Tag: HollywoodReporter

Patrick Renna touched down in Iowa last week to attend the MLB’s Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa featuring the Philadelphia Phillies and the Minnesota Twins. The interleague matchup, which streamed live on Netflix, took place inside a newly built stadium just a ball’s throw from the original movie site used for the 1989 sports classic starring Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta and James Earl Jones.

“Theo Von, baseball players, great food and there’s a baseball game to see tonight at the Field of Dreams — it’s spectacular. It’s once in a lifetime,” Renna told The Hollywood Reporter of the scene during a brief interview against the backdrop of the house used for filming. As Renna recapped his experience, a line of fans formed over his shoulder as people waited for a chance to take a photo with the actor best known for starring in another beloved baseball classic — The Sandlot.

In a chat with THR, Renna opens up on the nostalgic moment, being starstruck by the MLB commissioner and his recent reunion with his Sandlot pals on the series Dugout Dads.

How did it happen that you were able to be here for the game?

The [Sandlot] guys came out a couple years ago but I couldn’t make it for some reason, and I had such major [fear of missing out]. The fact that this [site] is still standing here is so epic, and they built a whole stadium. It’s great.

You’re wearing John Deere merch. Did they bring you out?

Yeah, they brought me out. I have a partnership with them that I’m doing here, and we shot a little fun thing in the cornfields. They brought me out for the game and I head home tomorrow.

Anything baseball must always kick up a lot of interest around you and the film. What is it like to be so closely associated to this sport?

It’s a great sport to be attached to — it’s America’s pastime so it’s really special. The sport itself is almost nostalgic when you think about it; the experience of families watching the game together in the stands with all the food. It’s cool and it’s humbling. It doesn’t get lost on us how lucky we are to have been part of something like [The Sandlot]. We have now three generations of people coming up to us saying, “You’ve been in our living rooms for 30 years.” To be able to provide that is special.

What’s the other most common thing people say when they come up to you?

“You’re killing me, Smalls.”

It’s nice to see you embracing it, taking all the photos and engaging with the fans. Some actors lean into it, while others might say, “I’ve done 30 years of other work since then.” But you really enjoy it?

Yeah. As an actor, you kind of always worry about the things that you’ve done that are negative and you think to yourself, “Oh god, I hope nobody sees it.” But the great thing about doing something negative is that nobody sees it. So, yes, I’ve been working for 30 years but I haven’t topped Sandlot and that’s OK. It still gives me something to shoot for and hopefully I do. There are major movie stars that don’t have a movie like Sandlot. There’s something there for people, and all the credit goes to the director, [David Mickey Evans], who write, directed and narrated it. It was lightning in a bottle for a movie to mean something and become so important to families. It’s mind-boggling to even be in it it because it’s not really about me or the guys. It’s bigger than all of us.

How hard is it to be an actor today?

I do more producing and directing now. I have Dugout Dads coming out in August, which I brought all the Sandlot guys back for. That was fun. I’m an actor in that. But I don’t go out often [for acting jobs]. If something comes to me because I’ve been doing this so long, that’s exciting to me and I’ll do it. So acting isn’t that hard for me today because I just don’t do it often. I’m on the other side mostly now.

Can you describe the atmosphere here? You’re getting a lot of attention and I just saw you hanging out with Theo Von.

Super nice guy. Also, the commissioner of baseball is here. I was so starstruck and wanted to meet him. Theo Von, baseball players, great food and there’s a baseball game to see tonight at the Field of Dreams — it’s spectacular. It’s once in a lifetime.

Who are you rooting for between the Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins?

I got no skin in the game. I’m just looking for a good ball game that is hopefully high-scoring and down to the ninth inning. Maybe the Phillies? Maybe the Twins? I don’t know really. It’s going to be a good game either way.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Paramount Skydance is demanding that the states suing to block its $111 billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery post a nearly $1.9 billion bond ($1,884,726,092 to be precise about it), pending the outcome of the litigation.

In a statement Monday, the company, led by CEO David Ellison, says that the bond demand is based on settled federal law.

“Both the Clayton Act, the federal antitrust law upon which these suits are based, and other federal law expressly provide that plaintiffs are required to post a bond covering the potential harm from halting a transaction to litigate, so that if they lose, the injured party has a source of recovery for the damage caused,” the company said in a statement. “Here, every month of delay carries substantial and quantifiable financial consequences.”

Paramount counts Makan Delrahim, was previously the chief antitrust enforcer in the U.S. during the first Trump Administration, as its head of legal affairs.

“Paramount is seeking a bond based on the straightforward calculation of the maximum potential ticking consideration and financing costs from this litigation,” the company states. “But these are not the only costs of delay. By virtue of what will be at least an eight-month delay in closing, there will be no integration and no ramped-up investment in content, production, and creative talent by the combined company. Of course, in addition, employees of both Paramount and WBD are also harmed by the uncertainties caused by the delay.”

