Latest news with #Ackie
Express Tribune
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Naomi Ackie in talks to join DC horror film Clayface
Naomi Ackie is in early talks to join the cast of Clayface, an upcoming DC horror film directed by James Watkins. The project will star Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries in the titular role, with Ackie expected to play a key supporting character. Reading sessions for the film were held in England last week, where Ackie emerged as the top choice. Formal negotiations are expected to begin soon, sources say. The script for Clayface was written by horror auteur Mike Flanagan and is described as a psychological body horror thriller rooted in the DC Universe. The film is said to channel the tone of David Cronenberg's The Fly, combining tragic transformation with emotional depth. Clayface will focus on a rising actor whose face is disfigured by a gangster. Desperate, he turns to a fringe scientist—compared to Elizabeth Holmes—for an experimental treatment. While the procedure initially appears successful, it unleashes terrifying consequences. The film is scheduled for release on September 11, 2026, and has a mid-$40 million budget. It marks one of the first major entries in the new DC era led by James Gunn and Peter Safran, even arriving ahead of films featuring marquee characters like Wonder Woman. Gunn, Safran, Matt Reeves, and Lynn Harris are all attached as producers. Ackie is best known for portraying Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody and recently starred in the A24 drama Sorry, Baby. Her upcoming projects include The Thursday Murder Club for Netflix and I Love Boosters from Boots Riley. She is represented by CAA, Range, and Peikoff Mahan.
Gulf Today
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
In ‘Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor makes a disarming debut
The first thing to love about writer-director-star Eva Victor's extraordinary debut 'Sorry, Baby' is how she, as the young professor Agnes, tries, and fails, to hide a tryst with her neighbour. Agnes lives in a quaint New England home where her best friend and fellow former grad student Lydie (Naomi Ackie) is visiting. We are just getting to know each of these characters when a knock comes on the door. Gavin (Lucas Hedges) stands outside confused when Lydie answers. Agnes rushes over to act as though he's mistaken her house for his, and not for the first time. 'God bless your lost soul,' she says, shooing him away. The plot of 'Sorry, Baby' centres around a traumatic experience for Agnes that unfolds in a chapter titled 'The Year With the Bad Thing.' But it would be wrong to define 'Sorry, Baby' — or its singular protagonist — by that 'bad thing.' In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences. Before her script to 'Sorry, Baby' attracted Barry Jenkins as a producer, Victor did improv and made comic social media videos. And the degree to which she's effectively channeled her sly sense of humour and full-bodied resistance to cliche makes 'Sorry, Baby' the immediately apparent revelation of a disarmingly offbeat new voice. The film unfolds in five chapters from across five years of Agnes' life, told out of chronology. That, in itself, is a way to place the 'bad thing' of 'Sorry, Baby' in a reshuffled context. Stasis, healing and friendship are more the guiding framework of Victor's film. The opening tenor of 'Sorry, Baby' is, in a way, the prevailing one. Agnes and Lydie (a terrific Ackie) are best pals whose jokey chemistry is as natural as their protectiveness of each other. At a dinner with their former literature grad students, Lydie clasps Agnes' hand under the table at the mention of their former thesis adviser. In the second chapter, the 'bad thing' one, we find out why. In an unnamed New England liberal arts school, their professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), is charming and perceptive. He recognizes Agnes' intelligence and seems to respect her — which makes his betrayal all the more shattering. When the location of one of their meetings shifts last-minute to his home, Victor's camera waits outside while day turns to night. Only when Agnes exits, ashen and horrified, do we pick back up with her as she gets in the car and drives. In the aftermath, the trauma of the rape spills out of Agnes in unpredictable ways and at unexpected moments. With Lydie. Visiting a doctor. At jury duty. With a stray cat. These encounters — some heartwarming, some insensitive — are both Agnes' way of awkwardly processing what she went through and the movie's way of accentuating how people around you, friend or stranger, have a choice of empathy. Most movingly, in the chapter 'The Year With the Good Sandwich,' John Carroll Lynch plays a man who finds her having a panic attack, and sweetly sits down with her in a parking lot. Agnes doesn't process her experience the way a movie character might be expected to — with, say, revenge or sudden catharsis. Hers is a sporadic, often absurd healing that includes turning up at her neighbor's house to borrow some lighter fluid. Lydie is key. This is in many ways a portrait of a friendship, and a particularly lived-in one at that. What it's not so much is a story about sexual assault. Just as Agnes is sarcastically and self-deprecatingly resistant to convention, Victor's film sidesteps the definitions that usually accompany such a story. Originality becomes a kind of survival. Associated Press
Hamilton Spectator
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Movie Review: In ‘Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor makes a disarming debut
