October 29, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC(LOS ANGELES) — Actress Anne Hathaway revealed earlier this week that she found out she was pregnant shortly before filming for The Witches got underway.  Now, she’s opening up about how she kept her pregnancy a secret from most of the cast and crew.

After finding out she was pregnant with her and husband Adam Shulman’s second child, a son named Jack, Hathaway told Entertainment Tonight, “I didn’t really tell anybody that I was pregnant because I was still in my first trimester.”

“Then, when I went into my second trimester during filming, I only told a couple people. But the costume still fit so I didn’t feel the need to tell anybody,” the Academy Award-winning actress continued.

Although, Hathaway admitted she had to really flex her lying muscles when outfoxing the movie’s costume designer, Joanna Johnston.  

When discussing a particular scene where Hathaway’s silhouette is only shown, Johnson suggested that she wear a corset “so you have a wasp waist.”

Of course, that didn’t fly with the 37-year-old actress, who immediately pushed back and was forced to give an elaborate excuse. 

“I couldn’t say, ‘Because I’m five weeks pregnant,'” Hathaway laughed, saying she settled on the lie that she needed looser fitting clothes for the number. “I go, ‘I just know myself as a performer and I’m just gonna feel really constrained. I’m gonna feel really constrained and I just, I’m gonna be funnier if I don’t have something.'”

Johnson believed her and “didn’t ask questions” even though the actress fully admits she spoon-fed the costume designer a bunch of “BS.”

The jig was up when filming eventually wrapped because, by then, “I was 16 weeks pregnant and she got it.”

The Witches is available now for streaming on HBO Max.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 29, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC/Mike Rosenthal(LOS ANGELES) — Grey’s Anatomy, the longest running medical drama in television history with a whopping 17 seasons, might be hanging up the scrubs sometime soon as hinted by star Ellen Pompeo.

The actress, who plays the titular Doctor Meredith Grey, spoke openly about the hit show and indicated that the series might come to an end sooner than fans think.

“We don’t know when the show is really ending yet,” Pomeo admitted to Variety on Wednesday. “But the truth is, this year could be it.”

The 50-year-old actress further hinted about her own future on the medical drama, adding, “I mean, this is the last year of my contract right now. I don’t know that this is the last year? But it could very well could be.”

However, Pompeo understands that, should she leave, it might be difficult for the show to continue.

“I don’t take the decision lightly [about leaving,]” she confessed, “We employ a lot of people, and we have a huge platform. And I’m very grateful for it.”

Pompeo assured that, despite the slight chance that Grey’s Anatomy is in its final season, the show’s quality will remain intact.

“I’m constantly fighting for the show as a whole to be as good as it can be,” she revealed. “As a producer, I feel like I have permission to be able to do that.”

Pompeo, who has been with Grey’s since the pilot episode aired in 2005, is one of the last remaining original cast members.  Only two other actors have stayed with the show since the beginning, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr., who play Doctor Miranda Bailey and Doctor Richard Webber, respectively.

Season 17 of Grey’s Anatomy premieres November 17 on ABC and will feature the doctors adjusting to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 29, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC/Eric McCandless(LOS ANGELES) — No whammies – stop! New episodes of Press Your Luck hosted by Elizabeth Banks are back tonight on ABC.

The game show features contestants collecting spins by answering trivia questions. They can later use the spins to win cash and prizes, which Banks tells ABC Audio is her favorite part of the job “hands down.” 

“I get to give away life changing money, and it’s not my money,” she admits. “It’s a fabulous feeling.”

Banks is one of at least seven women hosting TV game shows — a job that, up until recently, was dominated by men. She says she’s glad the industry’s changing.

“I’m thrilled by the numbers and, it’s just one of these weird traditions that just needed to be broken. You know, there’s no real rhyme or reason for it. It’s kind of just how the world worked,” she says.

“I think we are all realizing that how the world works didn’t always work for everybody. Like ladies didn’t get to host game shows. And there used to be this thing like, well, ‘we didn’t know maybe if you wanted to host it.’ It’s like we did. We always want to do all of it. We want to do it,” she adds.

Even so, Banks reveals that hosting a game show wasn’t something she necessarily dreamed of doing as a little girl, but she sure loved watching them. 

“I honestly had never thought about hosting a game show when I was a kid,” she shares. “I thought about being on game shows when was a kid, for sure.”

“We used to make fake like Plinko boards from The Price is Right. And be at the grocery store and we love Supermarket Sweep when I was little too,”  she recalls. “And we loved Press Your Luck. Loved the Whammy.”

October 28, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Amazon Studios An Oklahoma pastor is raising money for Jeanise Jones, the beloved grandmother who appears in Borat 2. 

Derrick Scobey is the pastor at Jones’ church in Oklahoma City and recommended her for the film after he was approached by producers looking for a “Black grandmother” to take part in what they called a “documentary.”

Jones’ appearance is regarded as a highlight in the film as she acts as a mentor to Borat’s daughter, Tutar, portrayed by Maria Bakalova. In one scene, Jones advises Tutar not get plastic surgery at her father’s recommendation so he can marry her off to an American man, instead encouraging her that she is beautiful just as she is. 

Scobey has since organized a GoFundMe for Jones, who worked as an insurance claims auditor for 32 years before she was recently laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“This was not scripted for Jeanise. It all came from the heart. She is one of the most authentic people I’ve ever met,” Scobey writes on GoFund Me. 

The fund has currently raised more than $60,000 dollars of its $100,000 goal, with 2,500 donors contributing.

For her part, Jones — who was paid $3,600 for her appearance in Borat 2, according to the New York Post — says she wasn’t aware that she was taking part in a movie comedy.  She says she was told that it was a documentary about a young woman learning about her rights as a woman, and initially thought that Tutar was a child bride. 

She told the Post she felt “betrayed” by film, but then told Variety otherwise.

“I’m not ever going to say I was betrayed because it was partially my fault I didn’t read the contracts,” she said to Variety. “I’ll take my responsibility on that.”

By Cillea Houghton 
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 28, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Eli Joshua(NEW YORK) — Lovie Simone is helping to bring a “woke” and contemporary update to the 1996 cult-classic film The Craft in the new supernatural horror The Craft: Legacy.

Although the Greenleaf actor wasn’t “aware” of the original film when she first tried out for her role of Tabby, Simone tells ABC Audio that after she did “some homework, [and] some studying” on the film, she knew the job had to be hers. 

“I watched it and I was like, ‘Wait, wait a second. I need this role,'” she recalls saying. “I just remember falling in love with it and just having to get the audition after. So when I got it, I was so excited.”

Simone says there was something liberating about being in a film centered on modern day witches that were from her generation.

“It was just everything about like women in witchcraft and like what that looks like in a high school setting when they’re young and they don’t have a whole bunch of moles, and like pointy hats, and broomsticks,” she explains. “I was like, ‘This is what the witches and brujas need.'”

Yet, it was her character Tabby and the important themes touched on in the film that ultimately reeled Simone in and made her an instant fan.

“I was reading the script and saying my parts, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is really woke and so relevant for today,'” she says. “There’s so many topics that the movie touches on [that] it’s like perfect for this time.”

“So I’m like so ready for people to see the exaggeration of the hypermasculinity and sisterhood and witchcraft in this movie. It’s like beautiful,” she adds.

The Craft: Legacy, also starring Cailee Spaeny, Gideon Adlon and Zoey Luna, is now available On Demand.

By Candice Williams
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.