Latest news with #Thelma
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
June Squibb on Her Nonagenarian Career High: 'A 70-Year-Old Will Say, ‘I Want To Be You When I Grow Up!''
'If I'm called 'icon' one more time, I'm going to scream,' laughs June Squibb from her Los Angeles home. It's been a big year for the 95-year-old actress. Thelma, Squibb's first leading feature film role, became one of the biggest success stories at the specialty box office last year, earning over $12 million at the global box office and becoming the highest-grossing movie ever for distributor Magnolia over its two-decade history. She also voices a character in Inside Out 2, which became the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It's the kind of run that anyone, let alone someone in their seventh decade in entertainment, dreams of. More from The Hollywood Reporter Cannes: Wes Anderson Teases His Next Film Cannes: Wes Brings The Whimsy in 'Phoenician Scheme' Press Conference In Cannes, It All Happened at the Carlton While flattered by the attention that comes with being Hollywood's favorite nonagenarian, Squibb finds the fawning a little ridiculous at times: 'A 70-year-old will say, 'I want to be you when I grow up!'' After all, Squibb is just doing the same job she's always been doing, from off-Broadway shows and cabarets to her work with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne. Nonetheless, the hits keep coming for Squibb as she jets off to the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of her latest movie, Eleanor the Great, which also happens to be the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. 'When I called June to tell her, 'Oh my God, June, we're going to Cannes,' she said, 'Well, that's marvelous,' ' recalls Johansson. 'And then she was like, 'Well, I was there about 10 years ago [for Payne's Nebraska], so I know the drill.' I just said, 'June, you're the best.' ' In the film, which will be released by Sony Pictures Classics after the fest, Squibb plays the eponymous title character, a woman who, after the death of her best friend and roommate, moves from Florida back to her native New York to be closer to her daughter and attempts to build a new life for herself. For Squibb, playing a character returning to New York City after many years away was not a big leap. 'I lived there for 65 years,' says the actress, who broke out in New York stage productions like the 1959 musical Gypsy. 'I've been in California for about 20. But, I certainly knew everything there was to know about New York.' Filming took place all over the city, from Brooklyn and Queens to the Meatpacking District and the East River. Squibb, a consummate West Sider, was surprised by how the city had changed. '[Brooklyn] has been gentrified like crazy. That was interesting to me, because my memory of Brooklyn is that Brooklyn Heights was the only place anyone ever went.' Because Eleanor tells a story that deals heavily with themes of Jewish heritage, in addition to subjects like grief and aging, Squibb had to memorize more than her lines. 'I learned the bat mitzvah Torah readings and actually did it on camera,' she says. 'My assistant and I were living in an apartment together, and I woke up one morning saying, 'Oh my God, in my dreams, I was doing the Torah!' ' As for being directed by one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Squibb says she and Johansson connected immediately. 'I just felt I knew who this person was. She's very — what is the word? It's not matter of fact. She is herself. She's not making you look at somebody that she wants you to see. It's just her. And that's what was so great in her direction.' Working with a fellow actress as her director was a new experience for Squibb, who adds that Johansson anticipated the notes and space she needed in order to get the scene just right: 'Now, not many directors can do that, even if they know a little bit about acting. They couldn't do what she did. She knew immediately where I was or where I was going, and how long it might take.' As for returning to the Cannes red carpet for the second time, one of Squibb's most vivid memories is getting an assist from Nebraska director Payne and her co-star Will Forte. 'I still remember going up those stairs,' says Squibb of the Palais' famous steep red steps that deliver audiences and talent into the Grand Auditorium Lumière. 'I was in my 80s at the time. Will Forte took one arm, and Alexander Payne took the other arm, and they dragged me up those stairs. They made sure I made it up the stairs.' It was well worth the climb, as Nebraska debuted to a rapturous 10-minute standing ovation. 'I can still remember, by the end of it, I grabbed Alexander around the waist and was crying in his chest,' recalls Squibb, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in the film. Squibb has no plans to rest on her laurels, or retire for that matter. As of late, she has been inundated with scripts. Hollywood, long obsessed with youth and the stories that surround it, has embraced projects centered on older adults. 'People are really interested in aging now that we've got an aging population,' she says. 'I think people understand 90-year-olds. We just have so many more. I have friends that are 100! People want to see aging. They want to know: What do I have to expect?' But not all of the material is the right fit. 'One script was written for a 70-year-old. And I have to laugh, because I thought, at 90, I can't do some of the things that I could do when I was 70. They wanted me to ride a horse!' She chuckles and thinks for a moment before considering, 'Now, I'm not even saying I couldn't [ride a horse]. I used to ride, so I don't know, maybe if they got me on I could stay on.' And if Squibb does happen to do it, please — don't call her an icon. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut leaves Cannes theater weeping
