For years, there were rumors about Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell. Rumors that they were dating, rumors that they spent a lot of time together filming Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, rumors that they broke up after things went south. While I believed that Hayley and Tom could be doing a showmance for movie-promotion and just general professional reasons, I never believed that they were actually dating or having a real romance. Well, as Hayley promoted this MI movie, she’s talking about those rumors and more. She also confirmed to the Independent that she is engaged… to Ned Wolfgang Kelly, a songwriter/composer. She wore her engagement ring during the interview. Some highlights:

The truth about the Tom Cruise rumors: The truth, Atwell tells me, is that she looked on Cruise and Mission’s director, Chris McQuarrie (or “McQ”), as “sort of two uncles”. And who doesn’t love seeking advice from their uncle about the fact that the world thinks you’re courting? “I would be like, ‘Ooh, there’s some weird rumours, and it feels base, it feels a little dirty, it feels grubby, it’s not what I’m about,’” she explains. “Why are things being assumed or projected onto me about my relationship with my work colleague and boss?” Atwell found it “upsetting” because “it’s involving people in my actual life, my personal life, who have to be on the receiving end of that. It becomes invasive.”

Tom’s reaction to the romance rumors: But Cruise, who Atwell says “carries his fame like a loose garment”, knew exactly what to say. “When I’ve talked to him about it, he’d be like” – here she turns to me intensely and looks directly into my eyes – “‘You know exactly who you are. You know what you’re about. And that is the only thing that matters. It doesn’t matter what people think of you, if you are in integrity with yourself, if you know what your value system is.”

What she really thinks of Tom Cruise: “I truly feel you could meet him and go” – here she affects a voice of dry cynicism – “‘He’s nice; he’s charming; he’s charismatic; he knows how to make people feel good about themselves. So that’s just a tactic for total manipulation, because he’s probably just an egocentric.’” She rolls her eyes. “Or whatever bulls*** people want to make up about people. But over time, you’re just watching him, going: he really works hard, he really cares, he’s really interested in people and wants to engage with them, and he believes in the power of cinema as much as he did when he was five years old.” Going into the franchise, she says, he made her feel “safe”.

[From The Independent]

Yeah… so that’s it. I believe her, I guess. I believe that they didn’t have a romance or showmance, but even despite her protests now, I do think she probably sort of enjoyed the buzz. I mean, there was gossip about Tom and Hayley for years and neither of them addressed it before now. Now, I also think it’s funny that she called Tom something akin to an “uncle.” Granted, age-wise, that is what he would be – she’s 41, he’s 61. But Hayley calling him an uncle just highlights the age difference. Anyway, I think Tom has basically given up on romance or whatever – these days, he’s just all about the work, all about the grind.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

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Everything Everywhere All At Once swept the Oscars this year, winning 7 out of its 11 nominations, one of those going to Jamie Lee Curtis for Best Supporting Actress. I walked away from EEAAO with the feeling that I really liked the idea of it, more than the final execution. This is a matter of personal taste, but I would love to have seen more time spent getting into just how the mother-daughter relationship (Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu) went awry and less time on fighting sequences. Again, just personal preference, and I still totally understand how the movie did well.

One element that was consistently a pleasure in the movie was watching Jamie Lee Curtis. She was having the time of her life, and as a viewer it just made me feel relaxed and joyful watching her have so much fun. (That’s my commentary just on watching the movie–I’m not saying here that she was the most deserving in the supporting actress category.) Jamie is now promoting her first post-Oscar-win movie, Disney’s Haunted Mansion, where her character Madame Leota appears in a crystal ball. In an interview with Collider, the motion capture work Jamie did for this role led to her discussing technology and how the human quotient can never be replaced by AI:

“The visual effects level is all technology. Once you know how to do that, it’s science. The performing part is not science, which is why AI will never work because emotions are real and they come from human beings. They don’t come from machines. So to watch beautiful actors do that kind of work, under those circumstances, is something very impressive to me.”

