In brief: Patti LuPone joins season 3 of ‘And Just Like That’ and more
Patti LuPone is joining the cast of And Just Like That. While her role is being kept a secret, the show’s executive producer Michael Patrick King told Entertainment Weekly her character will have “an arc on our show this season.” Also joining the cast of the Sex and the City spinoff is Kristen Schaal, while Rosemarie DeWitt is set to return as Aidan’s ex-wife Kathy …
You’ll be able to watch The Wild Robot at home before the end of the month. The DreamWorks animated film will stream exclusively on Peacock on Jan. 24. The film, which follows a robot who gets shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, stars Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal and Kit Connor. Peacock will also become the streaming home for other DreamWorks animated films, including the first three Shrek films, the first three Kung Fu Panda movies, The Bad Guys and Spirit Untamed …
If you’ve seen Normal People, then you’ve watched Paul Mescal get behind the wheel. But in a recent cover story with W magazine, the actor revealed he lied about his driving expertise to land his role. In fact, the actor did not even have his driver’s license. “We’d signed the paperwork, I’d gotten the part, and then I’d forgotten about doing my driver’s license,” Mescal said. “So I ended up doing Normal People on a provisional license. I could only drive the car if there was a fully licensed driver beside me.” …
Essence Atkins stars on the new sitcom Poppa’s House with Damon Wayans Sr. and his namesake son, Damon Wayans Jr. As one would imagine, her experience working with the comedians on set has been nothing short of laughter.
“It’s fun. We laugh all day. We try to make each other laugh all day. We are constantly kind of mining for what is funny and trying things. And sometimes they work and sometimes we know they don’t,” she tells ABC Audio. “We make fun of ourselves, but it’s such a playful atmosphere.”
This energy permeates across the screen to viewers, as she says the show is for “people who want to laugh” and “people who feel like the world is worlding and … need to laugh.“
“You can look forward to laughter — real laughter, like, out loud, not where you’re just like, ‘Oh that’s funny,’ but like, you actually are laughing,” Essence says of Poppa’s House. “And I think you can look forward to stories that you will find a point of view that you connect with.”
She adds the show is also for “people who grew up with the classic sitcoms and loved them because we definitely have a throwback kind of feel.”
“I think if you loved My Wife and Kids, or if you loved Half & Half or if you loved Girlfriends or if you loved The Wayans Bros. or if you loved, you know, even Friends … or Living Single. I think that the elements are there,” Essence says. “But in addition to that, you have something that’s unique to the show, which is that you have a real-life father and son playing father and son.”
Poppa’s House airs Mondays on CBS at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT.
Timed to the release of Venom: The Last Dance, cellphone company Human Mobile Devices has melded with the titular alien symbiote seen in the hit franchise.
Calling its new mobile device, Fusion, the world’s first “symbiotic smartphone,” HMD has created a glass case for it that contains a crawling, oozing Venom-like black liquid that squiggles and dances under the surface.
In reality, it’s not an alien, it’s a very expensive magnetic substance known as a ferrofluid, which is controlled by 160 electromagnetic arrays.
If that sounds like something you’d be afraid of dropping though your butterfingers, you’d be right — but you needn’t worry. While the Fusion phone is now available for preorder, complete with Venom alerts and other themed sound effects, there are only three of the cases in the world and they’re not available for purchase.
Blake Lively‘s lawyers have issued a statement amid the ongoing legal feud between her and Justin Baldoni.
In the new statement, released Jan. 7, Lively’s lawyers said, “Ms. Lively’s federal litigation before the Southern District of New York involves serious claims of sexual harassment and retaliation, backed by concrete facts. This is not a ‘feud’ arising from ‘creative differences’ or a ‘he said/she said’ situation. As alleged in Ms. Lively’s complaint, and as we will prove in litigation, Wayfarer and its associates engaged in unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing against Ms. Lively for simply trying to protect herself and others on a film set.”
The statement, issued on Lively’s behalf, also claimed that Baldoni’s response — his lawsuit filed Dec. 31 against The New York Times — was allegedly meant to “launch more attacks against Ms. Lively since her filing.”
The statement continued, “While we go through the legal process, we urge everyone to remember that sexual harassment and retaliation are illegal in every workplace and in every industry. A classic tactic to distract from allegations of this type of misconduct is to ‘blame the victim’ by suggesting that they invited the conduct, brought it on themselves, misunderstood the intentions, or even lied. Another classic tactic is to reverse the victim and offender, and suggest that the offender is actually the victim.”
