Latest news with #DaveedDiggs
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Original ‘Hamilton' Cast to Reunite for Tony Awards Performance
The original cast of 'Hamilton' will be back in the room where it happens. That's right, Lin-Manuel Miranda and his ensemble of revolutionaries will reunite for a special performance at the 78th Tony Awards in honor of the show's 10th anniversary. More from Variety Michelle Williams on Returning to Broadway With 'Death Becomes Her,' Her Tony Snub and Beyoncé's Backstage Visit Broadway's New Tony Icons: How Cole Escola, Sadie Sink and Fina Strazza Define the Theater Awards Race Why Bob Odenkirk Has Wanted to Do 'Glengarry Glen Ross' for Decades In addition to Miranda, who wrote the book and music for the show in addition to starring in it, returning performers will include Daveed Diggs, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Christopher Jackson, Phillipa Soo and Leslie Odom, Jr. Other members of the original contingent who you should expect to see on Tony night include Carleigh Bettiol, Andrew Chappelle, Ariana DeBose, Alysha Deslorieux, Sydney James Harcourt, Neil Haskell, Sasha Hutchings, Thayne Jasperson, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Stephanie Klemons, Morgan Marcell, Javier Muñoz, Okieriete Onaodowan, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Jon Rua, Austin Smith,Seth Stewart, Betsy Struxness, Ephraim Sykes and Voltaire Wade-Greene. No word yet on what number or numbers they will perform, but there are many showstoppers to choose from, including 'My Shot,' 'Wait for It,' 'Satisfied' and 'You'll Be Back.' 'Hamilton' was a Tony Awards juggernaut, winning 11 prizes, including the statue for best musical. It also won Grammys, Oliviers and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show was filmed and later released on Disney+ in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, where it became a streaming hit. A decade later, 'Hamilton' remains one of Broadway's hottest tickets and routinely plays to sell-out crowds. Odom Jr. recently announced he will reprise his role as Aaron Burr in the show from Sept. 9 to Nov. 23. Best of Variety 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz
Washington Post
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
I took a year off from reviewing movies. Here's what I discovered.
'The sun comes up and the world still spins.' These days, I can't get those words — sung by the great Daveed Diggs — out of my head. Diggs, you'll remember, portrayed Thomas Jefferson in 'Hamilton'; the lyric is from 'What'd I Miss?' the amusing tune Jefferson delivers upon his return from Paris after the excitement of the American Revolution has long since passed. 'I basically missed the late '80s,' he cracks in a wry aside.
Forbes
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Daveed Diggs On The Power Of Mentorship In College Admissions
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 16: Daveed Diggs arrives at the Premiere of PBS documentary "The Class" ... More at The Grand Lake Theater on March 16, 2025 in Oakland, California. (Photo by) Amid the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic, a small but powerful documentary series quietly captured one of the most defining student experiences of our time. 'The Class,' now airing on PBS, follows college advisor Mr. Cam and his students at Deer Valley High School as they navigate the complexities of college admissions during the first year of the pandemic. Executive produced by actor and musician Daveed Diggs, and Lafayette College President Nicole Hurd, the series underscores the enduring power of mentorship, community, and resilience when the usual rules—and supports—suddenly disappear. This docuseries itself could have been a victim of pandemic. Instead, Hurd, who also founded the College Advising Corps, pressed the production forward with a smaller crew in place. What follows is a powerful portrayal of resilience. The students remained committed to sharing their stories in the 2020-2021 academic year, even as the world around them was unraveling. Diggs, reviewing the raw footage from his own pandemic isolation, was struck by the determination he saw on screen. 'I'm sitting at home drinking wine at 10:00 a.m. and getting these dailies from students who were fighting tooth and nail to get through their final year of high school and figure out how to go to college,' he reflects. 