By Variety Staff | Variety The merger of artistic gumption and shrewd business sense sets New York apart, and this list pays tribute to both qualities, with some of the year’s defining artists — “Marriage Story” director Noah Baumbach and star Scarlett Johansson;...
By Antonia Blyth | Deadline Hollywood When Kasi Lemmons saw that Cynthia Erivo was attached in the titular role of Harriet, Lemmons knew she wanted to direct the film. Then together, the pair worked hard to present an authentic picture of legendary abolitionist...
Tara Bitran | The Hollywood Reporter The University of Chicago professor will present Silent Sunday Nights starting Sept. 15. Beginning Sunday, Sept. 15, Turner Classic Movies will have a fifth host to introduce the uncut and uninterrupted films of the Silent era:...
Aramide A. Tinubu | Shadow and Act In the 1970s, comedian Rudy Ray Moore was forcefully pushed out of entertainment. Though he’d seen some minor success with a few albums and some work in comedy, doors quickly closed in his face. Against all rational sense, and...
By Variety Staff| Variety Variety has announced its 10 Screenwriters to Watch for 2019, an honor the publication has bestowed for over a decade. This year’s honorees will be feted in the October 8th issue of Variety as well as at a reception at the Mill Valley Film...
Variety Staff | Variety Variety has announced its 10 Actors to Watch for 2019, an honor the publication has bestowed since 1998. Past honorees include many future Oscar winners and nominees, such as Mahershala Ali, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Brie...
by Jordan Simon | Shadow and Act Since the announcement that Mahershala Ali will be portraying Blade, fans all over Twitter have been giving their two-cents on who should direct the Moonlight actor in the highly anticipated MCU reboot. We here at S&A have decided...
When asked about his most memorable fan moment for his role on “Pose,” Billy Porter says that the conversations he has with “little black sissy boys” stand out. “I’m so moved by all the people but really, particularly, the little black sissy boys, the little black...
By Geoff Boucher | Deadline Hollywood The Civil War masterpiece Glory return to theaters today from Fathom Events (under the banner of its TCM Big Classic Series) to mark the film’s 30th anniversary. Directed by Edward Zwick off a screenplay by Kevin Jarre, the...
By K. Austin Collin | Photography by Collier Schorr | Styled by Ludivine Poiblanc | Vanity Fair From prestige TV to tentpole franchises to the Coachella DJ tent, the British actor is a poster boy for 21st-century fame: multidisciplinary, omnipresent, engaging. So what...
by Nadine Matthews | Shadow and Act Donald Bogle is America’s foremost Black film historian. The University of Pennsylvania and New York University professor has authored six books on the subject of the Black presence and image on the big screen. His first book, Toms,...
by Monique Jones | Shadow and Act We’ve been in the midst of a Black film renaissance, but we’ve been in the middle of one before–in the 1990s. What makes this renaissance different than the last one? The New York Times gathered together several...
Idris Elba takes a lie detector test. Is he the sexiest man alive? Did he grow up in Hackney? How does he get into his American accent? Is he a strict dad? Does he have a foot fetish? Find out all that and more in this video....
Aubrey Plaza and Brian Tyree Henry take a lie detector test. Is Aubrey really from Delaware? Did she always speak in a deadpan manner? Does she think going to an all-girls Catholic school messed her up in any way? Did Brian go to Yale? Does he think he’s a...
While “Game of Thrones” has seen Emilia Clarke battle dragons and kings as Daenerys Targaryen in her war for Westeros, it’s her sewn-in corset that makes it hard for the actress to breathe on set. “Michelle Clapton who designs the costumes is an absolute living God. I...
by Monique Jones | Shadow and Act Regina Hall said that if a Girls Trip sequel happens, there’s one thing she doesn’t want to do–wear a revealing outfit. In an interview with ET for Shaft, Hall addressed the speculation by Jada Pinkett Smith that the...
Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph sat down for a chat for Variety’s Actors on Actors. For more, click here. Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph are two of TV’s funniest stars — and this year, both confronted mortality on-screen. In “Russian Doll,” co-created by Lyonne, the...
Kevin Hart takes a lie detector test. Is he really 5’2″? Does he go to the gym every day? Who’s in better shape, Kevin or The Rock? Does he have a standard response for hecklers? Has he become a better person since he’s become rich? Find out...
Thomas Middleditch and O’Shea Jackson Jr. take a lie detector test. Are Thomas’s parents British? Does he think going to Renaissance fairs is the geekiest thing about him? Was Thomas ever cyberbullied on Twitch? Who does O’Shea think was more popular...
by Jordan Simon | Shadow & Act With Memorial Day right around the corner, Shadow And Act wants to give our readers four reasons why there’s no cookout like a Black cookout. In honor of the unofficial start of summer, here is our list of five of the best...
