Pedro Pascal to Serve as Presenter at This Year’s Academy Awards Show

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Pedro Pascal is headed to the Oscars

The 47-year-old Chilean actor appears on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ final list of names chosen as presenters for the 95th annual Academy Awards.

Pedro Pascal

In addition to Pascal, the latest round of stars set to present includes Eva Longoria, Halle Berry, Paul Dano, Cara Delevingne, Kate Hudson, Mindy Kaling, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Andie MacDowell, Elizabeth Olsen and John Travolta, executive producers and showrunners Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner and executive producer Molly McNearney have announced.

Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12, at Ovation’s Dolby Theatre in Hollywood and will air live on ABC and broadcast outlets worldwide starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

Previously announced Oscars presenters include Riz Ahmed, Halle Bailey, Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Glenn Close, Jennifer Connelly, Ariana DeBose, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Danai Gurira, Salma Hayek Pinault, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Nicole Kidman, Troy Kotsur, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Deepika Padukone, Florence Pugh, Questlove, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver and Donnie Yen.

Antonio Banderas to Serve as Presenter During Academy Awards Show

Antonio Banderas is headed to the Oscars

The 62-year-old Spanish actor and director has been added to the presenter ranks for this weekend’s Academy Awards show by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS).

Antonio BanderasBanderas is among a list of recently added presenters that includes Halle Bailey, Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Chastain, John Cho, Andrew Garfield, Hugh Grant, Danai Gurira, Salma Hayek, Nicole Kidman, Florence Pugh and Sigourney Weaver.

They join the previously announced Riz Ahmed, Emily Blunt, Glenn Close, Jennifer Connelly, Ariana DeBose, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael B. Jordan, Troy Kotsur, Jonathan Majors, Melissa McCarthy, Janelle Monáe, Deepika Padukone, Questlove, Zoe Saldaña and Donnie Yen.

More presenters will be revealed during the week.

The latest adds to Hollywood’s Big Night come just as Oscar voting is set to end, with ballots due at 5 p.m. PT tonight.

The months-long awards season culminates with the 95th annual Academy Awards, which will be handed out Sunday, March 12, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

ABC will air the ceremony live coast-to-coast starting at 5:00 pm PT/8:00 pm ET, along with more than 200 countries around the world.

Diego Calva to Serve as Presenter at This Weekend’s SAG Awards Show

Diego Calva is heading to this weekend’s SAG Awards

The 30-year-old Mexican actor, the star of Babylon, will serve as a president at the 29th annual ceremony this weekend.

Diego CalvaCalva is among the second round of presenters that includes Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh from Everything Everywhere All at OnceThe Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson; Paul Dano, Gabriel LaBelle and Michelle Williams of The FabelmansWomen Talking’s Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy and Rooney Mara; and Calva’s Babylon co-stars Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li.

The first batch of presenters included Andrew GarfieldEmily BluntJessica ChastainDon CheadleCaleb McLaughlinPaul Mescal and Ashley Park.

The 29th annual gala is set for Sunday, February 28, at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

The ceremony, featuring the winners in the guild’s 15 acting categories, will stream live on Netflix’s YouTube channel.

Calva is nominated in the marquee ensemble film award category alongside his Babylon cast mates. It’s his first SAG Awards nomination.

Lin-Manuel Miranda to Serve as a Presenter at This Weekend’s Tony Awards Show

Lin-Manuel Miranda has a date with Tony

This Sunday’s 75th Annual Tony Awards will feature a line-up of all-star presenters from the stage and screen, including the 42-year-old Puerto Rican actor, rapper, composer, playwright and filmmaker.

Lin-Manuel MirandaMiranda, a multiple Tony Award winner, is among a roster of presenters that includes Andrew Garfield, Laurence Fishburne, Nathan Lane, Bowen Yang and both Paris and Prince Jackson, the children of MJ subject Michael Jackson.

The roster of presenters was announced by Tony Awards producers, and also includes Josh Lucas, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Skylar Astin, Zach Braff, Danielle Brooks, Danny Burstein, Len Cariou, RuPaul Charles, Jessica Chastain, Lilli Cooper, Bryan Cranston, Wilson Cruz, Colman Domingo, Anthony Edwards, Cynthia Erivo, Raúl Esparza, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Tony Goldwyn, David Alan Grier, Vanessa Hudgens, Jennifer Hudson, Bebe Neuwirth, Kelli O’Hara, Sarah Paulson, Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Pope, Billy Porter, LaTanya Richardson, Chita Rivera, Tony Shalhoub, Phillipa Soo, Sarah Silverman and George Takei,

The four-hour June 12 Tony evening begins at 7:00 pm ET/4:00 pm PT with The Tony Awards: Act One, a one-hour streaming event of exclusive content live on Paramount+ hosted by Darren Criss and Julianne Hough.

