Ben Falcone isn't exactly known for making kid-friendly projects. His films with wife and frequent collaborator Melissa McCarthy are "R-rated quite often, but I do think there's a certain sweetness that we usually try to hit." And it's that sweetness he's bringing to his first kids' book, What's Scarier Than Thunder? "My secret goal is that it's so…

When social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney, famous for chronicling her gender transition online in “365 Days of Girlhood,” posted a sponsored video promoting Bud Light, it quickly went viral, but not necessarily in a good way. “I would have never taken that offer had I known it would have brought me anything but joy.” She shares her experience in …

We've got new winners from Peacock's Traitors! Dolores Catania, Dylan Efron and Ivar Mountbatten spoke with Newsweek about sleuthing out the traitors and why this season was so chaotically wonderful. If you watched, then you know the actual traitors were a mess. Instead of murdering faithfuls, they all seemed to be going after fellow traitors. This…

With Novocaine (March 14), Jack Quaid is stepping into his leading man era. "It's the first time I've seen my face prominently featured on a billboard or a poster, and that is so surreal." Quaid plays Nathan, an ordinary man who turns his unique condition—a genetic disorder that leaves him unable to feel pain—into a superpower to save his girlfrien…

The path to get Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again made was a “wild” journey, says Vincent D’Onofrio, who plays Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin, the supervillain at odds with Matt Murdock aka Daredevil (played by Charlie Cox), a lawyer by trade fighting for justice. “Any time you’re involved with a project that people are digging, you just feel like you owe th…

As a six-time New York Times bestselling author, Chelsea Handler knows the secret to a successful book is to stay true to herself. “All of my books are representative of where I am in my life at that time.” And “right now, where I am in my life is my feet are so firmly planted in the ground you cannot knock me over.” The comedian just released her …

When America is under siege, it takes a special group to step up and face the enemy. Robert De Niro, Connie Britton, Angela Bassett and more star in Netflix’s limited series Zero Day trying to unravel the mystery of who is trying to bring the country to its knees. H. Alan Scott is joined by Naomi Ekperigin to break down all of the exciting twists a…

Showtime’s Yellowjackets is really two shows in one. One is about a group of ’90s teenage plane crash survivors, and the other follows them now. The trick is finding that balance between the actors playing the same characters. “Casting just did an excellent job. They found people with similar essences,” says Jasmin Savoy Brown, who plays the younge…

When you take on a role that somebody else made famous, it’s not easy. Patrick Gibson knew when he started playing a younger version of Michael C. Hall’s Dexter Morgan, a Miami serial killer, in Dexter: Original Sin, that risk is “farther to fall, in a way.” Hall “can’t even be turning in his grave,” because he’s still very much involved with the r…

Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding is thrilled Renée Zellweger is back in the fourth installment of the series, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. "She's so like Bridget in that she is so warm and kind. There's a gentleness about her, and it's real. There's nothing made up about that," Fielding told Newsweek in early February. "Once Renée started p…

"I'm a fan of Bridget Jones.... That I share that with so many people is a really cool thing," Renée Zellweger told Newsweek’s Parting Shot in an exclusive interview. Nearly 24 years ago, the movie starring Zellweger as that young, single, British woman who started a diary was released. Its protagonist subsequently became a cultural phenomenon, a s…

He’s been in the business for more than 40 years, but Mark-Paul Gosselaar still feels like he hasn’t experienced everything. “I still feel like I have so much left to learn. Every time I walk on a set, I learn something.” Currently on NBC’s Found, Gosselaar plays Sir, a man held captive by Gabi (played by Shanola Hampton), the adult woman his chara…

When it comes to celebrity interviews, the first name that comes to mind is probably not Malcolm Gladwell. But The Tipping Point writer says he will “defend my props as a celebrity interviewer” on Audible’s The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell. “I just thought, it's fun to hang out with Kenya and his celebrity friends... [but…

Did you watch The Traitors or RuPaul’s Drag Race this week? Because if you did, this episode is for you. First H. Alan Scott is chatting with Robyn Dixon of Real Housewives fame about her exit from the castle on Traitors. Then he’s joined by Drag Race’s Joella about her exit from the show and she addresses some of her comments that went viral. See …

From Boyz N the Hood in 1991 until now, Morris Chestnut has seen much of Hollywood. "I've been through pretty much everything in the industry." Now he's starring in and executive producing CBS's new drama Watson (January 26). It "was a no-brainer" for Chestnut when he was approached to play Dr. John Watson. "It's just a blessing and an honor to hav…

Wells Adams, the Bachelor in Paradise bartender, unfortunately had an early boot from this season of Peacock’s The Traitors. But his time on the show was memorable, particularly because of his game play and just how charming he was. He speaks with Newsweek’s Parting Shot about all of this, what he would have done differently and who he’s rooting fo…

Now that Julia Stiles has directed her first feature film, Wish You Were Here, she sees the work of directors in a whole new light. “I almost wanted to call some directors that I had worked with and be like, ‘I'm so sorry that I was annoyed with you when you told me to do that thing.’” Best known for acting, when she read the novel the film is base…