Desus and the Kid Mero take a lie detector test. Are they really from the Bronx? Who’s better at roasting people? Which of Mero’s four kids is his favorite? Find out all that and more in this video....
by Monique Jones | Shadow & Act Viola Davis is here to let you know her thoughts on the inclusion rider and Hollywood’s problem with diversity. During Variety’s Inclusion Summit, where Davis was the keynote speaker, she talked about how inclusion...
by Beyoncé Knowles-Carter | Time Magazine Loving Michelle Obama wasn’t much of a choice. It was something that came naturally, because of how she carried herself. Because she resembled us and was moving in spaces where, as black Americans, we weren’t exactly meant to...
Anthony Mackie takes a lie detector test. Did he attend Juilliard? Was he roommates with Lee Pace in high school and college? Does he think North Carolina has better barbecue than Louisiana? Does he have a favorite child? Was Don Cheadle a diva? Does he think Eminem...
by Jordan Simon | Shadow and Act 2019 has seen some historic firsts for Black women on the film festival front. In February, Nigerian-American filmmaker Chinonye Chukwu became the first Black woman to win the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for her U.S....
by Aramide A. Tinubu | Shadow and Act The landscape of cinema has been changing slowly but surely. With more women and people of color behind the camera, genres are stretching and shifting. Different types of stories are finally being showcased to the masses. With her...
by Dino-Ray Ramos | Deadline Hollywood In his feature film debut The Burial of Kojo, Blitz Bazawule tells a story of two brothers through the gaze of a gifted girl who travels between gorgeous lands that exist in life and death. It’s not your ordinary narrative film,...
by Jordan Simon | Shadow and Act Us, Jordan Peele’s follow up to Get Out, has been the subject of huge critical and commercial acclaim. The film grossed a staggering $70 million in its opening weekend, making it the second-biggest opening of the year...
By Will Thorne | Variety When New York & Company approached Gabrielle Union to be their new brand ambassador and the face of her own clothing line, the actress reacted with “disbelief.” “We are not supposed to be getting those offers, I’m not supposed to be having...
by Malik Adán | Shadow and Act Artist. Producer. Director. Writer. Mother. Sister. Community Builder. When Shadow And Act caught up with Numa Perrier in Austin at South By Southwest, these were just a few of the hats we covered. By all accounts, she’s a busy woman....
Charlize Theron and Michael B. Jordan start talking before the cameras are even rolling. They are exchanging secrets about how they both disappear into character, undergoing dramatic physical — and emotional — transformations. That’s certainly been the case this year...
I just read this article by Brooke Obie on Shadow and Act that was posted on December 14, 2018. I didn’t post it here because it’s really long, but if you are wondering what the Green Book controversy is about, you MUST read it....
Wanda Sykes takes a lie detector test. Does she still work for the NSA? Does she think her wife every fake laughs at her jokes? Wanda Sykes is on tour! Upcoming dates include: Punch Line Philadelphia, PA 2/26/2019 Punch Line Philadelphia, PA 2/27/2019 Town Hall...
by Shadow and Act Shadow and Act has a special Valentine’s Day present for their readers: They put together a video documenting 120 years of #BlackLove. Set to the score of Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk by Nicholas Brittell, it starts...
“Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” star Tiffany Haddish takes a lie detector test for Vanity Fair. Could Tiffany Haddish tell a joke in Japanese? Does think she could get swindled into joining a cult? What does her dating app bio say? How does she deal with...
Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”) and John David Washington (“BlacKkKlansman”) have catapulted into the awards season conversation with two searing films about race in America. Both movies are based on true stories. Ali, who won the supporting actor Oscar in 2017 for...
“What Men Want” stars Tracy Morgan and Taraji P. Henson give each other a lie detector test for Vanity Fair. Could Taraji P. Henson have her own sitcom? Does Tracy think New York is better than Washington D.C.? Who would Taraji sign to her own record...
Melissa McCarthy is best known for creating outsize comedic characters, but this year she took on a dramatic role in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” Marielle Heller’s story of a forger desperately holding onto her place in a gentrifying New York. It’s a turn that’s...
by Anita Busch | Deadline Hollywood It was 10 years in the making, but a feature documentary about Sly and The Family Stone and their impact on the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music is on its way. Dance to the Streaming Music, from Winter State...
by Monique Jones | Shadow and Act It’s the end of the year, and it’s time to take a look at 2018’s best films. This was actually quite a hard list to put together, since there were a ton of great films, ranging from documentaries to foreign films to...
by Ava DuVernay | Time Magazine In Black Panther, Queen Ramonda looks upon her son T’Challa and delivers a proclamation: “It is your time.” Millions upon millions of moviegoers around the world have proclaimed the same to the film’s mastermind, Ryan Coogler. We gaze...
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Regina King sat down for a conversation for Variety’s Actors on Actors. For more, click here. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s obsession with one talented student has disastrous consequences in “The Kindergarten Teacher,” a disturbing drama that was the talk...