CANNES, France — It's not easy for a Marvel star to avoid being the center of attention, but Scarlett Johansson seemed to be using every ounce of her being to step out of the spotlight — even as an entire theater rose to applaud her entrance at the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday afternoon. The actress was at the world premiere of her directorial debut, 'Eleanor the Great,' but seemed determined to make sure this day was entirely about her film's delightful 95-year-old star, June Squibb. Even as they were filming, Johansson told the crowd, she'd had a vision of this very moment. 'I said, 'If I do my job right, my dream is to see June on the Croisette in Cannes,' and here we are,' she said. 'So this really is a dream come true.' Squibb, who had arrived in a sparkly floral caftan holding Johansson's hand, couldn't stop beaming. She had last been to Cannes 12 years ago for Alexander Payne's 'Nebraska,' in a supporting role that earned her an Oscar nomination — and there's already talk that this film, only the second lead role of her career after last year's action-comedy 'Thelma,' might have her competing with the likes of Jennifer Lawrence for best actress. The film opens in the modest Florida retirement community where two Jewish best friends of 70 years, Squibb's Eleanor Morgenstern and Rita Zohar's Bessie Stern, share an apartment, sleeping side-by-side in twin beds. Eleanor is a very funny spitfire and compulsive liar who sees nothing wrong with skillfully dressing down a teenage grocery-store clerk to get Bessie the kosher pickles she wants or fibbing about Bessie's family donating a wing to the hospital to get her better care. That lifelong friendship, which also includes sharing stories of the darkest times in their lives over sleepless nights in their kitchen, is the throughline of Johansson's movie, which is essentially about what happens when you lose the most important person in your life. When Eleanor loses Bessie and moves in with her adult daughter (Jessica Hecht) in New York, she finds herself starting over. In one fateful moment, having stumbled into a support group for Holocaust survivors, she tells one of Bessie's stories as her own as a way to remember her friend. But there are many sweet, and dark, twists in store. It's in that group that Eleanor strikes up a wonderful and unlikely friendship with a college journalism student (newcomer Erin Kellyman), who wants to write an article about her. Nina, who recently lost her mother, is the first person Eleanor's found who might help fill the void that Bessie left, and soon Eleanor is in so deep that she keeps compounding her lies. More than a few times during the premiere, a woman next to me whispered, 'Oh, Eleanor, no!' As the consequences of Eleanor's lies finally came to bear, the theater echoed with sobs and sniffles. Johansson's film is at the festival as part of the prestigious Un Certain Regard competition for first- and second-time filmmakers, alongside debut films from fellow actors-turned-directors Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson. Judging from the abundant laughter and crying in the theater, there's a commercial audience for this movie. It just doesn't feel as though it belongs alongside the more daring, visually inventive fare that one associates with Cannes. Indiewire's Kate Erbland found the film 'funny' and 'sweet' but with wild and 'often baffling' tonal shifts, as it mixes the romps of Eleanor and Nina's budding friendship with Bessie's harrowing Holocaust stories. 'It's a little predictable, a little bizarre, a little funny, and very sad, but it's also an ambitious swing at what movies can still be (and what sort of stars can populate them),' Erbland writes. Variety's Owen Gleiberman called it 'sentimental,' 'earnest' and an 'awards-season wannabe,' none of it in a good way. Lovia Gyarkye of the Hollywood Reporter was mixed, writing, 'It's a bold premise that could have worked better.' And Gregory Ellwood of the Playlist wrote that the script, from another first-timer, Tory Kamen, simply has too many plotlines. Visually, Ellwood wrote, he was also hoping for more. 'Considering the lineage of filmmakers Johansson has worked with over her 25-year career, [is it wrong] we dared to expect something more?' The audience, though, sincerely loved it, and Squibb basked in a six-minute standing ovation, with roars of 'brava!' rising from the orchestra seats to the balcony. Squibb is in the middle of an amazing late-career renaissance. And, while 'Eleanor the Great' is an independent movie of roughly the same scale as 'Thelma,' it's likely to attract the attention of Oscar voters curious to see Johansson's first film. After giving Squibb and Kellyman huge, long hugs, Johansson took the microphone and told the crowd that she felt 'naked' showing the movie, because it had been such an intimate shoot, but was so grateful to present it to the world. 'It's about Jewish identity, it's about friendship, but most importantly it's about forgiveness, which is something we could use a lot more of these days.' Mostly, though, she just held Squibb's hand and smiled, hearing the crowd roar for her star. She had been the director, but it was Squibb's night.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Eleanor the Great' Review: Scarlett Johansson's Directorial Debut Is an Unconvincing Crowd-Pleaser, With June Squibb Doing Brash Shtick
