Jason Segel to star in 'Sponsor, psychological thriller selling at Cannes
May 12 (UPI) -- Jason Segel will reunite with director James Ponsoldt on a new psychological thriller, Sponsor, which is up for grabs at the Cannes Film Festival.
The duo worked together on the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, directed by Ponsoldt and starring Segel as an unconventional therapist mourning the loss of his wife.
In Sponsor, Segel portrays Peter who gets into a wreck while under the influence and reluctantly enters a recovery program in lieu of jail.
Instead of providing support, however, his sponsor, Jerry, who has not yet been cast, "pushes him into a living hell," an official synopsis states, per Deadline.
Segel and Ponsoldt released a statement that said the film delves into "what happens when support becomes control -- when the person you turn to for salvation slowly becomes your worst nightmare."
The script was penned by both Segel and Ponsoldt.
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USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Is Owen Wilson a club tosser? Star of Apple TV's 'Stick' gives us the dirt
Is Owen Wilson a club tosser? Star of Apple TV's 'Stick' gives us the dirt Show Caption Hide Caption Owen Wilson stars in new golf comedy 'Stick' Owen Wilson stars as a washed-up pro chasing a second chance in 'Stick,' a new comedy about life, love, and golf. Owen Wilson stars in the new Apple TV+ series "Stick" as a washed-up golfer attempting a comeback. Despite growing up in a golf-loving family, Wilson's game suffered from being left-handed and using right-handed clubs. For the show, Wilson worked to improve his golf game, even competing with PGA professionals like Max Homa and Collin Morikawa. Wilson's experience with pickleball, including playing with Woody Harrelson, informed his portrayal of a heated pickleball match in the series. LOS ANGELES – Owen Wilson readily admits that his golf game was already washed up when he agreed to play over-the-hill pro Pryce Cahill in the comedy "Stick." "The Wedding Crashers" star, 56, who says he's more skilled on tennis or pickleball courts, couldn't quite relate to the PGA meltdown on national TV that ended Cahill's promising career in the Apple TV+ series (three episodes now streaming, then weekly on Wednesdays). 'I've definitely tossed a tennis racket, but I haven't gotten good enough at golf to toss a club yet,' Wilson tells USA TODAY. 'If I hit a good shot, it's like, 'Whoa! Where did that come from?' Once you get a level of competence where there's an expectation and then you don't meet that – that's when you have a meltdown. But there is something about golf that can drive you crazy." Owen Wilson is still working to get to 'Stick' golf status Wilson has his reasons for his subpar game, which never flourished while he was growing up in Dallas, with golf-loving father Robert Wilson and actor brothers, Andrew and Luke Wilson. Owen was left-handed in a right-handed house. 'My dad didn't see enough in my game to invest in lefty clubs, so I was left to hack away with righty clubs,' he says. 'That was my excuse to myself.' When "Stick" creator Jason Keller rolled up with the series' boyishly optimistic golf-guru role, Wilson seized the part and pushed himself to improve his game drastically. He hit the links as if it were his full-time job. Working with golf consultant Nathan Leonhardt, however, was more financial strain than golf gain. 'Nathan didn't give me much. He took my money more," says Wilson. "We'd bet on shots and putting matches, and he wouldn't give me much of a handicap.' Owen Wilson talks new Apple TV+ golf comedy 'Stick' While promoting his new golf comedy series, Owen Wilson reveals the funniest golf meltdown he's ever seen while playing the game with brother Luke. Owen Wilson had a golf double in 'Stick' The actor already possesses the good-natured gravitas of a down-on-his-luck former golf star who still hangs with his loyal caddy Mitts (Marc Maron). Pryce, known as "Stick" for his former prowess, has personal reasons for the TV meltdown 20 years earlier. The nightmare haunts him on YouTube and contributed to the end of his marriage to wife Amber-Linn (Judy Greer). But he takes a shot at golf