'It was inspiring at the time. And I find the story even more crucial now in a lot of ways." The docuseries highlights the critical role mentors play in students' lives, especially during times of isolation. For parents, this underscores the importance of fostering multiple supportive relationships in their children's lives beyond just family. Diggs reflects on how the pandemic disrupted traditional mentorship opportunities: "When we locked everything down, we, in a lot of ways, lost community. We'd sort of figured out how to scrape by without people. And what you watch Cam and those students doing is figuring out how to have that in spite of the fact that they were not allowed to gather." In my research on college access for low-income and first-generation students, I found that mentorship doesn't flourish by accident—it's the result of an intentional school culture. The Class offers a compelling visual example of how this culture can be cultivated—even in the most difficult of times—through trust, persistence, and shared belief. For parents, this docuseries a call to action: cultivate opportunities for your child to build relationships with mentors—teachers, coaches, counselors—who offer fresh perspectives and affirmation beyond the home. Diggs credits his own success to mentors who guided him, including during his college journey to Brown University. In one pivotal advising conversation at Berkeley High School, an advisor pointed him toward Ivy League institutions and mentioned Brown University's open curriculum. 'For the kind of weirdo, artsy kid I was, it [the flexbility and culture] sounded right up my alley,' Diggs recalls. Both Diggs and Hurd encourage parents to share their own educational stories—especially the imperfect, winding ones. 'Don't be afraid to tell your own story,' Hurd advises. 'That's the power of this [docuseries]. It's the power of watching Cam tell his story to these students and then having them be inspired.' For parents, this highlights the value of sharing their own educational journeys—including the struggles and detours—with their children. The documentary shows that success rarely follows a straight line—an important lesson for parents who might be anxious about their children's educational trajectories, a narrative that my book'Get Real and Get In' shares as a theme. Hurd stresses, "None of us has a linear journey. I don't know why we think we do. And I think if you're going to help young people apply to college, you have to remind them their journey is not going to be linear either, and that's okay." This perspective can help parents release rigid expectations and support their children through inevitable changes and challenges. As Hurd advises families navigating the competitive admissions landscape: 'College is what you make of it and there are a lot of amazing colleges in this country.' For parents raising children in an increasingly digital world, the docuseries offers insights on balancing technological tools with human connection. Hurd distinguishes between the "transactional" aspects of college advising that AI can handle and the "relational" elements that require human interaction: "There's the things that are transactional, the things that you need, and AI can help you with in terms of, you know, when are the tests, what are the deadlines... And then there's what, and I think this is what you'll see in the docuseries, there's a relational piece… And that's never going to be AI, because that's actually relational. It's about somebody looking you in the eye and saying, 'I believe in you.'" Parents can apply this wisdom by helping their children leverage technological resources while ensuring they maintain meaningful human connections that provide emotional support and inspiration. Perhaps the most profound lesson for parents is the essential value of community in education. As Diggs emphasizes: "Community is really important and it can go away. We take it for granted and it's already been snatched away from us once and we should be also protecting that better." This insight encourages parents to actively foster community connections for their children and to recognize that education is not solely about academic achievement but about belonging to something larger than oneself. As Hurd puts it, "We belong to each other in these really beautiful and profound ways... when we believe in each other and take care of each other, magical things can happen." Through "The Class," both Diggs and Hurd offer parents a powerful reminder that supporting their children's educational journeys in college admissions and beyond requires both practical guidance and a commitment to building and maintaining the communities that make meaningful learning possible.
