Eight years after Grace VanderWaal won “America’s Got Talent,” people still see her as the bashful 12-year-old girl from Kansas who floored everyone with her ukulele-playing and contemplative songs. “I had the weirdest experience recently,” VanderWaal, now 20, tells Variety over Zoom from L.A., the blunt bangs of her tween years replaced by a sleek […]

Channing Dungey, Warner Bros. TV Group chairman and CEO, will deliver a keynote address at Mipcom in Cannes next month. The executive will participate in a fireside chat on Oct. 21 in the Grand Auditorium of the Palais des Festivals as part of the “C-Suite Conversations” series in partnership with Variety. Dungey took the helm […]

Ella Purnell plays a wallflower-turned-murderer in the official trailer for Sky and Starz’s thriller series “Sweetpea.” The “Yellowjackets” and “Fallout” breakout stars as Rhiannon Lewis, a young woman who doesn’t particularly make an impression, in the six-part show based on C.J. Skuse’s novel of the same name. “People walk past her in the street without […]

Steve McQueen’s “Blitz,” a historical drama taking place as Nazi Germany bombed London during World War II, has released its first trailer. The Apple Original film stars Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan as Rita, a distraught mother who frantically searches for her 9-year-old son George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan) after sending him to the countryside during the […]

A docuseries on the rise and fall of Sean “Diddy” Combs is in the works from Investigation Discovery and “Quiet on Set” producer Maxine Productions. The news was announced the day after the music mogul was formally charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. According to a press release, the […]

As “Brat” summer comes to a close, “Brat” fall is just beginning. Pop savant Charli XCX has officially announced a remix of “Talk Talk,” a song from her critically and commercially acclaimed album “Brat,” featuring her “Sweat” tour co-headliner Troye Sivan. The track comes out on Thursday. Though the remix’s artwork — which Charli revealed […]

The first look at Kristen Stewart’s feature directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water,” is finally here. The Oscar-nominated actor is pictured above on set with star Imogen Poots, who portrays author Lidia Yuknavitch in the film adaptation of her 2011 bestselling memoir of the same name. According to the film’s official synopsis, it’s “about turning […]

Nicole Kidman won the best actress prize at Venice Film Festival for her performance in “Babygirl” on Saturday night, but was not on hand to accept the prize because of some devastating news. After Kidman’s name was announced, “Babygirl” director Halina Reijn took the stage and delivered written remarks in place of Kidman, revealing that […]

The Venice Film Festival draws to a close this evening with its glamorous awards gala, and though the feeling on the ground was that the 21-title-strong main competition was a touch off the pace of recent years, still the festival is looking pretty good for an 81-year-old. Especially one who has spent the past 11 […]

Kevin Costner spoke on the scrapped theatrical release of his second “Horizon” film on Saturday during its Venice Film Festival press conference, saying that “it probably was a reaction” to the underperformance of the first movie at the box office. “It didn’t have overwhelming success,” Costner said of the first film. “I’ve had a lot […]

Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix soaked up the applause as Todd Phillips’ villainous musical sequel, “Joker: Folie à Deux” earned an 11-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday night. Before the premiere, Phoenix showed up early and generously worked the carpet, taking selfies with fans. Phillips asked a guest to borrow her paper […]

Joaquin Phoenix spoke about revisiting his controversial “Joker” diet for the film’s sequel during a Venice Film Festival press conference on Wednesday, saying it was “a bit more difficult” because of “Folie à Deux’s” dance component. “I’m not going to talk through specifics of the diet, but this time it felt a bit more complicated […]

Daniel Craig delivers a career-best performance in Luca Guadagnino’s romantic drama “Queer,” playing a gay American expat in 1950s Mexico City. The drama, with its explicit love scenes, swept up a packed theater at its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday night, earning a 9-minute standing ovation. When the applause began, Craig […]

When Alex Ross Perry set out to make a film about Pavement, he wanted it to be as absurd as some of the ’90s slacker band’s lyrics. For the indie director, known for “Listen Up Philip” and “Her Smell,” that meant pushing the very boundaries of what a film could be. “Pavements,” premiering on Wednesday […]

Daniel Craig opened up about filming sex scenes for Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” during its Venice Film Festival press conference, saying he and co-star Drew Starkey “tried to make it fun.” “You know as well as I do, there’s nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set,” Craig said. “We just wanted to […]

Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novella “Queer,” which premieres Tuesday in competition at the Venice Film Festival, is his most personal film yet — and one that he’s been dreaming of making for many years. The stars aligned when producer Lorenzo Mieli and Fremantle’s head of literary acquisitions Raffaella de Angelis were […]

Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton stunned the Venice Film Festival on Monday night with the premiere of Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door,” which received a 17-minute standing ovation, the longest of the 2024 edition so far. After the film ended, the Spanish auteur kissed the cheeks of both Swinton and Moore and lifted up […]

Drew Starkey didn’t audition for Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” — instead, the project found him. The 30-year-old “Outer Banks” star was sending in self-tapes for various other projects when Guadagnino was shown one of Starkey’s by a producer friend. Then, Starkey got a call that the “Challengers” and “Call Me by Your Name” director would like […]

Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door,” starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, deals with a controversial topic: euthanasia. Marking Almodóvar’s first English-language feature, “The Room Next Door” stars the two Oscar winners as Ingrid (Moore) and Martha (Swinton), who were close friends in their youth when they worked at the same magazine. After years of […]