Tag: Entertainment-HollywoodReporter

Take that, Timothée!

Naomi Watts has signed on to play ballet legend Margot Fonteyn in Margot & Rudi, the new romantic drama from Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris director Anthony Fabian that is set in the world of Swinging Sixties ballet.

The film explores the iconic partnership between Fonteyn, a 42-year-old prima ballerina and Britain’s most famous dancer, and Rudolf Nureyev, the 23-year-old rebellious Soviet defector who became her partner on stage (and, it was rumored, off it as well).

Their explosive, undeniable on-stage chemistry sparked speculation, never confirmed and never fully denied, that their affection extended into their private lives. Fonteyn was married at the time, and Nureyev was openly gay, known for his long-term, volatile relationship with Danish dancer Erik Bruhn.

Alexandr Trush, principal dancer with the Hamburg Ballet, will play Nureyev. The Russian-speaking Ukrainian ballet star is known for his productions of Giselle and Romeo and Juliet, two iconic ballets that will also feature in the film.

“Growing up in Mexico City, watching Margot and Rudi’s performances in the cinema sparked my passion for stories that blend music, theater, and dance,” said Anthony Fabian. “Their love, defying barriers of culture, age, class, and sexuality, is romantic, unconventional, and thrilling—a love story like no other.”

Two-time Oscar-nominated Watts studied dance becoming an actress. The Mulholland Drive, 21 Grams and The Impossible star recently played Jackie Kennedy Onassis in FX’s Love Story and will be seen next alongside Luke Evans in The Housewife.

The Margot & Rudi cast includes Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Demián Bichir (The Hateful Eight) and Harriet Walter (Succession). Fabian will direct from a script by Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris writer Olivia Hetreed.

Fabian will produce the film through his Elysian Films outfit, together with Hetreed at Sympathetic Ink, Mike Goodridge at Good Chaos and Chris Coen. Executive producers are Thom Mount, Jeffrey Berg and Andy Paterson.

WestEnd Films has boarded world sales on Margot & Rudi and will introduce the project to buyers at the Cannes film market next month.

An Amazon package arrived at my door a few days after the Eaton and Palisades fires ignited. It contained a small air purifier, sent by friends who were worried about the city’s air quality. It underlined that, despite my Miracle Mile address, I was not impervious to the fire’s consequences. Even if I couldn’t see or smell them, microscopic particles were being blown across the state by robust winds that would enable the fires to burn through 38,000 acres, incinerating 16,000 structures alongside their contents — Hoka Bondis, Tesla car batteries, Magna tiles, Vitamix blenders, iPads, Stanley cups, High Sport pants — the stuff of life in the 21st century. That air purifier is still on, every filter change a reminder that nothing about the device, designed to keep me safe, is recyclable. It’s a microcosm of the dilemma facing homeowners as rebuilding slowly begins to take shape throughout the city. How do we weigh sustainability against personal safety, durability against the future of the planet, comfort against conscientiousness? As interior designer Oliver Furth wonders, “Isn’t the most sustainable option the one that survives?”

Architect Dustin Brammel, a founder of Case Study: Adapt, a program created in response to the fires, weighs in. His own rebuild employs RSG-3D, fabricated from layers of wire-reinforced foam sandwiched between wire mesh with a sprayed-on concrete exterior. I’m surprised by the inclusion of concrete, commonly understood to have a harmful impact on the atmosphere. “It’s a balancing act,” Brammel acknowledges. “While concrete does have marginally higher levels of embodied carbon initially, building with it ensures that our house will be noncombustible, earthquake-resistant and energy-efficient, allowing the embodied carbon to be amortized over centuries, not decades.”

How long a project will take to construct and how much waste it will generate also influences a homeowner’s decision. Construction company Bevyhouse attempts to address these concerns by rethinking the entire building process, marrying the efficiency of factory construction (aka prefab construction) to the beauty of a custom home. Founder Bryan Henson compares it to children’s building blocks. “We manufacture the interiors, the boxes that make up a home’s rooms, in the factory while the foundation is being poured on-site. We deliver them, drop them in place and finish the build on-site, adding decks, garages and details.” Yellowstone’s Josh Lucas, who watched as his own home was installed, was impressed. “Seeing the pieces perfectly fit together, already wired with plumbing and insulation, puts you five months ahead of a conventional build.”