redemption, hitting the road to mentor free-swinging phenom Santi Wheeler (Peter Dager) while keeping the peace with Santi's mother Elena (Mariana Treviño), love interest Zero (Lilli Kay) and Mitts. When mentor Pryce steps up to hit on camera, Wilson had a blonde-wigged "swing double" professional step in or focused solely on the smooth motion for the camera. "In golf shows, they have you swing a lot without the ball," he says. Owen Wilson plays pickleball in Apple TV+ golf series 'Stick' "Stick" is about teen golf prodigy Santi Wheeler (Peter Dager) learning from coach Pryce Cahill (Owen Wilson). But there is pickleball. Wilson has seen Woody Harrelson get burned in pickleball Wilson feels he's earned the right to act heated during a "Stick" episode featuring a pickleball match. He's got skills from being a regular pickleballer at his Maui, Hawaii, home with a group that includes actor Woody Harrelson. "Woody has played longer than any of us. But still, when someone came to watch us play recently, they asked Woody, 'Was this your first time today?' That did not go over well," Wilson says. "That'd be like someone asking me that same question after seeing me tee off. I've been spending 40 hours a week on this game for more than two years." Wilson beat pro golfers in a glorious putting contest After all that practice, Wilson savored tooling around with PGA stars Max Homa, Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa, among a slew of "Stick" pro-golfer cameos. While competitively putting with the group, Wilson insists he sank a clutch 10-foot putt that the pros missed. 'I made the putt, they didn't. So that was satisfying,' Wilson says. 'That's one of golf's alluring things, making a shot that even a pro would be happy with.' The upstart was brought back to Earth when Morikawa, winner of six PGA tour events, dropped a putt in front of scores of spectators while cameras rolled. 'When the pressure was on, in front of a grandstand of extras, Morikawa sank this incredible putt,' Wilson says. 'I did not.' Still, Keller has hopes for Wilson's golf game that could be unleashed in a potential Season 2. 'I just played 18 holes with him. He's still finding his game, but the golfer I saw Tuesday was a completely different golfer than the one we started with," he says. "That swing was super smooth.' An earned golf meltdown is surely within Wilson's grasp. During a recent outing with brother Andrew, 60, things got so heated that the duo stopped talking to each other for 13 holes. 'Even though we'd driven to the course together, he took an Uber back because we weren't speaking,' says Wilson. 'We even won that day, but he just made me so mad, and apparently I made him so mad that it became this argument.' In a page out of Pryce's playbook, Wilson apologized to make peace. "I took the high road, even though I didn't owe an apology," Wilson says. 'I just said, 'Why aren't we celebrating this win that we had today?' He was like, 'Yeah, you're right!'" Watch Stick on Apple TV+
Cosmopolitan
7 hours ago
- Cosmopolitan
Ginny and Georgia season 3 ending explained: Theories on what will happen after cliffhanger
*Spoilers alert* Cancel all your weekend plans. Ginny & Georgia series three just dropped, and it's the most binge-worthy season of all. To quickly recap, series two ended with Georgia getting arrested for the murder of Tom Fuller. In peak Netflix drama fashion, the police crashed her wedding to Mayor Paul Randolph and read Georgia her rights during their first dance. As for the final scenes? They closed the show with Georgia at the police station, having her mugshots taken in her wedding dress. Now, with 10 new episodes picking up right where things left off (plus plenty of other intense subplots), there is *so* much to unpack. From whether or not Georgia is convicted of the crime, to where her relationship with Paul stands, the season three content makes for a pretty epic finale. Carry on reading to find out what happens at the end of Ginny & Georgia series three. Sarah Lampert, Ginny & Georgia's creator, recently spoke to Deadline about the series in general and the bombshell ending. She said: "For season three, the question I asked is, 'What would it take to break Georgia?' And I mean that