Thanks to the 2026 movie release, Michael, many people got to relive some of The King of Pop's most iconic moments. The musical biopic not only expressed the hardships that a young Michael Jackson faced, but it was also a great way to reenact the performer’s best musical moments. Many people have loved the movie, and that includes Ethan Hawke, who showed what a fan he was of the music biopic by posting an interaction he had with fans after the screening, and it just made my day.

It’s no wonder the Michael Jackson biopic danced all over box office records with its $97 million opening. Fans of the “Beat It” singer know they won’t “stop ‘til you get enough” after watching many of the flick’s concert and music video scenes. Based on @Adrian_l899’s X video, Ethan Hawke sure had a lot of fun with fans after watching Michael and his adorable singalong with them truly made my day:

I’m getting such a kick out of watching Ethan Hawke channeling his falsetto singing “I’ll Be There” with fans! There’s nothing like walking out of a movie and sharing with everyone how much you enjoyed it. To be honest, I’d probably do the same thing too.

Clearly, the Michael biopic has a song-and-dance effect on audiences, reminding them what made Michael Jackson such an icon in the first place. Plus, with the musical bio-drama being directed by Antoine Fuqua, who also directed Hawke in one of the 2000s best movies, Training Day, it was even more special to see the Dead Poets Society actor come out of Michael with such enthusiasm.

Plenty of X users were quick to share their reactions to Hawke’s cute fan moment, calling the Boyhood actor “a man of the people.” Take a look at the glowing comments below:

• Damn. Ethan is a man of the people. You speak of down to earth- @Dddanttte2
• See this is what Michael Jackson is about all people coming together smiling enjoying themselves... This is pure joy- @Curry03532437
• Damn I didn't know Ethan Hawke was chill like that .- @SneakyGameBoy
• Wow, Ethan is a good Singer! He’s so down to earth! 🤩🤩🤩- @UnbelievablyMe2
• We need to protect this man with everything we have 🥰 Ethan is a real one!- @fiascosriot

X users are absolutely right-- seeing Ethan Hawke being so joyous with the fans singing a Michael Jackson tune is such a human moment that makes me want to join in.

The American actor wasn’t the only fan of the Antoine Fuqua flick. Spike Lee loved the biopic too, saying he saw it twice!

Even from the movie’s first screening, its initial reactions had fans calling Michael a true movie theater-going experience and praising Jafaar Jackson for bringing the “Billie Jean” singer to life. If Hawke walked out of the movie a musical man just from watching Michael, there’s no reason anyone else can’t either.

Ethan Hawke was really “a man of the people,” singing with fans to Michael Jackson after leaving the biopic. Michael’s electric energy was clearly so contagious that it was easy to want to walk out of the theater and start dancing, as the Blue Moon actor did, and I’m all for it! You can bust a moonwalk as well with the musical biopic everyone’s talking about, playing in theaters now.

Maya Hawke isn’t just Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman’s child, as she’s an actor who’s built up an impressive resume of movies and TV shows across the past decade, most notably through her role on Stranger Things, her voice work in Inside Out 2, and her upcoming part in the Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping cast. And as it turns out, she’s even had moments where she’s overshadowed her famous dad in fan encounters.

When Maya Hawke was promoting Stranger Things 5, which ended in the emotional series finale, she shared when the roles were reversed for her with her famous dad. In Maya’s words:

Ethan Hawke was shown the interview moment while on TODAY to talk about his acclaimed film Blue Moon, which earned him his first Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards. He smiled at the funny story, before adding this:

Can you imagine growing up with your father being a Hollywood star, and then becoming one yourself? So crazy! The 27-year-old gained acclaim for playing Robin in Stranger Things, and her dad explained why he’s so proud that she has achieved her status as an actor and singer, saying this:

Like father, like daughter! As Hawke joyously shared, he’s seen the interest in his daughter to pursue the arts since she was a kid, and he helped influence her love and appreciation for a number of art forms. Since Maya has become an actor, the pair have worked together on the same movie, Wildcat, and yes, weighed in on the nepo baby debate.

