Category: 5. Entertainment

Born Ruffians frontman Luke Lalonde found inspiration for the band’s latest album title during a trip to India. Riding a borrowed purple children’s bike adorned with a Disney princess and the words “Beauty’s Pride,” Lalonde couldn’t get the phrase out of his head.

The album, also called Beauty’s Pride, was written largely while Lalonde prepared for the birth of his first child.

“Your heart expands, like the Grinch,” he says. “It doesn’t push any other love out. It just grows to accept more.”

Now, nearly two decades into their career, the Toronto indie rock band is still growing. In this session, Lalonde joins us to talk about making Beauty’s Pride, which marks a new sonic direction for Born Ruffians.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

When Bill Lawrence and his Shrinking co-creators were writing the show’s second season, they knew that casting the part of Louis — the drunk driver who killed the wife of Jason Segel’s Jimmy — was going to be extremely difficult. Segel suggested tapping Brett Goldstein, but Lawrence was resistant. “I kept thinking, ‘He’s known as [Ted Lasso’s] Roy Kent, and he’s too gruff,’ ” says the showrunner. He eventually agreed to let Goldstein take on the role on one condition: that he shave his signature facial hair to make the character, a pivotal element of the season-two plotline, more vulnerable. “I called Brett up
and said, ‘If you think you can do this, you should, but if you screw it up, you’re going to ruin the show and it’s going to get canceled,’ ” Lawrence recalls with a laugh. “In the end I thought he just killed it, and I was so proud of him, and now I’m annoyed that his casting wasn’t my idea.”

Shrinking did not get canceled; it received nine Emmy nominations, including its first for outstanding comedy series. Here, the perennially busy showrunner took a break from working on the third season (and the development of the Scrubs reboot, and the fourth season of Ted Lasso, and the development of an upcoming untitled HBO series) to break down what made a difference on their sophomore effort. 

Harrison Ford got his first Emmy nomination for this season; do you feel like you learned anything about how to write for him from the first season?

One of the cheat sheets to successful streaming television is, at least for me, working with actors with whom I’ve worked before. Like Jason or my wife [Christa Miller]. We didn’t know Harrison personally, so we originally wrote him as a very serious guy. As he grew to trust us, we realized he was game for anything, and that freed us up to write stuff for him that we normally wouldn’t. I also noticed how vulnerable and emotional he was, that he made stuff sad even when we didn’t put that in the script. Like the Thanksgiving dinner speech in the season-two finale; he could have delivered that matter-of-fact, and it would have worked. We shot everyone’s reactions to him simultaneously, and a lot of those emotional reactions were real. It was a super poignant moment — and I’m a hard, cynical dude, so I got surprised by it. 

I’m surprised to hear you describe yourself as such.

I mean that in terms of, I don’t really get surprised on TV sets anymore. It’s why I love having young writers around, because they still get that wow factor. I’m the luckiest guy on the planet, and I’m super grateful to get to do this, but one of the things that comes from getting your 10,000 hours in something is you don’t expect to be surprised. When you are, it’s revelatory.

How hard was it, logistically, to pull together that scene — with your entire cast in one room at the same time?

It can be self-indulgent to direct your own show, but one of the reasons I directed that one is I knew I was the only one who was allowed to ask certain things of the cast for that. It was a giant room of thespians, but the whole scene was in service to Harrison’s speech. And it’s a nightmare for a crew to be like, “We’re going to shoot eight pages at one location and there are 17 actors.” But it was worth it. 

This season has a lot of guest stars. Do you write your ideal actors into the script?

We’ll often write one draft where the character isn’t too specific, and then we’ll go to Candice Bergen or Damon Wayans — the second they say yes, even before the ink is dry, we’ll do a pass for their voice. But I also wrestle with some of the casting, like maybe I shouldn’t have the guy who played the janitor on Scrubs be on Shrinking, or my wife on Shrinking, or now I have Jamie Tartt from Ted Lasso [Phil Dunster] as one of the male leads on the new Steve Carell show. But also, if you think someone is talented and you like spending time with them, then you would be silly not to keep hiring them. 

Did you go through that same process for the character of Louis, played by Brett Goldstein?

No, because once it was Brett, then all the writing was for him. And at the end of the day, he’s going to do that role the way he wants too, since he’s a creator too. I don’t like it when people have a bigger vote than me because I’m a control freak, so that drove me a little insane.

Are you used to writing and showrunning for the cadence of streaming networks by now? 