Euronews
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
clipping. - ‘Dead Channel Sky': Euronews Culture's verdict
In the video for clipping.'s new single 'Change the Channel', an armed military officer enters a home and sees a slouched man on his couch, wearing an uncomfortable looking collar that seems to have him chained. 'User disconnected... User disconnected' repeats a robotic voice emanating from the man's phone, which sits on the table in front of him. The soldier knows exactly what to do. He plugs in the user back in, using a red USB cable which slides into the man's collar. The slumped man can now resume doomscrolling on his device. As far as metaphors go, it's not a particularly deep one, but it is useful in encompassing the tone of clipping.'s latest album, 'Dead Channel Sky'. You see, the LA-based experimental hip-hop trio, composed of rapper Daveed Diggs and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, have made a name for themselves not only for breaking the conventions of hip-hop by crafting transportive and frequently abrasive soundscapes populated with verbose rapping, but as keen aficionados of a good concept. And when it comes to concepts, this is a band that commits. They flexed on their second album, 2016's 'Splendor & Misery', a sci-fi / afrofuturist concept album which was written from the perspective of an artificial intelligence within a cargo ship populated by one human. Then came the 2019-2020 horror diptych 'There Existed An Addiction To Blood' and 'Visions Of Bodies Being Burned' – their most accomplished meshing of concept and music. Both albums worked as a moody horrorcore ode to the cinematic genre, showcasing clipping. at their most melodic and frenetically inventive. For their next narrative experiment, they've moved away from horror and delved into a cyberpunk world that draws heavy inspiration from William Gibson's seminal 1984 text "Neuromancer". In it, industrial beats meet acid techno while 90s electro sounds are repurposed to create a dystopian futurist rave. That may sound like a blast, and for a while, it is. Standout tracks like 'Dominator' and 'Change The Channel' recall the likes of Orbital and The Prodigy, while 'Keep Pushing' and 'Mirrorshades Pt.2' get the balance right between committing to the cyberpunk conceit and just having a bit of fun with it. Frustratingly, the ominous glitchy soundscapes filled with dial-up modem screeches and some on-the-nose lyricism get old real quick. The theme of technofacism needs its lexical field, granted, but the repeated mention of implants, surveillance cameras, and synthetic threats verges on conceptual overreach. And while Diggs' trademark rapid-fire delivery is always a joy to listen to – especially when it's to the sounds of adrenalized 90s house - you get the impression that 'Dead Channel Sky' could have been more rewarding with fewer lines like ''the ingenue was an opp', 'fresh new skin for the avatar' and 'virus – kill that shit, kill that shit'. These aren't as infantile as the conspiracy theory-inspired drivel Muse pass off for lyrics post-'The 2nd Law'. But while clipping. leave the adolescent mulings of someone who's just discovered Orwell for the first time to Matt Bellamy & Co., there's still something an earnest overload here. Unlike the far more consistent 'There Existed An Addiction To Blood' and 'Visions Of Bodies Being Burned', the band's fifth studio album is far more scattershot. It's not that the concept gets away from clipping.; rather that their creativity needed more marshalling in order to not become an insistent clutter. Maybe that's the point, the ultimate commitment to a main theme: 'Dead Channel Sky' needed to sonically mirror the oppressive digital nightmare of modern times. In this respect, clipping.'s consciously chaotic collage works. However, be warned: unless your ideal night out is heading to an experimental Berlin-based techno club that simultaneously projects clips of Ghost in the Shell, Hackers, Strange Days and Matrix onto the walls, while the MC reminds you that societal collapse is near and that political corruption has graduated to state-sanctioned mind control, this sensory assault may prove - like this sentence - more exhausting than enthralling. 'Dead Channel Sky' is out now. It's not every year you get to get celebrate a major milestone in cinema history. 2025 is one of those years. 