Paramount has been playing a hardball public pressure campaign since the lawsuit was filed, with threats to leave the state of California (realistic or not), as well as accusations that partisan politics are at play. Hollywood is divided on whether the states and company should try and settle or follow through with the trial, further complicating the effort.

But the bond is a tangible ask, one that would put taxpayers on the hook in a high-profile case.

The actress died Sunday at age 36.

Lisa Barlow is preparing to release the highly anticipated follow-up to her first single “Baby Gorgeous.”

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star’s next track, entitled “Echoes of You,” will be out in September, The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal. 

“It’s in the same family as ‘Baby Gorgeous,’ it feels very Dua Lipa-esque,” she tells THR. “It’s this super sexy dance song. It has a lot of strings and this insane disco vibe, but very 2026.” 

Barlow dropped “Baby Gorgeous” in early June, and she’s been “blown away” by the reception to the track, which embodies the idea of “this inner confidence that no one can take away from you.” Fans have gone crazy for the track online, which has been touching for the Housewife to take in.

“It’s about knowing you and being 100 percent you and finding your people, and walking with them… It’s literally the most empowering song,” she says. “Having people say, ‘These lyrics mean so much to me,’ some people really get it. They feel the mantras behind it… I’m in my pop star era, and I love it.”

But Barlow is anticipating an even better reaction to “Echoes of You,” which she says gives “Baby Gorgeous” a run for its money (and will be a part of a larger EP). 

“I actually played it for my vocal coach this morning, and she’s like, ‘I didn’t think you could do better than ‘Baby Gorgeous,’ [but] you might have beat ‘Baby Gorgeous,’” she says.

Below, Barlow dishes on why she wanted to pursue music, shares details about her upcoming song “Echoes of You,” what artist she’d love to open for one day and teases the next season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City: “There’s stuff that is going to blow people away.”

*** 

What made you want to pursue music and put out a song?  

I love singing. It started when I was really young in elementary school. My mom had six kids, and she’s like, everyone has to magnify their talents, and she knew I loved to sing, and she put me in community theaters. There was this road show community theater where you could do mixed up musicals and sing. My first solo was in fifth grade, and I still remember it by heart. It was the most epic feeling for me to be on a stage. 

This year, I told [my husband] John [Barlow] — we go for walks, four mile walks every day, unless it’s a bad snowstorm in the winter — I was like, “I’m gonna start singing again, what do you think about that?” And he totally encouraged it. He’s like, “You need to start doing this. You love to sing.” He was so supportive that I had to just jump in. In our community, I had great connections, so I found the best producing team. I found another songwriter that I could really bounce ideas that I had off of, and I was like, “Let’s just go for this.”

What has taking in the reaction to “Baby Gorgeous” been like? People love it.

It’s addictive. The day it launched, I was in the middle of filming a commercial, and I don’t know if that was a blessing or a curse because I couldn’t log on. I couldn’t see what was happening on Spotify. I didn’t know what the reaction from fans was, I had no connection to anybody on social, so I just had to check out. And after 24 hours, when we saw how many streams we had on Spotify and the reaction to fans online, I was blown away. 

The process for making “Baby Gorgeous” was so important to me. There’s so many songs that affect your mood. You listen to a song, and it can create nostalgic feelings, it can ensue feelings of sadness, or if you’re with your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife or your partner, you could start to feel a certain way listening to music about your relationship. When we were creating “Baby Gorgeous,” I wanted it to be a pep talk. With one of my co-songwriters, I said, “Let me give you a pep talk, and this is going to be our song.” I was just telling him my mantras, how I live my life, what I do that’s different from everybody else, how I stay positive, and what I wish other people could hear. I learned how to play piano and flute the Suzuki method growing up, so I hear a lot of numbers with songs. I can hear a song in a movie or on the radio and sit down at the piano and basically figure out how to play it. So for me, I was like, It has to sound like this. It needs this energy in it. 

I had one fan say, “What did you put in ‘Baby Gorgeous?’ It’s like crack.” I think it’s all the positivity about it. It’s about confidence. It’s about knowing you and being 100 percent you and finding your people, and walking with them, strutting with them. No one has the right to tell you who you are. They can think you’re one thing, but you know exactly who you are. It’s literally the most empowering song. If you wake up and you’re having a shit day, turn on “Baby Gorgeous.” It’ll change the whole mood.

This is not where your music journey is going to end. You have some news you want to reveal with us, so I want to give you the floor to do so. 

I have a new song coming out very soon; the title is “Echoes of You.” It’s in the same family as “Baby Gorgeous,” it feels very Dua Lipa-esque. It is a timeless song. I feel like people will be singing it for decades. It is so fun. It is so sexy. Picture yourself going out and meeting the person that you are like, That’s my person. It’s the way you look at this person. It’s the energy you feel from this person. It’s how you would find them in any time, any space. It’s this super sexy dance song. It has a lot of strings and this insane disco vibe, but very 2026. 