The first thing to love about writer-director-star Eva Victor's extraordinary debut 'Sorry, Baby' is how she, as the young professor Agnes, tries, and fails, to hide a tryst with her neighbor. Agnes lives in a quaint New England home where her best friend and fellow former grad student Lydie (Naomi Ackie) is visiting. We are just getting to know each of these characters when a knock comes on the door. Gavin (Lucas Hedges) stands outside confused when Lydie answers. Agnes rushes over to act as though he's mistaken her house for his, and not for the first time. 'God bless your lost soul,' she says, shooing him away. The plot of 'Sorry, Baby' centers around a traumatic experience for Agnes that unfolds in a chapter titled 'The Year With the Bad Thing.' But it would be wrong to define 'Sorry, Baby' — or its singular protagonist — by that 'bad thing.' In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences. Before her script to 'Sorry, Baby' attracted Barry Jenkins as a producer, Victor did improv and made comic social media videos. And the degree to which she's effectively channeled her sly sense of humor and full-bodied resistance to cliche makes 'Sorry, Baby' the immediately apparent revelation of a disarmingly offbeat new voice. The film unfolds in five chapters from across five years of Agnes' life, told out of chronology. That, in itself, is a way to place the 'bad thing' of 'Sorry, Baby' in a reshuffled context. Stasis, healing and friendship are more the guiding framework of Victor's film. The opening tenor of 'Sorry, Baby' is, in a way, the prevailing one. Agnes and Lydie (a terrific Ackie) are best pals whose jokey chemistry is as natural as their protectiveness of each other. At a dinner with their former literature grad students, Lydie clasps Agnes' hand under the table at the mention of their former thesis adviser. In the second chapter, the 'bad thing' one, we find out why. In an unnamed New England liberal arts school, their professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), is charming and perceptive. He recognizes Agnes' intelligence and seems to respect her — which makes his betrayal all the more shattering. When the location of one of their meetings shifts last-minute to his home, Victor's camera waits outside while day turns to night. Only when Agnes exits, ashen and horrified, do we pick back up with her as she gets in the car and drives. In the aftermath, the trauma of the rape spills out of Agnes in unpredictable ways and at unexpected moments. With Lydie. Visiting a doctor. At jury duty. With a stray cat. These encounters — some heartwarming, some insensitive — are both Agnes' way of awkwardly processing what she went through and the movie's way of accentuating how people around you, friend or stranger, have a choice of empathy. Most movingly, in the chapter 'The Year With the Good Sandwich,' John Carroll Lynch plays a man who finds her having a panic attack, and sweetly sits down with her in a parking lot. Agnes doesn't process her experience the way a movie character might be expected to — with, say, revenge or sudden catharsis. Hers is a sporadic, often absurd healing that includes turning up at her neighbor's house to borrow some lighter fluid. Lydie is key. This is in many ways a portrait of a friendship, and a particularly lived-in one at that. What it's not so much is a story about sexual assault. Just as Agnes is sarcastically and self-deprecatingly resistant to convention, Victor's film sidesteps the definitions that usually accompany such a story. Originality becomes a kind of survival. 'Sorry, Baby,' an A24 release is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for sexual content and language. Running time: 104 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
Movie Review: In 'Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor makes a disarming debut
The first thing to love about writer-director-star Eva Victor's extraordinary debut 'Sorry, Baby' is how she, as the young professor Agnes, tries, and fails, to hide a tryst with her neighbor. Agnes lives in a quaint New England home where her best friend and fellow former grad student Lydie (Naomi Ackie) is visiting. We are just getting to know each of these characters when a knock comes on the door. Gavin (Lucas Hedges) stands outside confused when Lydie answers. Agnes rushes over to act as though he's mistaken her house for his, and not for the first time. 'God bless your lost soul,' she says, shooing him away. The plot of 'Sorry, Baby' centers around a traumatic experience for Agnes that unfolds in a chapter titled 'The Year With the Bad Thing.' But it would be wrong to define 'Sorry, Baby' — or its singular protagonist — by that 'bad thing.' In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences. Before her script to 'Sorry, Baby' attracted Barry Jenkins as a producer, Victor did improv and made comic social media videos. And the degree to which she's effectively channeled her sly sense of humor and full-bodied resistance to cliche makes 'Sorry, Baby' the immediately apparent revelation of a disarmingly offbeat new voice. The film unfolds in five chapters from across five years of Agnes' life, told out of chronology. That, in itself, is a way to place the 'bad thing' of 'Sorry, Baby' in a reshuffled context. Stasis, healing and friendship are more the guiding framework of Victor's film. The opening tenor of 'Sorry, Baby' is, in a way, the prevailing one. Agnes and Lydie (a terrific Ackie) are best pals whose jokey chemistry is as natural as their protectiveness of each other. At a dinner with their former literature grad students, Lydie clasps Agnes' hand under the table at the mention of their former thesis adviser. In the second chapter, the 