130 years ago, Louis and Auguste Lumière invented cinema. It's also not every year you get to sit down with Thierry Frémaux, the director of the Institut Lumière in Lyon and the general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival – who we met, rather fittingly, on the Rue du Premier Film. The street bares this name precisely because it is the birthplace of cinema. On 19 March 1895, Louis Lumière placed his camera opposite the hangar, in front of the factory's large gate, turned the crank on the cinématographe and filmed the workers leaving the workshops. Sortie d'usine thus became the first Lumière film and the Hangar became the first set in the history of cinema. To mark this anniversary, Lumière, l'aventure continue!, a new feature film directed and narrated by Frémaux, will be released in cinemas on 19 March 2025. No better time to speak to the main man himself about the legacy of the Lumière brothers, how the next century of cinema will look like, as well as the importance of protecting a precious heritage in the face of modern threats. Euronews Culture: The documentary Lumière, l'aventure continue! features the restoration of more than 120 previously unseen Lumière shots. What struck me was that everything was already there - there's comedy, drama, action... There are even cat videos! Thierry Frémaux: Yes, it's something we specialists have known for a long time, and there are a lot of things in there too about Lumière's own position in history. He wasn't totally an inventor, because we have Edison. We have Marey. We have Muybridge. We have a lot of people before him. So people used to say, 'Well, Lumière didn't really invent cinema' and 'Lumière is not totally a director - because we have George Meliès, and a lot of people after him'. What we say and what I think the movie shows is that Lumière was, first, totally an inventor. There were a lot of people before him, but there is no more invention after him. Once he did that, it was done. And he is totally a director - I would say even an artist. He asked himself the same questions millions of filmmakers after him have asked themselves: What to do with the camera? What position? Where? To do what? To tell what? And at the end of his journey, he directed and produced 2000 movies and yes, 80% of what cinema would be in the future was already there. One aspect I enjoyed about the film was how you presented the dichotomy between Edison, who put moving images inside a box, and the Lumière brothers who took cinema outside of that box. Edison's creation was an individualistic experience, while Lumière understood the importance of the public. TF: Yes, it's exactly that. Lumière invented cinema many times. He invented the technique, the art, the movie theaters and the audience to see the films. Right away, he knew that he had to make a lot of films in order for the audience to go and discover something new. But let's say, in order to pay a tribute to Thomas Edison - and especially to William Dixon, his colleague - that he could have invented cinema. Technically, he was able to do it. Philosophically, no. And what Lumière did was the good idea: put the people in the same room, put the image on the big screen, and share the emotion of it. The desire of people at that time is still our desire. It's still why we want to go to cinema. Cinema won everywhere. The language of cinema, the language of images is everywhere. On TikTok, on Instagram, on video... But cinema - and now more than ever, and especially after Covid or after the triumph of the (streaming) platforms - means films, and going to cinemas. The importance of the communal experience that defines cinemagoing... TF: Yes, exactly. One thing I didn't know was that Lumière was chased out of the US by Edison. In this respect, the film has a very timely resonance because US protectionism predates Donald Trump... TF: Yes. It's important to remember the GATT agreement (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) - all the fights and the battles done by the US government and Europe, and in Europe by the directors, by the autheurs in order to protect themselves, to talk about cultural exception. Right away, Edison said 'No, no, no, no, we have a law - we can't let an invention from abroad enter the American territory if we have the local equivalent.' After one year, everything was settled and the Lumière cinematographers came back, but what I like in this story is that Thomas Edison sent the detectives of the Pinkerton Agency – who were the same that caught Butch Cassidy and the Kid! It shows that for Edison, cinema was something. It was a promising industry. And for Lumière too. But while Lumière sent those operators, those cinematographers all over the world in order to get the image, I'm not sure he was thinking about money... The film's title Lumiere, l'aventure continue! - 'the adventure continues' - reflects that cinema is an artform that has constantly evolved and continues to do so. One major talking point at the moment is the role of artificial intelligence and the potential threat it poses to cinema. Last year, the Prince Charles cinema in London programmed and then axed a film called The Last Screenwriter, the first film entirely written by AI. Audiences weren't too happy about the prospect of seeing it. However, in Thessaloniki this year, they're doing an AI tribute called 'The Inevitable Intelligence'. In your opinion, do you think that AI is inevitable in the evolution of cinema? TF: Firstly, talking about AI is talking about the digital civilization. We