Colman Domingo to Receive TIFF Tribute Performer Award at Toronto International Film Festival

Posted on August 28, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Colman Domingo is getting a special tribute…

The 53-year-old Belizean-Guatemalan American actor and social justice activist will be honored with the Toronto International Film Festival‘s TIFF Tribute Performer Award, an accolade that has gone to many eventual Academy Award winners in the recent past.

Though the honor is billed as one for his overall career and for his performance in TIFF’s presentation of the new film Sing Sing, Domingo’s name has been heavily touted as one to watch in the upcoming race for the Best Actor Oscar, particularly for his work in director George C. Wolfe‘s Bayard Rustin biopic Rustin, which will also premiere at TIFF this year.

TIFF’s Tribute Awards have gone to significant contenders in past Oscar races, including Joker‘s Joaquin Phoenix, The Father star Anthony Hopkins, Nomadland director Chloé Zhao, The Eyes of Tammy Faye performer Jessica Chastain, and The Whale‘s Brendan Fraser — all of whom went on to win Oscars for their respective projects.

In Rustin, Domingo plays the titular queer activist as he plans the 1963 March on Washington, with Chris Rock, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Glynn Turman, Aml Ameen, CCH Pounder, Jeffrey Wright and Audra McDonald co-starring.

“Colman Domingo’s performances are a masterclass in the art of storytelling,” said TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey in a press statement. “Domingo’s presence, on stage and on screen, is a gift to audiences, and his work continues to resonate, leaving an indelible impact. He is a true visionary in the world of performance, and we’re excited to honor him this year.”

The 2023 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 7-17, with the TIFF Tribute Awards ceremony occurring on Sunday, September 10.

Rustin debuts in select theaters on November 3, 2023 and hits Netflix on November 17.

See-Saw Films Releases First Look Images of James Hawes’ “One Life,” Starring Helena Bonham-Carter

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Here’s a first look at Helena Bonham-Carter’s one life…

See-Saw Films has released first look images of James Hawes’ One Life, starring the 57-year-old part-Spanish English actress, which will receive its world premiere as a Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) special presentation in September.

Written by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake, the film is based on the book, If it’s not impossible… The life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton.

It tells the true story of Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton, a young London banker who, on the eve of World War II, saved 669 children from the Nazis – more than the number of children who survived the Holocaust in Czechoslovakia.

With war fast approaching, Winton visited a recently annexed Prague and witnessed first-hand Jewish refugee families with little to no shelter and food. He immediately realized it was a race against time to see how many children he and his friends could rescue before time ran out.

Fifty years later, in 1988, Winton is haunted by the fate of the children he wasn’t able to bring to safety in England. It’s not until a live television show That’s Life surprises him with the surviving children – now adults – seated all around him that he can finally make peace with the loss he had carried for five decades.

Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn both play Nicholas Winton at different stages of his life. Bonham-Carter plays Winton’s mother, Babi. The cast also includes Jonathan Pryce, Lena Olin, Romola Garai and

The film is a Warner Bros. Pictures, BBC Film and MBK Productions presentation in association with Cross City Films, Filmnation Entertainment and Lipsync and is a See-Saw Films Production.

TIFF takes place September 7-17.

Pepe Barroso to Star in Gladiator Drama “Those About to Die”

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Pepe Barroso is preparing for battle …

The 26-year-old Spanish actor has been cast in Peacock’s epic gladiator drama Those About to Die, as principal photography on the Roland Emmerich series kicked off at Rome’s historic Cinecittà Studios.

Barroso, who recently starred in Gran Turismo, joins a list of new cast additions that includes Iwan Rheon, Liraz Charhi, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Rupert Penry-Jones, Eneko Sagardoy, Gonçalo Almeida, Kyshan Wilson and Alicia Edogamhe.

Inspired by Daniel Mannix’s nonfiction book, Those About to Die is billed as an epic drama set in the complex and corrupt world of ancient Rome’s spectacle-driven gladiatorial competition.

AGC Television is the studio, with additional financing provided by High End Productions and with local production services provided by Italy’s Wildside Productions.

Anthony Hopkins will play Vespasian, the Emperor of Rome and head of the Flavian bloodline, and the likes of Sara Martins and Dimitri Leonidas have already been cast for key roles.