“These concepts normalize and trivialize allegations of serious misconduct,” the statement concluded. “Most importantly, media statements are not a defense to Ms. Lively’s legal claims. We will continue to prosecute her claims in federal court, where the rule of law determines who prevails, not hyperbole and threats.”
The statement from Lively’s camp comes after Baldoni sued the New York Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy for publishing a story detailing Lively’s initial claims against him, including sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against Lively during the production of the film It Ends with Us, which Baldoni also directed and starred in with Lively. The lawsuit came after Lively’s initial complaint, filed Dec. 20, and subsequent lawsuit, filed Dec. 31, against Baldoni.
In a statement to Good Morning America addressing Lively’s latest comments, Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, said, “It is painfully ironic that Blake Lively is accusing Justin Baldoni of weaponizing the media when her own team orchestrated this vicious attack by sending the New York Times grossly edited documents prior to even filing the complaint. We are releasing all of the evidence which will show a pattern of bullying and threats to take over the movie. None of this will come as a surprise because consistent with her past behavior Blake Lively used other people to communicate those threats and bully her way to get whatever she wanted. We have all the receipts and more.”
Read more about the legal battle between Lively and Baldoni below.
Lively’s initial complaint
Lively first filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in late December, alleging “severe emotional distress” after she said Baldoni and key stakeholders in the film sexually harassed her and attempted, along with Baldoni’s production company, to orchestrate a smear campaign against her.
The complaint was detailed in a New York Times article titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.” Included in the report were details surrounding a January 2024 “all hands” meeting — held “prior to resuming filming of It Ends With Us,” according to the complaint — that was held to address Lively’s workplace concerns, adding that it was attended by key stakeholders in the film and Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds.
According to the complaint, Lively said she laid out specific demands at that meeting to ensure a safe and professional working environment.
Lively claimed Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios, which produced It Ends With Us, then engaged in a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” Lively’s reputation, according to the complaint. The complaint included alleged texts from Baldoni’s publicist to a Wayfarer publicist, who allegedly wrote that Baldoni “wants to feel like [Ms. Lively] can be buried,” and “We can’t write we will destroy her.”
Freedman, the attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, denied the allegations.
“These claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media,” Freedman said in a statement to ABC News at the time, in response to Lively’s initial complaint. He claimed Lively’s complaint was “yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film […].”
Lively was criticized during the It Ends with Us tour for her conduct during press interviews and from some who felt she did not highlight the film’s focus of domestic violence enough.
Baldoni’s lawsuit against The New York Times
On Dec. 31, Baldoni filed a lawsuit against the Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy, after it published the article about Lively’s complaint.
The lawsuit claimed the Times, which included the alleged text messages and email exchanges between Baldoni’s publicists Jennifer Abel and Melissa Nathan, had relied on “cherry-picked” and altered communications, with details “stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced” to “mislead.”
Baldoni is seeking $250 million in damages in his suit against the Times and also listed nine other co-plaintiffs, including Wayfarer Studios LLC and his publicists, Abel and Nathan.
Freedman claimed in a statement to GMA that the Times “cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites, disregarding journalistic practices and ethics once befitting of the revered publication by using doctored and manipulated texts and intentionally omitting texts which dispute their chosen PR narrative.”
A Times spokesperson told GMA that they “plan to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
“The role of an independent news organization is to follow the facts where they lead. Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported,” the spokesperson continued. “It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article.”
“To date, Wayfarer Studios, Mr. Baldoni, the other subjects of the article and their representatives have not pointed to a single error,” the spokesperson claimed. “We published their full statement in response to the allegations in the article as well.”
Lively files lawsuit against Baldoni and other defendants for sexual harassment
Also on Dec. 31, Lively formalized her initial California Civil Rights Department complaint into a lawsuit, which reiterated details she previously presented in her complaint.
Attorneys for Lively said in a statement that the actress’s “decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks.”
“As alleged in Ms. Lively’s federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns,” Lively’s attorneys claimed. “Now, the defendants will answer for their conduct in federal court. Ms. Lively has brought this litigation in New York, where much of the relevant activities described in the Complaint took place, but we reserve the right to pursue further action in other venues and jurisdictions as appropriate under the law.”
Both Baldoni and Lively are seeking a jury trial.
GMA has reached out to Baldoni’s rep for comment about Lively’s lawsuit.
