The Hollywood Reporter Award Special 18A, June 9, 2022

If you’ve listened to a good podcast in the past year, chances are high that a studio is already in talks to adapt it for the screen. The podcast-to-TV trend kicked into high gear earlier this year with the release of shows like Hulu’s The Dropout, Apple TV+’s WeCrashed, Peacock’s Joe vs. Carole and NBC’s The Thing About Pam — all of which were prestige, limited series based on podcasts of the same name. At the end of 2021, audiences saw Peacock’s Dr. Death and Apple TV+’s The Shrink Next Door. In some instances, such as with WeCrashed and Dr. Death, the showrunners were given early access to the podcast to see if — and how — they would be interested in adapting the story for TV. “I was sucked in from the…

It’s not often that a small part in a film leads to the starring role in a spinoff series. Jasmine Cephas Jones was involved from the early stages of the movie Blindspotting, which co-writers and stars Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal developed for some 10 years before the movie premiered at Sundance and was released by Lionsgate in 2018. The trenchant comedy is a tough love letter to their native Bay Area, about two best friends navigating gentrification, police brutality and a shifting sense of belonging. Cephas Jones, who costarred with Diggs in the original Broadway company of Hamilton, plays Ashley, the strong-willed girlfriend of Casal’s Miles. “I had a few pivotal scenes that were very, very intense,” Jones says. She filmed for a couple of days and figured her Blindspotting…

Much of the ink printed about Showtime’s prestige series The First Lady has (deservingly) been in reference to its female creative team, whether it be stars Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Gillian Anderson, director Susanne Bier or producer Cathy Schulman. But there’s a good story to be told about two men on The First Lady, specifically creator Aaron Cooley and co-star Kiefer Sutherland. Cooley cut his teeth in entertainment by starting out as an assistant to filmmaker Joel Schumacher in 2002. By that point, the in-demand auteur had already churned out a long list of high-profile Hollywood films including St. Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, A Time to Kill, Flawless and Tigerland, to name a few. But there’s one more feature that’s worthy of mention because…

“I wait with bated breath for the rest of the series in July.”KATE BUSH The English singer-songwriter, on her website, after her 1985 single “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” became a top 10 hit thanks to its inclusion in the fourth season of Stranger Things, the first half of which premiered May 27 on Netflix and concludes July 1. “It was Euphoria Sundays. It became a sporting event… I was like, ‘Wow, you guys are so creative.’ Also, I was a little concerned. Are you guys [even] watching?”ZENDAYA The Euphoria star, in Variety, recalling how the show’s rabid fan base produced memes on social media while the HBO drama’s episodes aired.…

Elle Fanning is a gifted actress who is already a widely respected veteran at the age of just 24. She is the younger of two sisters — Dakota is four years older — who both made tremendous impressions as child performers en route to impressive careers as young adults, with no major personal bumps along the way. Of her work on the big screen, she is perhaps best known for 2010’s Somewhere and 2017’s The Beguiled, both directed by Sofia Coppola. But she has also starred in films big and small under the direction of Francis Ford Coppola, J.J. Abrams, Alejandro González Iñárritu, David Fincher, Cameron Crowe, Sally Potter, Jay Roach, Mike Mills, Nicolas Winding Refn, John Cameron Mitchell, Tony Scott, Terry George, Ben Affleck and Woody Allen, among others. This…

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008) Fanning played a younger version of Cate Blanchett’s Daisy Fuller in the David Fincher film that also starred Brad Pitt. SUPER 8 (2011) Fanning starred alongside Joel Courtney and Kyle Chandler in a film that was written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. THE NEON DEMON (2016) The psychological horror film from Nicolas Winding Refn follows Fanning’s aspiring young model, whose beauty sparks jealousy within the industry. 20TH CENTURY WOMEN (2016) Fanning starred opposite Annette Bening and Greta Gerwig in Mike Mills’ film, based on the director’s own childhood. THE BEGUILED (2017) Sofia Coppola wrote and directed this adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s Civil War novel, which also starred Kirsten Dunst and Nicole Kidman.…