Category: Entertainment

While most people assume Meryl Streep was channeling Anna Wintour for her Devil Wears Prada character, the Oscar winner says she was actually “imitating” two top Hollywood filmmakers.

The actress — who first played cynical fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the 2006 film and later reprised her role for the upcoming sequel — made a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where she revealed that she actually drew inspiration from Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood for the role.

“I was basically imitating Mike Nichols that whole time,” Streep told the host. “If Mike Nichols and Clint Eastwood had a baby… it would be Miranda Priestly.”

This may come as a surprise to some fans, as many have likened Priestly to Wintour since The Devil Wears Prada was based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same name, which was inspired by her own experiences working as an assistant to the former editor in chief of Vogue (Wintour now serves as chief content officer for Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue).

Streep explained that Nichols’ commanding directing style, mixed with sly humor, helped form her character’s tone.

“The command on the set. And Mike would do it sort of with a sly humor,” the Mamma Mia! star said. “And Miranda, she knows that what she’s saying is sort of snide, but she knows it’s kind of funny too. And that little way of doing things, people take as mean, but it’s funny. I think it’s funny.”

As for Eastwood, Streep was influenced by the filmmaker’s calmness while also being authoritative. “Clint would never raise his voice,” she said. “He would direct and people had to lean forward to hear what he was saying. … He’d often shoot the rehearsal and then move on. So his crew was like on the balls of their feet. No one was sitting down except me.”

When asked by Stephen Colbert, Streep added that she never told Eastwood about his influence on her character, but did inform Nichols. “I told Mike, and he was thrilled,” she quipped.

The Out of Africa actress previously collaborated with Nichols on his films Silkwood, Heartburn and the HBO miniseries Angels in America. She also worked with Eastwood on his movie The Bridges of Madison County.

Though Streep doesn’t list Wintour as one of her inspirations for the role, the Vogue editor revealed her true thoughts last year on the long-running comparisons between her and Priestly.

“I went to the premiere wearing Prada, completely having no idea what the film was going to be about,” Wintour said to New Yorker editor David Remnick during an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast. “And I think that the fashion industry were very sweetly concerned for me about the film, that it was going to paint me in some kind of difficult light.”

However, the fashion icon said that once she watched the Oscar-nominated film, her reaction was quite different from what she was anticipating.

“First of all it was Meryl Streep, which, fantastic,” Wintour said. “And then I went to see the film, and I found it highly enjoyable. It was very funny. Miuccia [Prada] and I talk about it a lot, and I say to her, ‘Well it was really good for you.’”

She added that the film “had a lot of humor to it. It had a lot of wit. It had Meryl Streep. I mean, it was Emily Blunt, [and] they were all amazing. In the end, I thought it was a fair shot.”

The Devil Wears Prada 2 hits theaters on May 1.

In a year with enormously consequential midterm elections, the most interesting election of all may be the race to succeed Gavin Newsom.

The unusual primary system of California, in which all candidates are listed and the top two move on to the general election regardless of party has raised the very real possibility that this fall could see two Republicans on the ballot, and no Democrats, with a multitude of Democratic candidates crowding the field and giving an opening to the two Republicans in the race: Former Fox News host Steve Hilton, and Riverside county sheriff Chad Bianco.

On Monday, President Trump may have helped alleviate those concerns by endorsing Hilton, potentially pushing Bianco down the ladder and giving an opening to a Democrat … if some of the candidates drop out.

But the race carries national importance, given California’s outsize place in the global economy, and its general influence in progressive politics.

Given that significance, CNN is giving California primetime placement, with plans to host a primary debate that will run across the country.

The debate will be moderated by Kaitlan Collins and the channel’s California-based anchor Elex Michaelson, and take place on Tuesday, May 5 at 6 p.m. PT. The eligibility requirements will include having “raised, contributed or loaned at least $1 million” to the campaign, and polling at least three percent among likely voters in two polls.