Whether I’m doing 26 episodes of Scrubs or 10 episodes of the Steve Carell show, I have always found a way to be completely behind schedule. I don’t know how I do it. I don’t have the energy of a young writer anymore. They kick me out of the writer’s room in the evenings now — I get grumpy, so they’re like, why don’t you just come back in the morning and see what we did? But one thing I’m going to watch really closely is The Pitt. I’m a huge fan of that show, and I love how quickly they seem to be turning it around. As a fan, I can get bummed out when there’s a huge gap between seasons. We’re starting to shoot the second season of Bad Monkey in a few weeks, and it was such a summer beach read last year, I wish the seasons were closer together.

Shrinking gained a lot of momentum despite the large gap between seasons, do you think there’s a secret to that success?

There are a few things. You gain a toehold into who the actors and actresses are, and the show gets stronger for it. The best example in Shrinking is Michael Urie. By the time the second season was starting, we’d seen him on Broadway in Once Upon a Mattress and the whole world was learning how dynamic he is. So the show got better by us realizing the sort of lines we could give him. I’ve also learned that the shows I like the most have a true beginning, middle and end. We’re planning on doing a fourth season, knock on wood, and we know that if we started that season and Jason Segel’s character was like, I’ve been thinking about it and I’m still really sad about my wife, people would be like wait you already told that exact story. They need to feel like the characters are going on new adventures.

This is truly no shade to The Bear because I still find it compelling, but that’s sort of what is happening with Carmen’s storyline.

I swear, I’m not trying to slam it either! Here’s one of the ways we look at things: We’re rebooting Scrubs, and I don’t get to work on it a ton because I’m at Warner Brothers and it’s a Disney show, but a lot of the original writers and cast got to help out on the pilot. One of the first things Zach Braff said was, I cannot be a 50-year-old doing the same things. I have to be older, I have to be more mature. I remember once during like the eighth season of the original show, a journalist asking Zach how do you think your character has changed since the first year? He goes, I think I have a beard now. Television can’t do that anymore.

Can you tell us anything about the new season of Shrinking?

Right now our biggest goal is just locking it all down and making sure we get to make the show with the same cast. This is a business and these guys are all so good that they have one thousand options. But one of the best things for us is it starts from the top. I was excited to talk to you today specifically, because I saw Apple posted that video of Harrison on his birthday on set. What I’m assuming is going to happen is that we figure it out sooner rather than later and then we’ll get Brett, me and Jason together to go talk to Harrison and the gang and say, here’s the story, I hope you’re up for signing up for it. We hope everyone’s game for doing another one.

Can you envision what the endgame of the show will be?

The way we approach Shrinking is that we know Jason’s character’s journey, which is grief, forgiveness and moving forward. That’s a three-season tale. But if you’re asking me, “What are the next three seasons going to be?” Well, they’re therapists, and just because you’ve gotten over the biggest stick in the spokes of your life doesn’t mean there’s no more pathos. We intentionally put these people in a world that brings all of that to their doorstep, so there’s always more story to tell. We definitely put some Easter eggs into the third season that will allow people to see what’s coming. 

This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Cate Blanchett is no stranger to playing complicated, misunderstood women. But in Apple TV+’s “Disclaimer,” Alfonso Cuaron’s seven-part series about a documentarian whose deepest, darkest secrets come to light in a novel written by an unreliable narrator, the two-time Academy Award winner, and now three-time Emmy nominee, was tasked with embodying an embattled woman who loses control of her own story.

“The challenge for me, and I suppose the painful reality, was that when you play a central character in a narrative, you invite an audience not necessarily to have empathy with you, but you invite them into your character’s point of view,” Blanchett says from her home in London. “Disclaimer” was the “antithesis” of that conventional wisdom, forcing Blanchett to sit in others’ snap judgments of her character, Catherine Ravenscroft, until she finally reclaims her story in the harrowing finale.

“I, as an actor and as a character, was put inside a very small box that was slowly having the air squeezed out of it until I finally got to speak,” explains Blanchett. “Alfonso has impeccable judgment, but there was a conversation at one point where a certain scene wasn’t going to be in the final edit. And I said, ‘I think it’s really important that the people hear that perspective, because we’ve asked them to sit through Catherine’s silence. She has to say why she didn’t speak. Otherwise, we are robbing the audience of the full stop.’”

