Tim Gray-Senior Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentIn a video toast, Morgan Freeman praises Cicely Tyson as an “icon, a pioneer whose life and work tell the story of America, bravely and boldly.”His tribute was part of AFI’s 21-day salute to the best film and TV work of 2020, with the build-up starting Feb. 5.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentLance Henriksen has played more than 250 roles in the past 50 years. But Variety’s Peter Debruge wrote that the actor “gives the performance of his career” in “Falling,” the writing-directing debut of Viggo Mortensen.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentSony Classics awards contender “The Father” takes place inside a London apartment, and production designer Peter Francis says, “We weren’t just designing a set; it was an integral part of the storyline.”When Florian Zeller began adapting his 2014 play into a film, he resisted suggestions to “open up” the work by moving some scenes outdoors.Zeller tells Variety, “While I was writing the script, I drew a layout of the apartment, as if it was a main character.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentSidney Poitier — who turns 94 on Feb. 20 — has received virtually every showbiz award possible: An Oscar, Grammy, Golden Globe, plus Life Achievement Awards from AFI, BAFTA, NAACP Image Awards, SAG and Kennedy Center Honors, to name a few.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentFilm history is filled with notable directors who made a Western after establishing themselves in other genres. That list includes Robert Altman (“McCabe and Mrs.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentThings always gets intense in Oscar season, and voters may feel overwhelmed by the huge numbers of contenders (streaming and sometimes in theaters) that are hoping for some love.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentAwards season contender “News of the World” is a departure for director Paul Greengrass after such high-adrenaline contempo movies as his Jason Bourne trio and “22 July.” He reunites with “Captain Phillips” star Tom Hanks in Universal’s Western about Captain Kidd, a man delivering the news to towns in Texas, accompanied by the orphan Johanna.

Tim Gray Senior Vice President“Minari,” from Plan B and A24, is writer-director Lee Isaac Chung’s semi-autobiographical tale of a Korean-American family starting a new life in 1980s Arkansas. The characters, played by Steven Yeun, Yeri Han and Yuh-jung Youn, among others, live in a small mobile home on isolated patch of land; one of the challenges was to convey both the sense of home and the vast, green area.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentWith six nominations each, “Da 5 Bloods” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7” led nominations for AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups Awards, with Regina King recognized for both her acting (“Watchmen”) and directing (“One Night in Miami”).“Miami” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” also scored well, with five nominations each.The org this year added categories in television/streaming; best series contenders are “Perry Mason,” “Succession,” “Ted Lasso,” “The Crown” and

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentGong Li became a star in Zhang Yimou’s 1988 “Red Sorghum,” her film debut. Since then, she has headlined dozens of films from China, Hollywood and elsewhere; she says the new “Leap” offered her “the hardest role I’ve ever played, but the best role.”The film, directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan, is China’s submission for Oscar’s international film category.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentIs this the year a documentary finally gets a best picture Oscar nomination?When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 2009 expanded the top category to 10, then-prez Sid Ganis expressed hope the noms would include animation, international films and docs. Since then, the first two groups have made the grade, but no docs.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentAmerica doesn’t have a system of knights or dames, as Britain, Australia and New Zealand do. If there were such a system, Cicely Tyson would have undoubtedly been honored.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentRespectAbility will have a heavy presence at Sundance this year, with a lineup of virtual panels and discussions, all on digital Main Street.The disability advocacy group is presenting five conversations under the umbrella title the Accessibility & Inclusion Lab; two of the events are in collaboration with Film Independent.A goal is to encourage authentic representation of disabled people on screen, and to help change how audiences view people with disabilities.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentOrganizations that give awards think every category is important.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentWarner Bros.’ “The Little Things” launches Jan. 29, marking the end of a 28-year journey for writer-director John Lee Hancock.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentWhen an individual is cast against type, the results are always interesting.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentThere are a lot of reasons to like “Mank.” 1. It’s great filmmaking.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentAfter directing multiple TV episodes, Regina King makes her big-screen directing debut with Amazon’s “One Night in Miami.” Kemp Powers adapted his play about a 1963 meeting of Jim Brown, Cassius Clay (before he became Muhammad Ali), Sam Cooke and Malcolm X. King paid tribute to her colleagues behind the camera, saying, “They were my heroes.”“Tami and I connected immediately.