As the interview progressed, Curtis clarified that, having starred in massive productions like the Halloween franchise and Academy Award-winning sci-fi comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once, she has done the green/blue screen several times, but the motion capture part of filmmaking is one she’d never had the chance to do.

Curtis also mentioned watching behind-the-scenes features of movies like Avatar and praised “the emotional work that these people are doing.” She also suggested that the work gets even more beautiful to contemplate once you consider that those actors need to conjure up a scene while “they’re just wearing suits with cameras all over them,” and caps it off by saying it’s “astonishing.”

Based on the iconic Disney theme park ride, Haunted Mansion centers around a woman and her son as they move into a house that’s chock-full of ghosts. The star-studded cast features Winona Ryder, Rosario Dawson, Jared Leto, Owen Wilson, Dan Levy, LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Hasan Minhaj and Danny DeVito.

Haunted Mansion premieres in theaters on July 28.

[From Collider]

I appreciate how clear she makes the distinctions of which parts are science and which are performance. Although there is a part of me that’s kind of exasperated over the fact that we need to even make a case for why AI can’t take the place of humans. Still, I enjoy Jamie’s energy here, heaping praise on the actors who can work in concert with technology to illuminate their performances. Plus I just plain love a gal who has firm boundaries on when she needs to go to bed. Now if only we could blame AI for the phrase “based on the iconic Disney theme park ride.” But sadly, a human came up with that movie premise.

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Ellie Goulding is currently promoting her latest album, Higher Than Heaven. Some people love Ellie’s voice and her music. I can handle her and her music in small doses, but I generally switch stations when she comes on the radio. Something I learned about Goulding years ago is that she’s quite a royalist despite not being very posh. Like, by her own description, she grew up on a “council estate” adjacent to the big estates owned by the aristocrats. Instead of being a republican populist, she’s happy enough to cozy up to the royals – she’s tight with the York princesses and she’s involved in Prince William’s Earthshot too. Which brings me to this recent interview she did with Vanity Fair. She talks about Earthshot, William, Kate, environmentalism and more. Some highlights:

Her relationship with Prince William & Kate: Though she got to know the Prince and Princess of Wales when she performed at the reception for their 2011 wedding, their joint passion for addressing climate change is what has brought them together most recently. In December, Goulding attended the ceremony for the Earthshot Prize. “They are genuinely a kind and sweet couple. They’re really dedicated to the Earthshot Prize, you know? It’s not just something that they feel they have a responsibility to do. I really believe that they’re passionate about it. And it comes from our king, who’s a huge environmentalist and cares about it so much. I think that’s so important.”

She was impressed by last year’s Earthshot winners: “I love that it draws attention to the fact that the innovation and the ideas are already here. They exist! These people could have invented anything, could have invented moneymaking schemes, which most people do. These people are making things to save the planet for all of us. I think it’s so selfless and such an amazing use of their time. They should be recognized for that.”

Why climate action is so important. “It should be the sexiest, most interesting thing that you can read on the internet, that these people are coming up with, like, mind-blowing solutions to our plastic problem or the fact that we’re also heavily dependent on fossil fuels.”

[From Vanity Fair]

I agree with her that single-use plastics are a huge problem. Not to be “that whataboutism person pointing out other people’s environmental hypocrisy,” but you know what else is an environmental issue? People flying all over the place for little to no reason. Which is what happened at the Earthshot event in Boston last December – Prince William didn’t bother inviting the actual prize finalists or winners, but he asked celebrities like Ellie Goulding and David Beckham to fly into Boston to attend the event in person. Reportedly, Beckham even flew in via private jet.

“They are genuinely a kind and sweet couple. They’re really dedicated to the Earthshot Prize, you know? It’s not just something that they feel they have a responsibility to do.” Good lord. William is already massively bored with Earthshot, and he could barely even look at Kate while they were in Boston. Oh well! I guess Ellie isn’t a great judge of character?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

HBO/Max’s House of the Dragon is currently filming its second season in the UK. As in, they’re still filming even though SAG-AFTRA is on strike. While many of the actors on HotD are SAG members, there are also a lot of card-carrying Equity members, which is the actors’ union in the UK. While Equity is “standing with” SAG-AFTRA, the local anti-union laws in the UK basically say that HotD actors have to keep working through the strike.