Hawke often shows support for his daughter’s success, and he's said that her role in Stranger Things feels “aligned in the stars” to him. The day the Upside Down opens in the TV show was his real-life 13th birthday, which was the year he started acting and was in the movie Explorers.

While Ethan Hawke is one of Hollywood’s biggest actors with roles in beloved movies like Dead Poets Society, Before Sunrise, Training Day, and Boyhood, it’s certainly understandable that Maya might be more recognizable these days since she was in one of the biggest TV shows of the past decade. One can’t help but think about the persistent fans who’ve told her they didn’t know who her dad was.

The time is finally upon us. The 98th Academy Awards, hosted by Conan O’Brien, are this Sunday, and here at CinemaBlend, we’ve made our picks on who we think will take home the top eight categories of the night. Three of the categories (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress) have clear-cut favorites amongst our staff. The remaining five (both screenplay awards, both supporting actor awards, and the award for Best Actor) are, quite honestly, very tricky to guess, because our opinions vary quite a bit.

The ceremony will be live on March 15th at 7pm ET on ABC, and available to stream live with a Hulu subscription. There are sure to be some surprises, but we’ve done our best to predict what we think will happen (though not necessarily our personal choices). We’ll start with the Best Screenplay Awards and work our way towards our pick for Best Picture, hitting all the acting awards and Best Director along the way. Each of our picks will be in bold among the list of nominees.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Will Tracy for Bugonia
• Guillermo del Toro for Frankenstein
• Maggie O'Farrell and Chloe Zhao for Hamnet
• Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another – Our Predicted Winner
• Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar for Train Dreams

In our staff poll, the Best Adapted Screenplay choice is perhaps the most divisive. All five nominees were favored by at least one writer, and it was quite close between Hamnet, Frankenstein, and One Battle After Another. This highlights just how tricky this task can be, because it’s easy to make a case for any of the five. Ultimately, in a very tight poll, Paul Thomas Anderson came out on top for One Battle After Another.

Best Original Screenplay

• Robert Kaplow for Blue Moon
• Jafar Panahi and Nader Saivar for It Was Just An Accident
• Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein for Marty Supreme
• Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt for Sentimental Value
• Ryan Coogler for Sinners – Our Predicted Winner

Sinners set the record this year for the most Oscar nominations for a film ever, with 16, including this nomination for writer Ryan Coogler. The momentum for Sinners has only been growing as this very long awards season has gone on (thanks, Olympics). While the staff pick wasn’t as close as it was for Adapted, there was quite a bit of support for Marty Supreme and Sentimental Value, but in the end, Sinners came out on top. This isn’t quite a slam dunk, but it’s the most definitive of the five awards that weren’t easy picks for us.

Best Supporting Actor

• Benicio del Toro for One Battle After Another
• Jacob Elordi for Frankenstein
• Sean Penn for One Battle After Another
• Delroy Lindo for Sinners – Our Predicted Winner
• Stellan Skarsgård for Sentimental Value

This race has been truly all over the place. Del Toro started the season strong with a string of critics' awards, Elordi won at the Critics' Choice, Skarsgård won the Golden Globe, and Penn has come on strong late with wins at BAFTA and the Actor Awards (formerly The SAG Awards). Four of the five nominees were picked by at least two writers each, and though Lindo hasn’t really been in the conversation until very late, on the strength of Sinners and his amazing performance, he is a real contender now. In fact, he is now the frontrunner, in our opinion.

Best Supporting Actress

• Elle Fanning for Sentimental Value
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas for Sentimental Value
• Amy Madigan for Weapons
• Wunmi Mosaku for Sinners
• Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another – Our Predicted Winner

Like Best Supporting Actor, the race for Best Supporting Actress has been a wild ride, but it seems to have come down to three: Madigan, Mosaku, and Taylor. Each of the three has taken home awards this season, and while our choice ultimately had quite a bit of support, it’s impossible to rule out one of the other two women winning. Two months ago, it seemed like Taylor was going to sweep the season, but Madigan and Mosaku clearly have a lot of momentum as we get to the end here. We still think Taylor is the favorite for One Battle After Another, but just barely. Madigan and Mosaku are considered the favorites by quite a few folks around here.