Nearly 30 years after Marianne Jean-Baptiste received an Oscar nomination for her first collaboration with director Mike Leigh, Secrets & Lies, the pair are back together with Hard Truths. “It’s been so nice to just spend time with him,” Jean-Baptiste tells Newsweek’s Parting Shot. Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a depressed, angry, middle-aged woman wh…

After the massive success of last season’s The Traitors (streaming now on Peacock), host Alan Cumming knew this season had to be bigger. “There was a pressure to not just repeat ourselves, it actually upped the ante.” And they did just that, with a more explosive cast and even wilder twists. “It is bigger. I'm sort of a cult leader. I've gone from …

With inauguration day just around the corner, a lot of people are asking themselves: What can we expect from this new era of Trump? Trump 2.0, if you will. And what actions will he take in his first 100 days? H. Alan Scott is joined by Newsweek’s Katherine Fung to break down everything we can expect from Trump once he takes office. See Privacy Poli…

2024 was quite a year. From the wild ride that was Donald Trump this year to Taylor Swift’s dominance over, well, everybody, Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott and Jenni Fink break down all the stories that had us talking. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.…

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are having a very public bromance, with Musk having a large influence over Trump and his decision making. (Just this week Musk was seemingly instrumental in Trump pulling his support from a budget bill to keep the government open.) Is Musk even qualified to have this level of influence? Also, Lays Chips is just the latest…

Survivor 47 was an incredible season. Rachel LaMont, a dominant player with four historic immunity wins, won the million dollars and cemented herself in Survivor history. She chatted with Newsweek about her win and that truly incredibly hidden immunity idol moment this season. (If you know, you know.) We’re also chatting with the rest of the top 3,…

Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, went viral (for all the wrong reasons) this week after his arrest in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. In other news, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to go after your Ozempic, but can Elon Musk, a proponent of the weight loss medication, convince President-elect Donald Trump otherwi…

Fans of Daniel Aleman’s books are about to get to know the author even better with his new book I Might Be in Trouble. “I will say with this one character; I was very intentional about making him a mirror of myself. I wanted him to basically be me,” Aleman told Newsweek’s Parting Shot. The novel follows David Alvarez, a young author whose debut suc…

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are ready to bring a little ‘sanasa’ to the world with Peacock’s Paris & Nicole: The Encore, their first project together since their reality show The Simple Life ended in 2007. What’s ‘sanasa’? It’s a song and phrase the longtime friends created as kids and popularized on Simple Life. Now they’re bringing it back and…

The major thing about Netflix’s No Good Deed that appealed to Ray Romano was that it was unlike anything he’d done before. “I read about three scripts, and at the end of each there was a little twist, a little turn, [and] it was funny.” The dramedy series follows families looking to buy a home owned by Paul and Lydia Morgan (Romano and Lisa Kudrow)…

The announcement of the Golden Globe nominations mean awards season has officially begun. Regularly an indicator of the films and actors in consideration for the big prize, the Academy Award, the Globe nominations offer us an insight into where the awards season stands and, more importantly, where it might be going. And right now, it looks like the…

As President-elect Donald Trump shapes out his cabinet, one thing is clear: it’s our favorite new reality show. To look back at the week that was, comedian Anna Roisman joins Newsweek’s H. Alan Scott to discuss Trump’s cabinet picks, Anthem insurance capping anesthesia coverage at certain time limits for patients, Billboard’s selection of Beyoncé a…

After watching Prime Video’s The Sticky, it became clear that the Margo Martindale praise needed to continue with some of her co-stars. Chris Diamantopoulos is one of the “cohorts” Margo spoke about in our chat, and he’s fantastic in the Jamie Lee Curtis-produced series. Diamantopoulos plays Mike, one of the two men who help Martindale’s Ruth in he…

“Who knew that a barrel of maple syrup is worth more than a barrel of oil?” Margo Martindale does, after starring in The Sticky (December 6, Prime Video). The Emmy-winning actor plays Ruth Landry, a Canadian syrup farmer who resorts to crime after the government threatens to take away her livelihood. “It’s very different, very fun and what an incre…

There are very few directors whose personality is so central to their work, and Nora Ephron is one of those directors. A multi-hyphenated powerhouse of creativity, Ephron’s films like Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and Julie & Julia cemented her status as the epitome of a very specific–and cozy–mood that would in many ways define her legacy …

“Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are banned from access to education and women are limited from work.” That is the stark reality that motivated Malala Yousafzai to lend her name as a producer to the documentary Bread & Roses (Apple TV+). Directed by Sahra Mani and co-produced by Jennifer Lawrence, the film follows three Afg…

For Mayan Lopez, who stars, co-created and produces NBC’s Lopez vs. Lopez alongside her father, George Lopez, she tells Newsweek that we need more sitcoms, now more than ever. “You don’t gotta reinvent the wheel of sitcom, but we do the wheel well.” On Lopez vs. Lopez, Mayan and George play fictionalized versions of themselves, with many of the sto…

