Ramin Setoodeh Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

BreAnna Bell Variety received three Eddie & Ozzie Awards for editorial design excellence on the evening of Sept. 13. Presented by Folio, the winners and special mentions were announced at this year’s gala event at the City Winery New York. The publication took home the Eddie award for website in the business-to-business category. Honorable mentions for the category included SevenFifty Daily, Fierce Pharma and strategy+business. Variety also won the Ozzie award for best photography, business-to-business, for its 2021 Power of Women cover featuring “I May Destroy You” creator Michaela Coel. The cover story, written by senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson, followed Coel’s shift in focus to new stories following the success of the HBO limited series. Coel won an Emmy award in the category of writing for a limited series for the show in 2021.

EJ Panaligan editor “Bros” co-writer and star Billy Eichner had sincere words to share about his upcoming romantic comedy at the Variety Cover Party at TIFF sponsored by Skyy. “I could have never imagined in a million years that we would have been able to premiere in such a spectacular way,” Eichner said about the buzz behind the film leading up to its release. “Thank you to everyone at Variety, this feature really was the most beautiful, accurate thing that’s ever been written about me.” In a lengthy interview with Variety, Eichner discussed the film’s entirely LGBTQ cast along with the many distinctive ways in which his personal life has influenced the development of the movie’s characters and plot lines. “I’ve worked so hard on it, I care so much about it, and I want it to do well for the sake of the LGBTQ stories getting greenlit,” he told Variety‘s Brent Lang. “So there’s a burden I feel, much as I want to sit here and just talk about how funny the movie is.”

Manori Ravindran International Editor The stars descended on Soho House in downtown Toronto on Saturday for Variety and Chanel’s Female Filmmakers’ Dinner during the Toronto International Film Festival. Guests in attendance included Tilda Swinton, star of Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter”; Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of “The Woman King”; Darren Aronofsky, director of “The Whale”; and Anna Kendrick, who’s in Toronto shopping her new AGC Studios project “The Dating Game” to market buyers. Stars mingled on a packed rooftop before convening in the club’s private dining room, which gathered around 100 of the festival’s bright lights in filmmaking. They dined on a bespoke Soho House menu of beef tartare with black truffle, black cod and bok choy, and wagyu rib cap with porcini purée.

Brendan Fraser is back in the spotlight in a big way. Judging by the actor's reception at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, Fraser's stardom has rocketed back to its '90s and early aughts levels. The star of Darren Aronofsky's  was reportedly moved to tears during the film's standing ovation — said to last a whopping six minutes -- after its premiere on Sunday.In videos shared on social media, the 53-year-old performer was seen seated applauding his castmates before Aronofsky encouraged him to stand and accept the audience's praise.

Protect Brendan Fraser at all costs!

Zack Sharf When it comes to buzz emerging out of the 2022 Venice Film Festival, few actors dominated headlines as positively as Brendan Fraser. The actor is earning Oscar buzz and the best reviews of his career for his leading turn in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale.” The Venice audience at the film’s world premiere gave the movie a huge six-minute standing ovation. Fraser broke down in tears during the reception, a video of which shared by Variety co-editor in chief Ramin Setoodeh on Twitter has earned over 15.5 million views and counting. Dwayne Johnson, who co-starred with Fraser in 2001’s “The Mummy Returns,” celebrated “The Whale” standing ovation on social media and championed Fraser’s acting comeback.

#SpitGate is going viral on Twitter after a video appeared to show Harry Styles spitting on Chris Pine during the Venice premiere of Don’t Worry Darling.

Harry Styles kissed someone at the Don’t Worry Darling premiere… and it wasn’t his girlfriend Olivia Wilde!

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent On Sunday night, an hour before the hotly anticipated Sept. 5 world premiere of “Don’t Worry Darling” on the Lido, Variety celebrated director Olivia Wilde with a cocktail party hosted at the posh Danieli Hotel in Venice. Wilde, who is unveiling her second feature as a director out of competition at the festival, graces the cover of Variety’s Venice issue, on newsstands now. It marks the first dedicated Venice magazine issue that Variety has done, as the magazine’s co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh pointed out. “We couldn’t think of a better subject than Olivia,” Setoodeh said. Setoodeh praised Warner Bros., the studio behind “Don’t Worry Darling,” for championing theatrical releases.

