Zack Sharf Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Zack Sharf Digital News Director How do you choose between Tom Cruise and Quentin Tarantino? It’s a dilemma Austin Butler faced before his Oscar-nominated performance in “Elvis” turned him into a global star. During an interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast (via People) while promoting his new Apple TV+ series “Masters of the Air,” Butler confirmed reports he was in the running to star opposite Cruise in the blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick.” “I ended up having to choose between going to the screen test for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ or saying yes to Quentin Tarantino,” Butler said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Whoopi Goldberg is an Oscars legend, having won an Academy Award for “Ghost” and hosted the ceremony four times and served as an Academy board member. So perhaps moviegoers might want to listen to Goldberg when she says there are no such thing as Oscar snubs amid the uproar over Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie missing out on nominations for best director and best actress, respectively, at the 2024 Oscars. “Barbie” earned a total of eight nominations, including best picture, and Gerwig is a nominee for screenwriting and so is Robbie as one of the film’s producers.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sofia Vergara is taking on her most dramatic role yet in Netflix’s “Griselda,” in which she plays infamous Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco. The show marks a rare opportunity for Vergara to flex her dramatic acting muscles as her career has largely been defined by comedy projects, from playing Gloria Pritchett on ABC’s “Modern Family” (which ran for 11 seasons and garnered Vergara four Emmy nominations) to films like 2015’s “Hot Pursuit” with Reese Witherspoon. “I’m always looking for characters because there’s not much that I can play with this stupid accent,” Vergara recently told the Los Angeles Times, poking fun at herself.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Eva Mendes celebrated partner Ryan Gosling‘s latest Oscar nomination by putting his haters on blast. Gosling is nominated for best supporting actor at the 2024 Academy Awards thanks to his performance as Ken in the blockbuster comedy “Barbie,” which earned a total of eight Oscar nominations. Gosling’s casting was originally divisive, as social media debates erupted over whether or not he was too old to play the doll.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sofia Coppola continues to shed light on her unrealized adaptation of Edith Wharton’s “The Custom of the Country,” which she was developing as a five-episode series for Apple TV+. In a new interview with the New Yorker, it’s revealed for the first time that Coppola had cast Oscar nominee Florence Pugh to star in the lead role of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern girl who attempts to ascend in New York City society. News broke in May 2020 that Sofia Coppola was partnering with Apple TV+ on “The Custom of the Country.” By the end of 2021, the project was killed.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Emma Stone‘s quest to compete on “Jeopardy!” got a promising update courtesy of the game show’s host Ken Jennings, who said during an interview on “Live With Kelly and Mark” that the “La La Land” Oscar winner would be welcomed on the game show “in a heartbeat.” Now it’s your move, Stone. During an appearance on Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast earlier this month, Stone went viral for revealing she is a “Jeopardy!” junkie and applies to be a contestant on the game show every year. “I apply every June,” Stone said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Will Ferrell touched down at the Sundance Film Festival to world premiere the new documentary “Will & Harper,” which centers on the relationship between the beloved comedian and his best friend Harper Steele as they take a road trip. The two met during their days on “Saturday Night Live,” which Harper wrote for from 1995 to 2008.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sebastian Stan is back at Sundance this year for the world premiere of A24’s “A Different Man,” co-starring Adam Pearson and Renate Reinsve. The three actors joined director Aaron Schimberg at the Variety Studio presented by Audible to discuss the film, which centers on an aspiring actor with a facial disability who undergoes a radical medical procedure to transform his appearance that proves to be his downfall.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Pauly Shore is responding to Richard Simmons after the fitness icon disavowed the upcoming biopic in which Shore is set to play him. Shore stopped by the Variety Studio presented by Audible while at the Sundance Film Festival and said his Simmons movie is “all about love,” with or without the real Simmons’ blessing. “My come from has always been love,” Shore said.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Kerry Washington joined the Variety Studio presented by Audible at the Sundance Film Festival, where she is an executive producer on the documentary “Daughters.” The movie centers on four girls in Washington D.C. as they prepare for a Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers. “People always ask me why I’m drawn to political work,” Washington said about boarding the documentary.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director One of the boldest movies premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival is “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” directed by Kobi Libii. The film takes aim at the Magical Negro stereotype and centers on a young man (Justice Smith) who is recruited into a society in which African American members are tasked with ensuring that white people’s lives remain easy. Libii, Smith and co-star David Alan Grier visited the Variety Studio presented by Audible and spoke about the reactions to their button-pushing satire.