Viggo Mortensen (“Green Book”) and Chadwick Boseman (“Black Panther”) believe their films have more in common than meets the eye. Mortensen plays a racist driver in a drama set in the segregated South, while Boseman dons a vibranium suit in the Marvel tentpole as...
by Dino-Ray Ramos | Deadline Hollywood Filmmaker Akin Omotoso’s latest film Vaya first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016 to critical praise and continued to make its rounds around the festival circuit and earned him the Africa Movie Academy...
by Monique Jones | Shadow and Act If you’re tired of Halloween celebrations that are all pumpkins, candy and costumes over the truly spooky, these 13 Black horror films will put the fear back into your holiday. 1. Blacula Every Black horror film binge should...
by Jordan Simon | Shadow and Act With Halloween approaching, now is a great time to remind what kinds of costumes are inappropriate and downright unacceptable. In the words of Dear White People’s Sam Logan, a list of acceptable costumes includes “pirates,...
The Cosby Prison Sentence: Working While Black by Yasmin Shiraz | Black TV Film Crew Today I heard a colleague rejoice, celebrate, pump her fists, give a high five, do everything but dance in the end zone when she heard that Bill Cosby had been sentenced to three to...
…Pay Parity, Licking Arsenio, and Why Emmys and Oscars Are Overrated By Debra Birnbaum | Variety “More work! More work, and more sleep.”’ That’s what on Tiffany Haddish’s agenda for the rest of 2018, which has already been a tear for the comedian. She’s been on...
By Cynthia Littleton | Variety Prolific producer Will Packer has set up a TV, digital and branded content production venture with Discovery Communications and Universal Pictures. As part of the deal, Will Packer Media will have a first-look programming pact with OWN,...
by Monique Jones | Shadow and Act Set production on the Kasi Lemmons-directed Harriet has started, prompting new criticisms of Cynthia Erivo, who has been cast as Harriet Tubman. According to Deadline, the film will focus on Tubman’s life, including her time as...
Olivia Munn and Keegan-Michael Key teach you Japanese and Detroit slang words. Olivia and Keegan-Michael star in The Predator, out in theaters September...
‘Farming’ director and star Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, along with co-stars Kate Beckinsale, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Damson Idris, visit IMDb at Toronto. READ...
from Variety Variety is pleased to announce its annual list of 10 Actors to Watch, an honor the publication has bestowed since 1998. Past honorees include many future Oscar winners and nominees, such as Mahershala Ali, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer,...
By Daniel Holloway | Variety Atop the coffee table inside the house where Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Prods. lives sit some very on-brand periodicals — titles like Heavy Metal, Fangoria and Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone Magazine. The Twilight Zone issue is a gem. It not...
By Erin Nyren and Christi Carras | Variety “Black Panther” actor Sterling K. Brown is torn about the Academy Awards’ new popular film category. At an FYC event for “This Is Us” at Paramount Studios, Brown, who played N’Jobu in the Marvel blockbuster, told Variety his...
By Kristopher Tapley | Variety Nearly a decade ago, the controversial best-picture snub of superhero hit “The Dark Knight” sparked the motion picture Academy to action. In an attempt to stoke the Oscar odds for populist cinema and to be more inclusive, the...
Colin Jost and Michael Che give each other a lie detector test for Vanity Fair. Is Colin funny because deep down he’s miserable? Does Colin think he’s better than Michael cause he went to Harvard? Does Michael think he knows New York City better than...
…Women and Minorities Aren’t Getting Better Movie Roles (Study) By Brent Lang | Variety Time’s Up and #MeToo is dominating the talk in Hollywood, and not an awards show nor a red carpet interview seems to take place these days without filmmakers and...
By Daniel Holloway | Variety Netflix will not be streaming a controversial documentary about Louis Farrakhan. A company spokesperson on Tuesday said that reports that the streaming service would add the documentary “My Life’s Journey Through Music” next month were the...
Venezia 75 Competition An international competition comprising a maximum of 20 feature-length films, presented as world premieres. (There are 21 this year) The Mountain, dir: Rick Alverson Doubles Vies, dir: Olivier Assayas The Sisters Brothers, dir: Jacques Audiard...
Wiz Khalifa takes a lie detector test for Vanity Fair. Does he really spend $10K a month on weed? Who smokes more, Wiz Khalifa or Snoop Dogg? Does he like Biggie more than Tupac? Does he believe in free will? Rolling Papers 2 will be out on July 13th....
By Maane Khatchatourian | Variety The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited a record number of new members, extending invites to 928 people. The Academy topped last year’s record of 774 new members. It invited 683 members in 2016 and 322 in 2015,...
by David Robb | Deadline Hollywood Saying that discrimination is “still rampant” in the film industry, the DGA today released its second report on Feature Film Diversity, which found that only 9.7% of live-action American films with box office takes of at least...