The requirements matter, as USC and KABC were forced to cancel a primary debate after the requirements instituted meant that no candidates of color were eligible. Given the number of Democrats in the race (Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, Xavier Becerra, Antonio Villaraigosa, Matt Mahan, Betty Yee and Tony Thurmond all have supporters), it is a challenging one to model for.

Melissa Gilbert believes her husband Timothy Busfield will be exonerated of the child sex abuse allegations he is facing.

The actor and director has been charged with four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child on the set and is awaiting trial. He’s been accused of sexually abusing two boys on the set of the former Fox/Warner Bros. Television series The Cleaning Lady.

“[This has been] hell. This has been the most traumatizing experience of our lives,” Gilbert said on Monday’s Good Morning America, in her first sit-down interview with co-anchor George Stephanopoulos, alongside Busfield’s civil attorney Larry Stein. “Our life as we knew it is done. We are grieving what we had. All of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our ideas, all of our projects. For Tim, it’s done. He’s canceled. Even if he’s exonerated, he will always be that guy. The last person in the world who would hurt a child.”

She added, “And believe me, if I thought for a second that Tim Busfield hurt a child, he’d have a lot more to worry about than prison.”

She said she has no doubts of his innocence, but hopes for an apology and an exoneration. “I know this man in my bones. No one knows him better than I do,” she said. “Our marriage has… we’ve had a lot of ups and downs. We’ve been through struggles. We’ve had our own issues to deal with, and we’ve worked through everything. He is nothing if not completely honest with me. I trust him with my children’s lives, with my grandchildren’s lives, my nieces and nephews. He is an honorable, caring, generous human being.”

Gilbert said she chose to speak out now to address the “untruths” they have been reading about and hearing. “I am 100 percent he will be exonerated,” she said, “but I will tell you that there is a practical side to this and we have to be prepared for all scenarios.”

Busfield has denied allegations. The charges against Busfield relate to alleged touching on two separate occasions, once in October 2022 and again in September 2023. Each count carries a minimum sentence of three years, which can’t be suspended or deferred. Busfield was released from jail after his arrest.

Busfield’s defense has revolved around arguments that the parents of the twin boys were looking for vengeance against Busfield for recasting them in the fourth season of the Fox series after they aged out of their roles. “When they were fired, they assumed Tim was responsible for it. The truth is he was not,” said Stein on GMA. Stein was asked about a claim in the criminal complaint that Busfield and Gilbert bought the twin child actors Christmas gifts, and Stein said gifts were given to multiple children at a Christmas party. “Tim did not give the boys gifts. Melissa gave them gifts,” he said. “Every child at the Christmas party, not treating them special or different than anyone.”

Gilbert and Busfield married in 2013. Also in her interview, Gilbert said she was, however, aware of separate allegations against her husband that were included in the child sex abuse criminal complaint to allege a pattern. The Thirtysomething and West Wing star was accused of sexual assault by two women in 1994 and 2012; charges were not brought in either case. “These allegations have been out in the ether for a very long time,” she said. “I am neither naive nor am I complicit. I talked to him about it. I asked him questions about it. I heard his side of the story, which no one has ever heard, which is the truth. And when the time is right, and that is not now, Tim will tell the truth of all of these past allegations when he needs to.”

Busfield’s trial is tentatively set for May 2027 in New Mexico.

ABC News reached out to the parents of the children. In a statement to ABC News, the district attorney’s office said its focus “remains on the victims.”

The vibes couldn’t be more different from 2023.

In the wake of a surprise deal struck by the Writers Guild of America with studios and streamers and announced on Saturday, arriving earlier than many expected, WGA members expressed gratitude they weren’t about to face another down-to-the-wire negotiation or strike like they did just three years prior.

The 2023 writers’ strike, widely supported within the union three years ago, has cast a long shadow and many writers weren’t eager to face a repeat of the labor action. “I think everyone’s very relieved,” showrunner David H. Steinberg (No Good Nick) said in an interview. “It sort of came out of the blue that all of a sudden a tentative agreement had been reached and all the writers that I talked to on social media were like, ‘thank God.’”