When I was writing it, I would be in the car and I’d have to pull over because the lyrics were just coming to me. It’s such a vibe, and the way it’s all come together with ease has been so amazing. It’s magnetic. People love “Baby Gorgeous,” [but] “Echoes of You” is going to give “Baby Gorgeous” a run for its money. When you hear the lyrics to my song, you’ll understand why it’s called “Echoes of You.” It’ll bring you in. It’ll make you feel euphoric. It gives you that confidence. It’s sexy. It’s moody. Very European dance feeling. I actually played it for my vocal coach this morning, and she’s like, “I didn’t think you could do better than ‘Baby Gorgeous,’ [but] you might have beat ‘Baby Gorgeous.’”

When can fans expect for this to come out? 

September, and I think it’s a seasonless song, just like “Baby Gorgeous” is too. Andy Cohen just said [“Baby Gorgeous”] is the song of the summer. Fans have been calling it the song of the summer, which has been so amazing for me as a new artist. But it’s a seasonless song; it’s a timeless song. You can expect to hear [“Echoes of You”] in September. I think it’s going to blow people away.

The Salt Lake City trailer recently came out, and in it, there was this clip of you and Meredith, where you were singing the lyrics, “Hypocrisy and bullshit, bullshit, bullshit…” 

“Hypocrisy and bullshit, bullshit.” You’ll see more of “Hypocrisy and Bullshit,” and it’s a vibe. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say the whole room was singing it with me. 

Is that another song that you’re going to release soon? Is that going to be a part of an EP?

It will be a part of an EP. It’s good. It’s a totally different vibe. That’s more a sick hip hop beat behind it. Everything that I do in songwriting, I don’t think a lot of people realize, like, I have a marketing company; I’m a creative, and [music] is a fun way for me to express my creative side. I’m really quick-witted, and you can feel it in my lyrics. The way things come together, I can create a vibe. And “Hypocrisy and Bullshit” is a total vibe. The crew was singing it. They’re still singing it. Whenever I go to confessionals, they’re like, “Hypocrisy and bullshit, bullshit.” But it’s kind of the theme of the season too.

That’s a good tease for Salt Lake. 

You what I want to say about Salt Lake? Our trailer was amazing, but it gave nothing away. When I hear fans talking about what they think is going to happen this season, it is 180 from what you think is going to happen. There are parts of it that are spot on, and there’s other stuff that is going to blow people away. I think it’s one of our best seasons ever. I love the teaser. A lot of times, the trailer dropping gives away all the boom moments. Ours gave away, like, none. It’s so good. It’s a great season. 

We’re also watching you on Ultimate Girls Trip. What was your reaction when you got the call and learned that you were going to be representing Salt Lake City on this landmark girls trip? 

I was doing Watch What Happens Live, and Andy [Cohen] came in my dressing room, and he’s like, “I want to tell you something so bad, but I can’t yet. But something big’s gonna happen.” And I’m like, “Andy, you have to tell me!” The winter before, we were in London together on a project for Bravo and Hayu, so I’m like, “Are we going back to London?” and he’s like, “It’s not London.” And I’m like, “Does it require travel?” And he’s like, “I’m not answering any more questions.” He halted, and my mind raced, and then I kind of put it to bed. But every now and then, I would be like, “What project is Andy talking about?” 

So I get the call that I’m being asked to be on Girls Trip, I screamed. I was key in bringing Housewives to Salt Lake, so it felt like such an honor and big deal. It was almost like Bravo was giving me flowers. And then I get a text from Andy, and he’s like, “What are you thinking? How are you feeling?” And I’m like, “I am dying.” And he’s like, “I knew you would be so excited.” He’s been amazing throughout my whole vocal journey too. You’ll see how things transpire on RHOSLC with my music this season. But there’s one key moment where it’s a big deal for me, and offline in private, Andy sent me the sweetest message. It means so much to me that he checks in on those big deal moments.

With “Baby Gorgeous,” I just feel so grateful that people were open to me. They’ve gone from watching me sing “Away in a Manger” in my own cadence to where I am today, and it’s been so fun to have the fans use it as songs for their children, their dogs, for girls’ nights out, for magnificent moments. Having people say, “These lyrics mean so much to me,” some people really get it. They feel the mantras behind it, and that’s always really touching too. I’m in my pop star era, and I love it. 

What else is next for Baby Gorgeous? 

I really want to be on a big stage. That’s a goal of mine. That’s going to happen. We’ve joked around about it for years, but underneath it all, I knew I was going to do this. I love daydreaming. I think everybody should daydream. Like, turn your phone off, have silence, and really daydream. But when I close my eyes and see myself, I’m on a stage, and that’s what I’m going to be doing; performing. I want to open for someone major with my music. That’s next for me. I do have another project on Bravo that is epic that people are going to die over too. 