Naman Ramachandran The star studded Variety and Hotel Danieli pre-festival cocktail party on Aug. 30 was a taster of the riches in store at the Venice Film Festival that kicks off the following day. Head of the jury Julianne Moore and fellow jurors, “A Separation” actor Leila Hatami and filmmakers Audrey Diwan, Mariano Cohn, Leonardo Di Costanzo and Rodrigo Sorogoyen, were present as was “Thor: Love and Thunder” actor Tessa Thompson, who is serving on the festival’s Horizons strand jury. The evening, titled “Cinema Danieli – An Unforgettable Story,” on the terrace of the plush Hotel Danieli, which will turn 200 next year, has become a festival tradition dating back 13 years. It was introduced by Claudio Staderini, director of the Danieli, who described the hotel as a shooting and residential choice of many of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor The Toronto Film Festival will honor composer Hildur Guðnadóttir with the Variety Artisan Award at this year’s Tribute Awards. Along with Guðnadóttir, Welsh Egyptian filmmaker and screenwriter Sally El Hosaini will receive the TIFF Emerging Talent Award presented by MGM at the annual TIFF Tribute Awards. This awards season, Guðnadóttir composed the scores for two films, Todd Field’s “Tár” and Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking.” Guðnadóttir cemented her place in Oscar history when she became only the fourth woman to win an Academy Award for original score for “Joker.”

Terry Flores Variety has been nominated for nine Folio: Eddie & Ozzie Awards, including best issue for Leaving the Kingdom, which looked at Robert Iger’s long tenure at the helm of Disney, and best website for Variety.com.The Leaving the Kingdom issue was published on Dec. 12, 2021, and featured a lengthy interview with Iger by then-Variety editor-in-chief Claudia Eller. Design of the issue was overseen by design director Ted Keller and art director Elliot Stokes, with photography overseen by visual content director Jennifer Dorn.

Variety Staff Follow Us on TwitterVariety has promoted Manori Ravindran to Executive Editor of International and Senior Writer.Ravindran joined Variety in 2020 as International Editor. In her new role, Ravindran will continue to lead Variety’s award-winning team of correspondents based around the world, while expanding the brand’s presence at key festivals and markets and growing Variety’s events outside the U.S., working closely with executive VP of content, Steven Gaydos.

William Earl Steven Banks has joined Variety as creative director.The publishing veteran will steer the brand’s design and aesthetic across all editorial platforms, reporting to Variety incoming co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh and co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton. Banks is leading a department that is seeing record levels of activity for Variety’s weekly print magazine, as well as dozens of digital and print Extra Editions each year around events such as the Oscars, the Emmys, the Cannes Film Festival and more.“We are thrilled to have Steven join our team to enhance the look of our award-winning magazine and continue to strengthen our digital storytelling for our millions of readers and followers,” said Setoodeh.

William Earl Jennifer Dorn has been promoted to visual content director at Variety.The four-year Variety veteran oversees all photography and photo imagery for the brand. She reports to incoming co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh and Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia LittletonBased in Los Angeles, Dorn has significantly expanded Variety‘s investment in original photography.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorTo many fans of “Sex and the City,” Kim Cattrall was the definition of glamorous. So perhaps it’s only fitting that her next TV project will be “Glamorous,” a Netflix series in which Cattrall will be starring as a makeup mogul.“Glamorous,” which had originally been ordered as a pilot at The CW in 2019, tells the story of Marco Mejia (played by actor, singer and YouTuber Miss Benny), a gender non-conforming queer person who goes to work for Cattrall’s cosmetics queen Madolyn Addison.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorIt was after 1 a.m. in Antibes when Christina Aguilera performed at the 28th annual amfAR gala at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday morning. Inside a tent at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Rock, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, a lux crowd of European highrollers crowded the stage as Michelle Rodriguez took the mic to introduce the night’s headliner.

Meredith Woerner Deputy Editor, Variety.comVariety has been nominated for 72 Southern California Journalism Awards, including two for journalist of the year, three for entertainment journalist of the year and six nominations for criticism of TV, music and books.The awards, given out by the Los Angeles Press Club, honor outstanding journalism in the region across print, digital, radio and broadcast platforms.Executive editor Ramin Setoodeh and deputy music editor Jem Aswad are both up for journalist of the year. TV critic Daniel D’Addario along with chief film critic Owen Gleiberman and features editor Chris Willman are all nominated for entertainment journalist of the year.Aswad leads all Variety staffers with 14 total nominations, followed by Willman with nine nominations.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive Editor“Holy Spider,” a gritty drama about a real-life Iranian serial killer, stunned the Cannes Film Festival at its premiere on Sunday afternoon, earning a thunderous seven-minute standing ovation and bringing a jolt of electricity to what’s been a sleepy festival so far.The film, from Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi (“Border”), chronicles a killing spree in the streets of the religious city of Mashhad, where 16 prostitutes were found dead from 2000 to 2001.  A local journalist, Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), is trying to crack the case as she grows frustrated by the police’s apathy toward finding the murderer. But in one of many twists in this drama, the identity of the serial killer is revealed early on — he’s a war veteran named Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani), a seemingly normal family man who spends his nights picking up women on his motorcycle and brutally strangling them in his home as a religious cleansing ritual.

