Innholdsfortegnelse for Wednesday June 13 2018 i The Hollywood Reporter

AFI Life Achievement Award Hollywood, June 7 Tony Awards New York, June 10 Clooney’s Night George Clooney (1) was lauded during an emotional evening presented by Audi at the Dolby Theatre that featured tributes from Diane Keaton (2), Bill Murray (4), Cate Blanchett, Jimmy Kimmel, Laura Dern, Julianna Margulies (7) and his parents, Nick Clooney and Nina Bruce Warren, among others. But it was his wife, Amal Clooney (1), who stole the show, making her first public statements about their relationship. “Seeing you with our children is my greatest joy in life. You fill our home with laughter and happiness, and that’s even before the children grow up to learn their Dada is actually Batman, a talking fox and friends with Mary Poppins,” she said. In his closing remarks, Clooney…

In late May, Funny or Die put out a call on its Pitch comedy app for fun facts about hot dogs. Nearly 120 people responded with their best jokes, and the comedy website awarded $10 each to the writers behind the top two one-liners. A few days later, on June 3, Funny or Die treated its 14.4 million Twitter followers to a list of “Hot Dog Facts,” and one of the Pitch jokes — “Every hot dog contains one full serving of self-doubt” — was featured. An up-and-coming comedy writer might not make enough to pay rent off of $10 Twitter jokes about hot dogs. But Pitch app creator Matt Klinman has a loftier goal: to help develop a new generation of comedians at a time when entry-level jobs writing…

In health-conscious L.A., the obsession with eating well can carry over to dog bowls. Most experts agree canines should eat whole foods over processed, feed-grade ingredients, but whether cooked or raw is the subject of big debate. For director Roland Emmerich, who recently adopted Chihuahua Bella with his husband, Omar de Soto, the decision was easy — after talking to friend Michael Fossat, producer of Netflix doc Pet Fooled, which takes on the commercial pet food industry and makes a case for raw diets. “I saw the film when it was done: Every species has a specific diet, and altering it does have health effects,” says Emmerich, who also supported the film financially. Oprah Winfrey’s vet, Chicago-based Barbara Royal, has been a believer in raw diets for more than 20…

I’m funny because… “My face started breaking out in seventh grade, and I realized I needed to get very funny very fucking fast — or get ready for a long couple years.” Dream product endorsement Nike “Air Jordan III’s. Hands down. Not 1’s. Not IV’s. Not even Air Jordan as a shoe. The III. Period. The greatest shoe ever made, and I want to endorse the shit out of it! And, if need be, make sweet love to it.” If I didn’t work in comedy “I would have been a lawyer. I can prove anybody wrong or right about anything. Doesn’t matter which side they are on. I just need a couple facts and to know which one they want the most. I’ll prove the other one right. Besides being…

My most memorable heckler… “I was doing a stand-up bit about the stages leading up to a fight and a drunk audience member thought I was challenging him and charged me.” Dream product endorsement “Leaves… they’re everywhere for a reason.” Guilty pleasure Dateline I’m funny because… “There’s no way I’m answering this.” Favorite Simpsons character “Ralph Wiggum because ‘I’m learnding’” If I met Kim Jong Un, I’d tell him… “It would be much more shocking and disorienting to the world if you became a wise and caring leader.”…

Turns out not everything that happens at the Just for Laughs festival is all that funny. Over the past 35 years, the Canadian comedy event has grown into one of the most important gatherings in the business, with millions of attendees pouring into Montreal’s downtown Centre-Ville neighborhood for several weeks every summer. There are performances by top talent from around the globe (this year’s festival, which runs from July 11 to 29, will include sets by Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, David Cross and Trevor Noah), a New Faces showcase for young stand-ups to make impressions on the scores of Hollywood execs who flock to the festival (see sidebar) and even a comedy-themed parade along the Rue Sainte-Catherine, with mimes and jugglers and giant papier-mache heads. Behind the scenes, though, the…

