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The new Theatre Royal Bath production of Grace Pervades by David Hare, starring Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison, is transferring to London. Grace Pervades will make its West End debut at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from April 2026, with exact dates to be confirmed. The production will be produced by Theatre Royal Bath Productions, Len Blavatnik and Danny Cohen for Access Entertainment and Second Half Productions. The world premiere of Grace Pervades took place at Theatre Royal Bath in June and July 2025. David Hare's new play stars Ralph Fiennes...

The three news stories ran back to back last week but only one stirred much attention. One story warned that both NPR and PBS are facing a dire squeeze, even extinction, due to funding cutbacks. A second disclosed new data revealing YouTube’s more dominant share of TV viewership (are Emmys next?). The third revealed that the New York Times was about to replace four of its most prominent culture critics.

The critics story might have received further attention in a more alert pop culture but it was essentially buried, suggesting that some Times readers felt there wasn’t anything worth criticizing.

The formidable climb of YouTube in audience and influence has indeed startled the pop culture universe. Even Netflix’s content factory is now licensing the very YouTube creators whom audiences once disdained as amateurs.

YouTube and Netflix together account for 20% of TV viewing – news that would seemingly rivet advertiser attention.

Exclusive: Sean Kaufman (The Summer I Turned Pretty) and Adam Silver (The Diplomat) are new additions to Other Mommy, director Rob Savage’s supernatural horror film for Universal and Atomic Monster that yesterday announced eight-year-old Arabella Olivia Clark as its lead.

Character details are under wraps. As previously announced, Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass and Dichen Lachman will also star.

Based on the book Incidents Around the House by Bird Box‘s Josh Malerman, Other Mommy centers on eight-year-old Bela (Clark), who lives in a home strained by her parents’ troubled marriage, only to see her life further upended by a sinister entity she calls “Other Mommy.” When this malevolent presence emerges from her closet, persistently asking “Can I go inside your heart?”, Bela refuses. But soon, Other Mommy’s manifestations become increasingly aggressive, threatening the safety of Bela’s family.

The film is being produced for Universal by Atomic Monster...

Independent Brit agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, which represents a number of big name writers, directors, literary properties and heads of department, had appointed Jodi Shields to the newly-created role of chairwoman with overall responsibility for the company.

Tracy Brimm, who joined the agency in 2018 as creative affairs executive, will expand her role to include the position of head of film and television.

Casarotto’s longtime head Jenne Casarotto passed away in February 2024 at the age of 77 following a short illness. The agency’s managing director Anna Higgs left the company four months later after only a year.

Shields is a three-time veteran of the London-based company, having previously overseen its film and TV business. As chair, she will serve as the strategic lead, working closely with COO Ian Devlin, head of theatre Mel Kenyon, the board of directors, heads of department and the advisory board. Casarotto said that the...

Stalwart UK lit agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates has appointed leading agent Jodi Shields to the position of Chairwoman with overall responsibility for the company.

Following three decades at the firm, most recently overseeing the film and TV business, Shields now takes on the newly created role.

Tracy Brimm, who joined in 2018 as Creative Affairs Executive will expand her role to include the position of Head of Film and Television.

As Chairwoman, Shields will serve as the strategic lead, working closely with COO Ian Devlin, Head of Theatre Mel Kenyon, the board of directors, heads of department and the advisory board. The role aims to shape the company’s long-term vision and “ensure that the values of the independent agency continue to grow and evolve”. Alongside her tenure as Chairwoman, she will continue her work as a senior agent.

Shields joined the company in 1998, nine years after it was founded...

A Quadruple Feature On February 20, 2024, Sony Pictures released the news that they were undertaking what may very well be revolutionary in the world of cinema in this, the Information Age. Sir Sam Mendes Cbe made his name in the theatre originally, with a signature darker aesthetic on beloved classic musicals with his 1993 revival of 'Cabaret', 1994 revival of 'Oliver!', and 2003 revival of 'Gypsy'. It was the former two productions that first intrigued Steven Spielberg with Mendes, and why Spielberg- whose company DreamWorks had bought Alan Ball’s script for 'American Beauty'- hired Sam Mendes to direct the film, winning Mendes the Best Directing Oscar for this, his film debut, springboarding a career of consistently brilliant films. It’s this kind of record that has apparently imbued Sony with the confidence to back this historic project. The Sony press release reads as follows: “As conceived by Mendes,...

Exclusive: Keeley Hawes and key cast are on board Miss Austen Returns, a follow-up to Masterpiece period drama Miss Austen, and which is in the works from Bonnie Productions.

Miss Austen was adapted from Gill Hornby’s novel of the same name. Christine Langan, whose Bonnie Productions made the series, tells Deadline that Hornby’s recently published follow-up, ‘The Elopement’, forms the spine of a new series Bonnie is working up with the title Miss Austen Returns.