The 75th Tony Awards, hosted by Oscar-winning actress and singer Ariana DeBose, follows at 8:00 pm ET/5:00 pm PT on CBS and Paramount+. The awards will be presented live coast-to-coast from Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Last night, DeBose confirmed that the Tony Awards also will pay respect to the swings and understudies who made this Covid-plagued Broadway season possible. In response to a tweet from Actors’ Equity president Kate Shindle dismissing social media rumors that swings and understudies would be ignored during the ceremony,

DeBose reiterated Shindle’s assurances, writing, “To all concerned, all I can ask is that you keep the faith & trust. I am working round the clock to bring you all a beautiful celebration of everyone’s hard work…”

Universal to Release Penelope Cruz’s Highly Anticipated Femme Action Feature “The 355”

Penelope Cruz is heading to the 355 a week earlier…

Simon Kinberg’s femme action feature The 355, starring the 47-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actress, will be released a week earlier, on January 7, 2022.

Penelope Cruz

The film was original scheduled to be released over MLK Weekend.

In the film, five women band together to stop a global organization from acquiring a weapon that could thrust the teetering world into total chaos.

The film was bought by Universal for domestic distribution at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2018 for a reported $20M.

The foreign partners, arranged through FilmNation, are hoping for a global launch for what they hope will be another Bourne Identitylike franchise, this one led by an all female lead cast including Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, Cruz and Fan Bingbing, with Édgar Ramirez and Sebastian Stan also appearing.

The 355 is directed by Kinberg. He co-wrote the screenplay with Theresa Rebeck.

Javier Bardem In Talks to Portray Desi Arnaz in Amazon & Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos”

Javier Bardem may soon be saying, “Lucy, I’m Home!”

The 51-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actor is in talks to play Desi Arnaz opposite Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in Amazon and Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos.

Javier Bardem

The film centers on the relationship between the I Love Lucy stars. Having penned the screenplay, Academy Award winner Sorkin also will direct the film from Amazon Studios and Escape Artists.

The film is set during one production week of I Love Lucy — Monday table read through Friday audience filming— when Lucy and Desi face a crisis that could end their careers and another that could end their marriage.

Sorkin originally was going to pen the script only, when Cate Blanchett was circling, but after enjoying himself on the drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, he decided to attach himself as a director as well over the summer.

After The Trial of the Chicago 7 bowed on Netflix in October, Being the Ricardos began to gain momentum with Kidman and Bardem quickly interested in the couple behind television’s first family. Deals still need to close for both actors, but even if and when they do, when production will start is still up in the air as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to push productions throughout the country.

After years as one of Hollywood’s most prolific screenwriters with such classics as A Few Good Men, Moneyball and his Oscar-winning The Social NetworkSorkin has found himself more and more behind the camera as well. His directing debut was the drama Molly’s Game starring Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba, and he followed that up with The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Bardem most recently starred in The Roads Not Taken and can next be seen in Legendary’s DuneHe also is set to play King Triton in Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid.

Oscar Isaac Attached to Star in Sony Pictures’ Film Adaptation of Konami’s “Metal Gear Solid” Video Game

Oscar Isaac has landed a solid role…

Sony Pictures’ long-awaited Metal Gear Solid adaptation looks to have gained some major momentum as the 41-year-old Guatemalan & Cuban actor has been attached to play Solid Snake in the film.

Oscar Isaac

The film is currently in development at Sony with Jordan Vogt-Roberts on board to direct.

The film is based on the Metal Gear Solid video game created by Hideo Kojima and published by Konami. The script is written by Derek Connolly. Avi Arad is producing. Peter Kang is the executive overseeing for the studio.

The game was first launched on PlayStation in 1998 and follows Snake, a soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from Foxhound, a renegade special forces unit. The game has received acclaimed on many fronts, but its storytelling that has a cinematic feel always made it seem like a movie adaptation was inevitable.

Given Isaac’s extremely busy schedule, a production start date is still unknown, but his involvement makes the property a high priority for the studio going forward. As for Isaac, Metal Gear Solid could give him another major franchise, having already starred in the most recent Star Wars franchise.