Best Actor

• Timothée Chalamet for Marty Supreme – Our Predicted Winner
• Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another
• Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon
• Michael B. Jordan for Sinners
• Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent

Now this is a fascinating race, and CinemaBlend’s poll reflects that. We asked the staff to name both who they would vote for and who they think will win. While the majority of staff have predicted Chalamet to win, a huge majority picked Michael B. Jordan as who they would have voted for, personally. It’s safe to say the race is between these two, and, in full disclosure, much of our polling took place before Jordan won at the Actor Awards. There seems to be a late surge happening in favor of the Sinners star. It would not surprise anyone if he takes home the Oscar, but we predict that Chalamet will win in what could be a historic victory.

Best Actress

• Jessie Buckley for Hamnet – Our Predicted Winner
• Rose Byrne for If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
• Kate Hudson for Song Sung Blue
• Renate Reinsve for Sentimental Value
• Emma Stone for Bugonia

Here’s where we’re getting to the Oscars that everyone on staff is most confident about in our predictions. In fact, in the Best Actress race, there haven’t been any surprises at all leading up to the Oscars. Jessie Buckley has completely swept the awards leading up to this Sunday, and there is no reason at all to think that will change at the Academy Awards. Buckley’s performance in Hamnet is incredible, and it’s hard to imagine anyone sneaking in and winning this over her. Stone and Byrne did receive some support from the CinemaBlend staff, but an overwhelming majority picked Buckley to win Best Actress.

Best Director

• Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another – Our Predicted Winner
• Ryan Coogler for Sinners
• Josh Safdie for Marty Supreme
• Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value
• Chloe Zhao for Hamnet

Like Best Actor, the race for Best Director comes down to two men, Ryan Coogler and Paul Thomas Anderson. All season long, the general consensus is that this is PTA’s time and he’s going to walk away with the win. Our prediction is no different, as a huge majority of our staff believe that this is Anderson’s award to lose. Could he, though? Well, interestingly, yeah, he could. As with Michael B. Jordan, when we ask the staff for their favorite, most picked Coogler as their personal choice, even if almost everyone still predicted PTA to win.

Best Picture

• Bugonia
• F1: The Movie
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle After Another – Our Predicted Winner
• Sentimental Value
• Sinners
• Train Dreams
• The Secret Agent

It has gotten trickier and trickier to predict Best Picture over the years. Sure, there are times like two years ago when everyone pretty much knew that Oppenheimer was going to take home the biggest prize of the night. But then there are ones like last year when Anora came on very strong at the end of awards season, but was a little bit of a dark horse on Oscar night. This year could be either.

The strong consensus of the CinemaBlend staff is that One Battle After Another will win Best Picture, but as in a couple of categories, a majority of the staff picked Sinners as their personal favorite. This isn’t surprising, after all, Sinners was our choice for the best movie of 2025. The late momentum for Sinners has turned this award into a real nail-biter, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see Ryan Coogler on stage accepting the award at the end of the night. However, as a group, we have to stick with our prediction, given that all but three staff members picked One Battle to win (interestingly, the other votes all went to Hamnet).

You can go to our list of the 98th Academy Awards nominees to see who could win in every category, including all the technical ones, and everything else. Other than KPop Demon Hunters winning Best Animated Feature and “Golden” from that movie winning Best Song (sorry again, Diane Warren) being pretty much foregone conclusions, there are close races in every single category.

Keep an eye out for our live blog as well, as we will be reacting along with everyone else when the winners are announced.

Warning: SPOILERS for Blue Moon are ahead!

