duo at the Minnesota State Fair Wednesday night. “You’ve enabled us to chase this crazy dream of writing songs and playing shows and hoping someone will show up to listen, so thank you guys,” Hubbard said, addressing the crowd. “It’s the closing of an incredible, incredible chapter for us. It’s very exciting for us to look at what’s ahead, see what’s next. And the next chapter ahead is very exciting, but we want to celebrate this chapter with you guys.” Beginning the next chapter, Hubbard will release his solo album next year and is set to join Keith Urban and Ingrid Andress on their ongoing tour. This week, he signed with UTA for solo bookings. Kelley is jumping into a Florida residency where he will perform his solo material. He’s also in the cast of scripted comedy-country podcast “Uncle Drank” alongside Luke Wilson, Uncle Kracker and Will Sasso.

Ethan Shanfeld When “Stranger Things” first aired on Netflix in 2016, its main cast ranged from around 12 to 14 years old, matching the age of their seventh grade characters. But as it progressed, the series’ timeline moved slower than real life, and soon enough, the young actors were hitting puberty before their characters, creating a challenge for the show’s directors and producers. According to Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers on the hit sci-fi show, a producer approached him during an earlier season and asked if he could raise the pitch of his voice and change his posture to better emulate Will’s age. While Will is either 14 or 15 in Season 4 of “Stranger Things,” Schnapp is nearing 18.

Ethan Shanfeld “House of the Dragon” star Steve Toussaint, who plays Lord Corlys Velaryon a.k.a. “The Sea Snake” on the series, slammed viewers of the “Game of Thrones” prequel who took issue with his casting.“It seems to be very hard for people to swallow,” Toussaint said in an interview with Men’s Health.

Ethan Shanfeld “The Sandman,” Netflix’s TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s sprawling comic book series, is approaching its third week at the top of Netflix’s Global Top 10 list. The series has racked up over 127.5 million hours viewed, but Gaiman thinks that “may not be enough” for Netflix to renew it for a second season.Answering some questions on Twitter over the weekend, Gaiman explained why fans shouldn’t assume the show’s massive popularity will lead to a Season 2.“Because ‘Sandman’ is a really expensive show,” Gaiman tweeted, responding to a commenter asking why “S2 is even a question.”Gaiman continued, “And for Netflix to release the money to let us make another season we have to perform incredibly well.

Ethan Shanfeld “Little Ellen” co-creator Jennifer Skelly found out her show would be removed from HBO Max earlier this month by reading the news. These past few days, she’s witnessed dozens of other series meet the chopping block as Warner Bros. Discovery purges the HBO streaming platform in order to reduce costs.Not only are the first two seasons of the animated show, centered around a young Ellen DeGeneres, gone from HBO Max.

Ethan Shanfeld A judge has ordered Kevin Spacey to pay “House of Cards” production company MRC nearly $31 million for alleged sexual misconduct behind the scenes of the Netflix White House drama.Spacey, who played Frank Underwood, was kicked off the series during its sixth season after facing allegations that he had sexually assaulted and preyed upon young men, including a “House of Cards” production assistant who said Spacey groped him, prompting MRC’s investigation.Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana confirmed an award previously handed down by an arbitrator in October 2020, which consisted of around $29.5 million in damages and $1.5 million in costs and fees.MRC had argued that Spacey owed them millions in lost profits because his misconduct forced them to remove him from the sixth season of the show, and it had to trim the season from 13 episodes to eight. Ruling in the producer’s favor, the arbitrator found that Spacey’s behavior constituted a material breach of his agreements as an actor and executive producing agreements.

Ethan Shanfeld New York City nightlife and drag queen legend Kevin Aviance didn’t know Beyoncé sampled his song “C—y” on her new album “Renaissance” until a friend reached out to him late Thursday night.“She sent me the track and the credits and said, ‘What is this?’” Aviance told me Friday afternoon. “And then my phone was blowing up.

Ethan Shanfeld “Curb Your Enthusiasm” will return for Season 12, Larry David confirmed on Sunday night.David broke the news at an Emmys event at the DGA presented by HBO Max. The event included a screening of Season 11 episode “The Watermelon” as well as a live panel discussion hosted by Rich Eisen and featuring David, executive producer Jeff Schaffer, Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman, J.B.

Ethan Shanfeld K-pop fans are anxiously awaiting BTS’ return to South Korea this week for three concerts at the Jamsil Olympic Stadium in Seoul. However, the BTS Army will have to curb its enthusiasm, as clapping, shouting and standing up are strictly prohibited per government COVID protocols.BTS’ management company Big Hit Music said in a statement, “Cheering loudly, yelling, chanting and standing up during ‘BTS Permission To Dance On Stage – Seoul’ is strictly prohibited according to government guidelines.”Instead, the company will be providing concert attendees with clappers to emulate crowd noise.