Like, a series coming out?

Not quite a series, but I’m part of something really, really special, and I think fans are going to get to see me in such a different light. I’m very excited about it. 

Who would be your dream artist to open for? 

Dua Lipa. I love Raye. Listening to Raye sing “Ice Cream Man” and some of her beautiful songs, I love her. But Dua Lipa, I feel like she and I kind of have a very similar vibe. I think you’ll really hear it in my new song, “Echoes of You.” She’s someone I would love to open up for. Shiny, smooth hair girls forever. (Laughs.)

*** 

The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on Bravo, streaming on Peacock the next day; The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City premieres on Bravo on Wednesday Sept. 16.

Heated Rivalry producers Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady say the queer hockey drama’s second season will lean on feeling over plot twists — and that fans already have most of the answers.

The producers behind HBO Max and Crave’s breakout queer romance Heated Rivalry are staying coy on specifics for season two — but not because there’s much left to hide.

“What’s so funny about the level of secrecy is like there’s a book — you can just look at it,” creator, writer and director Jacob Tierney said of the Rachel Reid novels, the Game Changers series, the show is adapted from. “It’ll tell you honestly, 90 percent of what you’d like to know is in that book.”

Season one of the series drew primarily from Heated Rivalry, Reid’s second Game Changers novel, which introduced the story of Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov’s (Connor Storrie), two on-ice rivals who develop a passionate, secret, long-term romantic relationship. Tierney also folded in elements and characters from the series’ first book, which centers on Scott Hunter (played by François Arnaud) and Kip Grady (played by actor Robbie G.K.).

For season two, Tierney has said the show will continue Shane and Ilya’s story, drawing primarily from Reid’s sixth book, The Long Game, which finds the pair now in a committed relationship and learning to build a life together while still hiding their feelings from the public. Season two will also weave in the storylines from book five, Role Model, whose plot runs concurrently with The Long Game‘s timeline. Role Model focuses on Troy, a professional hockey player who is traded to the Ottawa Centaurs in Reid’s source material, and Harris, the team’s social media manager. It was announced earlier this month that Charlie Gillespie has been cast as Troy, with Justice Smith to play Harris.

Tierney was careful to note that even with two books’ worth of story now in play, the show isn’t built to withhold plot from its audience. “This is not the usual suspects. Like, we’re not trying to hide a villain from you… there are books, read them, and then make two guesses, three guesses, and I bet two of them will be right,” he said. “It’s really this show is not built on secrets. It’s built on feelings and sensation. It’s a very visceral show. It’s very sensual in that way, and it’s all in the execution of it.”

Tierney is sharing writing duties on season two with Mike Goldbach — whose credits include Mayfair Witches and On Becoming a God in Central Florida — as co-writer. “Mike is such a good writer, and he’s been so amazingly helpful to me,” Tierney said, “We’re very happy with where we’re at with the scripts. We’re really happy with this cast.”

He noted that, as with the casting of Williams and Storrie, the new additions were cast “to make sure that we’re putting couples together that we think are going to just shine on the screen.” Some fans of the books have pushed back on the casting, arguing it departs from Reid’s description of Harris as stockier and less conventionally athletic-looking than his book counterpart. Reid has pushed back on this, posting on Instagram: “Thinking about all the people last summer who told me the casting for Ilya and Shane was wrong and bad.”

The show also announced other key season two castings to expand the Ottawa Centaurs roster. Emily Hampshire and Priyanka were also cast in two roles which originate from Reid’s third novel, Tough Guy, which suggests, as many suspected, Tierney’s plans to incorporate the other novels in the Game Changers series. But so far, there’s been no announcement on casting for that book’s lead couple: hockey enforcer Ryan Price and aspiring singer (and hockey hater) Fabian.

There has been no mention yet of adding characters or plot lines from Common Goal, Reid’s fourth novel in the series. But Kyle Swift, one half of that book’s leading couple, made a brief appearance in the first season of Heated Rivalry, played by Matthew Finlan.

Asked what he’s most looking forward to going into the new season, Tierney pointed to trusting his own instincts amid a much bigger spotlight than season one drew. “I’ve never experienced fandom like this before, and I have to just trust myself the way I trusted myself last time,” he said. “I’m gonna try to make the best show I can make — that’s really all I can do. I can never make everybody happy at the same time. I hope I can make a majority of you happy, and I hope you also just cut me the slack to wait and see.”

Season two of Heated Rivalry began shooting this year and is aiming for a spring 2027 release on Crave and HBO Max.

There are few genres that remain as evergreen and accessible as workplace comedies, especially since the average adult living in the U.S. will reportedly spend one-third of their lives at work.

“You are thrust into this very intimate setting where you have to work with people to accomplish something, but they’re not people you get to choose,” says Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat showrunner Anthony King. “When you’re actually having to work with clients or on some kind of project with someone, but then also eat lunch with them, that switch leads to so many interesting dynamics that we can all relate to.”