“We’re obviously still waiting on the details but anything that calms the industry down is the most important thing in my book,” wrote member Geoff Roth in a message. “The whole business needs to walk back from this existential cliff we’re constantly being told about, as it’s becoming self-fulfilling.”

The union hasn’t yet released any detailed materials describing the proposed contract language, so opinions could change once members see the fine print. So far, the WGA has only disclosed to members that the provisional agreement will span four years rather than the union’s typical three. The agreement “protects our health plan” with higher contributions and contribution caps and “builds on gains from 2023 and helps address free work challenges,” the union said.

But what the WGA has said has been enough to get writers talking. The expansion of the contract term from three to four years represents a potentially risky move for the labor group given the rapid changes — consolidation, cost-cutting and the use of generative AI among them — currently roiling Hollywood. An extended deal means that the WGA may have to wait longer to make significant contractual changes if issues crop up in the next few years.

Most writers who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter weren’t disturbed by the paradigm shift. “The extra year on the term is a bit of a bitter pill given the rapid pace of AI evolution but it was a necessary — and quite predictable — trade-off to save the health fund,” wrote Arrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim in a text. “This is kinda where I assumed we’d end up.” Overall, he’s pleased with what he knows about the deal so far.

There’s also the issue of the WGA potentially having just dislodged itself from its typical negotiating schedule. The union usually bargains in the same year as performers’ union SAG-AFTRA and directors’ union the Directors Guild of America. It’s not clear whether those two unions will change their customary three-year contract lengths in their own negotiations, which could upset the usual schedule. Bargaining in the same year, the thinking goes, can boost all three unions by allowing them to align pressure campaigns and/or work stoppages.

That concern doesn’t bother Steinberg. “I’m aware of what the issue is, that you want to be aligned with the other deals to bring pressure if you need to,” says Steinberg. But, he notes, the AMPTP had at the very least been considering asking for a five-year contract term, as THR has previously reported. Paired with the WGA’s usual three-year term, four years “seems like a great compromise,” he adds.

The relative speed with which Saturday’s deal was struck represented another pivot for the WGA in 2026. The union is known for deploying aggressive tactics like negotiating down to the last minute of a contract’s term and/or taking a strike authorization vote to increase leverage.  

But the WGA did not, in the end, deploy this longtime playbook. The union and the studios tidily wrapped up their tentative deal within the three weeks that constituted the WGA’s first scheduled bargaining period. (Otherwise the two sides certainly could have penciled in additional time before May 1, when the WGA’s 2023 contract officially expires.) The union never took a strike authorization vote, even to apply pressure.

The speed of negotiations has prompted some misgivings and nerves in at least one writers’ group chat, said a source. Another source noted that their peers seemed relieved but largely cynical and checked out in this negotiation, compared with the high levels of engagement in 2023.

Still, many members who spoke with THR argued that industry conditions in 2026 may have required a fresh approach. Writer employment has declined compared with the high-flying era of “Peak TV,” when streamers were more focused on attracting subscribers than earning a profit. And WGA leaders made no secret about the dire state of their health fund, which lost a cumulative $122 million in the fiscal years of 2023 and 2024.

The WGA was led by chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman as well as co-chairs of the negotiating committee John August and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel and union president Michele Mulroney in talks with the studios, which were repped by the Gregory Hessinger-led Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

The contraction in work “put a lot of stress on our fund because fewer writers working means decreased contributions coming into the plan,” Mulroney previously told THR.

In 2026, in other words, the WGA was in a very different position that it was three years prior, when its leaders felt emboldened to sustain a 148-day strike in order to reshape payment in the streaming era and establish inaugural protections against generative AI. Its members, many still fatigued from the 2023 strike, don’t seem poised — at least for now — to nitpick their deal or criticize their union for not pushing hard enough.

“The Writers Guild made it clear that the priority going into the negotiations was to shore up the pension and health funds,” says Steinberg. “So mission accomplished, I guess.”