Bryan Cranston to receive Lifetime Achievement Award from Santa Fe International Film Festival

Saturday Night Live kicked off its 50th season with a star-studded cold open that featured SNL alum Maya Rudolph reprising her Vice President Kamala Harris, joined by fellow SNL vets Andy Samberg and Dana Carvey, playing second gentleman Doug Emhoff and President Joe Biden, respectively. Comedian Jim Gaffigan was tapped to play Harris’ running mate Tim Walz. Current SNL cast member James Austin Johnson returned as Donald Trump, with Bowen Yang taking on the role of Trump’s running mate JD Vance. Hacks‘ Jean Smart hosted the season 50 premiere and Jelly Roll was the musical guest …

Days of Our Lives actor Drake Hogestyn, who played John Black on the long-running soap opera, has died at the age of 70 due to pancreatic cancer, his family shared Saturday on the show’s official Instagram. “After putting up an unbelievable fight, he passed peacefully surrounded by loved ones,” the statement read in part. Hogestyn was a minor league baseball player before joining the soap in 1986 …

John Ashton, the actor best known for his role as John Taggart in the Beverly Hills Cop film series, “passed away peacefully” in Fort Collins, Colorado, on Sept. 26, his rep confirmed in a statement obtained by Good Morning America. He was 76. Ashton’s other film roles include Midnight Run, alongside Robert De Niro, as well as Little Big League, Some Kind of Wonderful and She’s Having a Baby …

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Jude Law got to step into that galaxy far, far away with his lead role in Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, which debuts Dec. 3 on Disney+. 

For a fan, it left him “giddy,” he tells Variety. 

Jon Watts, who called the shots on Tom Holland‘s three standalone Spider-Man movies, created the show, which centers on four children “looking for their home planet after getting lost in the Star Wars galaxy,” the synopsis says.

Law tells the trade, “I don’t think I would have dived in willy-nilly. I wanted it to be right. I didn’t want to be the guy that dropped the ball on Star Wars.”

He says of the production, “It was a really interesting process. It’s technically complicated to get those things right — you’re dealing with animatronics and puppets and machines and huge, complicated worlds.” 

Law adds, “I’m the guy that wants to see how the wizard does it.” To that end, he talks about the “Star Wars filter” — the particularities common to the franchise. “Like, there are no buttons [on costumes] in Star Wars — only ties. Buckles? Yes. Velcro? Yes. Although, I don’t think you ever see the Velcro.”

He adds, “There are certain shots they don’t allow you to do if you’re the director. You can’t pass through the glass of the spaceship; you have to stay on the outside or inside. I love that. You see the shot and go, ‘Oh, I’m in Star Wars.'”

However, despite a scene in the trailer that shows him sending a key floating across the room, Law hedges when asked what it’s like to have the Force. “Who says I’ve got the Force?” he tells Variety with a laugh.  

Disney is the parent company of ABC News. 

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The bombshell Prince Andrew interview about Jeffrey Epstein that caused Andrew to step back from his royal duties is the subject of the limited series A Very Royal Scandal, which started streaming Thursday on Prime Video.

Michael Sheen plays the prince, opposite Ruth Wilson as Emily Maitlis, the former BBC Newsnight anchor whose hard-hitting questions sent shock waves through the U.K. and beyond. Wilson remembers that interview vividly and tells ABC Audio that like the rest of the nation, she was left “gobsmacked.”

“My takeaway from that was, ‘How on earth did this happen? … Why did he put himself in that scenario?’ And now, you know, having done this drama, we’ve interrogated that and we’ve got all the answers on that. Or not,” she laughs.

The fallout came as no surprise to Sheen, who tells ABC Audio that the interview checked a lot of boxes when it comes to the kinds of things that fascinate the British people.

“There’s both the kind of media frenzy, the tabloid fodder kind of nature of it. … And then also, of course, underlying it all was this much darker, more serious, more disturbing issue that it was dealing with about, you know, the exploitation of young women and the relationship with Epstein and all that kind of stuff.”

Sheen had to gain a bit of weight for the role and tried to portray Andrew as this former military stud who was far removed from his glory days.

“The aging process, losing your looks, putting on a bit of weight, all of that stuff, the media no longer being interested in you as being kind of, you know, tabloid fodder. … It’s getting, moving further and further away from the center of power and all that kind of stuff. … It was that sort of trajectory.”

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