Naman Ramachandran The Variety Welcome to Cannes party at the Unifrance terrace was the place to be on Thursday afternoon, with guests including Eva Longoria, Sony Pictures Classics’ Tom Bernard and Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente.The hot ticket event was a bubbles and canapes celebration where the movers and shakers of the entertainment industry turned up in force to mingle after two years of COVID-caused separation.Dayna Wolpa, managing director, programming and distribution at Variety, kicked off proceedings by saying that Variety has been covering the Cannes Film Festival for 75 of the publication’s 116 years of existence and that Variety.com has 35 million unique users. “That makes Variety the No.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorA visit from the dead? How chic.The Cannes Film Festival sprung back into action on Tuesday night, as this year’s opening night movie, “Final Cut (Coupez!)” received a 5-minute standing ovation. The gory zombie line, which straddled a tone somewhere between “The Blair Witch Project” and “Call My Agent,” kicked off a festival where few patrons were wearing masks in these COVID times.To commemorate the 75th edition of Cannes, festival director Thierry Fremaux selected a French movie — not to mention a French jury president, “Titane” actor Vincent Lindon — to keep things local at the start of the celebration of movies in the French Riviera.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorAsghar Farhadi forcefully denied that he plagiarized his 2021 film “A Hero.”“My film was not based on the documentary,” the Iranian Oscar-winning directed said on Tuesday afternoon at the Cannes Film Festival. “I think the matter will no doubt be cleared up.

Kim Cattrall has a favorite word: “No.”Cattrall’s favorite instance of saying “no,” as she explained in her speech at Variety‘s Power of Women dinner presented by Lifetime, is one of her most famous quotes, when she told The Guardian in 2019, “I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m not enjoying myself for even an hour.”There are other times she has said “no,” most notably when asked to reprise her iconic role as Samantha Jones in various reboots of the “Sex and the City” franchise. She recently elaborated on her decision to retire the role in a cover interview with Variety executive editor Ramin Setoodeh, in which she said that, after filming the second SATC movie, “Everything in me went, ‘I’m done.'” She mentioned other examples of taking satisfaction in saying no, including, “No, that salary is unacceptable” and “No, we are not having a meeting in your hotel room.”On Thursday evening, Cattrall encouraged other women to own their power in the same way, reminding the room of entertainment executives and fellow Power of Women honorees, “Saying no to the past is saying yes to the future, because you are the screenwriter in the movie of your own life.”“The word ‘no’ has difficulties sometimes traveling from the brain to the tongue,” Cattrall said.

Kim Cattrall has her reasons for not wanting to reprise her character, Samantha Jones, on HBO Max's spinoff series, .“It’s a great wisdom to know when enough is enough,” Cattrall tells of why she walked away from the franchise after six seasons and two movies. “I also didn’t want to compromise what the show was to me. The way forward seemed clear.”She says that after the second movie, «Everything in me went, ‘I’m done.’»While she had already decided not to play Samantha again, the 65-year-old actress notes, «I was never asked to be part of the reboot.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorVariety has promoted veteran editors Diane Garrett, Carole Horst and Terry Flores, giving the trio expanded oversight of the weekly magazine and more than two dozen Extra Editions published annually.Garrett and Horst have been promoted to Deputy Editor. Flores has advanced to Senior Production Editor.

Variety Staff Follow Us on TwitterMichael Schneider has been elevated to Television Editor of Variety, overseeing TV industry coverage as well as TV awards-related news and features.Variety is also expanding its TV presence with editor-at-large Kate Aurthur taking on new responsibilities for leading fan-focused coverage of TV content. Variety is increasing its investment in coverage of current series, from series previews and first-looks to episodic recaps, cast and showrunner Q&As, critical commentary, post-mortems, scene breakdowns and other content that fuels word-of-mouth and social conversation around TV.Schneider and Aurthur will work closely together in steering the industry’s largest team of TV-focused reporters.

Dancing it out. Despite a dramatic Oscars night and his onstage fight with Chris Rock, Will Smith was solely focused on celebrating his best actor win after the ceremony.

