If you’re a screamer, FX’s ‘Grotesquerie’ wants to hear it
Ahead of the release of its creepy new serial killer series Grotesquerie, FX is conducting a symphony — of screams — and it wants you to participate.
The network had already popped up booths in New York, Nashville and Los Angeles, which let horror fans have their screams recorded, and now it’s opening up the creepy collection process to social media.
The network’s “call-to-scream” campaign can be found on Instagram and TikTok with #SymphonyOfScreams and #GrotesquerieFX, where you can get the chance to join in.
The harvested howls will be compiled into “a horrific work of art” composed by producer Blake Slatkin.
Starring Niecy Nash-Betts and Courtney B. Vance, Ryan Murphy‘s 10-episode Grotesquerie premieres Sept. 25 at 10 p.m. ET on FX and streams next day on Hulu.
Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer have lined up some impressive names for the forthcoming sci-fi series they’re producing called The Boroughs.
Netflix has tapped Oscar winner Geena Davis and nominee Alfre Woodard; Tony-winning Spider-Man baddie Alfred Molina; The Sinner Emmy nominee Bill Pullman; and Denis O’Hare from American Horror Story and Clarke Peters for the eight-episode series.
According to the streamer, they play residents of a seemingly picturesque New Mexico retirement community who “must band together to stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don’t have: time.”
The show was created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, vets of the beloved Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
To the streamer’s blog, Tudum, the Duffers enthused, “While the heroes in The Boroughs have a few more years on them than the kids from Stranger Things, they are a similarly lovable bunch of misfits, and we can’t wait for you to join them on an adventure that is at turns scary, funny, and deeply touching.”
Selena Gomez has shared new details about her future journey to motherhood.
The singer and actress told Vanity Fair she is unable to carry her own children in an interview released on Monday.
“I haven’t ever said this … but I unfortunately can’t carry my own children. I have a lot of medical issues that would put my life and the baby’s in jeopardy. That was something I had to grieve for a while,” Selena said.
She said becoming a parent one day may not happen the way she originally envisioned it, but she is now “in a much better place with that.”
“I find it a blessing that there are wonderful people willing to do surrogacy or adoption, which are both huge possibilities for me. It made me really thankful for the other outlets for people who are dying to be moms. I’m one of those people,” Selena said. “I’m excited for what that journey will look like, but it’ll look a little different. At the end of the day, I don’t care. It’ll be mine. It’ll be my baby.”
Selena was diagnosed with lupus in 2013. In 2015, she shared that she underwent chemotherapy to treat the autoimmune illness.
The pop star, who is in a relationship with Benny Blanco, had a firm plan to start a family by age 35 before she started dating him.
“Before I met my boyfriend, I was single for five years, with the exception of going on a few dates,” Selena said. “And I was like, ‘Okay, if this is the vibe, then what is the most important thing to me? Family.’”
Selena also said she has “never been loved this way.”
“He’s just been a light,” Selena said. “A complete light in my life. He’s my best friend. I love telling him everything.”
The estates of some stars who have already passed on — including Judy Garland and Burt Reynolds — have made deals that may soon have them reading you your next audiobook.
That’s what CNBC is reporting regarding a company called ElevenLabs, an audio technology startup that “has penned multiple deals with the estates of legendary actors for its IconicVoices tool.”
Using just 30 minutes’ worth of audio from a given celebrity — including the aforementioned stars, as well as James Dean and Laurence Olivier — the tool can create an AI-generated voice of that celeb to read to a user via an audiobook app.
Sam Sklar, a member of ElevenLabs’ team, says that a voice “can be called upon to read text (articles, PDFs, ePubs, newsletters, or other text content),” but that a celeb’s voice can’t be exported outside the app.
The latter caveat was meant to calm the nerves of stars who lobbied during 2023’s Hollywood strikes against AI replication of their work.
For example, Scarlett Johansson cried foul in May when OpenAI used a similar-sounding voice for its ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode. Users — even OpenAI’s Sam Altman — said the voice was sort of a real-life version of the Siri-like assistant ScarJo voiced in the movie Her.
Johansson had attorneys draft a letter to OpenAI to discover how this happened, especially after she expressly refused to provide her voice to the tool, and the company soon dropped the controversial voice it dubbed “Sky.”