October 5, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Courtesy of AMC(LOS ANGELES) — The new AMC anthology series Soulmates premieres tonight and introduces a futuristic world in which a single test can scientifically find the one person with whom you should spend your life.

Kingsley Ben-Adir, who stars in the first episode alongside Succession’s Sarah Snook, tells ABC Audio the show is “an exploration of relationships.”

“But we’re in this world where there’s this thing called the test, where you can find your perfect soulmate by taking DNA from your eyeball and putting it into some sort of machine,” he continues. “And you know, and you can get matched up with someone who is your perfect soulmate, whatever that means.”

Ben-Adit says he doesn’t think the concept is beyond the realm of reason.

“I believe yeah that there is someone perfect for everyone,” he explains. “There must be someone on Earth who is the best person for you, do you know what I mean? Like out of the billions of people here, if there was some way of figuring it out, there would be one who would like come up on top. I guess. Well, maybe there’d be a few.”

Ben-Adir says he jumped at the role he saw as “a really creatively interesting rabbit hole.”

Adds the 34-year-old British actor, “It was just this constant questioning of relationships and love and soulmates and connections and what is a healthy relationship?  That feeling of restlessness that comes in long-term relationships.”

“And the idea of ‘Is the grass greener on the other side’ and how normal that is, you know, that’s something that I think we will through, but block down because we don’t want to hurt the other person we’re with,” he continues.

Soulmates, premiers Monday at 10 p.m. ET on AMC.

October 2, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Kena Betancur/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Harvey Weinstein was charged in Los Angeles Friday with the sexual assaults of two more women that allegedly occurred more than a decade ago.

The disgraced movie mogul faces three new counts of rape and three new counts of forcible oral copulation involving the two women, the LA County District Attorney’s office said.

An amended criminal complaint alleges that Weinstein raped one woman at a hotel in Beverly Hills between September 2004 and September 2005, and raped another woman twice between November 2009 and November 2010.

Weinstein now faces 11 sexual assault counts involving five women in California.

“I am thankful to the first women who reported these crimes and whose courage have given strength to others to come forward,” District Attorney Jackie Lacey said. “The willingness of these latest victims to testify against a powerful man gives us the additional evidence we need to build a compelling criminal case.”

If convicted as charged in the amended complaint, Weinstein faces up to 140 years to life in state prison. He’s already serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York after convictions in February for rape and sexual assault against two women.

Prosecutors are seeking the temporary custody of Weinstein from New York. An extradition hearing is set for December 11 in Buffalo.

By Andrea Tuccillo
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 2, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Amazon Studios(LOS ANGELES) — Amazon Studios has officially set a release date for Regina King’s directorial debut.

One Night in Miami, written by Olivier Award-nominated Kemp Powers, is set to hit select theaters on December 25, 2020, followed by a global launch on January 15, 2021 exclusively on Prime Video.

This marks the Oscar-winning actress’ first feature film in the director’s seat.

“To complete and release a film within the same year is a difficult task,” King said in a statement. “We welcomed the challenge because we knew now was the time for this film to be released. Amazon fully supported our intention and I could not be more excited this prescient story will be seen across the globe.”

Based on Powers’ 2013 stage play, One Night in Miami spotlights some real-life civil rights icons and celebrities during the Jim Crow-era, with Aldis Hodge starring as Jim Brown, Leslie Odom, Jr. as Sam Cooke, Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, and Eli Goree as Muhammad Ali.

The film follows young Cassius Clay, before he became Ali, after his victory at the Miami Beach Convention Center against Sonny Liston in 1964. 

While crowds flooded the streets to celebrate Clay’s title as the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, he himself was unable to stay on the island due to the segregation laws of the time. Instead, he spent the night celebrating with his three friends at the Hampton House Motel, located in one of Miami’s historically black neighborhoods.

One Night in Miami will also feature the original song “Speak Now,” co-written by Odom Jr.

By Rachel George
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 2, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) — Enola Holmes and Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown has a dream role in mind, and it may surprise you.

The 16-year-old British star told Netflix Latinoamérica that she’d love to play late singer Amy Winehouse in a biopic one day.

“Amy Winehouse, I personally think is like an icon to R&B, blues and basically the whole culture of music,” she said in the interview. “I just love her music, and I really was impacted by her whole story. And so, I always say that I would love to play her.”

Brown, who also sings, added that actresses like Natalie Portman, Angelina Jolie and Jodi Foster, as well as former Disney stars Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus, inspired her to get into the business.

Earlier this year, Winehouse’s father, Mitch, said that a biopic is already in the works. He told The Morning After podcast the film would be coming out within a year or two, though that remains to be seen.

“We’ve got a lovely movie, a lovely Broadway show coming, and that’s how we’ll get our own back, by portraying Amy the way she was,” he said.

He added that they are looking for “an unknown actress, ideally a Jewish girl from North or East London who looks a bit like Amy and talks like Amy.”

Winehouse died in 2011 of accidental alcohol poisoning at age 27.

By Andrea Tuccillo
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 2, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Eli Joshua Ade/HBO(NEW YORK) — Courtney B. Vance says he had so much confidence in his Lovecraft Country creator, Misha Green, that he didn’t feel the need to stray away from her “very clear vision.”

“I’m not going to mess with her script and her vision,” Vance tells ABC Audio. “And if I was able to add anything, I would ask her if she’d thought that this would be good and she would say, ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ and we would keep it moving.”

In the critically acclaimed sci-fi fantasy series, Vance played George Freeman, the protective and well-read uncle of Jonathan Majors’ Atticus. The Emmy Award-winning actor says Green respected the talent by giving them the space to do their jobs, which in turn allowed actors like him to portray the most authentic characters.

“What you see there is me being me and her allowing the actors to do this with the characters, so that once we all get in position, we can go,” he says. “But there was no ad-libbing and changing dialog there on the day because, ‘I think this would be better.'” 

“No, that ain’t happening,” he quips. 

Lovecraft Country, also starring Jurnee Smollett and Michael K. Williams, airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

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