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director One of the most anticipated documentary premieres at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival is “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” which tracks the eponymous star’s rise to Hollywood icon and the near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Reeve’s children — Will, Matthew and Alexandra — appear as subjects in the movie and joined the Variety Studio presented by Audible to discuss their father’s legacy. Alexandra called the documentary a “beautiful gift” because it’s rare to “see your parent’s life told in its totality…to see a life well lived on screen and in its full complexity.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Dominic Fike appeared at the Variety Studio presented by Audible while attending the Sundance Film Festival and compared his experiences playing a character struggling with drug addiction on HBO’s “Euphoria” and his new Sundance premiere, “Little Death.” The latter title marks the feature directorial debut of music video helmer Jack Begert, who happens to be one of Fike’s friends. Fike has been open in the past about his real-life addiction struggles, so his proximity to Berget made playing a drug addiction in “Little Death” a bit easier than playing one in “Euphoria.” “I’ve done that before, like acted like a drug addict,” Fike said. “I actually am a pretty big drug addict myself, believe it or not.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jesse Eisenberg is officially giving his Lex Luthor advice to Nicholas Hoult, and it’s blunt: “Don’t watch me!” During an interview at the Variety Studio presented by Audible while attending the Sundance Film Festival, Eisenberg suggested Hoult should forge his own path and not pay attention to Eisenberg’s own work as Lex Luthor in Zack Snyder’s DC Universe. “Whenever you play a role you feel connected to it,” Eisenberg added to Variety‘s Matt Donnelly about playing the DC villain for a short time.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Melissa Barrera weighed in on her controversial exit from the “Scream” franchise while attending the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of her latest horror movie, “Your Monster.” “Honestly, I think I finally am becoming who I’m supposed to be in life, and the last few months have been a big awakening of that,” Barrera told the Associated Press when asked about her “Scream” exit. “I’m just so grateful for everything that’s happened.” Barrera played Sam Carpenter, the daughter of Billy Loomis (played by Skeet Ulrich in the original films), in 2022’s “Scream” and 2023’s “Scream 6,” the latter of which set a franchise box office record with $108 million at the domestic box office.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jodie Foster said at the Variety Studio presented by Audible while at the Sundance Film Festival that the $1.4 billion success of “Barbie” helps prove that Hollywood no longer views women directors as too much of a risk. That wasn’t always the case, as Foster often saw women filmmakers being marginalized during her career ascent in Hollywood. “I’ve had the beauty of being able to be in the business since the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and so on,” Foster said to Variety’s Rebecca Rubin.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Kelly Osbourne earned backlash in 2015 when a comment she made on “The View” was widely slammed as racist. Osbourne was addressing Donald Trump’s policy on immigration at the time alongside hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie Perez when she said, “If you kick every Latino out of this country then who is going to be cleaning your toilets, Donald Trump?” She later acknowledged her “poor choice of words,” but stressed: “I will not apologize for being racist as I am NOT.” The clip of Osbourne saying “If you kick every Latino out of this country” has now reemerged on TikTok and become its own meme, with users spouting their own ridiculous takes on stereotypes.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Rob Lowe might want to double check who he is sending text messages to in the future. During a recent visit to “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the ” 9-1-1: Lone Star” actor revealed that he accidentally texted Bradley Cooper a congratulations for winning a Golden Globe thinking the message was going to Robert Downey Jr. The mishap was a bit awkward considering Cooper was nominated for a golden globe for “Maestro” but lost the best actor in a motion picture drama category to Cillian Murphy from “Oppenheimer.” “Downey does this amazing acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, and I’m so excited for him so I text him, ‘So glad you won.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Dana Carvey has returned to the “Fly on the Wall” podcast for the first time since his son, Dex, died last fall (via Entertainment Weekly). The podcast is jointly hosted by Carvey and David Spade and features the “Saturday Night Live” alums telling behind-the-scenes stories from their time on the NBC sketch comedy series. In Carvey’s absence, the podcast aired previously recorded interviews with the likes of Dan Aykroyd, David Byrne and more with only Spade as host.