The Comeback co-creator Michael Patrick King notes that workplace comedies were initially conceived as a cost-effective way to make TV. “It’s very economically sound to have six funny characters in the same set week after week [with] no CGI dragons, no cars in New York saying it’s 1950,” he says, adding that he has always been drawn to the idea of examining “family that isn’t family” in a tense environment. “The best version of a workplace comedy is an evolution where you fall in love with people that maybe you don’t even like, but they’re good at their job and you have to deal with them.”

When Quinta Brunson first wrote the pilot for Abbott Elementary — which has become the genre’s defining hit of the decade — she was particularly interested in probing that thin line between the personal and professional to reveal the hearts of her eccentric ensemble. “Part of the fun is remembering that they’re people first,” Brunson says, noting that pulling her characters out of school or showing them outside of work hours allows viewers to uncover new layers that would have remained masked on the clock. “We keep that in mind to not pigeonhole them [and] instead show the full humanity of these people and how it connects to their job.”

The added complication for half of this year’s Emmy comedy writing nominees — Abbott, The Comeback and Company Retreat — was that the mockumentary format relies on characters who are acutely aware that they are being watched at all times, forcing writers to script a complex performance within a performance.

On Abbott, for instance, Brunson says that guest actors often struggle with “looking at the camera and talking and treating the camera as if it’s in the room.” Initially, Janelle James’ delightfully self-absorbed principal, Ava, was far more comfortable with the crew than the teachers. But over five seasons, Brunson points out, the staff has grown to treat the camera like any other well-acquainted co-worker.

By contrast, during the first season of The Comeback, Michael Patrick King says that “there was never a moment when Valerie,” played by co-creator Lisa Kudrow, “wasn’t aware of the camera.” Ultimately, “the tension of being aware of something, but not acknowledging it, made Lisa’s performance riveting but also made it so uncomfortable to watch, because you were aware there was a trapped character who knew what was happening,” he says. That tension remained until the end of season two, when Valerie “left the cameras behind” because the hospitalization of her close friend Mickey was “bigger to her than being on television.”

The third season, by design, mixes that familiar feeling of “Valerie trapped in front of a camera” with security footage of characters moving “like rats in a maze” being shown alongside private conversations where the handheld documentary-style aesthetic entirely drops away for classic single-camera coverage.

“In season three, the environment became so challenging to Valerie that she actually let go of trying to control the camera because there were too many other things to control,” Michael Patrick King says of his protagonist agonizing over starring in the first sitcom written by AI. “As Lisa said many, many times, there are cameras everywhere, so no one cares. There’s FaceTime walking down the street. Everyone’s curating their lives. You’re so comfortable seeing a camera that we actually even stopped acknowledging that it was there.”

The Company Retreat team similarly relied on a mix of visible and hidden cameras to heighten the believability of the world they built around their unsuspecting hero, Anthony Norman. But while the actors themselves are masterful improvisers, “the stories are very tightly scripted; there’s a lot of dialogue that’s provided,” Anthony King says. The difference, however, lies in the actors “having to just exist” within their roles to keep every moment feeling “real and natural.”

That illusion of spontaneity required rigorous preparation. During rehearsals, the team mapped out crucial story beats and potential contingencies. Once filming began, writers worked late into the night tweaking scenes for the next day, followed by secret morning meetings to keep the cast in sync. “It’s the most stressful set I’ve ever been on because you’re just constantly on edge,” Anthony King adds with a laugh. “But it’s also so thrilling because of the high-wire of it all. You’re getting to feel someone respond to what’s been written in real time.”

In comparison, Michael Patrick King reveals that The Comeback features “no ad- libbing.” Instead, Kudrow and the rest of the cast strictly adhered to the scripts to sustain the show’s fast-paced, carefully constructed satire. That high-wire precision paid off especially well in the final season, where he notes audiences began truly connecting with Valerie because “she became someone who showed herself as good at her job.

“The last monologue in the series is Valerie saying, ‘You might not always get the right job or whatever. Isn’t that what being a human is? You just keep going.’ We immediately went to ‘job or whatever’ because [being] an actress is a job; a television studio is a workplace,” Michael Patrick King adds. “So even in the last moment, we called it a job, not a part, because we wanted people to be able to relate to a person who goes to work and gets disappointed by what they don’t get and how they’re not seen. It may be a bigger part on The Comeback, but in the dynasty of workplace comedies, it’s really not getting the promotion.”

This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Six months after a fully AI-generated viral video of Tom Cruise battling Brad Pitt took the internet by storm, the tech behind the ripoff has been tweaked to protect Hollywood intellectual property and likenesses.

The Motion Picture Association on Monday said that it had reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Chinese tech giant ByteDance that will provide “strong guardrails” within its tech and platforms that will protect Hollywood.