Ethan Shanfeld A Billy Joel biopic titled “Piano Man” is in the works at Michael Jai White’s Jaigantic Studios, with Adam Ripp attached to write and direct.The biopic will follow Joel’s early years — from being discovered by his first manager Irwin Mazur at age 16, to playing in a Long Island cover band in the 1960s, to his breakout performance in 1972 that captured the attention of Clive Davis.However, Billy Joel’s rep says that Joel is not involved with this film project, and that no rights in music, name/likeness or life story will be granted.Instead, Jaigantic has acquired the life rights to Mazur, who managed Joel from 1965 to 1972, the year before his commercial breakthrough. Joel’s hit album and song “Piano Man” were released in 1973.

Ethan Shanfeld Los Angeles County is expected to lift its indoor mask mandate on Friday, March 4, as local health data backs the latest COVID-19 policy shift, NBC Los Angeles reports.The decision comes as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially placed L.A.

Ethan Shanfeld Judd Apatow’s upcoming, star-studded Netflix film “The Bubble” follows a group of actors stuck inside a pandemic bubble while shooting a movie at a hotel. That movie — “Cliff Beasts 6: The Battle for Everest: Memories of a Requiem” — just got its own official teaser.“The Bubble” stars Karen Gillan, Fred Armisen, Maria Bakalova, Keegan-Michael Key, David Duchovny, Leslie Mann, Pedro Pascal, Peter Serafinowicz, Vir Das, Rob Delaney and Apatow’s daughter, Iris Apatow.Apatow directs, produces and co-wrote the script for “The Bubble” with Pam Brady, who executive produces alongside Donald Sabourin and Apatow’s longtime partner Barry Mendel.

Ethan Shanfeld Ralph Ahn, who played the fan-favorite “New Girl” character Tran, died on Feb. 26, the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles reported. He was 95.Ahn appeared in seven episodes of the sitcom alongside Jake Johnson, who played Nick Miller.

Ethan Shanfeld Olivia Rodrigo will flaunt her driver’s license in her upcoming Disney Plus movie “Driving Home 2 U (A Sour Film)” as she takes fans on a road trip from Salt Lake City, where she began writing her debut album, to Los Angeles.Along the way, Rodrigo will tell the stories behind “Sour,” and discuss how it feels to be a woman navigating pop stardom in her teens. Featuring behind-the-scenes footage in and out of the recording studio, the film will debut exclusively on Disney Plus on March 25.The movie will also feature 11 songs from the triple-platinum album performed with new arrangements in unique locations, from Roy’s Motel & Café to Red Rock Canyon State Park.

Ethan Shanfeld Frank Pesce, a character actor who appeared in both “Beverly Hills Cop” movies, “Top Gun,” “Midnight Run” and “Miami Vice,” died on Feb. 6 due to dementia complications. He was 75.Born in 1946 in New York City, Pesce’s circle of friends included Sylvester Stallone, Tony Danza and Robert Forster, among others.

Ethan Shanfeld LGBTQ+ representation on broadcast television reached an all-time high during the 2021-2022 season, according to GLAAD’s annual Where We Are on TV report.According to the media advocacy organization, 11.9% of series regular characters this programming season are LGBTQ+, an increase of 2.8% from last year and a record-high in television history. This year’s study found that of the 775 series regular characters who have appeared or will appear on scripted programming between May 2021 and June 2022, 92 characters are LGBTQ+.

Ethan Shanfeld Los Angeles County is expected to lift its outdoor mask mandate Wednesday following a decrease in the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19. The indoor mask requirement could be lifted by the end of March if case rates continue to decline.With guidelines imposed earlier this month, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said the county would lift its mask requirement if hospitalizations remained under 2,500 for seven consecutive days.

Ethan Shanfeld “The Righteous Gemstones” is jam-packed with comedy, action, music and religion. But the beating heart of the HBO megachurch series is the charmingly bizarre romance between middle child Judy (Edi Patterson) and her sheepish husband BJ (Tim Baltz).Created by Danny McBride, the show — whose seventh episode (of nine) aired on Sunday — offers a gold mine of opportunities for Patterson and Baltz to unravel their strange and hilarious relationship.

Ethan Shanfeld Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times will be dismissed, a federal judge announced on Monday, saying the former Alaska governor’s team failed to meet the court’s high standards for public figures to make their case.Palin’s team was unable to prove that the newspaper acted with actual malice when it published a 2017 editorial erroneously connecting Palin to a 2011 mass shooting in Tuscon, Ariz., NPR reported. According to Judge Jed Rakoff, Palin’s lawyers failed to present sufficient evidence against the paper or former page editor James Bennet. Palin’s team would have had to prove that Bennet, who inserted the Palin-related language in the article, knew the characterization was false or that the probability of it being false was so great as to mean he was acting with reckless indifference to the facts.

Ethan Shanfeld “It’s a little bit magic,” Adrianne Lenker chirrs on the title track of Big Thief’s new album, “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You.” Then, over a weeping pedal steel and her own signature “brush guitar,” her curiosity drifts from a river of morning geese to the birth of a billion planets to a dragon in the phone line. It’s never revealed what, exactly, “it” is, but throughout this adventurous new double-album, Big Thief dives into both the natural and otherworldly, paving new sounds and textures while uncovering new mysteries.Produced by drummer James Krivchenia, “Dragon” was recorded over four sessions with four different engineers in four distinct locations: upstate New York, Topanga Canyon, the Rocky Mountains and Tucson, Ariz.