coming from a place of love for Georgia, because I think she needs to break to build. So season 3 was about getting her to a place of being able to build her back differently in season 4." With that, as the season progresses, we see Georgia grapple with her new reality: that she actually might get sent to prison for her crimes. Or at least just one of them. If you remember, at the end of episode four, Gabriel, the private investigator hired to expose Georgia's secrets in series two, tells the jury that he thinks they're dealing with a serial killer. And of course, he's not wrong. But in true Georgia style, she finds a way to potentially change her fate. With the help of Ginny (who makes more questionable decisions than ever this season), the mother-daughter duo convince Georgia's younger son, Austin, to pin the murder on his dad, Gil. Ginny tells her brother that if their mother goes to prison, Gil, who has a history of being abusive, is going to move him away to Michigan. As Ginny puts it, he has to "choose between his mom and his dad" going to prison. After showing Austin a bruise on her arm inflicted by Gil, Georgia adds: "It's a murder trial, we have to give them a murderer." They also create a motive: that Austin overheard Georgia and Cynthia (Tom's wife) talking about how they blocked Gil's apartment application, so that he could be closer to his son. (For those who remember, this is partially true - Cynthia made it happen after witnessing Gil become violent toward Georgia at their kids' school.) Ultimately, Austin decides that he doesn't want to be split from Ginny and Georgia, and takes the stand as the only witness. He commits perjury, telling the jury that Gil was the person responsible for killing Tom. Prior to this, Ginny also convinces Cynthia to go along with this story. At first, Cynthia rejects the idea, but after Ginny blackmails her - she says she has evidence of her and Joe's affair on the cameras at Blue Farm - she concedes. After lying to the jury, Cynthia finds out that Ginny was also lying: the cafe doesn't have cameras, so she couldn't physically prove their affair. Because of this, at the end of the season, we see Georgia walk free. Cue a potential storyline where Cynthia seeks revenge on Ginny. Despite Georgia skipping jail time, the whole charade takes its toll on Paul. And when Georgia makes a truly unforgivable decision - telling Paul she's pregnant with Ginny's positive pregnancy test, which is a whole other story - he finally divorces her. But here's the twist. During the final moments of the last episode, Georgia drinks from a regular milk bottle. Though this sounds like an insignificant detail, Ginny reminds her that this was one of her pregnancy symptoms. The only problem? We don't know who the father is, because Georgia had slept with Paul and Joe around the same time. Err, major cliffhanger alert. In another turn of events, Lampert explained: "I know whose baby she's carrying, but I went into the writer's room this season and I said, 'Here's who the daddy is,'" before changing her mind. The creator also said that Georgia is "single as a Pringle" at the end of the season. As for Ginny, who fell pregnant with Wolfe's baby (the guy from her poetry class), the season ends with her dealing with her relationship with Marcus. During the 10 episodes, we see Marcus struggling with depression and addiction, alongside his on-and-off relationship with Ginny. Though the pair confess their love to each other, Ginny realises that she needs to let Marcus focus on himself before they can be together. We already know that Ginny & Georgia was renewed for season four. So right now, it's unclear whether a season five is on the horizon. However, Lampert said that there is still so much story left to tell. She revealed: "I always thought it would end at season four, just because I knew what the ending was, let's say. But what we're finding in the writers' room for this season is that there's actually more there. "It would almost feel rushed to get to that ending for it to happen in four [seasons]. I'm not Netflix. I can't control whether or not there's a season five, but I would say what we discovered very early on is, oh, there's more story here." Oh, you're killing us here!