have had for many, many years special effects - artificial special effects. Not, argentique (analog photography) special effects, not natural special effects. Maybe the last natural film is Apocalypse Now. The number of helicopters Coppola had in the sky are all the helicopters he had. Now you have a filmmakers saying: 'Well, let's talk to the special effects guy - let's put more helicopters in the sky.' We know that. For example, for the restorations in the documentary, we didn't want to use artificial intelligence. Even when the film is in bad shape. The digital, the scan, the way you can do by yourself in order to correct the images and to get the film exactly at the same shape that it was at the time. But artificial intelligence is something different. Personally, I'm not afraid at all, because we are in favour of human intelligence! Let's talk about literature in this respect. Of course, even for writing, people say, 'No, it's easy now - you ask ChatGPT and it will write the first sentence of 'À la recherche du temps perdu' ('In Search of Lost Time') by Marcel Proust. 'Longtemps, je me suis couché de bonne heure...' No, this is the invention of a human artist! I'm sure that we can use everything. But really, we must use it for good reasons. And you're right, it's a big danger – one to keep a close eye on. A quote that stayed with me from the documentary was 'Veiller à son avenir, c'est prendre soin de nous-mêmes' ('Looking after its future means looking after ourselves'), which is a beautiful sentence when it comes to cinema. And it's something many people regularly forget – whether it's culture cuts in Germany that threaten institutions, the number of Italian cinemas closing and being turned into supermarkets... Even when it comes to soaring rents in the UK which threaten independent cinemas... With all that's going on, is it difficult to remain optimistic about the future of cinema? TF: It's not difficult to be optimistic when you're French! Because in France, cinema is doing well. But that doesn't come from nothing or nowhere. We have a history. We have a history with magazines, with critics, with filmmakers, with festivals. What I like in France is that you have two spectators watching a movie, and at the end of the movie, they either kiss or they fight. I love disagreement. I love to disagree and fight, and then as Bertrand Tavernier used to say: 'I was wrong. I'm happy I was wrong. Because I didn't like this film before, but now I like it'. Here in Lyon, we've done a lot of celebrations. I was very young when I started, and 2025 is maybe the first celebration in which we will insist in the second half of the year about the idea that Lumière invented the movie theatres. Years ago, it was usually about Lumière as a director. The artist Lumière. Now, it's also about Lumière bringing people together because, again, cinema today means going to watch a film in cinemas. And as Sean Baker recently said on stage at the Oscars – his 'battle cry' supporting independent cinemas: films need a big screen... TF: It's a conversation we had many, many times with Quentin Tarantino, who owns two theatres in Los Angeles. He believes very strongly in movie theatres. And also in 35 millimeter print - which is even a strong sort of radicalism! When it comes to the health of French cinema, the country has the privilege of having the Lumière festival, which honours the past, and Cannes, which looks to the future... TF: Yes, and privilege is mine, and it's a privilege and duty. A strong responsibility. But I'm not worried. For instance, imagine a kid has spent his or her whole day watching stuff on their smartphone. But if you say 'Saturday night, we're going to the cinema!' You're going to see a very happy kid. Because it's something different. The more we go into the future, the more cinema will be different from the rest of the images of the world. But also the same. That's because we have to keep it the same. In a lot of countries, we can see new movie theatres opening their doors, because there are a lot of people out there who believe in cinema. Our lives were changed by the existence of cinema. We want people's lives changed and to continue to be changed, because it was for the best. It's what is said in the film. With a camera, you take your responsibility. You are doing your own images and you are giving your own images to an audience. So you have to pay attention. You have to be very careful. Now, with any camera on the internet, nobody's careful. Nobody takes the time to think about that responsibility. So you end up seeing people with their heads cut on the internet. We can see violence. We can see a lot of things. Not in cinema. Even in the 20th century, which was not a great century in terms of peace, cinema contributed to be an instrument of peace. This role of cinema as an instrument of peace reminded me of a moment from last year's Cannes Film Festival, when Mohammad Rasoulof entered the Grand Palais to