Henson’s experience with the Santa Barbara, Montecito and Malibu fires and his background in sustainability (he’s taught classes at UC Santa Barbara) impact his approach to construction: ventless attics and crawl spaces — which protect a home against flying embers — are standard. Clients are encouraged to add energy recovery ventilators, which swap stale air with fresh, filtered air, reducing the load on the HVAC system. And, instead of wood, the homes are constructed from fiber cement board. The multipurpose material — a mix of cement, sand and cellulose fibers that are noncombustible, fire-resistant and considered sustainable because of its longevity and low maintenance — also has won over architect Barbara Bestor, whose client list includes such heavyweights as LACMA CEO Michael Govan and Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Göransson. Bestor admires its versatility: “You can do lap siding, you can do modern, you can do storybook.” Both Bestor and architect Tim Barber, who counts Matt Duffer and Ramin Djawadi as clients, employ Densdeck Roof Boards and Densinglas sheeting, a fiberglass-matt gypsum panel considered sustainable because of its durability and recycled content, in their work. “It also adds extra invisible layers of fire protection,” Barber notes.

Some architects, including William Hefner, have swapped out wood framing in favor of steel, which is fire-resilient, recyclable and durable. “My clients want to live and build in more energy-efficient and conscientious ways,” Hefner stresses. While the bans on gas appliances have been lifted for homes that are being rebuilt, he’s preparing for the future by installing solar panels and electric systems: heat pumps that, despite their name, also cool the air, water heaters, dryers and induction stoves. Interior finishes also have undergone a recalibration with interior designers and clients focused on B-Corp brands (companies certified by the independent, nonprofit B-Corp Lab to meet its high standards for environmental and social responsibility) like Alkemis’ single-coat mineral paints, Fireclay’s domestically made tiles, Armadillo’s natural fiber rugs and Parachute bedding. Laun’s Rachel Bullock points out that even small moves, like multipane windows, can make a big difference in both a home’s energy-efficiency and its fire-resilience.

“My vision isn’t just to rebuild structures; it’s to bring our communities back for another century,” says architect May Sung, articulating the sentiment that underlines every conversations about rebuilding. And isn’t that the sustainability we’re all after?

This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s 2026 Sustainability Issue. Click here to read more.

Payal Kapadia, the Indian filmmaker whose All We Imagine as Light won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2024, will serve as president of the jury for the 65th Cannes Critics’ Week, running May 13-21 alongside the main festival.

Kapadia will be joined on the jury by Canadian actor Théodore Pellerin (Lurker), French singer-songwriter Oklou, Ghanaian-British producer Ama Ampadu (My Father’s Shadow) and journalist and Bangkok World Film Festival director Donsaron Kovitvanitcha.

Kapadia’s short films Afternoon Clouds and And What is the Summer Saying were selected at the Cinéfondation and the Berlinale, before her debut feature documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing went to Cannes in 2021, and won the L’Oeil d’Or for Best Documentary.

All We Imagine as Light, her second feature, was a standout at the 2024 Cannes festival, and marked her arrival as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary world cinema.

“My own journey as a filmmaker was supported early on because of film festival selections,” Kapadia said in a statement. “Through these, I had the opportunity to meet others like myself from across the world and helped me build a community of future collaborators.”

Kapadia said she embraced the jury role at a time when independent cinema is “being eroded in every country,” adding that supporting first films is “almost a resistance to market forces.” With a nod to the Cannes Critics’ Week’s Raison d’être, she called film criticism “one of the key components of the independent and art house film ecosystem. The first films are often freer, more daring and fearless, having an individual voice and to champion those is absolutely essential. First films are also fragile, and to be nurtured in a section like Critics’ Week helps them blossom amongst already established filmmakers’ work.”

The Critics’ Week jury will award the Ami Paris Grand Prize for best feature, the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for best actor or actress, and the Sony Discovery Prize for best short film.

Fifty years after the science fiction film’s release, environmental themes tackled in Logan’s Run have helped the movie extend its cultural lifespan.

Director Michael Anderson’s dystopian feature was based on authors William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s 1967 novel that MGM had tried unsuccessfully for years to adapt for the big screen. Set in the 23rd century, the film centers on a hedonistic society where the remaining humans live in a domed, AI-run city; a crystal lodged in each resident’s left hand blinks from red to black when they turn 30, at which point they are killed through a ritual called “Carousel.”

Michael York, known for films like Cabaret, starred as Logan 5, a police officer who tracks down “runners” for refusing to participate in Carousel — until he, too, finds himself marked for termination. Jenny Agutter and Richard Jordan rounded out the cast. After other screenwriters took a crack at it, David Zelag Goodman’s script finally helped move the adaptation out of development hell thanks to upping the maximum age from 21 in the book, thus expanding the pool of potential stars, including then-34-year-old York.

The star, who bonded with Anderson on their 1975 film Conduct Unbecoming, saw a pre-fame Farrah Fawcett playing tennis at a friend’s home and suggested her for a small role in Logan’s Run. “I’m responsible for her whole wonderful career,” York jokes to THR about the actress, whose series Charlie’s Angels would make her a household name when it premiered in the fall of 1976.

United Artists released Logan’s Run on June 23, 1976, and it collected a pleasing $25 million ($145 million today). THR’s review noted that the movie “has little freshness or originality to offer” but added that “York displays a great deal of energy and screen presence.”