Miss Austen writer Andrea Gibb is currently penning scripts. As with the earlier series, the show is expected to be a co-production with Masterpiece in association with Federation Stories and the BBC, which showed the first series in the UK.

With the new drama, plus Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Berlin Film Festival competition title Hot Milk and Miss Austen already under its belt, Bonnie has worked up notable credits in film and TV. It was founded in 2020 by Langan,...

The UK’s Data (Use and Access) Bill has finally passed through parliament without the protections for creatives that key industry figures and their House of Lords backers were hoping to secure.

The bill was introduced by the government to parliament in October of last year and covers a range of data regulations with an aim to “unlock the secure and effective use of data for the public interest, without adding pressures to the country’s finances”.

The sticking point for the creative industries was the fear that it would allow tech companies to train AI on copyrighted material, without...

Tom Cruise has spoken for the first time about how he suggested to Stanley Kubrick that his then wife Nicole Kidman star opposite him in 1999s Eyes Wide Shut “because obviously she’s a great actress.”

The actor makes the rare public acknowledgement of Kidman’s thespian abilities in the May issue of Sight and Sound, the film magazine published by the British Film Institute.

Cruise will be honoured by the BFI on Monday with the awarding of a distinguished BFI Fellowship.

He joins the ranks of other BFI Fellows including giants of the calibre of David Lean, Bette Davis, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Thelma Schoonmaker, Derek Jarman, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson, Spike Lee and Christopher Nolan.

The actor-impresario will also discuss his career In Conversation at the BFI cinema complex on London’s Southbank on Sunday evening. Cruise activity is at full speed ahead...

Broadway and film producer Scott Rudin, whose aggressive and bullying behavior to some of his staff led to public condemnation and his withdrawal from producing four years ago, is making a comeback, which Rudin announces today in an interview with The New York Times.

In the article, Rudin says he has more than a dozen shows in development, including both musicals and plays. At least three of the latter, according to the Times, will star Laurie Metcalf and be directed by Joe Mantello. (Neither of them responded to Times’ requests for comment.)

This fall, he will produce Little Bear Ridge Road, a play by Samuel D. Hunter staged last year by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company. The New York production, like the one in Chicago, will star Metcalf and will be directed by Mantello. In the spring Rudin will produce Montauk, a new play by David Hare, also starring Metcalf and directed by Mantello.

Producer Scott Rudin, who stepped back from the film and theater industry in 2021 after workplace abuse allegations, is planning his Broadway return.

The New York Times reported Friday that Rudin is developing a handful of Broadway productions. They include “Little Bear Ridge Road,” a play by Samuel D. Hunter that will star Laurie Metcalf from director Joe Mantello, for this fall; “Montauk,” a new play by David Hare also with Metcalf and Mantello, for next spring; and a revival of “Death of a Salesman” with Nathan Lane, Metcalf and Mantello for the following season.

Rudin was shunned from the industry after THR reported that Rudin threw items at employees, including a stapler and baked potato, berated staffers and threatened them with career retribution if they left his employment, and smashed a computer monitor on the hand of an assistant, sending him to the emergency room. The allegations came after the...

Scott Rudin is planning to return to Broadway next season.

The film and theater producer, who left the Broadway industry in 2021 after an article in The Hollywood Reporter detailed numerous claims of Rudin bullying assistants, now says he plans to stage three Broadway productions next season, with two starring Laurie Metcalf and directed by Joe Mantello, according to The New York Times.

As he prepares his return, Actors’ Equity says it will safeguard against any “bullying, harassment and discrimination” for stage managers or actors on productions he would be involved in.

“If Rudin is producing on Equity agreements, we will enforce them. They include strong protections against bullying, harassment and discrimination – stronger now even than when he last used them in 2021. Anyone who experiences or witnesses bullying, harassment, discrimination, etc in a workplace where Equity contracts are in use, whether or not they themselves are an Equity member, can file...

Update: Producers of the Off Broadway staging of Andrew Scott’s Vanya at the Lucille Lortel Theatre have extended the show’s run. Vanya will begin performances on Monday, March 10, a day earlier than previously announced – and run through May 11, a week later than previously announced.

Previous: Andrew Scott will reprise his acclaimed West End performance in Vanya, described as a radical new adaptation of Chekhov’s masterwork Uncle Vanya, for a spring 2025 Off Broadway engagement at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, producers announced today.

Co-created by Scott and Simon Stephens, the play is directed by Sam Yates.

“I love this masterpiece of a play,” Scott said in a statement. “I love these heartbreaking, hilarious, sexy, characters. I love my colleagues with whom I made this show. I love New York. So, I couldn’t be more thrilled to bring Vanya to the audiences at the Lortel Theatre.”

Vanya, which features Scott in multiple roles,...