The agreement covers Seedance, the AI video model that generated the Cruise vs. Pitt video, as well as Seedream 5.0 Lite, TikTok, CapCut and Dreamina, among others.

The launch of Seedance and the ensuing deal bears a striking similarity to Sora, OpenAI’s video model, which launched last year with a flurry of unauthorized videos featuring well-known characters and people, only to fizzle out after the tech giant agreed to pull back on the ripoffs. OpenAI ended up killing Sora earlier this year.

ByteDance, however, is continuing to invest in Seedance, which has become one of the most advanced video models alongside offerings from Google and others.

“Today’s agreement illustrates our belief that copyright is a cornerstone of the film and television industry – and reinforces our commitment to protect creative content,” said MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin in a statement. “For the past several months, we have had constructive engagement with ByteDance to implement meaningful guardrails on Seedance and Seedream, and this MOU reflects our shared determination to continue our work together to further fortify those guardrails.”

“ByteDance respects the intellectual property rights that underpin creative industries around the world, and we believe responsible innovation in AI goes hand in hand with meaningful protections for rightsholders,” adds John Rogovin, general counsel of ByteDance. “We appreciate the productive engagement with the MPA and its members as we continue to strengthen safeguards across our generative AI services. This MOU establishes an important framework for continued collaboration as the technology evolves, across a variety of products and platforms.”

Alia Shawkat has been trying to star in a stoner comedy for years. She signed on to Dylan Meyer‘s The Wrong Girls during the pandemic, giving a near-instant yes after her first coffee meeting with the writer-director and with the knowledge that the project would reunite her with her The Runaways costar Kristen Stewart. The group put on a table read for investors, and secured the financing to move forward. Then Shawkat got pregnant. The actress isn’t one to let anything get in the way of a job — she points out that she shot both the second season of The Old Man and the movie Atropia during her pregnancy — but The Wrong Girls requires some specific considerations.

“There is so much weed smoking in this movie,” she says with a laugh. “Even if we could hide my pregnancy, and even though we’re not smoking real weed, you just really can’t do that.”

Shawkat paused her commitment to the film, and — fickle as the indie film industry is — the financing disappeared. “And then I had my kid, and was like, I’m back, and I look normal,” she says. “And they were able to find more money.”

Now, the long-awaited film has finally hit theaters, offering moviegoers an utter rarity: A stoner comedy about women, starring women, and helmed by a first-time female director. Here, the actress tells THR why it was worth the way.

To start, I have to imagine this is one of the more fun press tours you’ve been doing…

We’ve been doing really chill stuff. We were just hanging out with a bodega cat for awhile. All these internet shows are so funny. They’re like, say whatever you want and we’ll edit it into what we need. We did this one called, I think, Natasha Gets the Munchies, and she takes edibles and wears Google glasses and films her meals. Kristen and I met up with her at Korean barbecue, and we all just ate. She didn’t even ask us questions. It was like, do you guys like acting? It was so low-key. I was like, wow, journalism has changed.

Kristen and I trip out on it so much, because we spent our lives making film and television and we’re like, this has nothing to do with it. I feel like an old person. I’ve been looking up these formats because I’ve never heard of any of these internet shows and it’s like, they have Oprah Winfrey on.

Do you remember the first big press commitment you did?

I used to get invited to a lot of kid premieres when I was a child actor. I was at like the Inspector Gadget premiere. I remember being on a red carpet and everyone screaming my name, and I was really shocked. They were probably pronouncing my name wrong too. I looked like a little adult, with a purse and my hand on my hip. I was like, I’m a woman. I also did a TV Guide blurb when I was nine and my mom still has it at our house. I think I talked about having a cat.

Tell me about getting started on The Wrong Girls; it’s had a really long path to the screen.

Dylan wrote it 13 years ago. She always had Kristen in mind, and then years later they met and got married. Dylan was like, I sent you a script a long time ago, and Kristen was like, no you didn’t. And then she found the email, and she just didn’t respond. But it’s so hard to get anything made, and I do really trust that things will happen in their own weird, mysterious way. It all happened for the best, especially since when they first wrote those characters it was for girls in their early 20s which is such a different vibe. Now it’s about girls in their mid- to late-30s being like, we’re still doing it. My character is 36 and just deciding if I’m going to move out and have a job, which I think is so funny. I think it just works better.

Do you think that the fact that this is a stoner comedy about women played a part in making it harder to get financing, or get to the screen?

In the past, obviously, it was always dudes in the lead of movies like this and the women were just used as the sexual jokes. Like oh, you embarrassed yourself in front of the hot girl. I think maybe it took this long to even be like, can you imagine girls who smoke weed? I will say that Point Grey, Seth Rogen’s company, was always attached. They had a good sense that this was a rad script. Dylan has been an on-set writer with Seth on a lot of his projects, she was an in-house comedian of sorts. To me, this movie seems like a million-dollar idea. We’ll see how well it does, but the sad truth is it’s just hard to get movies about women, and directed by women, made. You read the numbers now and somehow those numbers have even gone down, which is always nice as we move forward into this weird fascism.