June Squibb has become the female Alan Arkin. She's 95 years old, but onscreen she delivers her zingers with the crack timing of an old person whose perception of the world is ageless in its bombs-away, truth-telling joy. After years as a sneaky scene stealer, Squibb became a star in 'Nebraska,' the 2013 Alexander Payne film that turned her combination of homespun grandmotherly demeanor and ruthless wit into a crowd-pleasing force. Last year, she had her first leading role (in 'Thelma,' an action comedy!), and now her perky moon face is front and center again in 'Eleanor the Great,' the first film directed by Scarlett Johansson. The movie is an awards-season wannabe in every sense. It totally plays up Squibb's tart-tongued Arkin-adjacent antique brash aplomb. But in addition, it's an attempt to tap into the poignant underside of a character who uses her wisecracks as weapons. Did I mention that it's also a sentimental Holocaust weeper? More from Variety Erin Kellyman on Starring in Scarlett Johansson's Directorial Debut 'Eleanor the Great': 'This Job Has Changed the Way I See Myself as an Actor' Jafar Panahi and Saeed Roustayee Are Both in Cannes in Banner Year for Iranian Cinema on the Croisette Jafar Panahi Speaks Out for First Time in 14 Years as New Film 'It Was Just an Accident' Premieres at Cannes: I Spent 'Eight Hours a Day Blindfolded' and 'Being Interrogated' in Iran Prison When we first meet Squibb's Eleanor Morgenstein, who is 94 and still spry, she's waking up in the bedroom she shares with her oldest friend, Bessie (Rita Zohar), in an apartment in Florida. It's Friday morning, and they're undertaking their ritual weekly outing: a trip to the supermarket. That may not sound too dramatic, but there's rarely a dull moment with Eleanor, who will give anyone a piece of her mind, even when it's not a friendly piece. When she and Bessie arrive at the market's pickle-jar section, only to learn that the kosher brand they favor isn't there, Eleanor seizes the chance to dress down a stockboy who's utterly at sea about how to help them. That she has the awareness to skewer him as a clueless Zoomer is what's funny — that, and the fact that Squibb delivers her lines as if they were the opening monologue of her own talk show. The script of 'Eleanor the Great,' by Tory Kamen, doesn't stint on the sitcom sarcasm, and that's both a plus and a minus. There's no denying that as a character, Eleanor plays, giving Squibb an opportunity to strut her granny-with-an-attitude stuff. But you're always aware that the movie is trying to squeeze a laugh out of you. Bessie is a Holocaust survivor, with one of those old-world Eastern European accents and a woe-is-me shrug of a personality to match. She and Eleanor are presented as if they were two peas in a Jewish-retirement-community pod. But this gives us pause. June Squibb is a hell of an actor, but in 'Eleanor the Great' she doesn't exactly come off like a Jewish person from the Bronx (which is what the film first implies she is). There is, however, a good explanation for that. The set-up for the movie is that Bessie, who has been Eleanor's soulmate for decades, dies quite suddenly. Eleanor has never lived alone, so she relocates to New York City to move into the East Side apartment of her daughter, Lisa (Jessica Hecht), and grandson, Max (Will Price), at which point it starts to become clear that 'Eleanor the Great' is no mere glorified sitcom. It's an investigation into the mystery of who Eleanor is. 'You cut your hair, I see,' says Eleanor to Lisa. 'I liked it better before.' That's the kind of line that gives Eleanor — and, indeed, the comedy of June Squibb — an anti-social edge. Eleanor isn't just sharp as a tack; she's got boundary issues when it comes to what she thinks she can say. She talks less to communicate than to entertain herself. And it's that what-the-hell mouthiness that gets her into trouble. Dropped off at the Manhattan Jewish Community Center (a place where Lisa figures her mother can spend some time and make friends), she wanders into a group of people seated in a circle, and it turns out to be a support group for Holocaust survivors. A normal person would get up and leave, or maybe ask to listen. But neither of those options would satisfy Eleanor, who needs to be at the center of the action. So she starts to tell a story about how she's from Poland, and then this happened to her, and that happened, and we realize that she's making up who she is. She's telling Bessie's story and passing