Andrew Scott’s Off-Broadway production of Vanya is adding more dates to the run due to demand.

The one-man show, starring and co-created by Scott, will now begin performances one day early, on March 10, and extend an additional week through May 11, 2025. The play is scheduled to open March 18 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

This marks the American premiere of the production, which sees Scott taking on every character in an adaptation of the classic Chekhov drama, Uncle Vanya. The play comes to New York after a West End run in 2023 and a filmed live capture of the show.

Scott devised the show with adaptor Simon Stephens, designer Rosanna Vize and director Sam Yates. Rehearsals began in London this week.

The play, which has eight characters, sees an older professor and his younger wife visit their rural estate, which is run by their family members Vanya and Sonya. After various flirtations,...

Indian actor Konkona Sen Sharma has been cast as the lead female protagonist opposite Carlos Bardem (“El Cid”) in the comedy feature “Mis(s)chief,” it was revealed at the Film Bazaar in Goa.

The project hails from U.K. and India-based production outfit Avani Films and is currently in development. It has advanced to the second round at the 2025 Sundance Development Labs as a curated entry.

“Mis(s)chief” will follow a mother of two trying to succeed as a filmmaker while navigating a failing marriage, the odd bullet from a gangster she has unwittingly managed to annoy and the never-ending schedule of her children’s homework. British filmmaker Peter Webber (“Girl With a Pearl Earring”) is on board as executive producer and Emmy-nominated casting director Nancy Bishop is assembling an international cast.

“I am delighted by the comic premise, the representation of women and the writing itself,” Sen Sharma said.

Last month playwright Jez Butterworth brought his latest work, “The Hills of California,” to Broadway. The haunting family drama explores the relationships between four sisters and their dying mother in their creaky seaside home, seamlessly moving back and forth in time between 1976 and 1955. The play previously bowed in London earlier this year, and before coming stateside it earned two Olivier Award nominations for Best New Play and Best Actress for Laura Donnelly, who reprises her performance in New York.

Since his Broadway debut only 13 years ago, Butterworth has quickly established himself as one of the theater’s most accomplished contemporary playwrights. He has two Tony nominations to his name, for New York debut “Jerusalem” in 2011 and for his Tony-winning epic “The Ferryman” in 2019. Those nominations alone already tie him with theater royalty including Ayad Akhtar, Tony Kushner, Tracy Letts, David Mamet, Lynn Nottage, Eugene O’Neill, and Wendy Wasserstein — all...

Adrien Brody and Nicole Kidman are back in the Oscars race this year with their respective films “The Brutalist” and “Babygirl” from A24, both already making the rounds in the awards contention with strong festival premieres. The stars are now looking to claim victory in their respective categories of Best Actor and Best Actress, and if that sounds familiar, it’s because they both won these same races 22 years ago for “The Pianist” and “The Hours.” Can they strike gold for the second time and become the first duo in Oscars history to win the lead categories twice in the same years?

The year of 2002 was considered one of the most unpredictable Oscar seasons in multiple main categories. Starting with Kidman and “The Hours,” the Stephen Daldry movie took home Golden Globe Awards for Best Drama Actress and Best Drama Motion Picture, along with writing accolades for David Hare at...

A week after Maggie Smith‘s death, best friend Dame Judi Dench is at a loss for words.

When asked about Smith’s death at age 89, as well as the death of friend and collaborator Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Dench broke down into tears during a conversation on Saturday at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

“I suppose the energy that’s created by grief…” started Dench before choking up, according to The Times, after interviewer Brendan O’Hea asked what she meant by comparing her grief around late husband Michael Williams’ 2001 death to petrol.

Smith “passed away peacefully” on Friday, Sept. 27, her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin announced in a joint statement.

She and Dench appeared together in such films as A Room with a View (1985), Tea with Mussolini (1999) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), as well as numerous stage productions.

Judi Dench and Maggie Smith in A Room with a View (1985). (Cinecom/Courtesy Everett Collection)

Robert Fox,...

Maggie Smith was a constant in the life of producer Robert Fox for half a century. She could “make grown men cry,” says Fox, because “if you weren’t 100 percent on top of your game, you were dead in the water, and she was right.”

Fox produced Dame Maggie in some of her greatest stage hits from Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage to David Hare’s The Breath of Life, in which she and her best friend, Judi Dench, shared top billing at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Dame Judi got the No. 1 dressing room. “But Maggie wasn’t fussed because she joked that Judi, she’d say, “had all those people in from Surrey to see her, so she needs the space.’ She wasn’t at all unhappy about it. She’d watch all of Judi’s guests troop in to see her. She’d say: ‘Look, there they go.

Clive Owen has never been interested in being comfortable.

From Spike Lee’s Inside Man and Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men to Robert Altman’s Gosford Park and Steven Soderbergh’s The Knick, the actor has worked with a range of filmmakers across an expanse of projects spanning film, television and the stage.