The last three movies you’ve been in — this, Atropia from Hailey Gates, and Blink Twice from Zoe Kravitz — have all been directed by women.

I feel really lucky that I did those, and they were all really good friends of mine. It’s really not easy for a first-time female director to get money to make a feature. I’m happy to be part of these and be able to help get them made in any way I can.

You bring up a good point about movies that are about women, in addition to directed by women; looking ahead to this season’s Oscars hopefuls, so many are male-focused stories.

There actually are a lot of rad movies coming out this year directed by women, but the question is who are they willing to put all their money behind? You have The Invite, you have Camp Miasma, these are really well-made movies, but who are they going to bet on? They’re like, it’s Chris Nolan all the way. And I get it! It’s a very big, commercial movie. But it’s part of why we have to look at awards differently. We’re lying to everybody by being like, they just got a phone call, people love the movie! It’s like, no, they have a whole team who are pushing for them and spending a lot of money to get these nominations.

Kristen, of course, also had her directorial debut recently; have you guys been circling each other since you were both in The Runaways?

We didn’t share much screen time. She was Joan Jett and I was a Glorified Extra. My character was an entertainment lawyer and was like, I don’t want to be involved [with the biopic]. They told me that on set, and that I couldn’t say anything in the movie. I was just there to hang out. But there’s lots of cute photos of me and Kristen together in a band, which is fun. All the girls on the movie would hang out and smoke weed and have a fun time, but Kristen and I were young and awkward and in different stages of life. We’d see each other throughout the years just from being actresses, and every time we’d be like, we gotta do this more. And then this movie felt like we were just hanging out and then capturing that on camera. We’d be doing something funny off-camera and Dylan would be like, what are you guys doing, keep doing that on camera. At the end of the movie we have that dance to Celine Dion, we didn’t prep anything, we just made it up.

How did the aforementioned fake weed treat you?

On one of the first days we did a scene with a Bongatron, and I did get a little high by accident. The fake weed is just weed without the THC, but if you smoke enough of it. I was kind of paranoid because I hadn’t been smoking in awhile since I had my kid. It was just enough where I was like, I’m not sober, and I’m at work. I asked Kristen if she felt anything and she said no, but just to go with it. And she was right. And I sobered up by lunch. And we’re in a stoner comedy! I leaned in.

You’ve been doing comedy for decades, but I’m curious if you learned anything from working with Kate McKinnon on this movie.

I truly think she’s one of the greatest comedians of our time. You could just tell she has a million ideas at all times. You just have to tell her to go and she’ll blast off. She has a scene where she says “Fuck me in my ass” 20 different ways. It’s on the blooper reel. We were all a little intimidated by her and just like, thanks for being in our movie.

Do you keep a proverbial rolodex of people you want to work with?

When I see a new movie, I’ll send it to my agents and ask about the person. Especially foreign filmmakers. I saw this film from Colombia, A Poet, and I was able to have a Zoom with the director. Obviously, the PT Andersons and the Scorseses of the world, it’s like, obviously I’d like to work with them. But at the same time I feel like my lane is more working with cool new filmmakers and women. There’s a lot of big actresses who don’t work with female directors, and I have a hard time believing that it’s on accident. It’s like, you have to actively avoid it. They’re trying to not work with female filmmakers. I genuinely believe we need to start building up female directors, there are so many who have made so many movies and they still have a hard time getting money. Kelly Reichardt should not have a hard time getting a movie made. She’s one of the best we have, and if she was a man she would have no problem.

If she was a man, she would be Paul Thomas Anderson.

Exactly. She would be. And she would be respected in that way. To pretend this issue isn’t real is crazy. I have this mix of desires, to be in bigger movies, but I don’t need to be in huge movies. I just want opportunities to play bolder characters, people who go through some crazy stuff.

Do you have a desire to go back onstage?

I do. It’s really hard and the hours are nuts and you get paid no money. It’s hard to live off. I’m hoping to make enough money this year to be able to do another play.

Your play, You Got Older, really set the Cherry Lane Theater on a path to being the cool downtown theater.

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, but I do feel like there’s a lot of stuff in my work where everyone’s like, that was the first one. Arrested Development was an early Netflix production. Search Party produced a lot of really great talent, John Early and John Reynolds both have movies this year. Honestly, if that show hadn’t gotten re-released on Netflix it would have disappeared. I did a TV show when I was young that still can’t get the rights on Disney because all the music is really well-known 60’s music. It’s called State of Grace. I’m dying to get it on streaming.

James Marcus Haney made his name as a filmmaker sneaking into Coachella, Glastonbury and other top music festivals by posing as press to get exclusive footage of pop stars and their performances.

