Oprah Winfrey, Ben Stiller among latest batch of Oscars presenters
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The latest batch of Oscars presenters has been announced.
Joe Alwyn, Sterling K. Brown, Willem Dafoe, Ana de Armas, Lily-Rose Depp, Selena Gomez, Goldie Hawn, Connie Nielsen, Ben Stiller and Oprah Winfrey join the lineup. Nick Offerman will be this year’s announcer for the show.
Previously announced presenters include last year’s winners in the acting categories, Robert Downey Jr., Cillian Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Emma Stone. Halle Berry, Penélope Cruz, Elle Fanning, Whoopi Goldberg, Scarlett Johansson, John Lithgow, Amy Poehler, June Squibb and Bowen Yang are also among those presenting.
Conan O’Brien hosts the 97th Oscars on March 2, airing live on ABC and streaming live on Hulu at 7 p.m. ET.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Babygirl star Harris Dickinson is once again talking about the possibility of playing John Lennon in SamMendes’ upcoming biopics on The Beatles, although it sounds like he really doesn’t want to.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Dickinson reportedly groaned when he thought the interviewer was about to ask about the Lennon role and said, “Don’t ask me about that,” although the journalist writes that he was actually going to ask Dickinson if he was going to be on the YouTube series Hot Ones.
But during a follow-up interview, Dickinson did eventually offer up a few words on the possibility of playing Lennon, although he still didn’t confirm or deny he has the role.
“Okay, my comment is that I think it would be a brilliant opportunity to play John Lennon, and to work with Sam and everyone else mentioned,” he said. “Yeah, I don’t know. It would be splendid.”
Dickinson previously commented about playing Lennon back in December, telling Variety, “It would be amazing to do that. I think the idea of Sam teaming up to do something like that would be incredibly exciting. Obviously, John Lennon is a very complex role, a pretty formidable force to try to do. It would be cool.”
Mendes’ Beatles project was announced back in February, with the director revealing he planned to make four separate films, one for each member of the group — Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
Previous reports have claimed that Paul Mescal will be playing McCartney, Barry Keoghan has been cast as Ringo and Joseph Quinn will be playing Harrison, although so far there’s been no official word on casting.
Sometimes cultural trends swoop in and pass us faster than one can fall out of a coconut tree. That’s why we’re going over the memes, viral moments and trend-setting sensations that dominated the cultural landscape of 2024:
-Our year started off strong with the disastrous Willy Wonka-themed immersive experience. The February event, which promised to magically portray the Roald Dahl tale, went viral for its uninspired decor and lame costuming, to put it mildly. Videos of its sad-looking Oompa Loompa and confusing ghost-like figure, called The Unknown, were inescapable.
-Who could forget the fully conscious baby who wanted to go to the Four Seasons Orlando? A TikTok that Stefanie O’Brien posted of her 13-month-old niece Kate Wise was viewed over 85 million times. In the clip, the child raises her hand and confidently answers, “Meeeeee!” when asked by her mother, “Who wants to go to the Four Seasons Orlando?”
-Vice President Kamala Harris ran for president of the United States this year, and during her campaign a clip from one of her 2023 speeches took on a brand-new life. “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” Harris says in the clip. The now-iconic phrase was repeated and remixed all over the internet, particularly in a certain viral TikTok, which combined it with one of Charli XCX‘s Brat tracks.
-Thailand’s very own Moo Deng became the cute baby animal of the year after the pygmy hippopotamus fought back by biting her handlers and chomping on practically everything that came her way. She was so influential, in fact, she was parodied by Bowen Yang on Saturday Night Live.
-As for popular phrases, we all became “very demure, very mindful” after TikTok user Jools Lebron coined the saying. We also found ourselves “holding space” for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity” after an interview with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande during their Wicked press junket took the world by storm.
A trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special “Joy to the World” is out with a supernatural flare.
Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan star in the brand-new trailer, released by Disney+ on Thursday. Gatwa plays the Doctor, his role in the long-running BBC series, adventuring through various worlds and time periods with Coughlan, who plays Joy.
Along with Gatwa and Coughlan, the special will star Steph de Whalley as Anita, Jonathan Aris playing Melnak, Joel Fry in the role of Trev, Peter Benedict playing Basil, Julia Watson playing Hilda and Niamh Marie Smith playing Sylvia.
“When Joy checks into a London hotel in 2024, she opens a secret doorway to the Time Hotel — discovering danger, dinosaurs and the Doctor. But a deadly plan is unfolding across the Earth, just in time for Christmas,” a synopsis for the special reads.
The special will premiere on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, at 12:10 p.m. ET.
In the action-packed trailer, the Doctor is seen greeting Joy by barging into her hotel room.
Throughout the trailer, various characters ask the Doctor an array of questions about his intentions and his identity, to which he responds each time, “You’ll find out.”
“You have to be mysterious all the time,” a lookalike of the Doctor says to him at one point. “That’s why everyone leaves you, that is why you’re always alone.”
The phrase “Who brings Joy to the worlds” then flashes across the screen, an apparent play on Coughlan’s character’s name as she enters a strange new world.
Alex Sanjiv Pillai directed the project and former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat wrote and executive produced the special. Russell T Davies is showrunner and executive producer.