“I like to choose things that scare me a little bit, something that I haven’t done before. When you look at everything I’ve done, it’s a very mixed bag,” says Owen.

When it came to the Mike Nichols film Closer, it was one of the few instances where Owen was willing to retread some known territory. He had starred in the first staging of the Patrick Marber play about the intertwining lives of two couples at the Royal Theater Company and, less than a decade later, he got word that Nichols would like...

Exclusive: David Hare, one of the UK’s foremost playwrights and a double Oscar nominee, is in an unsparing mood about the state of UK politics. This comes as leaders of the country’s two major parties parry in the cut and thrust of the July 4 general election.

Hare’s view, he tells Breaking Baz, is that there is in fact not enough cut and thrust, what with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak going to the polls “because he’s as fed up with this government as the rest of us.”

The dramatist, director,and screenwriter tells me that the Tories are coming up daily with “harebrained” election promises while Labour, its chief opponent, “is trying to be sober, say nothing and do nothing.”

He fears, though, that Labour is taking up “a defensive crouch“ when it should be thrusting.

“Something always goes disastrously wrong unless you are active and on...

The Oscar-nominated novelist, screenwriter and essayist Nick Hornby below writes a special tribute for Deadline commemorating Jenne Casarotto, his agent for nearly 30 years, who died on February 29 aged 77.

The industry titan, who co-founded leading British talent agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates in 1989, was eulogized today by family, friends and close colleagues at an event named a Celebration of the Life of Jenne Casarotto in the Queen Elizabeth Hall located in London’s Southbank Centre.

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop welcomed guests. Agent colleagues Abby Singer, Mel Kenyon and Jodi Shields spoke of working with Jenne, her son Mark Casarotto commemorated his mother, and producers Jeremy Thomas and Tim Bevan and longtime director clients John Madden and Shawn Slovo told stories about the Jenne they knew and loved.

During the ceremony, it was announced that Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and the National Film and Television School have established The Jenne Casarotto Scholarship...

Nicole Kidman has captivated audiences with her spellbinding acting for over 40 years and has excelled in theatre, film, and television. Not only is she an accomplished producer but a five-time Academy Award nominee. Her role as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002) earned her the Oscar for Best Actress in 2002.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1967, she began her career in Australia as a teenager with roles in Bush Christmas (1983) and BMX Bandits (1983). Her performance in Dead Calm (1989) would grab the attention of Hollywood, and Tom Cruise, casting her in her breakout role as neurologist Dr. Claire Lewicki, in Days of Thunder (1990).

Her trajectory to establishing herself among Hollywood’s A-List continued as she starred alongside Cruise again in Far and Away (1992), mastered her comedic acting chops as an aspiring television personality in Gus Van Sant’s black comedy, To Die For (1995), and portrayed another doctor in the superhero film Batman Forever (1995), opposite Val Kilmer.

How do you capture Jenne Casarotto? She was at the intersection of theatre, film and television. It all, seemingly, swirled around her.

Not just around her.

It was the brilliant team that she assembled at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, the agency that’s been at the epicenter of UK arts culture for over three decades. Correction: The company’s reach extended far beyond the environs of London’s Soho.

One would see her in Venice, Cannes, Toronto and Sydney. One would not be at all surprised to be at a screening at, let’s say, Sundance, and there’d be a tap on the shoulder when the lights came up. “That was great stuff, wasn’t it?” She’d say gleefully.

It was a bit of a test because she’d expect you to be honest with her. Well, it was godawful, actually, and she’d nod sagely, her eyes twinkling behind her specs.

Jenne Casarotto, who co-founded the London-based global talent agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and represented the likes of Tennessee Williams, Stephen Frears, David Hare, Terry Gilliam, Steve McQueen, Neil Jordan and John Madden during her long career, has died. She was 77.

Casarotto died Thursday in the U.K. of complications from a short illness, her firm announced.

With a career spanning more than 50 years, Casarotto was “an award-winning agent who was highly regarded throughout the world for her impeccable taste in writers and directors, unwavering dedication to her clients and for her calm and creative leadership,” Casarotto Ramsay & Associates said in a statement.

She and her husband, Giorgio Romeo Casarotto, launched the company in 1989.

Her illustrious list of clients — several of whom worked alongside her since their feature film debuts — also included J.G. Ballard, John Crowley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Matteo Garrone, Christopher Hampton, Nick Hornby, Bob Hoskins, Neil Gaiman, Hilary Bevan Jones,...

Jenne Casarotto, co-founder of the London agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates which represents some of the leading names working behind the camera, died on Feb. 29. She was 77.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Jenne Casarotto, co-founder of Casarotto Ramsay & Associates,” said the company in a statement.