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuarón approached Blanchett about collaborating on an adaptation of Renée Knight’s 2015 novel, which he had read before making “Roma.” It would be expanded into seven episodes — or, as the filmmaker likes to put it, seven “chapters.” After signing on as the star and an executive producer, Blanchett became heavily involved in each step of the production. But, much like the audience, the actor found herself being confronted with her “own immediate judgments of characters’ motivations.”

“Alfonso was really engaged in the fact that there’s this war at the moment — and it does feel like a battle, actually — for a singular truth, which I think is a really dangerous and rather pointless exercise, because truth is such a complex thing,” Blanchett says. “We all know it’s made up of so many different perspectives, and the ones that we lean into are often the most pre-digested, pre-masticated ones that are really easy to swallow and somehow make us feel like we’re good people and the guardians of all knowledge and morality. We don’t like those truths that make us feel uncomfortable about ourselves.”

“Disclaimer” specifically forces viewers to confront their own biases and the cultural vilification of so-called “bad” women. “I think if you go back and watch it a second time, there’s a crude picture of Catherine that the people were assembling for themselves that didn’t have a lot to do with who she was or what she did, or the impact that she was having in the room,” says Blanchett.

The truth was hiding in plain sight. For the first six episodes, viewers were led to believe that Catherine, while vacationing in Italy years earlier, had initiated a self-absorbed affair with a 19-year-old stranger named Jonathan (Louis Partridge), who ultimately died after saving Catherine’s young son from drowning in the ocean.

In the finale, Catherine finally confronts Jonathan’s father, Stephen (Kevin Kline), whose late wife, Nancy (Lesley Manville), had written the novel based on a false perception of her son’s final days. But what really happened was that the night before his death, Jonathan had broken into Catherine’s hotel room, forced her to pose for nude photographs, and then violently sexually assaulted her.

“I think to know that you were moving through and unpicking an audience’s often intractable judgments of what had gone on was a profound relief,” says Blanchett, who recalls feeling markedly lighter after shooting that extended, 40-page monologue all in one take.

The devastating final twist was a secret that Blanchett fought to keep, even if it made press next to impossible. “There are many tangential conversations I would’ve loved to have had about what happens when you sit with abuse, and the various different ways that people bury this [trauma],” she says. “The courage that it takes still in this day and age to stand up and say it, even after you’ve been sitting on that shame, and the attendant shame that comes for people who are victims of abuse — I feel like it would’ve been great to use the series in a way as a launchpad to talk about that stuff. You can’t make that stuff happen, but I’ve had quite a few people stop me in the proverbial supermarket to talk about that.”

While she is most renowned for headlining films, Blanchett says she is “absolutely” looking to venture further into television. In 2020, she earned her first two Emmy nominations for FX’s “Mrs. America,” as both an actor and producer. Having always been actively involved in the development of a show, she is now “particularly keen” to join a series “that is fully formed.”

Blanchett may get her wish sooner rather than later. Last year, she filmed a top-secret cameo for the final scene of Netflix’s “Squid Game,” in which she played an unnamed American recruiter who the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) acknowledges and sees playing ddakji with a homeless man in a back alley. The offer “came out of the blue,” and Blanchett was given little context.

“Because it’s such a cult series and they were shooting in L.A. of all places, everyone was on a need-to-know basis,” she recalls. She didn’t even do a costume fitting; the production asked her to bring her own suit. “I got a couple of storyboards. I had to [learn to] play the game very quickly. I had to practice and practice. I knew there were four or five setups that they were going to do, and I knew what they needed from every shot, and then I was given the sides. But it was one of the more mysterious jobs.”

The surprise casting of a movie star of Blanchett’s caliber suggests that Netflix is exploring new ways to keep the IP alive. Does this mean she is open to leading a potential English-language spinoff or sequel to “Squid Game”?

“I am wildly open to anything,” Blanchett says, leaning back in her chair with a smirk. “And in a world that is so beautifully, magically created like that, for sure. They’re amazing world-builders, and that series has been eaten alive. I don’t think there’s a corner of the globe that it hasn’t touched in some way.”

While there has been speculation that David Fincher, Blanchett’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” director, has pitched an English-language series set in the “Squid Game” universe, Blanchett doesn’t have an answer. “I mean, I’d love to work with David again. It’s been ages. But no, I don’t know anything more than you do. I’m not being coy. I really don’t.”

