Amanda Seyfried rooting for Sabrina Carpenter to join potential ‘Mamma Mia!’ 3
Hector Vivas/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
She’s working late, cause she’s a singer (and an actress).
Amanda Seyfried is rooting for Sabrina Carpenter to join a potential third Mamma Mia! film.
“Mamma Mia 3, let’s go baby,” Seyfried told ABC News Live. “Everybody says it’s gonna happen. But I mean, I haven’t seen a script.”
As part of Sabrina’s Short n’ Sweet tour, the pop star sings a different cover song at each concert. She performed the musical’s title ABBA track during her recent Madison Square Garden show in New York City, which prompted Seyfried to agree that Sabrina could play her character Sophie’s daughter in a third Mamma Mia! film.
Never mind the fact that Seyfried is just 13 years older than Sabrina — that’s on par with the franchise, which saw Cher, who is three years older than Meryl Streep, play the latter’s mother in the second film, the interviewer said.
“You’re right, actually, [it] doesn’t matter,” Seyfried said. “You know what? Old age makeup for me. That’s what it will be. … I’m an actor. I’ll do it. If Sabrina Carpenter wants to play my daughter, I’ll make it happen. It’s fine. I’m a big fan.”
Harry Potter fans have just gotten an update about Warner Bros.’ planned TV series about the boy wizard.
Varietyreports that while speaking at Mipcom in Cannes, Warner Bros. TV Group Chairman and CEO Channing Dungey shared some tidbits about what to expect, and it seems the show plans to delve into the Potter world even more than the movies did.
Dungey said that being part of the series is an “unbelievable dream, honestly … and as somebody who is a huge fan of the books, the opportunity to get to explore them in a little bit more in-depth that you can in just a two-hour film … that’s the whole reason we’re on this journey.”
As for what stage the project is in, Dungey shared that the “writing staff was in place and they’re doing what they need to do, and casting calls have opened up in the U.K. and Ireland, so the process is moving along.”
Dungey also offered an update on the future of Ted Lasso, noting, “We are in conversations about season four, and they are very exciting conversations, but it’s still early days.”
Earlier reports said Warner Bros. TV had picked up the options for series regulars Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein and Jeremy Swift, and it sounds like star Jason Sudeikis could be returning as well in some capacity.
“We had always been clear that we there wasn’t going to be more Ted Lasso if Jason [Sudeikis] and team weren’t feeling excited about it,” Dungey said, “and I can tell you firsthand that he’s in a place where he’s feeling really excited and feels good about it”
Halle Berry knows how to laugh at herself — after all, she’s the only Oscar winner to personally pick up a Razzie Award — and she just proved that again with a hair-raising promotion for her new thriller, Never Let Go.
To celebrate the infamous wig she wore as a 911 operator in the 2013 thriller The Call — which, she explained on Instagram, fans have been “jokingly ‘dragging’ me [about] for years” — she held “special wig screenings” of the new film.
Fans who got to see the Sept. 20 release early were invited to wear a wig inspired by Halle’s headwear in various films — and more than a couple chose to callback The Call.
In the video posted online, Halle surprised fans, showing up to one such showing wearing the frizzy “abomination” she wore in that film, which she explained was identical to one worn by a real-life 911 operator she met while doing research.
Moviegoers who went uncovered were supplied by Halle, who tossed wigs into the crowd à la Oprah, saying, “YOU get a wig! And YOU get a wig!”
The superstar added, “This means so much to me that you guys would come out tonight, put on a wig, take the time [and] come support this movie I’m so proud of.”
She added, “And you know, there’s another wig in it — another f***** up wig.”
In the movie, she plays a haunted mother trying to keep her two sons safe in a post-apocalyptic world.
Referencing the plot of The Call, Halle added, “But you know, I saved Abigail Breslin from the trunk, I got her a** out, and I’m gonna save these kids, too.”
Back in June, Sir Ian McKellen seemed to downplay a fall off a London stage during a performance of the Shakespeare adaptation Player Kings. A statement at the time said he was in good spirits and would make a speedy recovery. But now, several months later, McKellen reveals the whole thing was pretty scary.
“Apparently, I’m told by the company manager who’s holding my head as I lay on the floor, I said to her, ‘I’ve broken my neck. I’m dying,'” McKellen told ABC Audio in an interview from his home in London. “Now, I don’t remember saying that, but I must have felt it.”
He says he’s fine now, after fracturing his wrist and hurting his back, crediting the fat suit he was wearing in order to play rotund Knight John Falstaff with protecting his ribs and hips in the fall. And while physically he’s almost completely back to normal, the mental effects linger.
“I’m left with some disappointment,” McKellen confesses. “I’m ashamed that I didn’t complete — you know, my pride was bruised. How could this happen to me?” he asks with a chuckle. “And I suspect that although physically I’m healing, I wonder whether deep down there’s something mental or emotional that was jolted that needs to be attended to. And I’m attending to it by not working at the moment and resting.”
McKellen appears to be in a reflective mood as he discusses the fall, and his new film The Critic, in which he plays a prominent 1930s London theater critic named Jimmy Erskine, a once feared and respected tastemaker trying to recapture his glory days. Reviews, McKellen reveals, are a necessary evil for actors.
“We are seeking for approval. And we’re probably rather pathetic people who need that approval. We’re not confident enough of ourselves. So if you get a good review — oh, it’s an added pleasure. And if you get a bad review, it can be very hurtful,” McKellen admits.
And although he hasn’t been on the receiving end of a lot of bad reviews, the ones he has had are seared in his brain. Take for instance his turn in a Bernard Shaw revival in London’s West End when he was much younger. He starred in the play alongside a pre-Dame Judi Dench and recalls how he overheard a few fellow actors discussing his performance one night at a restaurant.
“One of them was going on and on and on about how dreadful I’d been. And I was typical of these modern young actors, using my voice in the wrong way and drawing attention to myself. And he just simply hadn’t enjoyed it.” McKellen says he laughed off the criticism, but the next night onstage it crept into his consciousness. “And as I looked into the audience talking away, I suddenly thought, ‘My God, every single person in this audience agrees with that actor that I heard last night. They all think I’m rubbish. I shouldn’t be here.’” He says he froze, forgot his lines and Dench had to rescue him.
Still, he swears if there’s a bad review out there, he’s going to read it. “I like to know. If people haven’t enjoyed the film of Cats I’d like to know about it.” 2019’s film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical Cats was savaged by critics, probably the worst-reviewed film McKellen has ever been in. McKellen didn’t get the blame, though. His portrayal of Gus the Theater Cat was mostly praised. And he may be returning to a role that garnered him some of the most praise of his film career: the mighty wizard Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies.
“There are going to be a couple of more films, I think, with some of the same characters in it. And I’ve been asked to stand by,” McKellen says. “But there’s no script that I read, and no date. All I can say, as far as I’m concerned, they better be quick.”
Quick, because at 85 years old, McKellen isn’t sure how much time he has left. “I’m rather living a year at a time, rather than two or three years at a time,” he says.
Gandalf is a part of his legacy, so if he can, he’s going to go to New Zealand and put on the robes. Legacy is a theme in The Critic, as well. In his downtime, legacy and what’s next are things McKellen has been thinking about a lot. He remembers going to visit a friend in the hospital, a friend who was dying, and asking him what he was thinking about as his life neared the end.
“And he said, ‘I don’t want to miss anything.’ And that’s rather my view,” McKellen says wistfully. He wants to know what’s going to happen. “How is AI going to really take over? I mean, what is life going to be like? When is the world going to settle down? Is the world going to survive? I won’t know. I won’t know. And I suppose I won’t care because I won’t exist.”