Tim Gray Senior Vice President“All in the Family” was notable for many things — including the fact that it spawned seven other TV series. The influential sitcom was controversial when it first aired on 50 years ago on Jan.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentBefore “All in the Family” debuted, there was a profound gap between real life and what was being depicted on TV series.In his autobiography “Even This I Get to Experience,” Norman Lear wrote, “Until ‘All in the Family’ came along, TV comedy was telling us there was no hunger in America, we had no racial discrimination, there was no unemployment or inflation, no war, no drugs, and the citizenry was happy with whomever happened to be in the White House.”When Lear

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentWhen “All in the Family” debuted Jan. 12, 1971, on CBS, it was exactly the TV show America needed — though America didn’t realize it at the time.Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin had taped two ABC pilots of the script, both starring Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, starting in 1968.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentIn a 1991 essay, John Gregory Dunne said male stars are allowed to age gracefully onscreen, unlike females: “Men grow older; women grow old.” In general, he’s right: Acting has always been a difficult profession, especially for women over 35.Dunne (1932-2003) unfortunately didn’t live long enough to see this year’s notable work by actresses over 50.

Tim Gray Senior Vice President“The Trial of the Chicago 7,” about protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and  the ensuing trial, features great work by writer-director Aaron Sorkin, who is quick to salute his below-the-line colleagues: “They’re not there to take my instructions; they’re there to top my instructions. I consider these people to be co-authors of the film.” “In the opening seven minutes, we wanted to do two things.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentIs journalism the best training ground for screenwriting? Two-thirds of the writers of Pixar’s “Soul” have backgrounds as reporters: Mike Jones (whose resume includes expert work at Variety, 2007-2009) and Kemp Powers (17 years on the beat, including stints at Forbes, Reuters and Newsweek).They wrote “Soul” with director Pete Docter; Powers is also co-director of the film, which debuts Dec.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentVariety is celebrating its 115th birthday and, amid all the upheaval of 2020, it’s good to remember that the entertainment industry has survived constant change and adaptation. That’s reassuring.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentVariety is celebrating its 115th birthday and, amid all the upheaval of 2020, it’s good to remember that the entertainment industry has survived constant change and adaptation. That’s reassuring.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentThe entertainment industry had been under fire for irresponsible depictions of violence from the early days, including 1930s gangster movies and the glut of 1950s TV Westerns.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentThe public often assumes that if celebrities are rich and famous, their lives must be trouble-free. Actually, lots of showbiz horror stories negate that, but they’re usually about addiction and/or self-destruction.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentAs a long-delayed sequel to Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1939 guest column, Variety invited First Lady Michelle Obama to write about showbiz. The item ran on the front page on Oct.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentThe sixth-anniversary issue of Daily Variety, on Oct. 20, 1939, contained something that was unprecedented for the newspaper and for the author: A guest column by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt about movies.She started by saying she was uniquely unqualified to write about the motion picture industry.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentVariety is celebrating its 115th birthday and, amid all the upheaval of 2020, it’s good to remember that the entertainment industry has survived constant change and adaptation. That’s reassuring.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentVariety is celebrating its 115th birthday and, amid all the upheaval of 2020, it’s good to remember that the entertainment industry has survived constant change and adaptation. That’s reassuring.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentOne of the many upheavals created by World War II was the method of news reporting. In May 1939, for example, Variety carried a story about an exciting system that allowed newsreel footage from Europe to be seen in the U.S.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentTo celebrate Variety’s 115th anniversary, we went to the archives to see how some of Hollywood’s biggest stars first landed in the pages of our magazine. Read more from the archives here.In 1929, Variety hated the musical comedy “A Wonderful Night” at Broadway’s Majestic Theater (“remarkably dull … the outlook for this one is dreary”).

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentSony Classics’ “The Father” is an act of daring; it could have gone wrong in so many ways, but it works like gangbusters.The film marks the movie debut of writer-director Florian Zeller, whose background is as a novelist and playwright; in many cases, that would send warning signals.What’s more, it all takes place in one location, the apartment of Anthony (Anthony Hopkins), so it might have turned out to be a photographed stage play.

Tim Gray Senior Vice PresidentTo celebrate Variety’s 115th anniversary, we went to the archives to see how some of Hollywood’s biggest stars first landed in the pages of our magazine. Read more from the archives here.Ava DuVernay is a force of nature.