With a career spanning more than 50 years, Casarotto co-founded Casarotto Ramsay & Associates alongside her husband Giorgio in 1989, helping re-shape the agency landscape. The company’s roster would grow to include many of the world’s best-known writers, directors, creatives, literary properties and heads of departments across film, theatre and television.

Among her list of clients over the years were J.G. Ballard, John Crowley, the Dahl Estate, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Stephen Frears, Matteo Garrone, Christopher Hampton, David Hare, Nick Hornby, Bob Hoskins, Neil Gaiman, Terry Gilliam, Hilary Bevan Jones, Neil Jordan, David Leland, John Madden, Steve McQueen, Cynthia Payne, Neal Purvis,...

Jenne Casarotto, who co-founded leading British talent agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates in 1989 and repped some of the nation’s greatest talents, died Thursday following complications from a short illness. She was 77.

Casarotto died “peacefully, according to a statement from the agency.

Th 35-year-old outfit described its founder as a “visionary leader and a giant within the global entertainment industry,” saying, “With a career spanning over 50 years, Jenne was an award winning agent who was highly regarded throughout the world for her impeccable taste in writers and directors, unwavering dedication to her clients, and for her calm and creative leadership.”

Casarotto co-founded the London shop in 1989 with husband Giorgio and went on to represent some of the best-known and most successful writers, directors, playwrights, creatives and HODs in the business at an agency that has been at the forefront of the UK sector for years.

Casarotto’s enviable client list included J.G. Ballard,...

Jenne Casarotto, co-founder of UK talent agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, has died aged 77, the agency has confirmed.

Casarotto passed away “peacefully on Thursday, February 29 surrounded by her loving family, following complications as part of a short illness,” read a statement from the agency.

A major player in the UK agency landscape for several decades, Casarotto founded Casarotto Ramsay & Associates with her husband Giorgio in 1989. Her client list with the company included J.G. Ballard, the Dahl estate, Christopher Hampton, Tennessee Williams, David Yates, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Steve McQueen, Shawn Slovo, Neil Jordan, David Hare, Matteo Garrone and Cynthia Payne.

“I have...

Exclusive: It is exactly 13 years to the day that Ralph Fiennes’ feature directorial debut Coriolanus – in which he also starred alongside Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Cox – world premiered to acclaim at the 2011 Berlinale.

The Oscar nominee and Bafta-winning actor has since directed Rudolf Nureyev biopic The White Crow and The Invisible Woman about Charles Dickens’ secret mistress, alongside appearing in another 40 films including The Menu, No Time to Die, The King’s Man and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The Berlinale will support another first for Fiennes, this time via its European Film Market, as Cornerstone kicks off sales on the actor’s next directorial feature project, based on his first feature film screenplay.

Set against Fiennes’ native English county of Suffolk, the drama revolves around an eco-idealistic family, living on a farm in a beautiful natural landscape by the sea, whose fault lines are revealed when the daughter’s...

Exclusive: “Peggy Ramsay used to say ‘agent’ is the most disgusting word in the English language,” ponders Adam Welsh, the founder of Divergent Talent Group (Dtg).

For a group of changemakers making their way through the UK’s bustling agenting landscape, the words uttered by Ramsay, one of the greats — who repped the likes of Stephen Poliakoff, David Hare and J.B. Priestley — don’t exactly chime.

These agents are spearheading the UK TV and film industry’s drive to improve representation for disabled talent, a minority that makes up 20% of the British population and yet is vastly under-utilized both on the small screen and behind the camera.

Welsh founded his agency devoted to repping neurodivergent talent in 2021. Sara Johnson and Julie Fernandez have recently joined Casarotto Ramsay in an intriguing dual role representing, training and developing talent, while long-time advocate Andrew Roach, whose clients include Britain’s Got Talent winner Lost Voice Guy,...

Natalie Portman was 16 years old when principal photography commenced on "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace." She was a precocious talent capable of stealing scenes from Oscar winners like Al Pacino (in Michael Mann's "Heat") and Timothy Hutton (in Ted Demme's underrated "Beautiful Girls"), and now she was going to play the eventual mother of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa in George Lucas' long-awaited, madly anticipated Prequel Trilogy. Career-wise, it was a part no actor her age could afford to turn down. The first film's blockbuster success was preordained; her image would be projected on movie screens all over the world, thus making her a global superstar.

There was just one problem: Lucas hadn't directed a movie in 22 years and wasn't keen on dealing with actors. He offered the helm on "The Phantom Menace" to Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, and Ron Howard, and asked playwright David Hare...

We will probably never see a motion picture phenomenon like George Lucas' "Star Wars" ever again. The United States was still shaking off its Vietnam War hangover in the mid-1970s, and while the top filmmakers of the New Hollywood were mostly attracted to edgy material that explored its characters' damaged psyches, audiences were in the mood to escape. Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" offered emphatic proof of this mindset during the summer of 1975 when it briefly became the highest-grossing movie in U.S. box office history.