Los Angeles Times
14 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘Somebody hug me!' 7 Emmy hopefuls on staying calm, hitting their marks and more
The Emmys' limited series/TV movie acting categories have come to represent some of the best and most-talked-about shows on television, and this year's crop of contenders is no exception. The seven actors who joined the 2025 Envelope Roundtable were Javier Bardem, who plays father, victim and alleged molester Jose Menendez in Netflix's 'Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story'; Renée Zellweger, who reprises her role as the British romantic heroine in 'Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy'; Stephen Graham, who co-created and stars in 'Adolescence' as the father of a teenage boy who commits a heinous murder; Jenny Slate, who plays the best friend of a terminally ill woman in FX's 'Dying for Sex'; Brian Tyree Henry, who portrays a man posing as a federal agent in order to rip off drug dealers in Apple TV+'s 'Dope Thief'; Elizabeth Banks, who takes on the role of an estranged sibling and recovering alcoholic in Prime Video's 'The Better Sister'; and Sacha Baron Cohen, who appears as the deceived husband of a successful filmmaker in Apple TV+'s 'Disclaimer.' The Times' news and culture critic Lorraine Ali spoke to the group about the emotional fallout of a heavy scene, the art of defying expectations and more. Read highlights from their conversation below and watch video of the roundtable above. Many of you move between drama and comedy. People often think, 'Drama's very serious and difficult, comedy's light and easy.' Is that true? Banks: I think the degree of difficulty with comedy is much higher. It's really hard to sustainably make people laugh over time, whereas [with] drama, everyone relates to loss and pining for love that's unrequited. Not everybody has great timing or is funny or gets satire. Henry: There's something fun about how closely intertwined they are. In my series, I'm playing a heroin addict running for my life, and I have this codependency with this friend … There's a scene where I've been looking for him, and I'm high out of my mind, and I find him in my attic, and all he's talking about is how he has to take a s—. And I'm like, 'But they're trying to kill us.' You just see him wincing and going through all these [groans]. It is so funny, but at the same time, you're just terrified for both. There's always humor somewhere in the drama. Banks: There's a reason why the theater [symbol] is a happy face/sad face. They're very intertwined. Renée, with Bridget Jones — how has she changed over the last 25 years and where is she now with 'Mad About the Boy'? Zellweger: Nobody's the same from one moment to the next, one chapter to the next and certainly not from one year to the next. It's been a really interesting sort of experiment to revisit a character in the different phases of her life. What I'm really grateful for is that the timing runs in parallel to the sort of experiences that you have in your early 20s, 30s and so on. With each iteration, I don't have to pretend that I'm less than I am, because I don't want to be the character that I was, or played, when she was 29, 35. I don't want to do that, and I certainly don't want to do that now. So it was really nice to meet her again in this place of what she's experiencing in the moment, which is bereavement and the loss of her great love, and being a mom, and trying to be responsible, and reevaluating what she values, and how she comports herself, and what's important and all of that, because, of course, I relate to that in this moment. Stephen, 'Adolescence' follows a family dealing with the fallout of their 13-year-old son being accused of a brutal murder. You direct and star in the series. What was it like being immersed in such heavy subject matter? Did it come home with you? Graham: We did that first episode, the end of it was quite heavy and quite emotional. When we said, 'Cut,' all of us older actors and the crew were very emotional. There were hugs and a bit of applause. And then everyone would be like, 'Where's Owen?' [Cooper, the teenage actor who plays Graham's character's son]. 'Is Owen OK? Is he with his child psychologist?' No, Owen's upstairs playing swing ball with his tutor. It was like OK, that's the way to do this — not to take myself too seriously when we say, 'Cut,' but when I am there, immerse myself in it. Let's be honest, we can all be slightly self-obsessed. My missus, she's the best for me because I'd phone her and say, 'I had a really tough day. I had to cry all day. My wife's died of cancer, and it was a really tough one.' She goes, 'The dog s— all over the living room. I had to go shopping and the f— bag split when I got to Tesco. There was a flat tire. They've let the kids out of school early because there's been a flood. And you've had a hard day pretending to be sad?' Bardem: I totally agree with what Stephen says. You have a life with your family and your children that you have to really pay attention to. This is a job, and you just do the job as good as you can with your own limitations. You put everything into it when they say, 'Action,' and when you're out, you just leave it behind. Otherwise, it's too much. Certain scenes, certain moments stay with you because