Bill Hader is opening up about what initially led him to stop giving autographs on Star Wars merchandise. The Barry actor, who is credited as a voice consultant for droid BB-8 with comedian Ben Schwartz in 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, told Josh Horowitz on a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast that “Autograph people […]

Mila Kunis is shutting down rumors that she will be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When host James Corden asked her during Wednesday’s episode of The Late Late Show if she’s going to be playing Susan Storm in the upcoming Fantastic Four film, the That ’70s Show actress responded, “Apparently, if you go to lunch […]

Molly Ringwald is getting candid about finding her way in Hollywood when she was younger, and why she turned down an iconic role in Pretty Woman. Early in her career, Ringwald was making her name as the new “It” girl with films like The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles, but when she […]

Michael J. Fox continues to share candid details about his decades-long battle with Parkinson’s disease. The actor, who is the subject of the forthcoming documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, spoke to Jane Pauley for a CBS Sunday Morning interview set to air Sunday. Preview clips from the sit-down show the 61-year-old Back to […]

John Mulaney is back on top of the stand-up comedy world following the release of “Baby J,” his new Netflix special that digs into his recent addiction relapse and subsequent return to sobriety. The special has earned rave reviews for the honesty and vulnerability Mulaney displays, with many viewing it as a warning about the dangers of American celebrity culture.

Mulaney’s press tour to promote the special has seen him take a trip down memory lane, recalling his rise to prominence and some of the high profile opportunities that he missed out on over the years. Appearing on Doug Herzog and Jen Chaney’s “Basic” podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter), the comedian said that he was considered as a potential host of The Daily Show after Jon Stewart vacated the job in 2015. He explained that the offer came right after his ill-fated multi-camera sitcom “Mulaney” aired on Fox.

“It was shortly after the ‘SNL’ 40th anniversary,” Mulaney said. “I had a sitcom on Fox. They’d aired all 13 [episodes], but it was canceled. It didn’t do good numbers, but at least critics reviled it. So, it was a fun time.”

The comic said that the critical and commercial failure of “Mulaney” made him hesitant to pursue other projects outside of his stand-up career.

“I sensed they would be big shoes to fill,” he said. “I think I also was gun-shy from putting myself out there at that moment after the Fox run. And I sensed all eyes would be on whoever came after Mr. Stewart.”

Mulaney said that former Comedy Central president Kent Alterman had to move on to other candidates because of his reservations about the job. Trevor Noah was ultimately tapped to take over for Stewart and hosted the show for seven years before departing in 2022.

“It wasn’t the right thing at that moment, but I remember saying to Kent, ‘I wish it was five years from now.’ And he went, ‘Yeah, but it’s not,’” he said. “I mean, I just remember Kent had a great tone of, ‘I hear you. I’m here to hear out anything you have to say, but it’s now, and we’re asking you about it, and we can’t talk hypothetically for that long at this dinner, John.’”

John Leguizamo has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most outspoken advocates for better Hispanic representation, speaking his mind on everything from James Franco being cast as Fidel Castro to the lack of colorblind casting in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in recent years. He consistently recalls the racist typecasting that he was often subjected to at the beginning of his career — and laments that not much has changed in the film industry.

In an interview with GQ, Leguizamo revealed that he was so sick of auditioning to play drug dealers early in his career that he considered passing on his now-iconic role as Benny Blanco in Brian De Palma’s “Carlito’s Way.”

“I’m a Latin guy and I didn’t wanna play another drug dealer. I was just kind of sick of that kind of routine,” Leguizamo said. “So I turned it down three times.”

He continued to resist the role, only to learn that one of Hollywood’s other rising Hispanic stars, Benicio Del Toro, was also in the mix for it. Once he learned Del Toro was interested, Leguizamo said that he opted to do the film after realizing it was a good career move.

“The producers said, ‘Look, this is the last time I’m coming to you. We’re gonna go to Benicio,’” he said. “Okay, I’ll take it!”

Leguizamo’s thoughts about not wanting to play drug dealers echo similar comments he made in a recent interview with IndieWire. The actor explained that the limited range of roles he was considered for as a young actor shaped his view about the importance of representation in films.

“Even when I was a kid going to college, I was like, ‘Wait a minute. How come we’re all paying the same tuition, I’m getting A’s, they’re not, and I’m getting five calls a day to play a drug dealer because I’m Latin?’ It was like Jim Crow,” he said. “The casting breakdown every day with the roles that were available were like, ‘White romantic lead, white doctor,’ and so on. They wouldn’t see you. When I started seeing the data, it blew my mind. I was like, ‘Wait a minute — we’re the largest ethnic group in America, the oldest ethnic group in America, and we’ve got no representation?’ More recently, I found that we’re 30 percent of the U.S. box office and four percent of streaming, and we’re still less than two percent of the faces in front of the camera.”

Following what was described as Formosa Group CEO Bob Rosenthal’s emotional last day with his team, there’s more developing at the leading audio postproduction company. Rosenthal’s last official day at Formosa Group was Friday. A day earlier, a so-called “Formosa Group Collective” — a name being used to include employees from “all divisions, domestic and […]

Members of Actors’ Equity have voted to approve the new touring agreement with the Broadway League. The union, which represents more than 51,000 stage managers and actors, had been negotiating with the League over the new touring contract since mid-January. On April 3, Actors’ Equity announced a strike threat against the Broadway League, which represents […]

Paul Schrader has made a career out of bluntly speaking his mind and gleefully disregarding public opinion, so it’s not surprising that he doesn’t particularly care about the Oscars.

In a new conversation with Oscar Isaac published in Interview Magazine, the “Master Gardener” director explained that he advises his collaborators to avoid viewing award shows as a measure of success — even if he admits that it’s fun to win.

“It’s hard not to feel good when people say nice things, even when you think they’re wrong,” Schrader said. “On the other hand, I remember saying to Scorsese years ago—because Marty had a very strong desire to win an Oscar, and should have won an Oscar for some of his films, but didn’t, and he was chafing—so I said to him, ‘Marty, if your priority is to win an Oscar, you’re going to need a new set of priorities.’ And fortunately he did win his, but all you have to do is look back through the litany of films that have won to realize that it’s not company you really want to be in.”

Schrader recently scored his first career Oscar nomination when “First Reformed” was nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 2019. Even so, the “Taxi Driver” writer said he has become increasingly disinterested in the ceremony.

“I haven’t watched it in 10 or 15 years,” he said. “I still voted, although this time I think I abstained in 80 percent of the votes.”

He explained that he only votes in a category if one of the nominees sticks out to him, and doesn’t feel the need to participate despite the ceremony’s importance to the film industry.

“If I looked at five names, and said, ‘I’m not really crazy about any of these,’ abstain, abstain, abstain. Because it is so much a part of the economic, raw material of our business,” he said. “The Academy got itself in a terrible mess by building that huge museum and giving themselves a mountain of debt, so now they have to keep figuring out how to get more and more people to watch the Academy Awards in more and more countries, so they can make more and more money, when in fact, it began years ago as a local thing.”