John Legend knew Tiffany Haddish was destined for stardom the minute he saw her act at a comedy club. “I told [my wife] Chrissy [Teigen], ‘I feel like she’s gonna be famous,’” Legend said. Legend and Haddish were among the stars who sat down to chat for Variety...
ESPN News Services Jack Johnson, the first black man to become world heavyweight champion, was posthumously pardoned Thursday by President Donald Trump for a 1913 conviction for violating the Mann Act. Trump had said in April that he was considering the pardon after...
Cannes Day 2: Coogler, Black Cinema And Cannes I shared a moment yesterday on my Instagram story feed. It showed me in shock as filmmaker Ryan Coogler, his wife and the Cannes Film Festival Assistant assigned to them, casually walk right by me inside the world famous...
Exclusive: Samuel L Jackson InterviewAt 69, Samuel L Jackson is looking good. He’s softly spoken for the most part, with a voice that’s instantly recognizable. He’s also, of course, one of the biggest movie stars on earth. But it’s been a long...
Erika Alexander Talks About Her New Production Company And How It’s Expanding The Definition Of Diversity InclusionIt was thirty years in the making. “I always felt since I started in the business that there weren’t enough roles for black people,...
Lena Waithe On ‘Ready Player One’ And Getting To Talk About ‘The Color Purple’ With Steven SpielbergLena Waithe is like your laid-back homie. That’s why portraying Aech in : So, : Oooh, which one did I like… I liked the samurai who...
from Shadow and Act Black Panther is a game-changer for the film industry. In a recent viral thread on Twitter, actor and playwright, Dylan Marron reintroduced a video series he produced a few years ago called Every Little Word. The series runs through major films and...
by Dino-Ray Ramos | Deadline Hollywood Talking about race, comedy, and storytelling first thing in the morning is quite a way to kick things off. On day 2 of SXSW, socio-political comedian & United Shades of America host W. Kamau Bell, activist &...
…Is Unlike Any Other Marvel Movie By Brent Lang and Ricardo Lopez | Variety When SuCh Charles, a 32-year-old singer and songwriter from Denver, saw a trailer for “Black Panther,” she was moved to organize an event to bring together Denver’s black community. She...
by Mike Fleming Jr | Deadline Hollywood To make his directorial debut on an adaptation of Yardie, the 1992 Victor Headley novel about the collision of Jamaican culture in London, Idris Elba put into it many of the pieces of his life and career. The career spans his...
Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya finds his face on billboards on Sunset Boulevard, but his focus is set on telling stories with meaning and truth Patrick Shanley | Hollywood Reporter Since the release of Jordan Peele’s racial satire Get Out, the face of Daniel Kaluuya —...
Tambay Obenson | Shadow and Act Film directors are still overwhelmingly white and male, according to a University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report published Thursday, January 5, 2018. Titled Inclusion in the Director’s Chair, the new year...
Bert Ashe | Shadow and Act It’s not a position anyone can apply for. The appointment comes by black cultural acclimation, and the holder—Mr. Denzel Washington—will be in that position until someone somehow becomes more beloved than he is. The spot is valuable, no...
by Mike Fleming Jr | Deadline Hollywood Today, Entertainment Studios has broadened its awards season release of Hostiles, the Scott Cooper-directed Western that stars Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike and Wes Studi. It is the biggest prestige film play so far for...
Tambay Obenson | Shadow and Act When asked about the future of his hit BBC series Luther 2 years ago, at what was supposed to be its end, star of the popular crime drama Idris Elba said the following during a press conference: “I’m far from done....
Timothee Chalamet (“Call Me By Your Name”) and Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out”) sat down for a chat for Variety’s “Actors on Actors,” where they talked about their movies’ pivotal scenes, on-screen chemistry, and...
Variety and PBS SoCal KOCE’s Emmy Award-winning show “Variety Studio: Actors on Actors,” presented by Google Home, is approaching its seventh season, bringing together some of the biggest stars for conversations about their perspectives on their latest works....
Dino-Ray Ramos | Deadline Hollywood During the Q&A portion of the closing keynote conversation with Dee Rees at the Film Independent Forum, an aspiring filmmaker stepped up to the microphone and, through tears, expressed gratitude to the acclaimed director for...
Dino-Ray Ramos | Deadline Hollywood When the teaser trailers for Jordan Peele’s Get Out first came out, question marks hovered over its mysterious plot points. Fortunately, keeping the narrative about the stylized take on the victimization of black people and “the...
Aramide A. Tinubu | Shadow & Act Robinne Lee won’t wait for someone to hand her an opportunity. Instead, she’s created a space for herself. The veteran actress, writer, and producer is demanding to be heard. It’s early morning in Los Angeles, and Lee is...