we work with what we are. But I think it doesn't make you a better actor to really stay in character, as they say, for 24 hours. That doesn't work for me. It actually makes me feel very confused if I do that. On the show 'Monsters' I tried to protect Cooper [Koch] and Nicholas [Alexander Chavez], the actors who play the children, because they were carrying the heavy weight on the show every day. I was trying to make them feel protected and loved and accompanied by us, the adults, and let them know that we are there for them and that this is fiction. Because they were going really deep into it, and they did an amazing job. Elizabeth, in 'The Better Sister,' you portray Nicky, a sister estranged from her sibling who's been through quite a bit of her own trauma. Banks: I play a drunk who's lost her child and her husband, basically, to her little sister, played by Jessica Biel. She is grappling with trauma from her childhood, which she's trying not to bring forward. She's been working [with] Alcoholics Anonymous, an incredible program, to get through her stuff. But she's also a fish out of water when she visits her sister, who [lives in a] very rarefied New York, literary, fancy rich world. My character basically lives in a trailer park in Ohio. There's a lot going on. And there's a murder mystery. I loved the complication … but it brought up all of those things for me. I do think you absolutely leave most of that [heaviness] on set. You are mining it all for the character work, so you've got to find it, but I don't need to then infect my own children with it. Sacha, you have played and created these really gregarious characters like Ali G or Borat. Your character in 'Disclaimer,' he's not a character you created, but he is very understated. Was that a challenge? Cohen: It took me a long time to work out who the character was. I said to [director] Alfonso [Cuarón], 'I don't understand why this guy goes on that journey from where we see him in Act 1.' For me it was, how do you make this person unique? We worked a lot through the specificity of what words he uses and what he actually says to explain and give hints for me as an actor. A lot of that was Alfonso Cuarón saying, 'Take it down.' And there was a lot of rewriting and loads of drafts before I even understood how this guy reacts to the news and information that he believes about his wife. Jenny, 'Dying for Sex' is based on a true story about two friends. One has terminal cancer, and the other — your character — supports her right up until the end. Talk about what it was like to play that role in a series that alternates between biting humor and deep grief. Slate: Michelle Williams, who does a brilliant job in this show, her energy is extending outward and [her character] is trying to experiment before she does the greatest experiment of all, which is to cross over into the other side. My character is really out there, not out there willy-nilly, but she will yell at people if they are being rude, wasteful or if she feels it's unjust. [And she's] going from blasting to taking all that energy and making it this tight laser, and pointing it right into care, and knowing more about herself at the end. I am a peppy person, and I felt so excited to have the job that a lot of my day started with calming myself down. I'm at work with Michelle Williams and Sissy Spacek and Liz Meriwether and Shannon Murphy and being, like, 'Siri, set a meditation timer for 10 minutes,' and making myself do alternate nostril breathing [exercises]. Brian, many people came to know you from your role as Paper Boi in 'Atlanta.' The series was groundbreaking and like nothing else on television. What was it like moving out of that world and onto other projects? Henry: People really thought that I was this rapper that they pulled off the street from Atlanta. To me, that's the greatest compliment … When I did 'Bullet Train,' I was shocked at how many people thought I was British. I was like, 'Oh, right. Now I've twisted your mind this way.' I was [the voice of] Megatron at one point, and now I've twisted your mind that way. My path in is always going to be stretching people's imaginations, because they get so attached to characters that I've played that they really believe that I'm that person. People feel like they have an ownership of who you are. I love the challenge of having to force the imaginations of the viewers and myself to see me in a departure [from] what they saw me [as] previously. Because I realize that when I walk in a room, before I even open my mouth, there's 90 different things that are put on me or taken away from me because of how I look and how I carry myself. Javier, since doing the series are you now frequently asked about your own opinions on the Menendez case? The brothers claim their father molested them, and that is in part what led to them murdering their parents. Bardem: I don't think anybody knows. That's the point. That was the great thing about playing that character, is you have to play it in a way that it's not obvious that he did those things that he was accused of, because nobody knows, but at the same time you have to make people believe that he was capable. I did say to Ryan [Murphy] that I can't do a scene with a kid. Because in the beginning, they do drafts, and there were certain moments