Adrien Brody and Tilda Swinton both confront themes of life and death in their movies this year. In “The Brutalist,” Brady Corbet’s ambitious “great man” tale, Brody’s László Tóth, an architect and an immigrant to the U.S. from Hungary in the years after the Holocaust, seeks to make a structure that will express his worldview […]

Colman Domingo and Kieran Culkin take opposite approaches to their work. Domingo researches every role and sets his alarm for several hours before he’s due on set, which Culkin teases him about. “If I have a 5 a.m. pickup, you know when I wake up?” Culkin says. “5 a.m.” But, as they learn here, their […]

Mikey Madison, who got her start on the FX series “Better Things,” is among the discoveries of Oscar season with Sean Baker’s “Anora.” As the title character — a Russian American stripper in Brooklyn who allows herself to fall for a client — she is alternately hard-edged and sentimental. Who better to pair her with […]

The director Luca Guadagnino has an eye for leading men. This past year, Guadagnino put Josh O’Connor through a complicated game of sex, betrayal and tennis in “Challengers,” written by Justin Kuritzkes. And the director took Daniel Craig on a journey through the emotional depths of “Queer,” based on William Burroughs’ short novel. O’Connor and […]

Zoe Saldaña and Kate Winslet connect easily, as colleagues who haven’t seen each other in a while often do: They worked together on James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which was released in 2022, and will also appear in next year’s third film, “Fire and Ash.” Saldaña had created the role of Neytiri in […]

“I’m finding out we’re the same person — long-lost cousins,” Drew Starkey says to Harris Dickinson. Though the two have just met, at 31 and 28, they are indeed in the same unusual position: Both play the love interests of far more seasoned movie stars. Starkey was best known for Netflix’s teen drama “Outer Banks” […]

Between Luca Guadagnino’s tennis-centric love triangle “Challengers” and playing Chani opposite Timothée Chalamet’s Paul in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two,” Zendaya owned 2024. Just ask Nicole Kidman, who makes a point of telling the 28-year-old actor that she paid money to see both films in theaters. “One I saw at midnight — I was really […]

At the Tony Awards in June, the past and future of “Wicked” were in the spotlight, with Idina Menzel and Cynthia Erivo — the Elphabas of stage and screen, respectively — presenting the night’s best new musical award to “The Outsiders.” One of those statuettes went to Angelina Jolie, who, with her daughter Vivienne, was […]

Plenty of our Actors on Actors subjects did their homework this time around — but Selena Gomez may win the prize for most prepared. As she sat down, the “Emilia Pérez” performer clutched a phone on which she had pages of questions she intended to ask Saoirse Ronan, star of “Blitz” and “The Outrun.” Both […]

Ariana Grande travels with a furry companion; no, not Toto, but close. The Grammy-winning pop singer — and, thanks to her film “Wicked,” newly minted movie star — shows up at our shoot hours early, ready to make friends as she meanders around the coffee station with her beagle-Chihuahua mix, Toulouse, in her arms. As […]

Variety’s Actors on Actors returns for its 21st season with the biggest stars from this year’s awards season. Highlights from this latest lineup: a blockbuster “Glicked” pairing between Ariana Grande and Paul Mescal, a can’t-miss conversation between Andrew Garfield and Ryan Reynolds, and the two powerhouse voices behind “Maria” and “Wicked,” Angelina Jolie and Cynthia […]