Sagardoy (Giant, Elite), Barroso (45 rpm) and Almeida (Esperança) play the Corsi brothers.

Emmerich is directing alongside Marco Kreuzpaintner, with Robert Rodat writing.

John Leguizamo to Serve as Presenter at 94th Annual Academy Awards Show

Posted on March 13, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

John Leguizamo has a date with Oscar…

The 61-year-old Colombian actor will serve as a presenter for this year’s Academy Awards show.

Leguizamo joins a roster of presenters that includes Daniel Kaluuya, Mila Kunis, Lupita Nyong’o, Naomi Scott, Wesley Snipes, John Travolta, Ruth E. Carter, Kevin Costner, Anthony Hopkins, Zoë Kravitz, Lady Gaga, Lily James, Simu Liu, Rami Malek, Rosie Perez, Chris Rock, Uma Thurman and Yuh-Jung Youn.

The Oscars will air live on March 27 on ABC.

Oscarcast producers Will Packer and Shayla Cowan had previously discussed the presenters who’ll form part of the show.

“Movies inspire us, entertain us and unite us across the globe,” Packer said at the time. “That’s the precise goal of the show this year, and we’re thrilled to welcome the first of a stellar lineup joining the Oscars stage to help us celebrate the power of film and honor the year’s best in filmmaking.”

The Power of the Dog leads the field with 12 nominations coming into this month’s Oscar show, and Dune is next with 10.

ABC will air the 94th annual Academy Awards live from Dolby Theatre in Hollywood at 5:00 pm PT/8:00 pm ET and in 200-plus territories around the world.

Cardi B Shines Bright in Amazon’s “Alexa Loses Her Voice” Super Bowl Commercial

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Tom Castaneda

Cardi B has given her fans a Super surprise…

The 25-year-old half-Dominican American rapper appears in Amazon’s new commercial, which aired during the live Super Bowl broadcast.

The “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)” appears alongside Gordon Ramsay, Rebel Wilson and Anthony Hopkins in the commercial for Amazon’s intelligent personal assistant Alexa.

In Amazon’s Super Bowl ad, Alexa loses her voice and causes mass chaos in the Amazon office. As a solution, the team finds a group of celebrities to replace her, including Cardi B.

In one of Cardi B’s segments, a boy asks Alexa how far Mars is. Her hilarious response: She laughs, and says, “Well how am I supposed to know? I’ve never been there. This guy wants to go to Mars; for what?!” After giggling, she says, “There’s not even oxygen there!”

In her second appearance, a man asks Alexa to play country music. Instead of listening to him and playing a country tune, Cardi B starts blasts her No. 1 single. After he corrects her, she stops the music — and then continues again with the same song.

Hailed as one of the best Super Bowl ads of the night, the commercial has been viewed more than 26 million times on YouTube as of Monday morning.

Fernando Meirelles to Direct the Pope Francis-Themed Film “The Pope”

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Tom Castaneda

Fernando Meirelles is ready to take you to (Catholic) church…

The 61-year-old Brazilian filmmaker is set to direct Netflix’s feature film The Pope, starring Jonathan Pryce as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis.

Anthony Hopkins is in talks to play his predecessor Pope Benedict.

Meirelles, best known for helming City of God, will direct the film from a script

by Anthony McCarten, who wrote The Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawking. McCarten adapted his stage play.

The film tells the story of Pope Benedict’s election, and his subsequent resignation from the papacy. That opened the door for Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentinian Cardinal who became the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas and the first Pope from outside Europe since the 8th Century.

The drama conveys his reluctance to take the top post in 2013. His humility and devotion to the poor has made him a galvanizing force for tolerance and change.

Filming will begin November in Argentina.

Cabrera to Star in Michael Bay’s “Transformers: The Last Knight”

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Santiago Cabrera is ready to transform his career…

The 38-year-old Venezuelan-born Chilean actor is starring in Michael Bay’s Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth installment in the Transformers franchise.

Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and Stanley Tucci are set to reprise their roles as Cade Yaeger, William Lennox, Robert Epps and Joshua Joyce respectively in the action flick.

Other cast members include Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Isabela Moner, Jerrod Carmichael, John Turturro and John Goodman.