Will Smith ended his time at the 94th Academy Awards with a smile and a dance. Hours after the Mar. 27 event – where Will, 53, slapped Chris Rock before winning the Oscar for Best Actor – the King Richard star attended Vanity Fair’s post-Oscar bash alongside wife Jada Pinkett-Smith. During the after-party, the DJ played Will’s songs “Gittin’ Jiggy Wit It” and “Miami.” In the video recorded by Vanity Fair editor Ramin Setoodeh, Will channels his “Bigg Willy Style” persona while holding his Oscar, rapping, and dancing along to his own music.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorIf Will Smith was feeling any remorse about slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars on Sunday night, he didn’t show it. The 53-year-old best actor winner, who took home the trophy for his performance in “King Richard,” arrived at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party just after midnight with a large entourage and immediately hit the dance floor.As the DJ played a medley of Smith’s biggest ’90s hits, the actor sang along to “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” and “Miami” as he shimmied in the middle of a mosh pit of his fans at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, swinging his gold statue in the air.Will Smith is at the #VanityFairOscarParty dancing with his Oscar to ‘Gettin Jiggy With It.’ pic.twitter.com/PvKrRICQEN— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) March 28, 2022“It’s all about love,” Smith told Variety, when asked how he was doing.Just hours prior, Smith overshadowed the 94th Academy Awards when he stormed the stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorWhen Channing Tatum was promoting his latest movie “Dog,” he got the same question over and over again: Does the title character survive through the end credits?“People were saying I will not see this movie unless I know the dog lives,” Tatum says, laughing. “‘Marley and Me’ scarred everyone so hard.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorMeryl Streep chatted with Venus Williams. Lady Gaga reunited with Bradley Cooper, her co-star from “A Star is Born.” Andrew Garfield and Jamie Dornan fanned out for Cousin Greg (also known as Nicholas Braun) from “Succession.” And Will Smith, as warm as ever, mingled with practically everybody.Yes, it was like old times in Hollywood at the Santa Monica Barker Hangar on Sunday night. The 28th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards pulled off the first in-person awards ceremony of 2022, moving ahead as if things were normal after other gatherings canceled or went entirely virtual due to the omicron variant.

William Earl Brent Lang has been promoted to Executive Editor of Variety.In his new role, Lang will help guide the venerable showbiz brand’s editorial operations across digital and print platforms. He will continue to oversee Variety’s film, media and theater coverage, and he serves as leader of the New York bureau. “There’s an infinite number of words I would use to describe Brent Lang and my admiration for his breadth of genius, talent and skills as a journalist,” said Claudia Eller, Variety Editor-in-Chief. “He is also one of the most trustworthy, thoughtful and collegial people I’ve ever worked with and it’s a joy to watch him continue to flourish.”Lang most recently served as Executive Editor of Film and Media and New York Bureau Chief.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorChanning Tatum and his producing partner Reid Carolin aren’t just the brains — and brawn — behind “Magic Mike.” They’ve built up their company Free Association into a place to go for innovative storytelling, including the road trip movie “Dog” (which opens on Feb. 18), which they co-directed; the Starz TV series “Step Up: Highwater”; and the thriller “Pussy Island,” which will be Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut.“I think it’s a good partnership,” says Steven Soderbergh, who is directing “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” which Tatum will star in and Carolin wrote. “I think they have a shared sense of people and how the world works.”Tatum and Carolin speak to Variety about Free Association.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorAfter two movies, Channing Tatum thought he was done playing Magic Mike. But he’ll take one more swing around the stripper’s pole in “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” which begins shooting in London in March.In this week’s issue of Variety, Tatum talks about taking a four-year hiatus from acting to produce TV shows and movies with Free Association, the company that he launched in 2014 with his producing partner Reid Carolin. One of the company’s most anticipated projects is “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” the third and (supposedly) final movie in the franchise that was inspired by Tatum’s days as an exotic dancer.The film, which will be directed by Steven Soderbergh from a script written by Carolin, will premiere on HBO Max.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorIn this week’s Variety cover story, Channing Tatum talks about the road to co-directing his first movie, “Dog,” with his longtime producer partner Reid Carolin.But before he came up with the idea for the MGM indie (which opens on Feb. 18), Tatum and Carolin spent four years developing “Gambit,” a raunchy stand-alone movie based on the “X-Men” mutant.The superhero project was set up at Twentieth Century Fox in 2016, and Tatum and Carolin had lobbied to share the director’s chair. “The studio really didn’t want us to direct it,” Tatum says.

Ramin Setoodeh Executive EditorThe New York Film Critics Circle will begin announcing its winners on Friday morning, as one of the early critics groups to weigh in on awards season. The organization is made up of about 50 critics and journalists based in the East Coast, from publications that that include Time, Vanity Fair and Variety.