“House of the Dragon” can continue filming in the U.K. despite the SAG-AFTRA actors strike, Variety can reveal. Just as the U.S. actors union announced a strike Thursday due to its inability to ink a new deal with the AMPTP, sources confirmed that production is planned to proceed as scheduled on the second season of the “Game of Thrones” prequel.

The HBO series’ cast is composed of primarily U.K. actors who are working under contracts governed by the local union, Equity. As such, the series is technically allowed to continue filming because Equity members aren’t legally allowed to strike in solidarity with the U.S. union.

Equity shared its actors strike guidance with its 47,000 members on Thursday, shortly before the strike was officially declared by SAG-AFTRA, stating: “Equity U.K. will support SAG-AFTRA and its members by all lawful means. A performer joining the strike (or refusing to cross a picket line) in the U.K. will have no protection against being dismissed or sued for breach of contract by the producer or the engager. Likewise, if Equity encourages anyone to join the strike or not cross a picket line, Equity itself will be acting unlawfully and hence liable for damages or an injunction,” Equity said in its guidance to members.

Sources indicate that the U.K.’s strict union laws have prevented an extensive show of solidarity from Equity, which can’t legally call a strike to support SAG-AFTRA due to restrictive British legislation.

Equity posited a number of scenarios under which actors on “House of the Dragon” can continue to work. The guidance for actors who are Equity members but not SAG-AFTRA members who are working in the U.K. on an Equity contract for a U.S. producer is that they continue to work as they have no protection from being dismissed or sued by the producer. It is the same guidance for SAG-AFTRA members who are not Equity members in a similar production. For SAG-AFTRA members on an Equity contract under Global Rule 1, which states that a SAG-AFTRA member cannot work on any project, anywhere in the world, that is not covered under a SAG-AFTRA agreement, the guidance is again to continue working. The guidance for more actors in complicated scenarios is to seek advice from SAG-AFTRA.

[From Variety]

What’s bonkers is that HotD has been filming for months through the writers’ strike too – allegedly, “all” of the Dragon scripts were “completed” before the WGA strike. So they’ve been filming for months with no writers on set, no one to rewrite or update lines, no script coordinators? And now Equity is telling their actors that they can’t strike in solidarity with SAG, even though several of those British actors are ALSO members of SAG. Hm. It would be interesting to see if the actors – or even just a few of the actors – decide to say f–k it and go on strike. This is the loophole many studios and streamers will exploit too, they’ll go with overseas productions, foreign actors and locales with little to no union protection.

Photos courtesy of HBO/Max.

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Lauren Bacall is one of my favorite Old Hollywood stars. Her insolent screen persona captivated me the first time I saw her in The Big Sleep. She’s good at playing the hard-boiled, tough-as-nails film noir heroine, but she also has something soft and vulnerable that makes you like her character. Lauren, who in real life went by Betty, fell in love with Humphrey Bogart on the set of To Have and Have Not, when she was 19 and he was 44. (For what it’s worth, Bogie was annoyed when he heard he’d be starring opposite a 19-year-old and complained that he would look like a cradle robber. But then, LOL, they started dating.) Bogie and Bacall got married and starred in four films together, three of which are very good. They’ve long been held up as one of the legendary couples of that era, along with Tracy and Hepburn, Liz and Dick, and Frank and Ava. Their marriage was supposedly the happiest one in Hollywood. But the 25-year-age gap created a power imbalance in the relationship that never really went away. Bogie was rumored to have had a long-running affair with the lady who made his toupees (of all people!), even while he was married to Betty. And Betty definitely had eyes for Frank Sinatra at one point, who was a supportive friend when Bogie was dying of esophageal cancer in 1957. But a new book about the Bogie and Bacall marriage is alleging that Betty also had eyes for politician Adlai Stevenson. Emma Chance at Pajiba has a great writeup about this story:

Hollywood historian William J. Mann’s latest venture is Bogie & Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood’s Greatest Love Affair. In a passage from the book given to Entertainment Weekly before it was officially published, Mann uses Bacall’s own words from her memoir to investigate “Bacall’s fascination with United States politician and presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson,” and it becomes “clear the two had, at the least, an emotional affair, if not also a physical one. An affair that Bogart was somewhat wary of.”