We’re a month away from the 98th Academy Awards nominees competing in their respective categories on the 2026 TV schedule. That includes Ethan Hawke, who’s been nominated in the Best Actor category for his performance as Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon. He’s facing some stiff competition in that category from Michael B. Jordan in Sinners, Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another, Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme, and Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent. However, after streaming Blue Moon with my Netflix subscription, I think there’s a good chance Hawke could take home this Oscar based on a specific scene.

Ethan Hawke’s Coat Room Scene With Margaret Qualley Is Captivating

Blue Moon follows Lorenz Hart grappling with two things on the night of March 31, 1943. First, he’s coming to terms with the successful opening of Oklahoma!, the musical that Richard Rodgers, his former creative partner, wrote with Oscar Hammerstein II. The second is his infatuation with Elizabeth Weiland, a 20-year-old Yale student played by Margaret Qualley, with whom he’s desperate to form a romantic relationship. I won’t get into the Rodgers stuff here, although I do agree with my coworker Philip Sledge that Andrew Scott is deserving of a Best Supporting Actor nomination for that performance.

As far as Elizabeth goes, it soon becomes clear when she arrives at Sardi’s to meet Hart that his is an unrequited love. She likes him well enough, but it’s obvious she doesn’t see him as a romantic partner. This is emphasized not only by her teasing early on in the night about a dalliance she had with a fellow college student, but also by how she declined getting intimate with him during a weekend away together. And yet, Lorenz Hart is oblivious to all this, and Ethan Hawke does a tremendous job showing the character’s building excitement as he believes this will be the night he’ll get Elizabeth to love him back.

That changes when they get some private time together in the Sardi’s coat room. While Hart is initially fascinated by the story she tells about the aforementioned college student, he becomes disappointed as he learns that, despite how badly this student has treated Elizabeth, she still loves him. Even worse, she confesses to Hart that while she respects and admires him, she doesn’t love him in “that way.” Watching Hawke express his character’s heartbreak is uncomfortable yet captivating to watch.

Lorenz Hart Discussing His Sexuality Makes The Scene Even More Heartbreaking

As if Lorenz Hart learning once and for all that Elizabeth Weiland didn’t love him romantically wasn’t bad enough, she then brings up how her mother told her she doesn’t believe “his primary interest is women.” Hart has been pretty open to this point with bartender Eddie and pianist Morty Rifkin about his various sexual interests, but this is 1943, and talking more publicly about anything other than heterosexuality is frowned upon. Elizabeth immediately regrets asking about his, and Hart instructed her to tell her mother “as she sits by the fireplace, wistfully counting her royalties from Oklahoma!”:

You can feel the frustration in Ethan Hawke’s voice as Lorenz Hart feels the need to explain himself in this way. If he were alive today, that aspect of the musical creative would be more widely accepted, but in 1943, the kind of passion he expresses to Elizabeth just didn’t fly with enough people. That makes it all the sadder that Elizabeth, this young woman who connects with him on many other levels, doesn’t share his romantic feelings.

The 98th Academy Awards air on Sunday, March 16, on ABC. After watching Blue Moon, I will gladly welcome Ethan Hawke winning the Best Actor Oscar. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll also be happy if Michael B. Jordan wins the category, but following Hawke’s previous Oscar nominations for Training Day and Boyhood, he is more than deserving of getting the award this year for his portrayal of Lorenz Hart.

After listening to and watching multiple interviews with Ethan Hawke about his take on famed lyricist Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon, I finally watched the Academy Award-nominated movie when it became available with a Netflix subscription. The fast-paced biographical drama taking place on a single evening was everything it was made out to be, thanks in part to Hawke’s dynamic performance (seriously, this is so great). However, there’s another Oscar nomination it deserved. Well, two for that matter.

The movie, which follows a reflective Hart as he comes to terms with a former colleague releasing what would become one of the most consequential musicals of the 20th century, is full of dynamic and enchanting performances, including those by Andrew Scott and Bobby Cannavale. While I don’t know who I’d kick out this year’s stacked Best Supporting Actor field, there’s a case to be made for their inclusion.

