By Manori Ravindran | Variety In June 2020, amid the global Black Lives Matter movement, a three-page open letter began circulating across the U.K. film and TV industry with four commands from its signatories: Banish your weak excuses, be more demanding, expand your...
Jenelle Riley | Variety Aunjanue Ellis is aware she’s having a bit of a career renaissance. The talented actor has been consistently delivering great performances in films like 2002’s “Undercover Brother,” 2004’s “Ray” and 2018’s “If Beale Street Could Talk.” But in...
Angelique Jackson | Variety Over the next two years, Jonathan Majors will play a cowboy, a flyboy, a boxer and Marvel’s newest supervillain. With a resume that includes working with Spike Lee and earning a lead actor Emmy nod for “Lovecraft Country,” it’s hard to...
K.J. Yossman | Variety Jeymes Samuel was inspired to make his Western-themed feature debut “The Harder They Fall” after growing up watching genre flicks on BBC One and feeling disappointed by the way they depicted women and people of color. Samuel, who grew up on...
By Jenelle Riley | Variety Variety has announced its 10 Actors to Watch for 2021, an honor the publication has bestowed since 1998. Past honorees include many future Oscar winners and nominees including Mahershala Ali, Timothée Chalamet, Viola Davis, Adam Driver, Brie...
by Niko Rose | Shadow and Act Singer and actor Tyrese Gibson may be a heartthrob and pinnacle, but his recent Instagram post states Hollywood thought otherwise. Tyrese originally took to social media to talk about his experience with colorism. In a later interview...
By Cynthia Littleton | Variety In the 1980s, it took Stanley Nelson seven years to make “Two Dollars and a Dream: The Story of Madame C.J. Walker,” his first documentary film. It took him another seven years to make his second feature doc: “The Black Press: Soldiers...
Chris Williman | Variety Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, singer-actor Bette Midler, Motown chief Berry Gordy, “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels and opera singer Justino Díaz will be feted when the 44th Kennedy Center Honors take place in Washington, D.C....
By Elaine Low | Variety Netflix and Shonda Rhimes are extending their creative relationship, inked in 2017, beyond television to feature films and gaming. Under the terms of the expanded deal, which encompasses Rhimes’ Shondaland Media and her longtime producing...
Angelique Jackson | Variety Filmmaker Dee Rees made history on June 29 when her debut feature “Pariah” joined the Criterion Collection, making the Oscar and Emmy nominee the first Black American woman to have her work included. Before Rees, Euzhan Palcy, who is from...
by Michael Appler | Variety The question of work — who gets it and who doesn’t — has driven the Hollywood zeitgeist for years, from #MeToo to recent reckonings over race and equity. At the Tribeca Festival in New York City on Wednesday, Emmy winner Lena Waithe, her...
DESCRIPTION Regé-Jean Page (“Bridgerton”) and Emma Corrin (“The Crown”) sat down for a virtual chat for Variety‘s Actors on Actors. For more, click here. Thanks to Netflix’s “Bridgerton,” Regé-Jean Page became an overnight sensation as a heartthrob, and his work as...