Bacall and Bogart joined Stevenson on his campaign in 1952. She wrote in her memoir that he would “catch my eye and wave and smile at me,” and that he “needed a wife, someone to share his life with.”

“I fantasized that I would be a long-distance partner … a good friend he could feel free to talk with about anything.” She goes on to describe their friendship in more detail, and her feelings about it. Basically, she wanted him and struggled with that wanting because, duh, she was married.

[From Pajiba]

And here’s a section from the excerpt of the new book Bogie & Bacall:

On election night, Bogie had a virus and stayed back at the hotel. Bacall did not stick around to care for him. “Having come this far,” she wrote, “I was not about to miss anything.” At the governor’s mansion, the expectant jubilation quickly turned into despair as Eisenhower won in a landslide. Bacall was overcome as she listened to Stevenson make his concession speech. “I sobbed my way back to our room,” Bacall wrote, where she found Bogie more upset about running out of quarters for the pay TV set than he was about the election. “Until Adlai Stevenson, I was a perfectly happy woman with a husband whom I loved—a beautiful son and daughter—some success in my work—a beautiful home—money—not a care in the world.” But Stevenson, she wrote, “shook me up completely.” On the flight back to L.A., “I was far away from Bogie,” Bacall admitted, “my thoughts on the man I had left behind.”

[From EW]

The excerpt goes on to detail an emotional affair that went on for months, and Betty definitely tried to get intimate with him at least once. It was only when she saw another “devoted follower” of his with him at his house that she realized she was just one of a number and then she was over Adlai for good. Betty was so young when she married Bogie–she was 20–and she had never really dated that much before him. I’ve read her memoir (it is superb!) and I think she hints that she was still a virgin when they met. So by the time she was 28, it makes sense that her eye would start to wander. And I think Bogie understood that, too, on some level. Their relationship began as an extramarital affair. When he started seeing Betty, he was still married to Mayo Methot, another actress. Mayo was a violent alcoholic and Bogie made Betty wait around for months while he dithered. Mayo would stop drinking and he’d feel obligated to go back to her to try to make the marriage work. Then Mayo would start drinking again and they’d get in terrific fights and he’d call Betty, angry and despairing, and they’d resume their affair. Betty also had an absent father, so it’s not hard to see why her attraction to 44-year-old Bogie was so overwhelming. And for Bogie, Betty felt like a chance at redemption. It’s all very much like a Lana Del Rey song without the drug references. But to me it’s a fascinating story. This new book is going to be my beach read for sure.

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Photos credit: Getty, Starshot/Photoshot/Avalon, Avalon

This week, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex received a Hollywood Critics Association nomination for their Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan. A day later, the Netflix series was “snubbed” for an Emmy nomination, much to the chagrin of the Sussex Squad. Keep in mind, the Netflix series was a massive hit and it did what it was supposed to do: Harry and Meghan were able to tell their love story in their own words, and they were able to speak about why they left. The awards are gravy. That being said, Harry & Meghan was being discussed and promoted as a major contender for an Emmy nomination, so it was notable when the show was not nominated.

Something really interesting happened though – I thought we would get gleeful, wall-to-wall British commentary about the Emmy “snub” and how the Sussexes are failing or unsuccessful. While there have been a couple of articles like that, there’s been much more focus on the HCA nomination. It’s the weirdest thing! It just goes to show you that none of these British commentators have any idea how Hollywood works. Speaking of:

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could end up winning several awards for their bombshell Netflix documentary, experts have said – but warned it is still too soon to know how it has affected their reputations. Speaking on this week’s Palace Confidential, the Daily Mail’s diary editor Richard Eden and the Mail on Sunday’s deputy editor Kate Mansey discussed the six-part docuseries that ‘put the cat among the pigeons’, which has been nominated for a Hollywood Critics’ Award.

