Abracadabra, insecurity! Justice Smith talks approach to twisty ‘Now You See Me’ character

November 18, 2025

Dominic Sessa as Bosco, Justice Smith as Charlie, and Ariana Greenblatt as June in ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.’ (Courtesy of Lionsgate)

Justice Smith plays one of the new, up-and-coming magicians in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, and without giving too much away, his character, Charlie, is certainly more than what meets the eye.

“[Director] Ruben [Fleischer] and I talked a lot about the specific nuances of Charlie’s front-facing personality,” Smith tells ABC Audio.

Smith describes Charlie as “the ultimate magic nerd” who “has such a reverence” for the Now You See Me franchise’s original characters, the Four Horsemen, played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher. Mostly, though, he “shies away from the spotlight” while he works behind the scenes for the benefit of the other members of his troupe, played by Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt.

“It was important for me to try and slip in as much insecurity as I could into Charlie,” Smith laughs. “Like, making sure I apologized in, like, every scene I could, or I freaked out … every time I met one of [the Horsemen].”

“Sorry” might be the word Smith says the most as Charlie in the film, much of which was off-script.

“All the fanboy moments I improvised, all the ‘sorries’ I improvised,” Smith says. “Except for the one in the scene with Isla. I think that was scripted.”

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the third film in the franchise, is in theaters now. It opened at #1 at the box office.

Documentary ‘One to One: John & Yoko’ coming to HBO

Poster for ‘One to One: John & Yoko’/(HBO)

The John Lennon and Yoko Ono documentary One to One: John & Yoko is coming to HBO.

The film, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, will debut Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/PT and will be available to stream on HBO Max.

One to One follows the 18 months John and Yoko lived in New York’s Greenwich Village in the early ’70s. It culminates with the pair’s 1972 One to One concerts, which were Lennon’s only full-length performances after The Beatles‘ 1970 breakup.

The film features never-before-seen and fully restored footage of the concerts. It also includes audio recordings the couple made of themselves when they feared the FBI was listening in on their phone.

One to One previously screened at a variety of festivals, including the Venice Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival. It opened in IMAX theaters in April.

(Video includes uncensored profanity.)

Set fire to the box office: Adele to make acting debut in new film ‘Cry to Heaven’

Adele performs onstage in Munich, Germany, August 2024 (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for AD)

Adele is going from “Rolling in the Deep” to “Roll film.” She’ll be making her big screen debut in a new movie called Cry to Heaven, Deadline reports.

The movie is being directed by Tom Ford, who’s best known as a fashion designer, but who’s directed several films as well. He also wrote the screenplay, which is based on the novel of the same name by Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice. Set in 18th century Italy, it’s about a Venetian nobleman and a castrato who become unlikely compatriots as they try to make it in the world of opera.

In addition to Adele, the movie’s cast includes Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Colin Firth, Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Thandiwe Newton and Hunter Schafer. Taylor-Johnson starred in Ford’s film Nocturnal Animals, while Firth appeared in another one of Ford’s films, A Single Man.

ABC Audio has reached out to Adele’s representatives for confirmation.

The film is in pre-production and is targeted to hit theaters in the fall of 2026.

‘Eleanor the Great’ cast on working with June Squibb, director Scarlett Johansson

June Squibb as Eleanor, Erin Kellyman as Nina, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Roger in ‘Eleanor the Great.’ (Jojo Whilden/Sony Pictures Classics)

June Squibb takes center stage in the new film Eleanor the Great.

The movie, which is Scarlett Johansson‘s directorial debut, follows a 94-year-old whose fib told during a time of immense grief takes on a dangerous life of its own.

Chiwetel Ejiofor and Erin Kellyman co-star in the film, and they say it was wonderful to watch Squibb act every day on set.

“She was so brilliant to work with. It was really a lesson every day,” Kellyman said.

Ejiofor said while “everybody knows that she’s a terrific actress,” Squibb’s performance in Eleanor the Great “is really something special.”

“The range of emotions that she can take the audience on, from, you will be laughing with her — hysterically laughing, side splitting — and then you’re really emotional, and you’re with her at the next moment. It’s really incredible.”

While you’d be hard-pressed to find someone unfamiliar with Johansson as an actress, the Eleanor the Great cast has the distinct understanding of who she is as a director.

Ejiofor says Johansson was a great communicator and very charismatic on set.

“Those two things in combination just means that she’s able to really get people on board and is able to communicate her vision,” Ejiofor said, adding that Johansson’s vision was “quite complicated in its themes and some of the tonalities and some of the shifts in it. And she was really very specific about what she wanted from each moment and the kind of experience that she wanted the film to be.”

Ejiofor said it was helpful to be directed by someone who is also an actor themselves.

“You can’t slip anything past her because she sees it, but she can also really direct the action,” Ejiofor said. “It’s a rare skill.”

Eleanor the Great is now available to watch in theaters.

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