Even as the industry slowly gets back into production due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Isaac has been busy setting his future slate in recent months. He is set to star in HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage opposite Jessica Chastain, followed by playing the title role in Marvel’s Moon Knight for Disney+.

Isaac will next be seen in the much-anticipated reboot of Dune and Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter. He’s also set to star in and produce the adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina comic retitled The Great Machine and star in Barry Levinson’s Francis and The Godfather, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal.

Oscar Isaac In Negotiations to Star as Title Character in Marvel & Disney+’s Comic Book-Based Series “Moon Knight”

Oscar Isaac is a (Moon) Knight in shining armor…

The 41-year-old Guatemalan & Cuban actor is in talks to star as the title character in Marvel Cinematic Universe’s comic book hero Moon Knight, the Marvel and Disney+ series based on the comic.

Oscar Isaac

Jeremy Slater, who developed and wrote Netflix’s series adaptation of The Umbrella Academy comic books, has been tapped to develop and lead the writing team on the series for the streamer.

Moon Knight, aka Marc Spector, is a mercenary who has numerous alter egos — cabbie Jake Lockley and millionaire playboy Steven Grant — in order to better fight the criminal underworld. But later he was established as being a conduit for the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Most recently, the character was a consultant who dresses in all-white and goes by the name Mr. Knight.

Marvel and Disney+ now will look to attach a director to the series. No production start date has been set. Marvel had no comment.

Marvel and Disney+ have been ramping up their development slate as Isaac joins Tatiana Maslany, who was recently tapped to play She-Hulk, and Iman Vellani, who was named the new Ms. Marvel. As WandaVision, eyes a premiere date before the end of the year, the studios are looking to have a strong set of characters to lead these new tentpole series.

With his time as Poe Dameron in the Star Wars franchise coming to an end, Isaac is not slowing down any time soon. When audiences head back to theaters, he has a number of films set to bow that include the Paul Schrader thriller The Card Counter as well as Denis Villeneuve’s retelling of Dune.

He recently signed on to the HBO limited series Scenes from a Marriage at HBO, reuniting with his old Julliard classmate Jessica Chastain.

Universal Pictures Releases First Trailer for Penelope Cruz’s Female-Fronted Espionage Thriller “The 355”

Penélope Cruz is ready to demonstrate her intelligence

Universal Pictures has released the official trailer for the espionage thriller The 355, starring the 46-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actress..

Penelope Cruz

In addition to Cruz, the female-fronted globetrotting actioner stars Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Fan Bingbing, Sebastian Stan and Edgar Ramírez.

Universal still has plans to release the film on January 15 in the United States.

Simon Kinberg directs the story that kicks off when a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands. Wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Kruger), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Nyong’o) and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Fan) who is tracking their every move.

The action-packed trailer sees Chastain recruit her team of international special agents, who must bond against a common enemy. If they don’t stop them, “they’ll start World War III,” says Chastain’s Mace.

The picture came together during the Cannes Film Festival in 2018, where it was the hottest project in the market. The hope is to launch a franchise based on an idea by Chastain of a Bourne Identity-like thriller revolving around female spies from agencies around the world.

Shooting took place last summer in locations like Paris, London and Morocco — each of which figures lushly in the trailer above.

Theresa Rebeck and Kinberg wrote the script.

Jennifer Lopez to Receive Spotlight Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival

Jennifer Lopezis under the spotlight

The 50-year-old Puerto Rican superstar is set to receive the Spotlight Award at the 31st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival for her performance in Hustlers. The award will be presented at the fest’s annual gala on Thursday, January 2.

Jennifer Lopez

The festival, held at the Palm Springs Convention Center, runs Jan. 2-13.

“Jennifer Lopez is a star in every sense of the word, and you will experience this in her latest film Hustlers. Starting with her show-stopping entrance Jennifer brings to life the character of Ramona, an exotic dancer, who leads a group of dancer friends to steal money from their clients,” said festival chairman Harold Matzner. “For this full-force yet grounded performance, deserving of awards consideration, we are thrilled to present Jennifer Lopez with this year’s Spotlight Award.”

Past recipients of the Spotlight Award, Actress include Amy AdamsJessica ChastainHelen HuntAllison JanneyRooney Mara and Julia Roberts

All recipients received Academy Award nominations in the year they were honored, with Janney receiving an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Lopez joins this year’s previously announced honorees Joaquin PhoenixMartin ScorseseCharlize Theron and Renée Zellweger.

From STX FilmsHustlershas earned more than $150 million worldwide at the box office to date. The film follows a crew of savvy former strip club employees who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.