As host Jo Elvin asked for the panellists’ thoughts on the nomination, Kate said she was ‘not surprised’ because so many people around the world watched when it landed on the streaming platform last December.

Mansey told the programme: ‘Lots of people watched that show, didn’t they? Everyone watched it and tuned in to see it. It was this huge TV highlight. I’m not surprised it’s been nominated for an award. I suspect it’ll win many awards because it was so popular. But you do wonder, despite all that success on paper, whether it’s done them any good in the long run.’

Mansey continued to describe the ‘excruciating’ stand-out scene from the series for her, when the Duchess of Sussex recreated the exaggerated curtsey she performed the first time she met Her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, while Harry watched on ‘looking quite awkward’. She said: ‘Sometimes there’s moments in these programmes that stay with you and that’s what people become remembered for. They can win all the awards they like, but has it done their reputation – has it done their standing – any good? I think time will tell.’

Eden agreed with his co-panellist, and said he didn’t think it would be ‘awkward’ for the Royal Family if the series ends up scooping lots of awards. He told Elvin: ‘I’m sure they’re the same as me, frankly. It doesn’t matter if it wins this award. It doesn’t matter if it wins other awards.’

Describing the series as ‘disgraceful’, he added: ‘It damaged relations with the Royal Family beyond repair. It did so much damage to everything, really, to their reputation, that, yes it was an interesting programme that everyone watched, but I can’t see how it’s benefitted them in the long term at all.’

[From The Daily Mail]

They’re just… stuck in their own little world, aren’t they? They’re in their own little silo. It’s been three and a half years and the Sussexes are global and they’re defining their own hybrid path of humanitarianism, commerce, celebrity and royalty-lite. That’s what bothers these people more than anything else. But really, I don’t mean to say this too loudly, but a real missed opportunity to make a mountain out of a molehill because of the Emmy snub. They’re just worried that the Sussexes got nominated for ANYTHING, that there are absolutely people in Hollywood who consider the Sussexes’ work award-worthy.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.

Prince William has always been lazy. Even at university, he would skip classes to party and do nothing. He was able to have an extended adolescence well into his thirties, and then when he got a wife and he became a father, he then had a built-in excuse for why he couldn’t work full-time for the Firm: he just had to prioritize his family and the best way to do that was by barely doing one event a week. Now that William is in his 40s and all of his kids are in school, we have to listen to endless commentary on how hard it is on him to be a working royal, but he also wants praise for not being a “workaholic” like his father.

Prince William is a ‘hands-on, caring dad’ and ‘not a workaholic like his father King Charles’, a royal expert has claimed. The Prince of Wales, 40, carried out just 190 engagements last year, compared to his father’s 497 – but former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond has praised William’s different approach to royal life.

She said the father-of-three is prioritising his family because he knows how much it means to his children [Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, eight, and Prince Louis, five] ‘to be around at weekends and holidays and whenever he can’.

Speaking to OK! magazine, Jennie said: ‘With the late Queen’s ailing health, William probably had to step up to his full time royal job quicker than he might have hoped, but you can see now how committed he is. However, I also very much admire the fact that he’s not a workaholic like his father, he knows how important family life is… He seems to be a full on, hands-on, caring dad,’ she added.

[From The Daily Mail]

“With the late Queen’s ailing health, William probably had to step up to his full time royal job quicker than he might have hoped…” Peg only “became” a full-time working royal in 2017, when Prince Philip retired from public life at the age of 96. William turned 35 years old that same year. That was also the same year Harry got engaged to Meghan. In any case, it’s so bonkers to me that if not for the failing health of his two 90-something grandparents, William would still be farting around in Norfolk indefinitely. He never expected to work in his 30s, people, don’t you understand Peg’s difficult life???