For John David Washington, bringing Netflix’s The Piano Lesson (November 22) from stage to screen was a family affair. His father, Denzel, produces while his brother, Malcolm, directs the film adaptation of August Wilson’s play about the Charles family in 1936 Pittsburgh as they wrestle with selling a family heirloom, a piano descended from ancesto…

For Skye P. Marshall, getting the part of Olympia on CBS’ Matlock is the culmination of a lot of hard work. “Every decision I've made in my career has led me to this moment. I'm a winner.” On Matlock, Marshall’s Olympia is a successful attorney at a prestigious New York City law firm who suddenly must contend with Madeline “Matty” Matlock (played b…

Aldis Hodge’s career has been busy since his debut as a child actor in the 1995 film Die Hard with a Vengeance, but he says all that work has culminated in Prime Video’s Cross (November 14). “It just feels like the work that I’ve done in the past 35 years of my career has led up to this.” Hodge plays Alex Cross, a detective who uses forensic psycho…

After 10 years of playing Beverly Goldberg on The Goldbergs, Wendi McLendon-Covey was not eager for a break. “I need to go do a job where I can just throw everything at it and then come home totally exhausted.” Luckily for her, NBC’s St. Denis Medical was waiting. “I loved the premise of the show and I love this character.” McLendon-Covey plays Joy…

Sharon Horgan has a resume packed with award-winning comedy, but when it came to crafting Bad Sisters (Apple TV+, November 13) she had to find the right balance. That’s because “a very difficult subject matter,” about Irish sisters who plot to murder the abusive husband of one of the women, had to “sit alongside quite a farce.” Adapted from a Belgi…

We have a new president. (Well, not new, but you know what I mean.) Former President Donald Trump pulled off one of the greatest political comebacks in political history. For some, it’s a victory, and for others, it’s a dark day. How did he do it? And where did Kamala Harris wrong? To break it down and attempt to make sense of it all, H. Alan Scott…

With election day just days away, we’re looking at what could be one of the closest elections in U.S. history. The question is: Will people show up to vote or is the apathy just so strong that people can’t make a decision between over the typical “lesser of two evils” stance? While Vice President Kamala Harris makes a case against former President …

A late-night comedy show on CNN? Yes, and it's a game show, too. Have I Got News for You, hosted by Roy Wood Jr. with Michael Ian Black and Amber Ruffin serving as team captains, tests players' knowledge of the news. "On regular late-night shows, you have to teach the audience what the news story is and then you can talk about it," Ruffin says. "Bu…

For Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, “it’s all about the work.” lately, she’s been working a lot. In the reimagining of CBS’ Matlock, Bates plays Madeline Matlock, a woman rejoining the workforce at a prestigious law firm in her senior years. The first season of the show, which “has caught fire with 10 million people,” says Bates, is such a success that C…

In the span of a week, former President Donald Trump went from working the drive through at McDonald’s to allegedly praising Adolf Hitler’s generals while president. Can you tell we’re just mere weeks away from election day? And in some ways, it feels like everybody is looking for an October surprise, yet it feels like with every new shocking piece…

Bridget Everett never thought she’d be the lead of a TV show. “I come from the downtown world in New York, a cabaret singer, and these things just don’t happen, you don’t find yourself with three seasons of HBO. It just doesn’t happen.” But it happened. On Somebody Somewhere (October 27), Everett plays Sam, a woman struggling through a midlife cris…

George Lopez has done a lot in his long career. But now, with NBC’s Lopez vs Lopez, George knows what’s most important “is the people you get to be around and get to talk to.” One of those people includes his daughter, Mayan Lopez, who he created the show with. The two play fictionalized versions of themselves as they rekindle their estranged relat…

This week saw Kamala Harris entering enemy territory with her Fox News interview. Will it help or hurt her? As that was going on, everyone was still reacting to former President Donald Trump jamming out to a playlist that seemingly hasn’t been updated since 1993. Oh, and are we close to Erik and Lyle Menendez being released from prison? H. Alan Sco…

Asher Grodman is perfectly fine playing a ghost on CBS’ Ghosts who walks through the afterlife without any pants. “I don’t really want to die in the state that Trevor died. It would be nice to have pants on.” But for now, Grodman is OK with it if it means he gets to continue to play Trevor, a former stockbroker who died of a drug-induced heart atta…

Jenny Slate is ready to be herself. “I think what is [evident] in my work is that through my own journey, not just through motherhood, but my own connection with myself as a developing artist, is that I just don’t feel myself flailing anymore.” She’s writing about this confidence in her new book of essays Lifeform (Little, Brown and Company, Octobe…

Mikey Madison has been dreaming of a film like Anora since she started acting as a teenager on Better Things. “It’s been a dream of mine to have that kind of collaboration with a filmmaker like Sean [Baker].” That dream has come true in a big way, with the film and her performance picking up a lot of awards buzz. “I’m so happy that people are excit…