'bad thing' one, we find out why. In an unnamed New England liberal arts school, their professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), is charming and perceptive. He recognizes Agnes' intelligence and seems to respect her — which makes his betrayal all the more shattering. When the location of one of their meetings shifts last-minute to his home, Victor's camera waits outside while day turns to night. Only when Agnes exits, ashen and horrified, do we pick back up with her as she gets in the car and drives. In the aftermath, the trauma of the rape spills out of Agnes in unpredictable ways and at unexpected moments. With Lydie. Visiting a doctor. At jury duty. With a stray cat. These encounters — some heartwarming, some insensitive — are both Agnes' way of awkwardly processing what she went through and the movie's way of accentuating how people around you, friend or stranger, have a choice of empathy. Most movingly, in the chapter 'The Year With the Good Sandwich,' John Carroll Lynch plays a man who finds her having a panic attack, and sweetly sits down with her in a parking lot. Agnes doesn't process her experience the way a movie character might be expected to — with, say, revenge or sudden catharsis. Hers is a sporadic, often absurd healing that includes turning up at her neighbor's house to borrow some lighter fluid. Lydie is key. This is in many ways a portrait of a friendship, and a particularly lived-in one at that. What it's not so much is a story about sexual assault. Just as Agnes is sarcastically and self-deprecatingly resistant to convention, Victor's film sidesteps the definitions that usually accompany such a story. Originality becomes a kind of survival.
Winnipeg Free Press
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Movie Review: In ‘Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor makes a disarming debut
The first thing to love about writer-director-star Eva Victor's extraordinary debut 'Sorry, Baby' is how she, as the young professor Agnes, tries, and fails, to hide a tryst with her neighbor. Agnes lives in a quaint New England home where her best friend and fellow former grad student Lydie (Naomi Ackie) is visiting. We are just getting to know each of these characters when a knock comes on the door. Gavin (Lucas Hedges) stands outside confused when Lydie answers. Agnes rushes over to act as though he's mistaken her house for his, and not for the first time. 'God bless your lost soul,' she says, shooing him away. The plot of 'Sorry, Baby' centers around a traumatic experience for Agnes that unfolds in a chapter titled 'The Year With the Bad Thing.' But it would be wrong to define 'Sorry, Baby' — or its singular protagonist — by that 'bad thing.' In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences. Before her script to 'Sorry, Baby' attracted Barry Jenkins as a producer, Victor did improv and made comic social media videos. And the degree to which she's effectively channeled her sly sense of humor and full-bodied resistance to cliche makes 'Sorry, Baby' the immediately apparent revelation of a disarmingly offbeat new voice. The film unfolds in five chapters from across five years of Agnes' life, told out of chronology. That, in itself, is a way to place the 'bad thing' of 'Sorry, Baby' in a reshuffled context. Stasis, healing and friendship are more the guiding framework of Victor's film. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. The opening tenor of 'Sorry, Baby' is, in a way, the prevailing one. Agnes and Lydie (a terrific Ackie) are best pals whose jokey chemistry is as natural as their protectiveness of each other. At a dinner with their former literature grad students, Lydie clasps Agnes' hand under the table at the mention of their former thesis adviser. In the second chapter, the 'bad thing' one, we find out why. In an unnamed New England liberal arts school, their professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), is charming and perceptive. He recognizes Agnes' intelligence and seems to respect her — which makes his betrayal all the more shattering. When the location of one of their meetings shifts last-minute to his home, Victor's camera waits outside while day turns to night. Only when Agnes exits, ashen and horrified, do we pick back up with her as she gets in the car and drives. In the aftermath, the trauma of the rape spills out of Agnes in unpredictable ways and at unexpected moments. With Lydie. Visiting a doctor. At jury duty. With a stray cat. These encounters — some heartwarming, some insensitive — are both Agnes' way of awkwardly processing what she went through and the movie's way of accentuating how people around you, friend or stranger, have a choice of empathy. Most movingly, in the chapter 'The Year With the Good Sandwich,' John Carroll Lynch plays a man who finds her having a panic attack, and sweetly sits down with her in a parking lot. Agnes doesn't process her experience the way a movie character might be expected to — with, say, revenge or sudden catharsis. Hers is a sporadic, often absurd healing that includes turning up at her neighbor's house to borrow some lighter fluid. Lydie is key. This is in many ways a portrait of a friendship, and a particularly lived-in one at that. What it's not so much is a story about sexual assault. Just as Agnes is sarcastically and self-deprecatingly resistant to convention, Victor's film sidesteps the definitions that usually accompany such a story. Originality becomes a kind of survival. 'Sorry, Baby,' an A24 release is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for sexual content and language. Running time: 104 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