Lucas' space opera was an altogether different kind of sensation. The briskly paced yarn about a young farm boy who discovers he might be the galaxy's savior ignited the imaginations of kids the world over, and Lucas deepened the viewer's immersion by employing an array of pioneering special effects and wildly inventive creature/production designs. "Star Wars" was world-building on a scale that matched "The Wizard of Oz,...

Sir Michael Gambon, the veteran actor perhaps best known for playing Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film franchise, has died. He was 82. “We are devastated to announce the loss of Sir Michael Gambon,” his family said in a statement (issued by the actor’s publicist Clair Dobbs). “Beloved husband and father, Michael died peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside, following a bout of pneumonia.” Born October 9, 1940, in Dublin, Ireland, Gambon began his acting career on the stage, making his professional debut in a 1962 production of Othello. He was soon spotted by Laurence Olivier and recruited for his new National Theatre Company. He would go on to star in several Shakespeare productions, top West End plays, and made his Broadway debut in 1997 in David Hare’s Skylight. Throughout his stage career, Gambon was nominated for thirteen Olivier Awards (winning three) and a Tony...

Michael Gambon, the veteran Irish-English actor of stage and screen known internationally for his role as Professor Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight Harry Potter films, died Thursday in hospital after a bout of pneumonia. He was 82.

A statement issued by the actor’s publicist Clair Dobbs said, “We are devastated to announce the loss of Sir Michael Gambon.”

“Beloved husband and father, Michael died peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside, following a bout of pneumonia. Michael was 82. We ask that you respect our privacy at this painful time and thank you for your messages of support and love.”

In recent years, Gambon was best known internationally for the role of Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, which he played from 2004-11 after replacing the late Richard Harris.

Michael Gambon and Daniel Radcliffe in 2005’s ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...

Michael Gambon, a protégé of Laurence Olivier and giant of the British stage who portrayed Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, apparently with little effort, in the final six Harry Potter movies, has died. He was 82.

“The Great Gambon,” as Ralph Richardson once called him, died “peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside, following a bout of pneumonia,” according to a family statement provided Thursday by a publicist.

Among the first group of actors recruited by Olivier for the National Theatre Company in the early 1960s, Gambon, a Dublin native, was nominated 13 times for an Olivier Award, winning in 1986 and ’90 for Alan Ayckbourn’s A Chorus of Disapproval and Man of the Moment, respectively, and in 1988 for Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge.

He received another one for his turn as a recently widowed businessman trying to reunite with his former mistress in Skylight,...

André Bishop will conclude his 33-year leadership tenure at Lincoln Center Theater in June 2025 at the conclusion of the non-profit theater company’s 40th anniversary 2024-25 season.

Bishop, whose celebrated tenure as Lct’s Artistic Director and more recently Producing Artistic Director included the premieres of such acclaimed new works as Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia and Arcadia, Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig, and The Light in the Piazza by Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel, to name a very few, announced his intended departure today.

“My years at Lincoln Center Theater have been happy ones,” he said in a statement, “and I will miss working with all my friends and colleagues. But the time has come, as it inevitably does, for the next generation to step in and step up. I look forward to that. Lct has...

The cast of Netflix's Obsession includes talented actors with diverse bodies of work, such as Richard Armitage from The Hobbit trilogy and Charlie Murphy from Happy Valley. The 1992 film adaptation of Damage also had an all-star cast, including Miranda Richardson, and the upcoming Netflix series shares similarities with the film. Alongside the main cast, there are several notable actors in supporting roles, such as Indira Varma from Game of Thrones and Marion Bailey from The Crown.

The cast of Obsession is a major highlight of Netflix's erotic thriller miniseries, as the television show's actors have been involved in a wide variety of recognizable projects from critically acclaimed TV shows to big-budget blockbuster adventures. Based on the 1991 book Damage by Josephine Hart, Obsession released on Netflix on April 13, 2023. It tells the story of a surgeon named William (Richard Armitage) who begins having an affair with his son's soon-to-be fiancée, Anna (Charlie Murphy). However,...

Exclusive: Bohemian Rhapsody actor Ben Hardy and newcomer Jason Patel were kept apart during the pre-production phase of Unicorns, a love story between an Essex car mechanic and a South Asian drag queen.

It’s the new film co-directed by Sally El Hosaini (My Brother the Devil) and James Krishna Floyd (The Good Karma Hospital), and they took measures to ensure that the relationship Hardy and Patel depict in the movie, which has its world premiere Friday at TIFF, was fresh.

“All of our prep was separate,” Patel confirmed. “They didn’t want us to meet.”

Floyd said that the only time they saw each other was at the read-through, “but they weren’t allowed to talk to each other. We explained it to Ben and Jason and to the heads of department that if they spent too much time together before filming began, then it would be too familiar...