Not only did the movie spawn a short-lived spinoff series on CBS, but a potential remake from producer Joel Silver had been in development over the decades, attaching such directors as Joseph Kosinski, Nicolas Winding Refn and Simon Kinberg. In 1999, Anderson called Logan’s Run “a piece that I’m very proud of.”

York imagines that a new take on Logan’s Run could find success — the 84-year-old actor quips, “Of course, I’m way too old for it” — and he still appreciates his version’s prescient narrative: “The themes about sustainability have become very important.”

This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s 2026 Sustainability Issue. Click here to read more.

The red carpet got a lot of attention at the Oscars this year — but it wasn’t just because of who was strolling on it.

On March 16, the day after the 2026 ceremony, production assistant Paige Thalia posted a TikTok of herself arriving at the Dolby Theatre. As crews broke down the awards show setup, she had hopes of taking a piece of the carpet home to use as a rug in her apartment. The video follows her stumbling upon dumpsters with rolls and rolls of the Oscar red carpet inside and lugging one section back to her place as prized new decor (after a good vacuuming).

The TikTok quickly went viral, racking up more than 6 million views, with hundreds of commenters expressing shock and horror that the Oscars carpet would be used for just a few hours and then be thrown away. Suddenly, the Academy found itself getting beaten up on social media as yet another grotesque example of Hollywood’s wasteful ways.

As it turns out, though, there’s a bit more to the story.

For starters, the dumpsters full of Oscar red carpet material were actually en route to being recycled, confirms Rob Thiess, co-director of the California Carpet Stewardship Program of CARE (the Carpet America Recovery Effort). Thiess tells THR that CARE has worked with Event Carpet Pros Inc., which supplies the Oscars carpet, for the past four years; from the Dolby, the carpet is transferred to the Los Angeles Fiber carpet recycling center in Vernon, where it is broken down into pellets. Theiss says these carpet pellets can be made into about 125 different products, including computer cases and car parts.

The Academy adds that the Oscars carpet is itself made from recycled materials.

Unfortunately, this sort of environmental mindfulness is not the norm. Hollywood puts on hundreds of events each year — premieres, galas and FYC events — and the majority of the time those red carpets are not recycled. More often than not, they end up in the trash, particularly those with customized designs, logos and cuts that make it tough to be reused.

“So many people still don’t know that carpet is recyclable,” says Theiss. CARE supports more than 179 public drop-off sites throughout California (which is drastically ahead of other states in this initiative) and collects 80 million to 90 million pounds of carpet per year, but most of that comes from residential sources. And so he is making a push to get Hollywood on board as well, having already locked up a deal to recycle the carpet at next year’s Super Bowl in L.A., on top of his work with the Oscars. But because entertainment events are so fragmented — with different studios, streamers, event planners and carpet companies involved with each one — it has been slow going to organize a carpet recycling system for the larger industry.

“Quite frankly, it’s really low on the totem pole when it’s dollars and cents on the front side and making sure that production goes smoothly,” Theiss explains. “When it comes to breakdown, it’s just, ‘Get it out of here, on to the next,’ ” as he admits it’s “not a glamorous thing” to think about.

Sheila Morovati, founder and CEO of environmental nonprofit Habits of Waste and a longtime advocate pushing to make Hollywood more sustainable, notes that carpets don’t necessarily need to be broken down into pellets to get re-purposed. She points out that carpets could easily be donated to schools or homeless shelters after their big moments. Or, perhaps more likely in the bottom line-driven entertainment industry, she suggests studio storage facilities — much like the storerooms used for costumes — where “red carpets can go and live and be clean and ready to be installed. And then they just roll it back up and bring it back into these warehouses so that the studio just holds onto it,” which would save on the cost of getting a new carpet for each event.

Environmental Media Association CEO Debbie Levin also makes a case for increased use of rentals: “I don’t understand why renting a carpet would not be the way to go because then it’s being reused constantly. They’ve got every color in the world, and you really don’t need a logo on a carpet because [photographers and press] are not shooting that.” She adds, “There’s so much material that goes into a carpet, and not all of it is made from the greatest materials, so at least if you’re using it 50 times, you could feel better about it.”

It would, of course, take extra thought and planning to make this happen, which may be a tough ask for a business focused more on the big on-camera backdrops than on how to properly dispose of the backdrop afterward. But, as Theiss notes, that disposal process is key, especially for carpet material that “doesn’t break down for 100 million years; it doesn’t produce methane gas, it can’t be collected and make power generation out of it. It’s just an unruly material that fills up our space.”

He continues, “We’ve got to think about our future, our kids or grandchildren and what we’re leaving. We have how many capped landfills and how much material is in there that won’t break down? So [it’s about] really focusing on that and then taking those materials and turning them into new products.”

This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s 2026 Sustainability Issue. Click here to read more.