UK Casting Directors “Disturbed” By Self-Tape Scandal, Saying Fake Auditions “Destroy Trust”

Happy Valley has won a trio of Broadcasting Press Guild Awards (BPG) a day after being nominated for six BAFTAs.

UK director, writer and cinematographer Molly Manning Walker, who won the Cannes Un Certain Regard prize last year for How To Have Sex, has been selected for the festival’s four-and-a-half month La Résidence program in Paris.

The BBC has a duty to “be nice” amid the fraught debate about transgender rights, according to the UK broadcaster’s director general.

Celine Dion promises her fans that she will go on.

Tucker Carlson has been pranked over Kate Middleton‘s infamous edited photo.

EXCLUSIVE: “Quite a can of worms,” observed a British casting director of a scandal that, until February, was unknown to his profession. The 30-year industry veteran was talking about the practice of agents sending clients fake invitations to record self-tape auditions.

Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed has described the script for the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic Michael as “startlingly disingenuous”.Michael has been confirmed to receive a theatrical release in the United States on April 18, 2025, per production house Lionsgate. A UK release date is yet to be announced.Given the project’s connection to the Jackson estate, it is unclear whether the film will explore the most controversial aspects of the singer’s life, including the allegations of child sexual abuse.However, according to Reed, who has read a draft of the script, the film makes a point to discredit Wade Robson and James Safechuck, the two men who allege that Jackson sexually assaulted them in the 2019 docuseries Leaving Neverland.“Jackson is only ever seen caring for children with childhood cancer, or dancing with a little girl in a wheelchair, or tucking up multiple little boys, mostly his nephews, at sleepovers,” Reed said of the script (via Variety).

EXCLUSIVE: Doctor Who director Jamie Magnus Stone is helming a sci-fi series adaptation of Brian W. Aldiss‘ debut Non-Stop for Aircraft Pictures.

her family released to celebrate Mother’s Day in the UK, internet sleuths decided to take a critical look at the latest picture of her, . In the picture, the princess faces away from the camera.A widely circulated TikTok theory is that Middleton’s profile was actually lifted from an earlier picture, and that the brick wall(s) behind the car are also a giveaway that something about the image is amiss.This content can also be viewed on the site it from.But the photographer and the photo agency who distributed the car pic are standing behind their work.

EXCLUSIVE: Production has begun on the new Netflix series The Gringo Hunters in Mexico City and the core cast has been revealed. They include José María Yazpik (Narcos, Madame Web), Sebastian Roché (1923, The Young Pope), Harold Torres (ZeroZeroZero, El Chapo) and Mayra Hermosillo (Narcos: Mexico, Thursday’s Widows). Plans to shoot in Tijuana are also in place.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Prime Video Mexico is firing up a new original series, “Mentiras,” based on the popular Mexican stage musical. Singer-actor Belinda and Luis Gerardo Méndez (“Club de Cuervos,” “Narcos”) lead a stellar cast that includes Mariana Treviño (“A Man Called Otto”), Diana Bovio (“Lecciones para canallas”) and Regina Blandón (“Maquíllame otra vez”).

EXCLUSIVE: BAFTA-nominated Friday Night Dinner director Steve Bendelack is helming a comedy movie about an ageing rock band who reunite.

EXCLUSIVE: Equity has said that it wants guidelines on self-tape auditions to be inserted into collective film and TV agreements with producer trade body Pact.

EXCLUSIVE: International Artists Management (IAM) has been removed from the UK’s respected agency professional body after Deadline revealed it sent a client misrepresented self-tape audition invites.

TV presenter Dan Wootton has left GB News after media watchdog Ofcom found comments made on his show by Laurence Fox about a female journalist breaking broadcasting rules.

EXCLUSIVE: International Artists Management (IAM), the London agency that reps stars including Billy Zane and Gary Dourdan, has admitted sending a client misrepresented invites for self-tape auditions in an attempt to secure him work. 

EXCLUSIVE: Aardman, the iconic UK animation studio behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run, has rejigged its top team and brought in a BBC Studios executive to oversee an IP push.

EXCLUSIVE: Iconic British comedian Harry Enfield has stepped down as director of his production company after 12 years.

EXCLUSIVE: Mad Dog 2020 Casting, a 25-year-old British agency that supplies background actors to major productions, is facing legal action after failing to pay scores of clients.

Annika Pham One of Banijay’s scripted centrepieces at the London TV Screenings, the Swedish crime drama “Fallen” (“Sanningen”), sees the first reunion of star actor Sofia Helin, writer Camilla Ahlgren, and Stockholm-based Filmlance International since the multi-season hit crime show “The Bridge” (2011-2018). Their collaboration has paid off again as “Fallen” has wooed a first batch of global sellers – including MHz Choice for the U.S.