Throughout her career, Blanchett insists she has always been more interested in choosing her various collaborators than playing a specific kind of character, and “Disclaimer” was no different. “I guess that’s why I’ve played characters big and small in lots of different genres,” she says. “It’s more access to different audiences that I am really interested in, because you catch an audience on a different rhythm when they’re at home watching something, or when they’re on the train watching something on a smaller screen, or when they’ve come to the theater. In the end, what I seek is that different connection with them.”

Swiss filmmaker Fabrice Aragno (“Dimanche”) who served as Jean-Luc Godard’s multi-faceted collaborator and creative confidant for the better part of two decades, heads to Locarno for the world premiere of his latest feature “The Lake” (“Le Lac”). 

It competes for Locarno’s top Golden Leopard in the fest’s main International Competition, bowing on Aug. 14.

Turning the minutia of life’s fleeting encounters into displays of visceral emotion, the project sees the filmmaker surrender further to the scene. Unburdened from heavy dialogue, the landscapes speak volumes and the middle-aged protagonists are left stoic, only their heavy expressions and agile frames holding the space between the tangible and divine as they handle a rugged five-day sailing race on a large lake.

“I entered the world of cinema because I see it, and feel it, as an art form at the crossroads of painting and photography (the image), music (sound and silence), dance (movement) and poetry (for the silence it also evokes). It seems to be the ideal art form for expressing the inexpressible,” Aragno told Variety.

“Before using words, I see an image that can be 12 metres wide and six metres high, with eight audio tracks, and darkness, and silence. The fact that we can bring in captured reality and turn it into a composition, that we can film faces like landscapes and landscapes like characters, I leave room for that. Everything is over-said, decried, crushed by words and knowledge — that we no longer see. It’s not bad to allow time to think without dictation,” he adds.

An artist who believes in serendipity, Aragno admits the project built over time as opportunities gave way to the narrative structure of the film. Ideas and relationships flourished, coaxing him to fully develop the project.

“In 2013, I had the opportunity to create a video work for a major exhibition in Switzerland that brought together painters who’d painted Lake Geneva. From Turner to Courbet, Vallotton, and even Dürer. They wanted to include filmmakers, and therefore Jean-Luc Godard,” he explained.

“Working on these paintings and facing the majestic lake, I was struck by the contrast between what it expresses through what we see (here, through the prism of the painters’ sensibilities) and what it resonates within us, in our invisible interiors. I found this relationship surprising. I called the video work I was doing ‘The Invisible’ precisely because feelings, which are invisible, are expressed by what we see in front of us, the ‘visible’ of the lake and its visible variations, of our invisibilities. I then thought it would be interesting to really go into this visible realm to express our invisible feelings,” he continued.

The scenic appeal is undeniable, nature’s majestic prose both frames and dwarfs the tumultuous affectations of the characters. Electric rose gold sunsets play opposite mystifying fog-laden mountain ranges and dense clouds that harbor torrential downpours, while French actress Clotilde Courau (“In The Shadow of Women”) and Swiss professional sailor, Bernard Stamm, brave inward storms with unshakeable grace. 

The director speaks to the breadth of their talents with vigor, having met Courau at Locarno 10 years ago, and admits his leads made a compelling duo in the film — which counts on their prowess to assist the images they sail through.

“They found each other, rediscovered each other, in front of our cameras! Neither actress nor sailor, but two beings, alone, together, caught up in the torments of life, of time, of the loss of things, the return of the essentials,” he relayed.

“The Lake” is produced by Casa Azul Films, who represent world sales. It is co-produced by public broadcaster Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS).

Dana Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, will receive the 2025 International Emmy Founders Award at the 53rd International Emmy Awards gala in New York on Nov. 24.

The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the honor Monday, citing Walden’s “transformative impact” on the industry and the global reach of the series she has overseen during her career.

“Dana Walden’s contributions to entertainment are truly remarkable, having shaped the creation and success of numerous iconic and award-winning television series,” said Academy president and CEO Bruce L. Paisner. “Her leadership, first as CEO of Fox Television Group and now as co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, has played a pivotal role in influencing the global industry. We are delighted to recognize her exceptional work and lasting impacts with the Founders Award.”

Walden called the honor “an extraordinary privilege,” crediting her collaborators. “I’ve worked with some of the most talented creators and executives in the world — people who care deeply about storytelling and its power to connect audiences across the globe,” she said. “This recognition reflects their passion and dedication, and I am very proud of what we’ve accomplished together.”