where I said, 'I can't. It's not needed.' The only moment that I had a hard time was when [Jose] has to face [his] young kid. It was only a moment where Jose was mean to him. That's not in my nature. Henry: I discovered, while doing my series, 'My body doesn't know this isn't real.' There's an episode where I'm shot in the leg, and I'm bleeding out and I'm on all this different morphine and drugs and all this stuff, and I'm literally lying on this ground, take after take, having to mime this. To go through the delusion of this pain ... in the middle of the takes, it was just so crazy. I would literally look at the crew and say, 'Somebody hug me! Somebody!' Stephen, that scene where you confront the boys in the parking lot with the bike, I was just like, 'Oh, my God, how many times did he have to do that?' This kid gets in your face, and I was like, 'Punch the kid!' My heart went out to you, man, not just as the character but as you being in there. Graham: Because we did it all in one take, we had that unique quality. You're using the best of two mediums. You've got that beauty and that spontaneity and that reality of the theater, and then you have the naturalism and the truth that we have with film and television. So by the time I get to that final bit, we've been through all those emotions. When I open the door and go into [Jamie's] room, everything's shaken. But it's not you. It's an out-of-body experience and just comes from somewhere else. Bardem: Listen, we don't do brain surgery, but let's give ourselves some credit. We are generous in what we do because we are putting our bodies into an experience. We are doing this for something bigger than us, and that is the story that we're telling. What have been some of the more challenging or difficult moments for you, either in your career or your recent series? Zellweger: Trying not to do what you're feeling in the moment sometimes, because it's not appropriate to what you're telling. That happens in most shows, most things that you do. I think everybody experiences it where you're bringing something from home and it doesn't belong on the set. It's impossible to leave it behind when you walk in because it's bigger than you are in that moment. Banks: I would say that the thing that I worked on the most for 'The Better Sister' was [understanding] sobriety. I'm not sober. I love a bubbly rosé. So it really did bring up how much I think about drinking and how social it is and what that ritual is for me, and how this character is thinking about it every day and deciding every day to stay sober or not. I am also a huge fan of AA and sobriety programs. I think they're incredible tools for everybody who works those programs. I was grateful for the access to all of that as I was making the series. But that's what you get to do in TV. You get to explore episode by episode. You get to play out a lot more than just three acts. Stephen, about the continuous single shot. It seems like it's an incredibly difficult and complex way to shoot a series. Why do it? Graham: It's exceptionally difficult, I'm not going to lie. It's like a swan glides across the water beautifully, but the legs are going rapidly underneath. A lot of it is done in preparation. We spend a whole week learning the script, and then the second week is just with the camera crew and the rest of the crew. It's a choreography that you work out, getting an idea of where they want the camera to go, and the opportunity to embody the space ourselves. Cohen: That reminds me of a bit of doing the undercover movies that I do because you have one take. ... I did a scene where I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. There were a lot of the people in the audience who'd gone to this rally, a lot of them had machine guns. We knew they were going to get angry, but you've got to do the scene. You've got one time to get the scene right. But you also go, 'OK, those guys have got guns. They're trying to storm the stage. I haven't quite finished the scene. When do I leave?' But you've got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that's not important. Henry: There's a certain level of sociopathy. Slate: I feel like I'm never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, 'Hey, Jenny, you weren't in the shot shoulder-wise.' I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of 'I'm a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.' And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I'm going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again. Do you see yourself in roles when you're watching other people's films or TV show? Graham: At the end of the day, we're all big fans of acting. That's why we do it. Because when we were young, we were inspired by people on the screen, or we were inspired by places where we could put ourselves and lose our imaginations. We have a lot of t— in this industry. But I think if we fight hard enough, we can come through. Do you know what I mean? It's people that are here for the right reasons. It's a collective. Acting is not a game of golf. It's a team. It's in front and it's behind the camera. I think it's important that we nourish that. Henry: And remember that none of us are t—. Bardem: What is a t—? I may be one of them and I don't know it. Graham: I'll explain it to you later.