it off as her own. And, of course, doing a captivating job of it. Nina (Erin Kellyman), a journalism student from NYU, is sitting in on the group to write an article for one of her classes, and she's struck by Eleanor's story. She wants to feature her in the article! And since Eleanor could use the company, she gets drawn into a connection with Nina — a standard buddy-movie trope. If there's any doubt about how much 'Eleanor the Great' often seems to have come out of a screenwriting processor, check out this Coincidence 101 contrivance: Back in Florida, Eleanor and Bessie were obsessed with Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a handsome cable-TV newsman — and it turns out that Roger is Nina's recently widowed father. The table is now set for Eleanor's fake Holocaust story to go very public. That someone would appropriate her best friend's saga of wartime survival is clearly indefensible. Yet in a strange way I think 'Eleanor the Great,' to be true to the outrageousness of that premise, should have sharpened the comedy of it more. Johansson, however, while she does a perfectly efficient job of directing, doesn't hone the tone of her scenes. She keeps the whole thing earnest and rather neutral in a plot-driven way, with Squibb as her wild card. As Nina, Erin Kellyman has a wide-eyed precocity marbled with the sadness that has sprung from her mother's death. 'Eleanor the Great' very much wants to be a movie about grief. It tells us that grief is what's at the core of Eleanor's deception — the grief of Bessie's passing, the grief she couldn't bear. That's why she did it! But guess what? I didn't believe that for a moment. Not when June Squibb is having this good a time making herself the center of attention. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
June Squibb on Her Nonagenarian Career High: 'A 70-Year-Old Will Say, ‘I Want To Be You When I Grow Up!''
'If I'm called 'icon' one more time, I'm going to scream,' laughs June Squibb from her Los Angeles home. It's been a big year for the 95-year-old actress. Thelma, Squibb's first leading feature film role, became one of the biggest success stories at the specialty box office last year, earning over $12 million at the global box office and becoming the highest-grossing movie ever for distributor Magnolia over its two-decade history. She also voices a character in Inside Out 2, which became the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It's the kind of run that anyone, let alone someone in their seventh decade in entertainment, dreams of. More from The Hollywood Reporter Cannes: Wes Anderson Teases His Next Film Cannes: Wes Brings The Whimsy in 'Phoenician Scheme' Press Conference In Cannes, It All Happened at the Carlton While flattered by the attention that comes with being Hollywood's favorite nonagenarian, Squibb finds the fawning a little ridiculous at times: 'A 70-year-old will say, 'I want to be you when I grow up!'' After all, Squibb is just doing the same job she's always been doing, from off-Broadway shows and cabarets to her work with filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne. Nonetheless, the hits keep coming for Squibb as she jets off to the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of her latest movie, Eleanor the Great, which also happens to be the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. 'When I called June to tell her, 'Oh my God, June, we're going to Cannes,' she said, 'Well, that's marvelous,' ' recalls Johansson. 'And then she was like, 'Well, I was there about 10 years ago [for Payne's Nebraska], so I know the drill.' I just said, 'June, you're the best.' ' In the film, which will be released by Sony Pictures Classics after the fest, Squibb plays the eponymous title character, a woman who, after the death of her best friend and roommate, moves from Florida back to her native New York to be closer to her daughter and attempts to build a new life for herself. For Squibb, playing a character returning to New York City after many years away was not a big leap. 'I lived there for 65 years,' says the actress, who broke out in New York stage productions like the 1959 musical Gypsy. 'I've been in California for about 20. But, I certainly knew everything there was to know about New York.' Filming took place all over the city, from Brooklyn and Queens to the Meatpacking District and the East River. Squibb, a consummate West Sider, was surprised by how the city had changed. '[Brooklyn] has been gentrified like crazy. That was interesting to me, because my memory of Brooklyn is that Brooklyn Heights was the only place anyone ever went.' Because Eleanor tells a story that deals heavily with themes of Jewish heritage, in addition to subjects like grief and aging, Squibb had to memorize more than her lines. 'I learned the bat mitzvah Torah readings and actually did it on camera,' she says. 'My assistant and I were living in an apartment together, and I woke up one morning saying, 'Oh my God, in my dreams, I was doing the Torah!' ' As for being directed by one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Squibb says she and Johansson connected immediately. 