Ethan Shanfeld Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley have joined Michael Mann’s racing film “Ferrari.”The big-budget biopic follows ex-racecar driver and auto manufacturing giant Enzo Ferrari in the summer of 1957. With his marriage in crisis over the mourning of a son, and the threat of bankruptcy looming over the company he and his wife built 10 years earlier, Ferrari embarks on a bold race — the Mille Miglia, 1,000 miles across Italy.Driver replaces Hugh Jackman, who had initially signed on to play the title character.

Ethan Shanfeld JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot is in early negotiations to develop a limited series based on Stephen King’s bestselling novel “Billy Summers,” Variety has confirmed. Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz are set to adapt, with Zwick directing. The series will soon be shopped to streamers and high end cable networks.“Billy Summers” will be Bad Robot’s latest series adaptation with King, following “Lisey’s Story,” “Castle Rock” and “11.22.63.” The novel follows Billy Summers, a former Marine sniper and soon-retiring hitman who takes one last high-paying job.

Ethan Shanfeld “Hocus Pocus 2” has wrapped filming and will premiere on Disney Plus on Halloween, according to executive producer Adam Shankman.In an Instagram post on Friday, Shankman wrote, “SISTAAAAAHHHHSSS! Aaaaand that’s a WRAP!!! #hocuspocus2. Congratulations to the amazing team…and the WHOOOOLLLEEEE cast and crew!!! Coming to you #halloween #2022 on @disneyplus.”Disney did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment, but since spooky season programming typically comes out ahead of the holiday, we can probably expect “Hocus Pocus 2” just before Oct.

Ethan Shanfeld A federal judge resentenced Joe Exotic of Netflix’s “Tiger King” to 21 years in prison on Friday, reducing his punishment by one year.The updated sentencing comes after Exotic begged the court for leniency as he begins treatment for prostate cancer.Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was convicted on 17 federal charges of animal abuse and two counts of attempted murder-for-hire for the plot to kill animal welfare activist Carole Baskin. Both appeared as archenemies in the Netflix docuseries “Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.”Friday’s resentencing came about after a federal appeals court ruled last year that the sentence Exotic is serving on the murder-for-hire conviction should be shortened.

Ethan Shanfeld Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter and producer Astn, who went viral on TikTok for his R&B remix of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever,” has signed with Warner Records.The R&B breakout star, whose real name is Austin Sanders, dropped his debut EP as Astn, “Tell Your Friends,” in 2017. Today marks the release of his first song with Warner, titled “Gradually.”“The song poses the question: Is it more agonizing to see someone you love vanish from your life all of the sudden, or slowly detach from you over time?” Astn said in a statement.

Ethan Shanfeld Dave Chappelle’s 2021 standup comedy special “The Closer” nabbed two major nominations Thursday morning, from both the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and Producers Guild of America (PGA).Stan Lathan, who directed “The Closer,” was recognized by the DGA for TV directing in the variety, talk, news or sports specials category. Chappelle himself received a PGA nomination in the category of outstanding producer of live entertainment, variety, sketch, standup and talk television.“The Closer,” Chappelle’s sixth special for Netflix, ignited a media firestorm, as viewers criticized it for what they felt were transphobic and homophobic remarks.

Ethan Shanfeld “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Cheryl Hines is distancing herself from her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial statements about vaccine mandates and Nazi Germany.“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland; you can hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” Kennedy said at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington D.C. on Sunday, suggesting that people who are unvaccinated face more oppression than people who lived in Nazi Germany.After Kennedy’s statement received backlash on Monday, Hines’ Twitter followers urged her to take a stance against his beliefs.

Ethan Shanfeld The first trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s psychological thriller “Nightmare Alley” has arrived.The film, in theaters on Dec. 17, follows Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), an ambitious carny with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words, as he meets Dr.

Ethan Shanfeld New York Comic Con (NYCC) is taking over the city from Oct.

Ethan Shanfeld Bleecker Street has acquired the U.S. rights to Geeta Malik’s “India Sweets and Spices,” premiering in theaters on Nov.

Ethan Shanfeld Mick Brigden, a tour manager who worked with artists including The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, died on Sept. 5 after an accident at his home in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Ethan Shanfeld Stephen Colbert is channeling his inner K-pop with a BTS-inspired music video featuring Jon Batiste and the Stay Human band, as well as a cameo from Alan Alda, that aired during yesterday’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”In “Excuses Song,” Colbert — rocking a middle part and soul patch — croons about potential excuses one can make when invited to unwanted social events.After being the subject of one of the excuses — “Tell ’em that you’re with Alan Alda” — the legendary

Ethan Shanfeld A24 released a trailer for “C’mon C’mon,” which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and will open in theaters later this year.Helmed by Mike Mills, the Oscar-winning director behind “20th Century Women,” the films stars Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny, a middle-aged radio journalist who, when left to take care of his nephew (Woody Norman), embarks on a trip across the country to interview kids, asking them what they think about their lives and where the world is headed.Rounding