The average Emmy voter’s attention span appears to be shrinking. For the past three years, the TV Academy’s best drama nod has gone to a series whose eligible season either was airing or had just wrapped at the start of nomination voting. It’s a striking reversal from the previous five years, when the winners had been off the air for an average of eight months by the time nominations ballots went out. Now, for both programmers and awards-campaign consultants, one of the most pressing questions is how to time a series so it will grab the most eyeballs and, ideally, awards. “I truly don’t know how to game the issue of Peak TV or when to avoid the cacophony of shows being launched on every platform,” says BBC America president…

After taking digital courses taught by comedic icons, writer Tom Chiarella penned a Master Class analysis (page 88). And the results? “They’re convincing,” says Chiarella, a former writer at large at Esquire magazine and retired creative writing professor at DePauw University in Indiana. Comparing the teaching styles of Judd Apatow and Steve Martin, Chiarella notes their fearless “simple and pragmatic” approach to comedy explaining. “In the end,” he says, “all comedians find structure — even those who eschew it.” Known in large part for her 6-year marriage to comic Mitch Hedberg — a surrealist stand-up whose fans include Steve Martin and David Letterman — Lynn Shawcroft reflects on her late husband’s legacy and the trove he left behind (page 90). The Canadian comedienne, who now resides in Los Angeles, is…

I’ve been very fortunate in a business that’s notoriously tough. I get to work with my heroes and make music, film and television that is played around the world. I know firsthand what it feels like to be red hot with top Hollywood productions fighting to hire you. I also know what it feels like when you get that chilly call informing you that the agency will no longer be representing you. That’s humbling, but that’s showbiz. And it’s those dark nights of the soul that have challenged me to dig deep inside to figure out why I keep going. And with whom I want to go. I’m lucky. I found my tribe early on when I met producers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey in the mid-’80s. I was a…

“A lot of people either underestimate actors — that’s what I certainly did before becoming a part of the business,” says Pineda, photographed June 3 at Barbette in West Hollywood. VITAL STATS AGE 31 BORN Oakland, California BIG BREAK Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom REPS UTA, Kirsten Ames, Schreck Rose Daniella Pineda thought she had, if not a face for radio, certainly a mind for it. “I love NPR, and I thought working somewhere like that would be so intellectually stimulating,” says the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom actress, who majored in sociology and radio journalism at Mills College in California. After graduating, she landed a fellowship at San Francisco-based public radio station KALW and was on the path to her dream career, covering stories about poverty and racism in the Bay Area.…

A s with many of us who never had the opportunity to enjoy the steak frites at Brasserie Les Halles, my first exposure to Anthony Bourdain came through 2000’s Kitchen Confidential. The book was a raucous chronicle of the highs and lows of restaurant life, a rock ’n’ roll peek behind the curtain of a world unknown, if you never worked in food service. The vignettes were full of drug use, colorful language, and horrifying truths about our food and the people who prepare it. The tendency to crown Bourdain, who was found dead June 8 at 61, as the Hunter S. Thompson of the kitchen was irresistible. It wasn’t an incorrect tendency, but it was surely reductive. Bourdain became a television sensation, and every step of his career can…

Comedy’s first hippie, ’70s icon George Carlin, broke with traditional stand-up suited style. “We’re still under the influence of that era, of being completely casual onstage,” says comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff. Stand-ups today project their brand of comedy, like Arrested Development actress Maria Bamford, whose work is gloriously shameless about mental health. The comic favors heeled red clogs and purple socks with merch from other comedians, such as Jackie Kashian’s “Meat Shield” union-made tees. “I have [also] purchased entire outfits at CVS,” adds Bamford. Ali Wong says she chose the snake-print dress that she wore for her Netflix special Baby Cobra “out of sheer economics and lack of thought,” and afterward, “So many Asian women said to me, ‘Thank you for giving us an easy [Halloween] costume.’” She jokes about…