premiere The Seed of the Sacred Fig. There was this huge standing ovation before the film even begun, and considering the background and the struggle he faced in order to bring this film to an audience, it shows that cinema is also a tool for resistance. TF: Yes. How do you get the reality of a country like Iran better than with a movie like that? He tells us that story about about the corruption of souls inside a family, with the young generation asking the parents: 'What are you doing to this country?' And on top of that, it's a romantic, poetic film. Also a horror film, in many ways. TF: Yes, yes – and a Western too. And that's why we love cinema. Even when I was student, it was easier to watch Novecento by Bernardo Bertolucci in order to understand the history of Italy in the 20th century than reading books! Now, I'm not saying that I don't like reading books, but when you are young, cinema is a gift. I mentioned Sean Baker, who won five Oscars for Anora – which was last year's Palme d'Or. And throughout the most recent awards season, so many Cannes titles were dominating the conversation – Anora, Emilia Pérez, The Substance, The Seed of the Sacred Fig... The year before, it was The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall... Cannes seems instrumental in setting the cultural agenda. Do you still feel this pressure every year going into Cannes with a new selection of films? TF: Don't give me too many compliments because we are in March and it's exactly the same for me, for us, with my colleagues of the selection committee. Are we going to do better than last year? So last year, one year ago, we were very worried because 2023 was a very good year too. So, we'll see. We'll see. We are working, and it's also about that - as we are talking, as we are working and watching films, we know that a lot of filmmakers are editing, finishing writing, working for the future... And when talking about the future of cinema, what is very good to know, to feel, is that cinema is protected and will be saved by movies themselves. By artists. And when we have films, we have audiences. This is also the project of Lumière. You mention the protection of cinema, but when someone like Trump puts together a cabal of 'ambassadors' to "bring Hollywood back" because he sees Hollywood as having lost business to foreign countries, this not only harks back to historical American protectionism but teeters on perverting cinema as propaganda. How can Europe protect cinema from this, as well as put it on the pedestal it deserves? TF: Well, it's not easy. I think we have to teach the young generation to be on our side, to protect cinema. Cinema is an industry, yes, but cinema is above all an art. Cinema is poetry. Cinema is the possibility for someone who wants to tell the world some important things. Remember, the list of artists who wanted to destroy the world is a small one. I'm not sure we have even five names on that list. Conversely, filmmakers, like novelists, are working. They're doing their jobs of saying and sharing the beauty of the world. This is something we still need, and we won't have it via social media. We will have it through literature, music, rock concerts... And cinema. When it comes to preserving and championing this beauty, it reminds me of a conversation I had with Juliette Binoche last year. She will be this year's Cannes Jury President, and she shared that one of her goals is to rehumanize society through cinema. What is your goal? TF: I have the same goal. I think that she is totally right. She knows exactly how artists like her can touch people. And this gives you a big responsibility. Juliette is among those artists who has conscience of their duty. Of course, she's also a great artist, able to do a comedy or drama. She can do everything. And this is an impressive body of work which, at the end of the journey, we'll be able to say that we lived alongside people like her. Finally, do you remember the first film that sparked your passion for cinema? TF: I remember that moment very precisely! It was Snow White. But I don't remember the movie itself, because we were late to the screening. So we entered in the movie theatre in the dark. And that impressed me a lot. There was something about that moment which stuck with me, and that's why I'm still a big lover of movie theatres. Lumière, l'aventure continue! is out in cinemas on 19 March. The Insitut Lumière celebrates 130 years of cinema all year long. Thierry Frémaux's 2024 book "Rue du Premier-Film" is in bookstores. Check out the video at the top of the article for extracts of the conversation with Thierry Frémaux, an interview facilitated and produced by Frédéric Ponsard.
Los Angeles Times
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Very Important Questions: Daveed Diggs and Katie Aselton
Daveed Diggs and Katie Aselton answer The Times' Nick Ducassi's Very Important Questions about their film 'Magic Hour,' which premiered at SXSW on Friday.
