The eccentric filmmaker plays John Ford in a key scene in “The Fabelmans,” but even the film’s creative team was surprised that he took the role. In a new interview with The Film Stage, Tony Kushner told the story while speaking about the process of casting the film, which he co-wrote with Spielberg. “We often say, when we’re getting into casting, ‘Who’s going to play this person?’ Sometimes we sort of know, but a lot of times, in the four movies that we’ve made, it hasn’t been determined,” Kushner said....

“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” was created by Patrick McKay and John D. Payne, with a cast that includes Peter Mullan, Benjamin Walker, and Cynthia Addai-Robinson. An official synopsis for the show reads: “Prime Video’s ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J....

But “The Rings of Power” is not a remake of the movies or even a traditional prequel, a la Jackson’s own return trip to J.R.R. Tolkien territory. The series is based on the author’s appendices to “The Lord of the Rings” and set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, thousands of years before Frodo or Samwise mosey into the Shire. Showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay developed their own story, inspired by Tolkien’s detailed history, and whether their project is merely indebted to the past or reverse-engineered to echo dependable beats, what’s needed to set the series apart is the same: a pulse of its own....

The gift (and some would argue, curse) of a romantic comedy is it tends to follow familiar beats: the meet-cute, the break-up, the reconciliation, and a glimpse of the couple’s happily ever after. HBO Max anthology series “Love Life,” which centers on a protagonist from first love to lasting love over 10 episodes, delivers on the tropes but also addresses the in-between moments that often go overlooked. Season 2 star William Jackson Harper is Marcus, a book editor in New York City whose life turns upside down after finding an instant connection with auction house employee Mia (Jessica Williams)....

The film reunites director David Yates and producers David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves, Lionel Wigram and Tim Lewis, all of whom had collaborated on the previous two films in the series “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.” Neil Blair, Danny Cohen, Josh Berger and Courtenay Valenti serve as executive producers. Screenwriters are J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves. The release date for the third “Fantastic Beasts” installment is July 15, 2022 and will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros....

During Kimmel’s April 5 opening monologue for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the comedian said of Greene, “This woman, Klan mom, is especially upset with the three Republican senators who said they’ll vote yes on Ketanji Brown Jackson, who’s nominated for the Supreme Court. She tweeted, ‘Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are pro-pedophile. They just voted for KBJ.’” He added, “Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him?” Georgia Republican representative Greene later tweeted at ABC, the network that airs Kimmel’s show....

“To be honest, it’s quite a pain in the [ass] when someone ‘loses themselves,’” Freeman added. “It is a massive pain in the [ass] because it’s no longer a craft and a job.” Freeman pointed to Jim Carrey’s method acting during the making of Miloš Forman’s 1999 Andy Kaufman biographical drama “Man on the Moon” as an example of the downsides of the approach. As documented in the non-fiction feature “Jim and Andy,” Carrey took method acting to polarizing extremes on set that affected both the crew and Carrey’s own sense of self....