Actress Offers are flooding in. To come: projects with Kevin Hart, Tyler Perry and more Last O.G. and, deals permitting, Girls Trip 2. She’s co-writing her own sitcom. Stand-Up She’ll follow her 2017 Showtime special with a second for Netflix. “It’s not legend money,” she says, “but it’s enough to take care of my family and myself.” Host Haddish hosted SNL, and soon, the MTV awards; fans hope the Oscars — with or without Maya Rudolph — is next. “They would need to pay,” Haddish teases.…

It used to be easy figuring out who was king of late night. In the olden days, you’d simply add up the number of people watching a show as it aired in real time. Today, that would give Stephen Colbert the title, with 3.8 million viewers a night. But TV these days, like so many things, is much more complicated. In fact, for late-night shows, TV is practically becoming irrelevant. The real battle for eyeballs is online, where jokes and bits are viewed billions of times. “It does seem to be the future,” notes Seth Meyers, whose Late Night gag about bringing Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow to a party has racked up 15.3 million views, four times Colbert’s real-time viewership. “So we might as well figure it out.” For…

Most memorable bombing experience “When I first started doing stand-up comedy, I performed at UC Santa Barbara opening up for Marc ‘Skippy’ Price [he played Skippy Handelman on Family Ties] and was booed off the stage. I deserved it.” Brilliant piece of comedy that died too soon… “I wish they would bring back Lady Dynamite. I don’t know if it was canceled or if Maria Bamford got tired of doing it. That was my favorite half-hour on television. I think she’s the most innovative person in comedy. “ Favorite Simpsons character “I probably relate most to Bart Simpson. I wrote a spec Simpsons episode trying to break into comedy and wonderfully, they actually turned it into an episode a couple of years ago. It was one of the great circle…

My most memorable heckler… “Who cares? The whole world is on fire.” Dream product endorsement “A giant whale just died in Thailand after eating 80 plastic bags.” Guilty pleasure “Let’s not forget over 4,600 people have died in Puerto Rico.” I’m funny because… “I don’t even know anymore.” If I didn’t work in comedy… “I would never leave my house.” College comedy audiences are… “Kids that are afraid they will be shot in their own schools. What has happened to us?” Sitcom you’d reboot? “Mr. Rogers. I miss him. We need him.” The funniest thing about the Trump administration is… “Are you kidding me?”…

Landing a set at JFL’s New Faces showcase is pretty much the biggest break a young stand-up can get nowadays — just ask onetime New Faces Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, Kumail Nanjiani and Jimmy Fallon. This year’s batch of (for now) unknown hopefuls will have the added pressure of being filmed while auditioning: Producer Jimmy Fox (United Shades of America) and director Neil Berkeley (Harmontown) are shooting a six-part docuseries for Amazon about the process of becoming a New Face, from tryouts to callbacks to preparing fresh material. “Back in the 1970s, if you booked The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson waved you over to the couch, you had a pilot offer sent to you the next morning,” says Fox, explaining the importance of the showcase. “Now, the New Faces…

What do you get when you take three franchise movie stars — Daniel Bruhl (Captain America), Dakota Fanning (Twilight) and Luke Evans (Fast and the Furious) — and put them on TV? The Alienist, a dark thriller that has become TNT’s most watched current original series. Based on Caleb Carr’s bestselling book of the same name, the 1896-set story centers on Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Bruhl), an alienist (the term used for psychologists at the time) who teams with a newspaper illustrator (Evans) and the secretary (Fanning) of a New York City police station to investigate grisly murders of boy prostitutes. Bruhl, 39; Evans, 39; Fanning, 24; and executive producer and director Jakob Verbruggen, 37, sat down with THR on May 22 to talk about the 10-episode limited series — which…