Sidenote: one of the biggest issues, in my view, is that William lacks passion. He’s physically and intellectually lazy, he has no interests beyond having affairs and watching TV and he gets “bored” of causes and charities.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Bob Igor is Disney’s CEO. He was CEO for fifteen years before stepping down in late 2021, then he returned as CEO in November 2022. Iger’s reclaiming of the CEO’s desk came with a $15 million pay package, with bonus targets for up to $27 million for just 2023. Iger’s return was supposed to be a temporary thing, a bridge to help Disney find a more modern (and younger) CEO. Instead, just a few days ago, Disney announced that Iger was staying on until 2026, presumably under a comparable salary and compensation package which would see him making (again) around $27 million a year (probably much more). Disney has also laid off thousands of employees in recent months. Well, wouldn’t you know, Bob Iger has some thoughts on the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

During an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday morning, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that the writers and actors unions going on strike in Hollywood are not being “realistic” with their expectations. Speaking to CNBC’s David Faber from the Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, Iger commented on the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike and imminent decision for SAG-AFTRA to join them.

“It’s very disturbing to me. We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we’re facing, the recovery from COVID which is ongoing, it’s not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption,” Iger said. “I understand any labor organization’s desire to work on behalf of its members to get the most compensation and be compensated fairly based on the value that they deliver. We managed, as an industry, to negotiate a very good deal with the directors guild that reflects the value that the directors contribute to this great business. We wanted to do the same thing with the writers, and we’d like to do the same thing with the actors. There’s a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.”

Iger said that while he respects the right of the unions to “get as much as they possibly can in compensation for their people,” they must “be realistic about the business environment, and what this business can deliver.”

Iger continued, “It will have a very, very damaging affect on the whole business, and unfortunately, there’s huge collateral damage in the industry to people who are supportive services, and I could go on and on. It will affect the economy of different regions, even, because of the sheer size of the business. It’s a shame, it is really a shame.”

[From Variety]

I do think that the strikes will damage the film and television industry and there will be a ripple effect of global disruptions to business-as-usual for these corporations…and that’s the f–king point. Strikes are not meant to be convenient or timed around what’s best for a business model which exploits workers. Basically, this is a CEO raking in an eight-figure annual salary, blaming working actors and writers for wanting to be fairly compensated for their work. Period. Considering the way Disney openly screws over their talent – Scarlett Johansson had to sue Disney for breach of contract AND THEY PUBLICLY SMEARED HER – Bob Iger needs to shut his f–king mouth about all of this.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, who makes $27 million a year, went to TV to say that writers and actors aren’t being realistic with their demands.

When asked why these workers are being unrealistic he says, “I can’t, I can’t answer that.” pic.twitter.com/mOhhqjcDOA

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 13, 2023

The fact that Bob Iger gave an anti-labor interview while he is reportedly having a 2nd yacht constructed to replace his 184 foot super yacht might be the most on brand CEO shit of the year.

— C. Robert Cargill (@Massawyrm) July 13, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Fran Drescher is president of SAG-AFTRA and I’m not sure if her union members voted for her, believing that she had the stones to go toe-to-toe with the studios and AMPTP. Well, she did. She entered the negotiations in good faith in recent weeks/months, truly hoping that a deal could be made to avoid a SAG-AFTRA strike. AMPTP even brought in federal mediators, I guess as an intimidation tactic to strong-arm SAG into taking a terrible deal. Drescher had the stones to walk away and she called for the strike on Thursday. She gave a barn-burner of a speech announcing it too:

Variety transcribed her speech – go here to read it. She sounded a lot like a working-class union leader, speaking about how the CEOs and Wall Street get greedy and forget about all of the labor they are exploiting. She also said, in part:

“We have a problem, and we are experiencing that right at this moment. This is a very seminal hour for us. I went in in earnest thinking that we would be able to avert a strike. The gravity of this move is not lost on me, or our negotiating committee, or our board members. It’s a very serious thing that impacts thousands, if not millions, of people all across this country and around the world — not only members of this union, but people who work in other industries.

“And so it came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads. But we had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them.

“They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment. We stand in solidarity, in unprecedented unity. Our union and our sister unions and the unions around the world are standing by us, as well as other labor unions. Because at some point, the jig is up. You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalized and disrespected and dishonored. The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI.