George Lucas hadn't officially directed a movie in 20 years when he stepped back behind the camera for "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace" in 1997, and it didn't take long for him to remember why, starting with 1980's "Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back," he'd left the business of shouting "Action!" and "Cut!" to hired hands.

Anticipation for a new, canonical, live-action "Star Wars" movie was feverish. Lucas had been teasing the possibility of a prequel trilogy for over a decade, and now he was set to tell the tragic saga of how a young Anakin Skywalker betrayed his wife, his mentor, and his fellow Jedi to become Darth Vader. The pressure was immense, but Lucas produced these movies independently of their distributor, 20th Century Fox. He could blow a release date deadline if he absolutely had to. The franchise changed Hollywood in 1977, and, with promised advancements in CG,...

UK agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates has named former Meta and Film4 exec Anna Higgs as Managing Director.

She will join in August, having most recently been Director of Entertainment Partnerships at Meta, which has been cutting staff as it seeks to reshape its business amid economic uncertainty.

Higgs is also the Chair of the BAFTA Film Committee, having been recently reelected. She was also The Night Manager producer The Ink Factory’s digital lead, Film4’s Head of Digital and worked at online channel Nowness. Further back she founded Quark Films.

Higgs joins a team of over 60 staff, who look after a client roster that includes Academy Award winning directors Steve McQueen, Edward Berger and Lenny Abrahamson; Academy Award winning writer Christopher Hampton; Mood creator Nicôle Lecky; Enola Holmes and His Dark Materials scribe Jack Thorne; playwrights such as Sir David Hare and Lucy Kirkwood; and several others. It...

Sexual obsession is well-worn territory for Erotic Thrillers, a subgenre that often features men who think with their libido rather than their brain. When you spend your life thinking about screwing, it tends to screw with your life.

This is the central premise of Josephine Hart’s 1991 novel Damage, which was transformed in the 1992 film of the same name, and, most recently, was adapted into the four part Netflix series Obsession.

In both adaptations, a wealthy, powerful, middle-aged married man becomes sexually obsessed with his son’s new girlfriend. They begin an affair, and the sexual desire costs the man everything: his job, his marriage, and the life of his son, who dies tragically when he falls over a banister after witnessing his father fucking his fiancé.

What’s interesting about both Damage and Obsession is how both texts adopt the tropes of an Erotic Thriller, albeit by substituting criminal or murderous activity for melodrama.

April is the cruelest month, but evidently not for one-man shows starring Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes.

The “Schindler’s List” and “Harry Potter” star’s sister Sophie Fiennes directs a film version of “T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets,” the stage production he brought to London and throughout the UK back in 2021. During the lockdown, Fiennes committed to memory the “Wasteland” poet’s four epic poems written during World War II about man’s relationship to time and the divine. His performance, praised as “magnetic” by The Telegraph, was filmed at the end of his run.

IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for the film version, opening April 28 at the IFC Center in New York City, courtesy of Kino Lorber. An expansion in theaters nationally will follow.

Fiennes’ filmed performance of Eliot’s masterworks is a co-production between The Bath Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate, Northampton and Lone Star Productions, Amoeba Film and Lonely Dragon Films.

If you need to add a sense of gravitas to your project, or have a villain who needs to be deliciously evil with just a hint of twinkle in his eyes, there’s a pretty simple solution: hire Charles Dance video.For Diablo fiends, the fourth instalment in the hit game franchise is available for pre-order now, and you can even get a little early access by signing up to the beta now.

That gave Empire the perfect chance to dance the dance with Dance himself, talking through his many memorable roles – from his experience learning of Tywin Lannister’s death from a book-reading fan, to his… erm… unusual medical situation on the James Bond set.

We have to start with Tywin Lannister. You chose not the read the books, but those of us who had read them had him pegged as a bad guy from minute one. Did you...

Exclusive: Jesús I. Valles’ play Bathhouse.pptx has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize, with the honor’s judge Jeremy O. Harris calling the new work an exploration of “a queer history that is quickly being erased.”

The prize for emerging playwrights, now in its 16th year, was selected from more than 1,500 entries. As is the prize’s custom, Harris, the author of Slave Play and a Yale alum, was the selection process’ presiding playwright, or sole judge. Previous judges have included Edward Albee, David Hare, John Guare, Marsha Norman, Nicholas Wright, Ayad Akhtar and Paula Vogel.

“This is one of the most exciting speculative fictions I’ve encountered in years,” Harris said, “using a unique dramaturgy to explore a queer history that is quickly being erased. It brought to mind the works of many heroes like Samuel Delaney, Martin Crimp, and Kathy Acker.”

Winning playwright Velles said,...

