TikTok Star Khaby Lame is Gearing Up to Make His Directorial Debut!

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Jennifer Esposito remembers being asked to audition for “The Sopranos” more than once. She declined each time. “I chose to not go up for it when they would call me in because it was like, ‘I can’t relive this,’” Esposito recalls. “The only thing that used to make me crazy about the show when I did watch it was the character of Meadow because she was very nice. The girls I grew up around wanted to kill me, wanted to kill me every day. So it was PTSD.” Esposito grew up among organized crime on Staten Island. “Staten Island is the same Staten Island from when I left when I was 18 years old,” says the 50-year-old actor, whose credits span from television’s “Spin City” and “Blue Bloods” to the Oscar-winning “Crash.” “It’s still the same place. You need to understand that nothing leaves this island. It’s a very strange time warp of a place.”

Naman Ramachandran Renowned filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (“Bandit Queen,” “Elizabeth”) is planning a sequel to his 1983 directorial debut “Masoom,” Variety can reveal. The film is titled “Masoom… The New Generation.” Details of the plot, studio and cast are under wraps at the moment. Written by Gulzar (Oscar winner for “Slumdog Millionaire”), “Masoom” was an adaptation of Erich Segal’s 1980 novel “Man, Woman and Child.” It followed a happily married couple and their two daughters whose lives are disrupted with the arrival of a boy who is the man’s son from an earlier affair. The cast included Naseeruddin Shah (“Taj: Divided by Blood”), Shabana Azmi (“Halo”), Jugal Hansraj (“NRI Wives”), Supriya Pathak (“Tabbar”), Saeed Jaffrey (“The Man Who Would Be King”) and Urmila Matondkar (“Rangeela”).

Jaden Hossler is getting real about mental health.

This story about “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” first appeared in the Limited Series/Movies issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.Opening night of last year’s Toronto International Film Festival culminated with one of the wackiest and, yes, weirdest screenings imaginable. Premiering at midnight, Roku’s “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story”left a capacity TIFF audience in stitches at the almost wholly fictional saga of young Al’s rise from a kid whose passion for accordions and Hawaiian shirts shamed his parents to a global superstar who found time to romance Madonna and take down a Colombian drug cartel.The film was inspired by a Funny or Die video that director Eric Appel made in 2009, parodying rock biopics in the same way that Yankovic’s songs (“I Love Rocky Road,” “Another One Rides the Bus,” “Eat It,” “Like a Surgeon,” “Amish Paradise”) gleefully distort rock hits.

Continuing to follow in his famous father's footsteps, Landon Barker, the 19 year old son of punk legend Travis Barker, has taken to Instagram to show off his latest ink. Landon shared a photo of his fresh tattoo, revealing a hyper-realistic eyeball with long eyelashes and a prominent eyebrow on his bicep.

A Sainsbury's security guard and avid EastEnders fan has become an unexpected TikTok sensation after sharing videos of himself meeting actors from the show as they leave work at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire. Pete's TikTok videos feature encounters with Eastenders stars like Shona McGarty, Bobby Brazier, and Natalie Cassidy, who kindly stop to chat with waiting fans. One heartwarming video shows Pete talking to Bobby about his late mother, Jade Goody, while another captures Pete playfully dancing with Shona.These clips have collectively garnered 1.8 million views and landed Pete 136,000 followers.

AC Bonifacio is ready to take on the world.

California love. Selling Sunset star Jason Oppenheim has dated several of his costars — including Nicole Young and Chrishell Stause.

Simu Liu now has his own “Barbie” doll!

Jeffree Star is mourning the loss of his beloved pet Diva.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer On a recent quiet morning at The Summit, the ultra-exclusive gated community in Los Angeles, a crane was called to deliver olive trees to Sebastian Maniscalco’s house. The Illinois native, known for relatable stand-up about his immigrant parents, and for his onstage physicality and boisterousness, went uncharacteristically silent watching the evergreens drop down on his stunning views of Beverly Hills. He’s used to talking about his much humbler roots. “I like to poke fun or make light of what we see in society and make fun of my own family and my old-world immigrant upbringing. I think I do it in a way where we’re all laughing together,” he tells Variety.

Darby Allin is the resident daredevil of All Elite Wrestling (AEW), but the self-belief required to take such dangerous risks didn’t apply to all aspects of his career evenly. It does now.

Paddy Considine has played cops, ex-cons, priests, architects, struggling actors, union organizers and rock band managers. But when his agent told him that Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik wanted him to play King Viserys I Targaryen in HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel series, “House of the Dragon,” he couldn’t quite believe it was real. “I said, ‘Who’s turned this down?’ Because I’m cynical that way,” he says. “My agent was like, ‘I assure you, they’re just coming to you for it.’” Part of Considine’s disbelief was due to his feeling that the industry at large had only ever seen him as the working-class striver he made his name playing in the 2000s, in films such as “In America,” “My Summer of Love” and “Cinderella Man.”

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of Friday’s release of Fast X, in which he stars opposite Vin Diesel and many more, longtime F&F cast member Sung Kang has set a North American distribution deal with Cinedigm for Shaky Shivers, the ’80s-inspired horror comedy that marks his feature directorial debut. The film will hit theaters this fall, with an exclusive streaming release on the company’s streaming platform Screambox to follow.

The mother of a TikTok influencer took the stand today (May 17) as she and her daughter face charges of murdering a man in a car crash.

Stephanie Davis is set to make a return to soapland but it won't be to Hollyoaks. It has been revealed that the actress will be joining rivals Coronation Street for a sizzling summer storyline.

EXCLUSIVE:  Destry Allyn Spielberg’s directorial debut, Please Don’t Feed the Children, is heading to the Cannes market with Altitude Film Sales, which is repping world sales.

A TikTok star racially abused a police officer after being pulled over in her Audi in an Asda car park.

The drama is heating up, guys!

Nico Hulkenberg made a rare appearance with his wife Elge Ruskyte at the Palm Angels Party over the weekend in Miami!