Written by Art Marcum, Matt Halloway and Ken Nolan, the movie follows Optimus Prime who finds his home planet, Cybertron, now a dead planet. Thinking that he’s responsible for its demise, he finds a way to bring the planet back to life. However, in order to do so he needs to find an artifact on Earth.

Cabrera’s previous credits include appearances on The Mindy Project, Covert Affairs, Merlin, Dexter, The Musketeers and Heroes.

Transformers: The Last Knight is coming to U.S. theaters on June 23, 2017.

Collins to Star in HBO’s Sci-Fi Western Series “Westworld”

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Tom Castaneda

Clifton Collins Jr. is heading West(world)…

The 45-year-old Mexican and Spanish American actor has joined the cast of HBO’s series Westworld, a television adaptation of the 1973 sci-fi western film that was set in a high-tech theme park that was staffed by robots who authentically replicated Roman, cowboy and medieval times.

After the park’s computer system breaks down, the robots ran amok and guests found themselves stalked by a gunslinging robot, played by Yul Brynner.

Collins will star opposite Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden and Thandie Newton in the reboot of the 1973 pic.

Collins, who starred in Pacific Rim, will play Lawrence, a sly criminal who really knows his way around Westworld.

Scheduled to air in 2016, Westworld hails from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, Jonathan Nolan, writer Lisa Joy plus Warner Bros. Televison and Jerry Weintraub Productions.

del Toro to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at San Sebastian International Film Festival

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Benicio del Toro is about to add another award to his collection…

The 48-year-old Puerto Rican actor and film producer and Oscar-winner will receive the Donostia Award for Lifetime Achievement at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

del Toro’s latest film Escobar: Paradise Lostwill close the Pearls Selection at the festival, which runs September 19-27.

Escobar, written by Andrea di Stefano, tells the story of young surfer Nick who thinks he has landed in paradise when he falls in love with a Colombian girl on a visit to see his brother who is living in the South American country only to have it change when he meets her uncle, Pablo Escobar.

del Toro has confirmed that he’ll come to San Sebastian to present the film and receive the Donostia at the closing ceremony. Di Stefano, Josh Hutcherson and Carlos Bardem will also be present for the film’s Spanish premiere.

del Toro is a favorite at San Sebastian where he has accompanied films from his career.

del Toro won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic as well as an Oscar nomination for his work in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s 21 Grams.

del Toro re-teamed with Soderbergh to star in the biography of Che Guevera Che. The performance won him the Best Actor award at the Palme D’Or Closing Ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, and again the following year at the Goya Awards in Madrid, Spain.

He starred opposite Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins in Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman and as Lado in Oliver Stone’s Savages.

del Toro was starred as Jimmy, the lead in Jimmy P. The film was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. He was last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy a sci-fi action film for Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Enterprises, which was released in the beginning of August 2014.

Next year he’ll play Mambru in Fernando Leon’s A Perfect Day and Sauncho Smilax in Inherent Vice, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

The actor is currently in production on Denis Villeneuve’s Sicaro.

Rodrigo Lands a Villainous Role on HBO’s “Westworld”

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Rodrigo Santoro is heading west(world)…

The 38-year-old Brazilian actor has landed a villainous role on HBO’s Westworld.

Santoro joins the Anthony Hopkins– and Evan Rachel Wood-starrer, which is inspired by Michael Crichton‘s 1973 film of the same name.

The drama is billed as a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin. Hopkins stars as Dr. Robert Ford, the brilliant, taciturn and complicated creative director, chief programmer and chairman of the board of Westworld, who has an uncompromising creative vision for the park — and unorthodox methods of achieving it.

Wood portrays Dolores Abernathy, the quintessential farm girl of the frontier West — who is about to discover that her entire idyllic existence is an elaborately constructed lie.

Santoro will portray the terrifying and brutal with a dark sense of humor Harlan Bell, Westworld’s perennial “most wanted” bandit. He subscribes to the theory that the West is a wild place, and the only way to survive is to embrace the role of predator.

Joining Santoro, Hopkins and Wood are Jeffrey Wright, Shannon Woodward, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Angela Sarafyan and Simon Quarterman.

Person of Interest‘s Jonathan Nolan, who co-wrote the pilot, will direct and executive produce alongside J.J. Abrams. Lisa Joy co-wrote the pilot and will exec produce.

Hispanically Yours

Celebrating the Latino Influence

Tag Archives: Anthony Hopkins