‘Rings of Power’ Star Ismael Cruz Córdova Says Amazon Hired an On-Set Therapist to Deal With Racist Backlash

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Leslie Grace has a very personal reason for deciding to become what she calls an “ambassador” for “Translators,” a new documentary short about bilingual Latino children in the U.S. who become translators for their Spanish-speaking parents. “I’m first generation Dominican American,” the “In the Heights” star tells me. “My grandmother relied on her kids — my mom and her siblings — and then her grandkids. It’s a very common thing when I see my grandmother that my sister or I or my cousins, we take turns sharing the mail and translating for her.” The doc, directed by Emmy winner Rudy Valdez, highlights several families in which the children help navigate their parents’ lives, from explaining bills that need to be paid to the tremendous worry of having to translate proper medical care for their siblings. “I’m really excited for people that haven’t had this experience to be able to witness it through the doc,” Grace says. “Also there may be some assumptions and misconceptions that you might have about someone who doesn’t speak a language or even speaks English with an accent.”

Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden has revealed she has begun treatment for breast cancer as she shared an update with fans from her hospital bed. The professional dancer, 32, who joined the BBC dance series in 2017, has been flooded with support from her Strictly co-stars as she said she is 'ready for this fight'.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor ‘Shucked’ co-composer Brandy Clark says the ultimate goal of the Tony-nominated musical is to provide audiences with pure joy. Mixed in is also a big serving of queer representation. “I always think it’s hard to hate something that you know and love, and it’s a lot easier to hate something that’s just an idea or something you’ve heard about that you should be scared of,” Clark told me during a phone conversation from the Drama Desk Awards in New York City, where she and co-composer Shane McAnally were presented with the award for outstanding music. “So I think if you walk out of ‘Shucked’ with any hate in your heart, I don’t know if I can help you. You’re probably a descendant of Hitler.”

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 7 winner Violet Chachki will honored with the Cultural Icon Award at Tom of Finland Foundation’s 30th annual Tom’s Bar fundraiser. The drag artist, burlesque performer, model and singer will be presented with the award by Dita Von Teese. “Mean Girls” movie musical and “Looking” star Daniel Franzese emcees. The all-day festivities take place June 18 at The Avalon & Bardot Hollywood in Los Angeles. The theme for this year’s bash is “All roads lead to Tom.” “Tom’s Bar is a place where all corners of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies converge for a big party under one roof,” ToFF creative director Richard Villani said in a statement. “Leathermen, pups, kinksters and fetishists of all stripes are welcome to dance and party all day long.”

Often overlooked thanks to the ‘skip intro’ button, a great main title sequence serves as an entry point into another world. And this Emmy season has its share of series based on previous properties, which presents the main title designers with the challenge of linking existing inspirations with new stories. 

EXCLUSIVE: Arthouse distro Circle Collective has acquired worldwide rights to Luca Balser’s (Uncut Gems) NYC anthology film What Doesn’t Float, starring and produced by Pauline Chalamet (Sex Lives of College Girls), and shot by DPs Sean Price Williams (Good Time) and Hunter Zimny (Good Time).

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Playing a man who gets entangled in a murder investigation because his wife (Kaley Cuoco) is obsessed with true crime, “Based on a True Story” kind of hits close to home for Chris Messina. When he was a kid, he and a friend actually may have actually discovered a crime scene. “I grew up in Northport, Long Island,” Messina told Variety at the Peacock series’ premiere Thursday at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. “I grew up on Makamah Road, about a block from the Long Island Sound. A buddy and I walked to the Sound and – it was very ‘Stand By Me’ – we found a hand that washed up on the beach.” They immediately called the cops. “We had to report it,” Messina recalled. “I was pretending to be River Phoenix in ‘Stand By Me.’”