Over the course of a few days in early June, Netflix invited Hollywood’s major talent agencies to assemble, one by one, on a rented soundstage at Raleigh Studios. For five hours, dozens of reps were given a rare peek behind the curtain of a secretive company. Ostensibly, the panels were about disproving criticism that films and series without major marketing campaigns are getting lost on the service amid its $8 billion-a-year content splurge. But the pitch also served as an admission: Netflix knows it isn’t the only game in town. If one company has the resources and ambition to compete for the future of streaming content, it’s Amazon. And that future is coming into greater focus under new Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke. After taking the top content post in…

There’s no guarantee that the future of TV will be mostly online, but the major broadcast news outlets are preparing for that possibility. The latest is NBC News, which is readying an over-the-top streaming service targeted at a younger audience and will begin experimenting with online shows this summer. News chairman Andrew Lack has said the service — which is described in job postings as an “Authentic. Voicy. Unexpected” offering — is “important” for the company and will have the resources to succeed. Meanwhile, Christy Tanner, who runs digital for CBS News, says the majority of people who watch the network’s CBSN streaming service don’t watch the linear channel. CBSN, which launched in 2014, drew more than 280 million live streams in 2017 from a predominantly young audience — the…

‘YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO NETFLIX’: BERLANTI ESCALATES WAR FOR TALENT Deal of the Week On June 7, the applause heard on the Warner Bros. lot and in several writers rooms around town could have been considered a collective sigh of relief. Greg Berlanti (WME, Felker Toczek) inked a fouryear extension to stay at Warner Bros. TV through 2024. Sources say Warners stepped up with a $400 million package to extend the deal — which had two years remaining — as multiple outlets, including Netflix (which poached Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy from their respective homes at ABC Studios and 20th Century Fox TV with similar nine-figure deals) had been pursuing the prolific producer. “Berlanti staying at Warners reminded people that to get a massive payday, you don’t have…

Gina Rodriguez will be throwing her hat in the Emmy ring for the fourth (and pen-ultimate) season of her CW comedy, Jane the Virgin. She just won’t be spending studio money on glam for campaign events or themed swag — though, as a recent episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt suggests, a Jane-branded pregnancy test would be quite a novelty. “FYC is a bizarre dance,” says the star. “Whatever you do requires an insane amount of money.” So this year, Rodriguez decided to put her allotted FYC spend from CBS TV Studios toward a college scholarship for an undocumented high school student. “Our show has always jumped at any opportunity to help me do something for the Latinx community,” says Rodriguez. “So I asked my showrunner, Jennie [Snyder Urman], if we…

“The 14th closest friend is still upset about it.” AMAL CLOONEY The lawyer, joking at the AFI Life Achievement Gala about the famous story that husband George Clooney once gave each of his 13 closest friends a suitcase filled with $1 million as a present. “We aren’t going to be tricked into doing something stupid just to play in a game driven by ego.” LOWELL MCADAM The Verizon CEO, in an interview, disdaining the current wave of big media companies buying their way to growth, adding, “If M&A drives your strategy, you aren’t an effective leader.” “If the summit goes well they can forgo their individual countries and go straight to the fantasy country.” CHRIS HARRISON The Bachelorette host, joking on Twitter about President Trump’s meeting with North Korea’s Kim…

Lachlan Murdoch, Irving Azoff, producer Lou Pitt and Jeffrey Katzenberg shared the room at Toscana for lunch.… Priyanka Chopra had a date night with Nick Jonas at Tocaya West Hollywood.… Zelda Williams enjoyed dinner at Norah.… Yasiel Puig lunched at Culina. Randy Jackson was also at the Four Seasons L.A. at Beverly Hills.… DJ Khaled sat for dinner at Crustacean Beverly Hills.… Producer Hawk Koch stopped by Viviane at the Avalon Beverly Hills. APA’s Julia Johnson was also there.… Howie Mandel checked out Punta Cabras. APL Restaurant The Quick Pitch Barbecue master Adam Perry Lang reigns at this Parisian bistro-inspired Hollywood steakhouse with high ceilings and brown leather booths. The pedigreed chef (Le Cirque, Daniel, Guy Savoy) flaunts his knife skills with 100-day dry-aged cuts kept in an underground environmental…