“This is a moment of history and is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business who cares more about Wall Street than you and your family. Most of Americans don’t have more than $500 in case of an emergency. This is a very big deal, and it weighed heavy on us. But at some point you have to say, ‘No, we’re not going to take this anymore. You people are crazy. What are you doing? Why are you doing this?’

[From Variety]

From what I’m seeing on Twitter, the AI stuff is completely bonkers – AMPTP wanted to scan background actors and create AI images of those actors in perpetuity, all while only paying the original background actors for one day of work. In addition to that, none of the streaming companies want the WGA or SAG-AFTRA to sniff around their in-house streaming numbers. Unlike broadcast television, there’s no neutral third-party with the capability to track viewership numbers or “streams,” so for companies like Netflix, Hulu, Paramount, Disney+, they all basically self-report… to their investors. There’s no mechanism for actors and writers to say “hey, my show had 300 million streams, can I be paid more than scale with no residuals?” Anyway, power to the people.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

This year’s Wimbledon has been pretty exciting. The tennis has been great, especially on the women’s side. Ukrainian Elina Svitolina returned from maternity leave and went on a tear, picking up a title on clay, making the French Open quarterfinals and the Wimbledon semifinals, defeating the WTA #1 along the way. Ons Jabeur, a Tunisian, ran through the #2 and #3 players back-to-back – she defeated Russian-born Elena Rybakina (the reigning Wimbledon champion) in the QFs and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka in a barn-burner semifinal. The women’s finalists are Marketa Vondrousova (a tricky Czech lefty) vs. Ons Jabeur.

So, THAT is the story – the tennis itself, the amazing performances of several women who raised their levels, battled through and played lights-out. That’s not how the British media has framed any of these stories though – they’ve made it all about the players’ nationalities and whether or not the Princess of Wales would be “embarrassed” to hand the trophy or plate to a Russian or Belarusian player. As I’ve said before, Kensington Palace should have shut down this story a long time ago. Instead, the royal patron of the Championships has avoided Wimbledon throughout the fortnight (except for her appearance alongside Roger Federer) and allowed the narrative to be solely framed as “Kate is much too delicate and precious to be around certain nationalities!” From the Mail:

The Princess of Wales has been saved from having to present a Wimbledon trophy to a Belarusian player linked to a key supporter of the war in Ukraine. Aryna Sabalenka, 25, who has been photographed hugging Russian president Vladimir Putin’s closest ally Alexander Lukashenko, was knocked out of the tournament yesterday. But there was also heartbreak for Ukrainian wildcard Elina Svitolina, 28, as her fairytale run ended in a straight set loss.

Their defeats ended the prospect of the ladies’ final tomorrow seeing a Ukrainian face a Belarusian in what would have been a highly-charged match.

All eyes are now on Spanish hunk Carlos Alcaraz today as he takes on Daniil Medvedev, the last Russian standing at Wimbledon, for a place in the men’s final. Alcaraz, a 20-year-old prodigy, is favourite to take down the 6ft 6in world number three and prevent Kate having to be photographed with an athlete from an aggressor nation.

The princess presents the winners’ trophies, and having to hand one to a Belarusian or Russian would prove a diplomatic embarrassment for Britain.

[From The Daily Mail]

Deep sigh – “having to hand one to a Belarusian or Russian would prove a diplomatic embarrassment for Britain.” She literally handed the Venus Rosewater Dish to a Russian last year, you fools. Granted, I’m not minimizing the charged political atmosphere of a potential final between a Ukrainian and a Belarusian. But it didn’t happen, and it’s bizarre to see the situation framed as “thank god, Kate doesn’t have to stand next to Aryna Sabalenka!”

Anyway, good luck to Ons Jabeur and good luck to Daniil Medvedev. I absolutely want a Russian player in the men’s final.

Understatement: the @wimbledon organizers are not eager for the optics of Princess of Wales presenting the trophy to a player from Belarus. (Nor of a Ukrainian and Belarusian playing a final and declining to pose together before the prematch coin toss, etc.) #Wimbledon

— Jon Wertheim (@jon_wertheim) July 12, 2023

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