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jodie Foster has shocked the “Star Wars” fandom by confirming she was offered the role of Princess Leia in “Star Wars,” which unquestionably would’ve changed the course of her career. The two-time Oscar winner told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” that she was already locked into a contract for a Disney movie at the time and didn’t want to break it in order to join a galaxy far, far away. Foster did not reveal what Disney movie, but the timeline suggests it might’ve been “Freaky Friday,” which was released a year before “Star Wars.” “You’ve been in so many iconic roles, and we love what you do,” Fallon said during the show.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Sharon Stone has revealed that she once attempted to pitch a “Barbie” movie to a Hollywood studio during the 1990s and was laughed out of the room. What a difference a couple of decades makes, as Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie’s “Barbie” opened last year and earned a staggering $1.4 billion to become the top-grossing film of 2023 and the biggest earner in Warner Bros.’ studio history.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Nicole Kidman revealed on the “Radio Times Podcast” (via Business Insider) that she was once told she would never have a career in Hollywood because of her height. Long before she became a star in the U.S. and an Oscar winner for “The Hours,” Kidman was an aspiring actor in Australia and said her height was often challenged during auditions as a teen.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jodie Foster graced the cover of Time magazine in 1991 when she was 28 years old and set to direct her first feature, “Little Man Tate.” She said at the time that “this is not a business that is kind to women” who aspire to be directors, but her tune has changed 32 years later. “Sometimes I read things I said in my 20s and I’m like, really? But that’s a pretty good one,” she recently told Time in 2023 during an interview for her role on HBO’s “True Detective: Night Country.” “When I was young, there were really no American women directors, maybe a few,” she said. “I didn’t think I was allowed to be a director.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Dolph Lundregn recently told ComicBook.com that a “really good” original cut of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” exists, but it’s not the one that fans got to see when the DC sequel opened in theaters over Christmas. To date, the sequel has earned $109 million at the domestic box office and $375 million worldwide — a far cry from the $1 billion the original “Aquaman” crossed to become the highest-grossing DC Universe film. Lundregn appears in the “Aquaman” films as Nereus, the king of the Atlantean tribe of Xebel who also happens to be the father of Aquaman’s love interest Mera (Amber Heard).

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Paul Mescal is already an Oscar-nominated actor with a diehard fanbase thanks to his roles in “Normal People,” “Aftersun,” “All of Us Strangers” and more, but his fame is surely going to explode this fall when Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator 2” opens in theaters. Mescal is headlining the sequel opposite a heavyweight supporting cast that includes Pedro Pascal and Denzel Washington. The original “Gladiator” made Russell Crowe one of the world’s most famous actors and won him the Oscar for best actor.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Taylor Swift is not the mysterious author behind the “Argylle” book that served as the inspiration for Apple’s upcoming spy thriller from director Matthew Vaughn. Conspiracy theories have circulated on social media for months alleging Swift is the author “Elly Conway,” a pseudonym for the writer whose manuscript was apparently so astonishing that it led to a reported $200 million deal for the film rights. Screenwriter Jason Fuchs adapted Conway’s book into Vaughn’s movie.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Matthew Perry received an emotional tribute during the 2023 Emmys In Memoriam segment, which also included late stars such as Len Goodman, Andre Braugher, Lance Reddick, Paul Reubens, Barbra Walters, Kirstie Alley and more. Pop singer Charlie Puth and singer-songwriter duo The War and Treaty performed during the segment, first starting with a rendition of Puth’s “See You Again” before delivering a stripped-down cover of the “Friends” theme song (“I’ll Be There for You” by The Rembrandts). Perry died unexpectedly on Oct.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Katherine Heigl joined her former “Grey’s Anatomy” cast members Ellen Pompeo, Justin Chambers, James Pickens Jr. and Chandra Wilson on stage during the Emmy Awards in what was one of the more high-profile reunions for the stars.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Jenna Ortega told E! on the Emmys red carpet that she’s “received some scripts for the second season” of “Wednesday,” her Netflix mega-hit that debuted in fall 2022 and became one of the streamer’s most-watched original series of all time. Production on Season 2 got delayed by the Hollywood strikes last year but is expected to kick off in the spring. “We’re definitely leaning into a little bit more horror,” Ortega said in an update to fans.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Christina Applegate surprised the 2023 Emmys to present the award for supporting actress in a comedy series to “The Bear” star Ayo Edebiri. Her appearance, which Variety had exclusively reported on last week, led to a massive standing ovation from the audience and prompted Applegate to get teary-eyed. She announced in August 2021 that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) and largely stayed out of the spotlight until a few public appearances last year in support of the final season of “Dead to Me,” her popular Netflix comedy series for which she earned an Emmy nomination at this year’s show for outstanding actress in a comedy series.