That need to gate crash marquee festivals with his camera was captured in his 2014 feature documentary No Cameras Allowed. Now Haney is headed to the Toronto Film Festival with Black Sunflowers, a feature documentary about Ukrainian youth coming of age amid martial law as they move between underground raves and car racing on the home front and the brutal front lines of war against Russia.

The first images for Black Sunflowers, which will have a Sept. 11 world premiere in Toronto, has young Ukrainians facing tragedy and duty as soldiers on the front lines, while they find distraction on concert dance floors, in relationships or bonding at a local watering hole.

Working with a Ukrainian film crew, Haney captures an army truck driver who races his car down city streets back home; a young amputee soldier finding freedom on a high energy rave dance floor, despite a blade prosthesis; a young woman turning from nature photography to war photography amid the ruins of war; and still another young woman being trained to shoot a rifle as a generation of youth face compulsory military service.

Haney, in a director’s statement on the TIFF website, recalls first arriving in Ukraine as war reshaped everyday life: “I was surprised to see how much normal life carried on, despite the war. I couldn’t help but think that mainstream media is missing half of the story.”

Haney’s film joins a slew of other Ukraine war documentaries, including Roman Liubyi and Volodymyr Tykhyy’s Time Machine Maidan, which bowed at Sheffield, Oscar-winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov‘s new film, 2000 Meters to Andriivka, and Militantropos, from co-directors Alina Gorlova, Yelizaveta Smith and Simon Mozgovyi.

Black Sunflowers, with an original score by Fred Gibson (Fred Again), Brian Eno and Koloah, is produced by Pedram Rezaee, Mikayla Jean Miller, Yevhenii Zdorovylo, Samy Mosher, Eric Maldin, Volodymyr Yatsenko and Anna Yatsenko.

Diane Kruger and Dany Boon will star as Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, the German-Jewish couple who tracked down former Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, in Projet K (working title), the new film from Netflix France, the streamer announced Monday.

Tim Roth will play Barbie in the drama, from French director Yvan Attal (The Accusation, Breaking Point). Attal co-wrote the screenplay together with Laurent Turner, who is known for his work on French Netflix crime series Ganglands.

Projet K follows Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, a German woman and a French Jewish man, whose relationship and shared commitment to justice led them to pursue Barbie, the notorious “Butcher of Lyon” for more than a decade, fighting multiple governments and institutions along the way.

Serge (Boon), born in Bucharest in 1935 to a Jewish family that relocated to France before World War II, survived a roundup of Jews in Nice as a child. His father was later arrested and killed at Auschwitz. Beate (Kruger), born in Berlin in 1939, was the daughter of a Wehrmacht soldier. The couple married in 1963 and become known as Nazi hunters, tracking down former Nazi officials and Vichy collaborators, including Kurt Lischka, Ernst Ehlers, Kurt Asche and Maurice Papon, in addition to Barbie.

Barbie (Roth) served as head of the Gestapo in Lyon during the German occupation of France, where he was responsible for the deportation and torture of thousands of people, including the roundup of Jewish children from a safe house.

After the war, he worked for United States intelligence services before relocating to Bolivia under the alias Klaus Altmann. The Klarsfelds identified Barbie’s location and alias in 1971 and campaigned for his extradition. Despite state opposition, including from the Bolivian government at the time, Barbie was extradited to France in 1983, and stood trial in Lyon. Convicted of crimes against humanity, he was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1991.

Barbie reign of terror in Lyon was the focus of Moulin, the Cannes competition film from Son of Saul director László Nemes, with Lars Eidinger playing the Butcher of Lyon and Gilles Lellouche as French Resistance hero Jean Moulin.

The Klarsfelds’ pursuit of Barbie was previously dramatized in the 2008 Canal+ television film La Traque, directed by Laurent Jaoui, in which Attal played Serge Klarsfeld opposite Franka Potente as Beate Klarsfeld.

Attal wrote, directed and starred in Breaking Point (2023) and was the co-writer and director of The Accusation (2021), an adaptation of Karine Tuil’s novel about a rape accusation and its aftermath, which premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2021.

Kruger is coming off a starring turn in Fatih Akin post-WW2 drama Amrum, which premiered in Cannes last year, and roles in Paramount+ drama Little Disasters and HBO Max’s Dangerous Liaisons prequel series The Seduction.

Boon, best known for writing, directing and starring in 2008 French box office smash Welcome to the Sticks, had a starring turn in Emmanuel Poulain-Arnaud’s dramedy Regarde, released in French theaters last year.

Oscar-nominee Roth was most recently see opposite Cillian Murphy in Tom Harper’s Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man feature for Netflix.

Attal is producing Projet K through his Films Sous Influence outfit, together with NAC Films’ Antoine Pezet and Jérôme Corcos. The film will be shot in France, Bolivia and Belgium.