At Disney, Walden oversees the company’s global portfolio of entertainment media, news and content businesses, sharing oversight of Disney+ and Hulu along with technology and ad sales. Disney+ now operates in more than 150 countries and 40 languages. In 2024, the company received 60 Emmy Awards, breaking the record for the most wins in a single year by one company.

Before joining Disney, Walden was CEO of Fox Television Group, where she led Fox Broadcasting Company from fourth to first place in the ratings. She has overseen the production and development of series including 24, Abbott Elementary, The Americans, American Horror Story, American Idol, The Bear, Dancing with the Stars, Family Guy, Glee, Grey’s Anatomy, Homeland, The Kardashians, Modern Family, Only Murders in the Building, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Shōgun, The Simpsons and This Is Us.

Past recipients of the Founders Award include Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, J.J. Abrams, Jesse Armstrong, Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy and David E. Kelley.

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EXCLUSIVE: Following word this past spring that a package was coming together for a Rambo prequel, Millennium Media looks to have its man as sources tell Deadline that Noah Centineo is attached to star in John Rambo. Sisu director Jalmari Helander is set to direct from a screenplay by writing duo Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani.

Sources say that the package still has a couple of hurdles to overcome, but things are headed in the right direction with hopes to shoot in the fall in Thailand. Insiders also add that while no deals are in place, Lionsgate is the front-runner to land the package. The studio has released the past two Rambo pics and also has a relationship with Helander having worked with him on Sisu.

The film’s plot is under wraps, but it will be the origin story of a young John Rambo during the Vietnam War. One of the most iconic action heroes in U.S. cinema, the character was created by David Morell in his novel First Blood. The original 1982 film saw saw Sylvester Stallone play the veteran Green Beret, who is forced by a cruel sheriff and his deputies to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers. The five movies in the franchise have generated more than $800 million worldwide; the most recent, 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood, produced by Millennium and Sly’s Balboa, made $92M at the box office.

As for Stallone, when Deadline first reported on the package, insiders told Deadline he was aware of the project but was not involved, and as of today that remains the same. Sources now say that Stallone has been alerted to Centineo’s attachment.

Producers on the latest installment are Kevin King-Templeton on behalf of Templeton Media, Les Weldon, Jonathan Yunger and Avi Lerner. Executive producers include Trevor Short and Bonfire Legends’ Dallas Sonnier and Amanda Presmyk.

As for Centineo, his star has been on the rise after breakout roles in the Netflix hit series To All the Boys I Loved Before and The Recruit, but this is sort of role that could launch a young star onto the A-list. Up next, he will star as Ken Masters in Legendary’s live-action adaptation of Street Fighter, starring opposite Jason Momoa and Andrew Koji. Directed by Kitao Sakurai, the film is slated for release in 2026.

Most recently, Centineo appeared in A24’s Warfare from Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, as well as in Oscar Boyson’s directorial debut Our Hero, Balthazar, which he also produced under his Arkhum banner. The latter premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Centineo is repped by WME and Myman Greenspan Fox.

The first trailer for 20th Century Studios’ upcoming biopic movie “Swiped” has been revealed. The film will have its debut on Sept. 19 on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in other territories. 

“Swiped” introduces recent college grad Whitney Wolfe Herd, played by Lily James, as she uses grit and ingenuity to break into the male-dominated tech industry and launch an innovative, globally lauded dating app. The film will follow the rise of the online dating platform Bumble, and Wolfe’s journey to becoming the youngest female self-made billionaire. “Swiped” will touch on Wolfe’s time at Tinder as a co-founder, and the moments leading up to Bumble going public in 2021.

The film also stars Jackson White, Myha’la, Ben Schnetzer, Pierson Fodé, Clea DuVall, Pedro Correa, Ian Colleti, Coral Peña, Dan Stevens, Larkin Woodward, Ana Yi Puig, Olivia Rose Keegan, Joley Fisher, and Gabe Kessler.

“Swiped” is directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg (“Unplanned,” “Minx,” “Valley Girl”) and is written by Goldberg, Bill Parker, and Kim Caramele. The film is produced by James, Jennifer Gibiot, Andrew Panay, Gala Gordon, and Sarah Shepard. 20th Century Studios and Ethea Entertainment are producing the film, with Hulu set to distribute. The film will be scored by Chanda Dancy. Doug Emmett will serve as the film’s cinematographer, with Julia Wong as editor.

“Swiped” is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Gala Presentations section, and will have its world premiere on Sept. 9. 

Watch the trailer for 20th Century Studios’ “Swiped” below.