I used to think that directing was all about commanding – about knowing the answers to all the questions,” says Richard Eyre. “Now I feel the opposite.” Eyre, one of the titans of British theatre since the 1970s, has of course done his share of commanding in the past. Of Ian McKellen in one of the definitive stagings of Richard III. Of Daniel Day-Lewis in Hamlet, which saw the actor walk off stage mid-performance and never return. Of the National Theatre, throughout his 10-year stint as creative director between 1987 and 1997, when he championed the work of firebrand artists such as David Hare and Howard Brenton.

On screen, he cut his teeth on Play for Today before moving on to films such as 2006’s Notes from a Scandal and the BBC’s 2018 King Lear starring Anthony Hopkins and a cusp-of-stardom Florence Pugh. Now 79 years old, Eyre speaks to me over video chat...

Ed Pressman was cool. And he had taste. He didn’t care what other people thought of a given project. If he thought it was cool, that was enough. He kept his own counsel; he was quiet. But if he wanted something, he let you know. He was not one to take no for an answer.

This helps to explain how he came to produce some 80 films over the decades. And he had not slowed down in recent years. When Ed and his son Sam came to IndieWire’s Cannes party two years ago, Ed found a quiet corner and worked his phone. Pressman died January 17 of respiratory failure, at age 79.

Look at the friends who showed up to speak at his Memorial at the Paris Theatre in New York last Thursday: Mary Harron, David Byrne, and Eric Bogosian, among others, plus video tributes from David Hare, David Gordon Green,...

Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti (“The Salesman”) is being released on bail from Evin Prison.

Nadereh Hakim Elahi, Alidoosti’s mother, revealed her release via an Instagram post.

The actor’s attorney, Zahra Minooei, tweeted about her release, saying: “Today, my client Ms. Taraneh Alidoosti will be released from Evin Prison after posting bail.”

The actor, who starred in four films directed by Asghar Farhadi, was jailed Dec. 17 after taking part in demonstrations to fight against the oppressive Iranian regime. She was also sanctioned for standing in solidarity with imprisoned Iranian filmmakers, notably Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof.

Over 600 artists around the world had signed a petition urging Iran to release the actor.

In an online campaign launched under the title “Justice for Taraneh Alidousti,” Mark Ruffalo, Pedro Almodovar, Penelope Cruz, Juliette Binoche, Alfonso Cuaron, Ken Loach Emma Thompson, Jason Momoa, Jeremy Irons, Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Ian McKellen and Isabelle Huppert...

Dubai-based pay-tv and streaming service Osn has partnered with Arab film distributor Mad Solutions, the Red Sea Fund, and the U.K.’s Global Screen Fund, plus U.K. companies Corniche Media and Caspian Films, on Saudi multihyphenate Ahd Kamel’s long gestating feature film debut “My Driver and I.”

The production partnership for the feature was announced during a gala dinner at this week’s Red Sea Film Festival, which is taking place in Jeddah, where the film is also set.

Jordanian actress Saba Mubarak will star alongside regional acting talents, Qusai Kheder, Mostafa Shehata and Baraa Alem.

The feature is being produced as an Osn Original for its pay-tv and streaming network that will showcase the film for its Mena audiences. Mad Solutions holds all international distribution rights outside those Arab-speaking territories.

Kamel grew up in Saudi Arabia and moved to New York in 1998, where she studied at the Parsons School of Design,...

The American Film Institute (AFI) Board of Trustees will bestow his 49th AFI Life Achievement Award on Oscar winner Nicole Kidman at their June 10, 2023 ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Kidman is the first Australian actor to receive this honor.

“Nicole Kidman has enchanted audiences for decades with the daring of her artistry and the glamour of a screen icon,” said Kathleen Kennedy, Chair of the AFI Board of Trustees. “She is a force both brave in her choices and bold in each performance. AFI is honored to present her with the 49th AFI Life Achievement Award.”

Kidman’s cinematic canon has spanned work with such filmmakers as Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Baz Luhrmann, Aaron Sorkin, Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Lars von Trier and Stanley Kubrick.

She was nominated five times at the Oscars –4x for Leading Actress for Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, Rabbit Hole and this year...

Ralph Fiennes, who played Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter film franchise, says the “verbal abuse” directed at Potter author Jk Rowling over her statements on trans women is “disgusting” and “appalling.”

“Jk Rowling has written these great books about empowerment,” Fiennes says in an interview with The New York Times‘ Maureen Dowd, “about young children finding themselves as human beings. It’s about how you become a better, stronger, more morally centred human being. The verbal abuse directed at her is disgusting, it’s appalling.”

Rowling has come under considerable backlash in recent years for her comments on gender identity and trans rights that have been interpreted as transphobic.

Potter actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have publicly disavowed Rowling’s comments, with Grint, who played Ron Weasley in Warner Bros’ Harry Potter films, saying “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We should all be...