I was fortunate to find in this life a true comrade-in-arms who, through his example, helped me throw off the chains of being Soviet-born, who helped me become a citizen of the world. Through working with Tony, I became closer to the world of authors Ernest Hemingway and Milan Kundera. It mattered not whether we had caviar or blinis, vodka or beer, there was always food for thought and lively discussion. He created what I can only define as an unbearable lightness of being through food and booze. There is the episode in Uzbekistan, which has gone down as one of the most popular: We secured access to the older banya [steam sauna] in town, where the masseur was rather disgruntled about being on American TV. But I paid ahead…

When Jim Gianopulos and his wife, Ann, evacuated their home during the Skirball Fire last December, the couple learned that their newly adopted rescue dog, Homer, had more serious anxiety issues than they thought. Upon the Gianopuloses’ arrival at a Santa Monica hotel with their two teenage daughters, the German shepherd refused to budge from the entrance. “He dug in and would not move,” says the CEOchairman of Paramount Pictures. With the help of his wife, Gianopulos got the “freaked-out” 110-pound dog back in the car and convinced a local animal hospital to board him for the night. “That’s when we and Homer started working with Tamar [Geller],” says Gianopulos of the Israeli spy turned top trainer, who had also worked with the family’s first dog, a rescue named Taxi…

THE LEGENDS Judd Apatow DIRECTOR-PRODUCER-WRITER Apatow, 50, made his name with big-screen comedies like Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin and discovering young talent (James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel). But lately, he’s focused on the small screen, producing the four-hour documentary The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling and Crashing for HBO as well as Netflix projects like the series Love and his own special, The Return, in which Apatow did stand-up for the first time in 25 years. “There is such an explosion of TV comedy that it’s siphoning off good writers who used to write screenplays,” he tells THR. “You never open up the trades and hear about a comedy sale. It’s become a foregone conclusion that people think the market is disappearing for this.” Dave Chappelle COMIC…

A joke I wish I’d written is… “Adam Carolla told one the other night that had me screaming. I’m fucking up the joke — but it’s basically like: Every week, there’s some new excuse to go to a kid’s school. Why am I always at my kid’s school? My dad was at my school one time my whole life. He stuck his head in the door while I was taking a test and said, ‘Where’s the wrench?’ That cracked me up.” Most memorable heckler experience “I don’t deal with hecklers anymore, I just get off the stage. It’s a new day. I guess some people can be trash hecklers, but I ignore them. If you’re mean to somebody onstage now, people lose their minds. I probably ended two shows early…

Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards June 13 Beverly Hilton After taking on Halle Berry’s iconic role as X-Men superhero Storm (she’ll next be seen in X-Men: Dark Phoenix), Alexandra Shipp will drop in to another beloved franchise, as the new female lead in the Shaft sequel, out June 2019. But first, the 26-year-old actress, who recently starred in the first major LGBTQ YA studio movie, Love, Simon, will be honored at this year’s Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards with the Max Mara Face of the Future Award. Ahead of the ceremony, Shipp talked to THR about the tide-change year for women in entertainment and what she would do to work with Meryl Streep. In a year that has seen such change in the industry for women,…

Buster Keaton did his best work before 1930, when The Hollywood Reporter began publishing. Both the American Film Institute and Keaton himself considered his finest film to be 1926’s The General, the big-budgeted silent comedy that he co-directed and starred in. But THR was around in 1966 for his final acting appearance, in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, released eight months after his death from lung cancer at 70. (As for Forum, THR said, “To ordinary moviegoers, it may prove a puzzlement.”) Keaton’s career began in his early 20s when he worked with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle doing two-reel comedies. His work quickly evolved into making his own full-length films. Orson Welles was so impressed by him he once told Peter Bogdanovich that “Keaton was beyond…