“We did a live audience for the first episode, and that was the first thing we shot,” Olsen said. “It was very confusing how to play to the camera. Like, I was like projecting, because I’m used to stage. When I watched the first episode, I’m like, ‘Oh, goddamn it.’ I was so frustrated, because I can see my 10-year-old theater-kid self playing out to the audience instead of the camera....
“I think it’ll take me to my 90s to be able to objectively see what ‘Game of Thrones’ was, because there’s just too much me in it,” Clarke said. “I have too many emotional reactions for what Emilia, herself, was experiencing at that moment in time when we were filming it. You know what I mean? I watch a scene and I go, ‘Oh, that was when [such and such] happened,’ which you didn’t see on screen....
The final night of Emmys in these categories saw a few fan favorites be recognized. HBO’s runaway hit “Euphoria” won its second Emmy of the year after winning for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. Doniella Davy, Kirsten Coleman, and Tara Lang walked away with the award for Outstanding Contemporary Makeup. The show was also up for an Emmy for their costumes but the Contemporary Costume win went to Debra Hanson and Darci Cheyne for the final season of Pop TV’s “Schitt’s Creek....
Warner Bros. provides same-day HBO Max access for its theatrical releases, but James Wan’s “Malignant,” a $40 million-budgeted horror film, mustered only 735,000 viewings (per Samba TV’s estimate). Clint Eastwood’s “Cry Macho” this weekend and next month’s “Dune” should do much better. Disney’s “Free Guy,” just announced for September 28 PVOD, should also find high interest. Against this backdrop, “F9” (Universal/$19.99) returned to #1 on every chart with a director’s cut that adds seven minutes to the 135-minute feature....
The “Apocalypse Now” director said he has met the leaders of both Russia and Ukraine, and believes that if Vladimir Putin takes an unbiased look at the military disadvantage Russia has against NATO, he will ultimately end the invasion. “I confess I met Putin, and I met Zelenskyy, who is really a show business guy, his whole government, all of them are actors,” Coppola said. “And I know of what I speak when I say, if one word would just be said, one word with the force of meaning: Stop....
That explains the inspired decision to hire “Night at the Museum” director Shawn Levy, whose stylistically anonymous films often seem like they weren’t made by anyone at all. What it doesn’t explain is why “Free Guy” goes so far out of its way to highlight its own hypocrisy that even the people who cheer for monopolistic conglomerates as if they were sports teams might feel a bit queasy during the fourth-wall-breaking third act....
“We had tea with her,” “Thrones” co-creator David Benioff says of casting Rigg. “Dames don’t audition for you; you audition for them. We loved her, she was funny, she was bawdy, she was everything we wanted for that character.” Lady Olenna was one of the most fiery characters to appear on “Game of Thrones,” and the actress who played her was perhaps even more fiery on set. Director Mark Mylod, who helmed several episodes of “Thrones” during its run, jokes in the book that he was “terrified” of Diana Rigg because of how confident and strong-willed she was on set....