'I just felt I knew who this person was. She's very — what is the word? It's not matter of fact. She is herself. She's not making you look at somebody that she wants you to see. It's just her. And that's what was so great in her direction.' Working with a fellow actress as her director was a new experience for Squibb, who adds that Johansson anticipated the notes and space she needed in order to get the scene just right: 'Now, not many directors can do that, even if they know a little bit about acting. They couldn't do what she did. She knew immediately where I was or where I was going, and how long it might take.' As for returning to the Cannes red carpet for the second time, one of Squibb's most vivid memories is getting an assist from Nebraska director Payne and her co-star Will Forte. 'I still remember going up those stairs,' says Squibb of the Palais' famous steep red steps that deliver audiences and talent into the Grand Auditorium Lumière. 'I was in my 80s at the time. Will Forte took one arm, and Alexander Payne took the other arm, and they dragged me up those stairs. They made sure I made it up the stairs.' It was well worth the climb, as Nebraska debuted to a rapturous 10-minute standing ovation. 'I can still remember, by the end of it, I grabbed Alexander around the waist and was crying in his chest,' recalls Squibb, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in the film. Squibb has no plans to rest on her laurels, or retire for that matter. As of late, she has been inundated with scripts. Hollywood, long obsessed with youth and the stories that surround it, has embraced projects centered on older adults. 'People are really interested in aging now that we've got an aging population,' she says. 'I think people understand 90-year-olds. We just have so many more. I have friends that are 100! People want to see aging. They want to know: What do I have to expect?' But not all of the material is the right fit. 'One script was written for a 70-year-old. And I have to laugh, because I thought, at 90, I can't do some of the things that I could do when I was 70. They wanted me to ride a horse!' She chuckles and thinks for a moment before considering, 'Now, I'm not even saying I couldn't [ride a horse]. I used to ride, so I don't know, maybe if they got me on I could stay on.' And if Squibb does happen to do it, please — don't call her an icon. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
New York Post
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Tom Cruise makes a bold statement about his future retirement from Hollywood
Executing the 'Mission: Impossible' stunts is risky business for an actor at any age. But 62-year-old Tom Cruise says he wants to keep pushing the limits until he's in the triple digits. When asked at the New York premiere of 'Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning' on Sunday about a remark he made two years prior that he hopes to continue his film career until he's Harrison Ford's age, 82, the actor took it a big step further. 'I actually said I'm going to make movies into my 80s,' he told the Hollywood Reporter. 'Actually, I'm going to make them into my 100s.' 4 Tom Cruise says he wants to continue making movies 'into my 100s.' AFP via Getty Images Cruise, who performs the lion's share of his own stunts onscreen, added, 'I will never stop. I will never stop doing action, I will never stop doing drama, comedy films. I'm excited.' The 'Top Gun: Maverick' star certainly hasn't eased up in 'The Final Reckoning.' In the film, Cruise death-defyingly clings to a biplane while it's midair, performs bruising fights and a paralyzing underwater sequence. For now, the workload looks good on him. 4 At 62, Cruise still performs the lion's share of his own stunts in films. AP In a 3 ½-star review, The Post said the athletic actor comes off as 'more of a high school senior than a senior citizen.' Cruise also reportedly maintains a strict diet to stay fit, eating 15 snacks per day rather than three traditional meals and noshing on steamed fish and vegetables sans oil or sauce. He's said to work out five days a week. But once he's about to do any stunt, he piles on the calories. Before the biplane feat, he said he ate a 'massive breakfast.' 4 In 'The Final Reckoning,' Cruise frighteningly clings to a biplane in midair. AP While a 100-year-old performer is rare in Hollywood, actors today are working well into their 90s. Last year, June Squibb starred in the assisted-living action-comedy 'Thelma' at age 94. Rita Moreno starred in the road-trip flick '80 for Brady' at 91. And Clint Eastwood's most recent film where he acted, 2021's 'Cry Macho,' hit theaters as he was turning 90. At the premiere, Cruise did insist that wherever his talents land, they likely won't be used for future 'Mission: Impossible' movies. 4 Cruise said 'The Final Reckoning' really is the last 'Mission: Impossible' movie. Getty Images for Paramount Pictures 'It's the final!,' he said. 'It's not called 'final' for nothing.' But, the actor recently told the 'Today Show Australia,' he's pondering sequels to some of his most popular films. 'Yeah, we're thinking and talking about many different stories and what could we do and what's possible,' Cruise said. 'It took me 35 years to figure out 'Top Gun: Maverick', so all of these things we're working on, we're discussing 'Days of Thunder' and 'Top Gun: Maverick.''