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. A new limited-time deal from Rosetta Stone offers unlimited access to their language-learning program for nearly half the price.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor At Thursday’s Los Angeles premiere of “Based on a True Story,” I asked Kaley Cuoco what’s the closest she’s ever been to a crime — because she stars in the new Peacock series as a woman who ends up in the middle of a murder investigation because she is obsessed with true crime stories. Without missing a beat, Cuoco said, “Scandoval.” The “Big Bang Theory” star said she’s been a “Vanderpump Rules” fan since the first season. Like so many viewers, she was “shocked” when it was revealed that Tom Sandoval was cheating on his girlfriend of 10 years, Ariana Madix, with her best friend, Raquel Leviss.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Back in April, James Gunn told me what he was looking for in the new Man of Steel for “Superman: Legacy.” “The next Superman has to be someone who has all the humanity that Superman has, but he’s also an alien,” he said. “It’s gotta be somebody who has the kindness and the compassion that Superman has and be somebody who you want to give a hug.” He added, “We have some really great choices, which I’m excited about.” Could former “The Bold and the Beautiful” star Pierson Fodé be on Gunn’s list? I hear that the 31-year-old actor could be in the running for the coveted role. Sources tell me that Fodé sent in a self-tape, which included a montage of footage showing his very Clark Kent-like childhood on a farm in the small town of Moses Lake, Wash. I’m told Gunn liked what he saw.

Gal Gadot is a huge star, but revealed she deals with impostor syndrome as her career continues to grow. Gadot, 38, opened up about her insecurities in the Hollywood industry and the surprising person who helped her better understand them, in an interview with L'Officiel magazine.  "It’s funny, I always feel like I have this impostor syndrome, because I feel so lucky and I’m so happy that I get to do what I really, really, really love," Gadot explained. "I always feel like, ‘I hope they’re gonna like it.’ There’s never a moment when I’m like, ‘They’re gonna love this.'"  Impostor syndrome refers to someone who believes they are undeserving of their high achievements, according to Psychology Today.

Amid racist backlash toward Disney’s live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid”, Halle Bailey just received some love from singer and actress, Stephanie Mills, who originated Dorothy in The Wiz on Broadway.

This story first appeared in The Race Begins issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.When Amazon set out to make a “Lord of the Rings” TV series, they didn’t scale down the world of J.R.R. Tolkien for the “small screen.” Instead, for the first in a planned five-season storyline, the studio looked to meet the scale, ambition and prestige of Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning film trilogy.

ITV have today announced the new Love Island line-up, with musical theatre performer and social media content creator Molly Marsh among the news singletons announced.The 21-year-old has appeared on stage in pantomime and already boasts a considerable Instagram following of 25.6k, whilst her mum, Janet Marsh, is a recognised TV actress, having worked on a number of shows, including popular soap Coronation Street. Janet has appeared in multiple roles in the long-running soap, appearing first as a nurse in 2005.

More than 1,000 artifacts from decades of television will hit the auction block on June 2-4.

DirecTV Stream, the internet pay-TV arm of the satellite provider, has struck a distribution deal with smart-TV startup Telly.

Since its release on Prime Video, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s” has faced online criticism based on its cast.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor “Euphoria” actor Jacob Elordi and Zachary Quinto star in “He Went That Way,” a film based on the wacky true story of a celebrity animal trainer (Quinto) and his TV chimp Spanky, who spent three days with a serial killer (Elordi) in 1964. While some press reports have described the film as a queer project, Quinto tells me we won’t be seeing him and Elordi steam up the screen: “I wouldn’t say it’s an overtly queer story, but I will say that there are undertones of both emotional and physical tension between these two characters.” The actors became close during filming. “We talked a lot about his desire to do theater,” Quinto recalls. “I was like, ‘Go do a play in London. Go do a play in New York. That’s where you really cut your teeth.’ I’m sure we’ll see him onstage at some point.”

The arthouse box office hasn’t recovered quickly post-Covid, but one of the oases for the sector, even by pre-pandemic benchmarks, has always been a Wes Anderson movie.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Fast X,” now playing in theaters. Vin Diesel says spinoffs of the “Fast & Furious” franchise are already in the works, including a female-led installment. “I started developing the female spinoff…in 2017 with other spinoffs, and the sooner I deliver the finale, the sooner I can launch all the spinoffs,” he told me Saturday at the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP) Block Party. “Fast X” is the first of a two-part ending, but “it’s bittersweet to think of a finale,” Diesel said. In an interview on May 12 at the Rome premiere, he teased that the ending might be spread out over three films. “Look how many characters and great talent there is in the movie,” Diesel said of the possible 12th film. “There was no way I can pull that off unless I had everyone on for five seconds. These characters are appealing and we need to see more of them.”