I Don’t Think Ethan Hawke Has Ever Been Better

Before I get into the work of Andrew Scott and Bobby Cannavale, and while we should be celebrating their on-screen work, I just have to get something off my chest. I have been a massive fan of Ethan Hawke’s body of work for decades, and he’s in some of my favorite movies of all time, but I don’t think he’s ever been better than he is in Blue Moon.

His take on the tormented artist, who, at times, is both hopelessly optimistic about his future (both in terms of professional output and romantic journeys), is nothing short of amazing. The way he bounces between emotions, conversations, and songs throughout this charming picture, reuniting him with director Richard Linklater, is something that should be marveled at and studied for years to come.

Though I think Timothée Chalamet or Leonardo DiCaprio are going to take home the Oscar next month, I would be pleasantly surprised if Hawke’s name is called when the envelope is opened.

The Best Supporting Actor Category Is Stacked, But Two Blue Moon Performances Deserve Recognition

One of my favorite races to follow each year is the Best Supporting Actor category, as it typically features some of the most dynamic, or at least, most interesting performances. That’s no different this year, as the field is bustling at the seams with outstanding turns by the likes of Sean Peen, Benicio del Toro, Jacob Elordi, Stellan Skarsgård, and the much-deserving Delory Lindo. While I don’t know which of these to cut, Blue Moon has two performances that were deserving of a spot on that list.

First, there’s Bobby Cannavale’s take on Eddie, Lorenz Hart’s friend and master bartender at Sardi’s, where most of the movie takes place. Throughout the movie, Eddie enhances just about every conversation with Lorenz and adds an electricity to it that I couldn’t get over. His back-and-forth with the “sober” lyricist as they discuss art, love, Casablanca’s best lines, and the devastation of World War II is impactful and further adds to Hawke’s acting.

There’s also Andrew Scott’s take on Richard Rodgers, Lorenz's former creative partner, whose career is about to reach new heights following the premiere of Oklahoma! with Oscar Hammerstein II. He’s not in the movie a whole lot, but whenever he is, Scott’s character adds so much to the story. His performance, while understated compared to the others, is both powerful and authentic, especially when it comes to two old friends going in different directions.

Again, I don’t want to take anything away from Ethan Hawke or anyone nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but these two performances are some of the best I’ve seen in years.

Stream Blue Moon on Netflix.

Gwyneth Paltrow is an Oscar-winning actress and the founder of Goop, who is known for occupying the big screen. Nowadays she's known for taking a step away from acting, although she returned in a big way with Marty Supreme. But she recently reflected on the early days of her career, and explained why she turned down a graphic sex scene opposite Ethan Hawke in Great Expectations. And the pair really had a good laugh about the story.

Long before her tenure as Pepper Potts in the MCU (which is streaming with a Disney+ subscription), Paltrow was a young actress working with a variety of well-known directors. That includes Alfonso Cuarón's Great Expectations, which hit theaters back in 1998. During a chat with Hawke for Vanity Fair, the two reminisced about a sex scene they originally had in the film. Paltrow recalled her initial reaction to the pitch, saying:

This is a pretty understandable reaction, even for folks who have never acted before. It takes a ton of vulnerability to do love scenes, and this was long before intimacy coordinators became a position on sets. Gwyneth was in her twenties when filming Great Expectations, and has concerns about her director father Bruce Paltrow seeing her simulate sex onscreen.

In the video, Ethan Hawke shared what Cuarón pitched for the scrapped love scene for the book to screen adaptation of Great Expectations. In his words:

While the acclaimed Y tu mamá también director had a clear vision and passion for this sequence, Paltrow's reaction was seemingly less than enthusiastic. The star of Boyhood continued the story and went on to say:

There were still some steamy scenes in this movie, but Paltrow was able to advocate for herself at a young age about things she was not comfortable doing on camera. You've got to admire her strong sense of self, as many young performers hoping to establish themselves in Hollywood might not be so brave.

Later in that same chat, Gwyneth Paltrow further explained why she was so worried about this cut sex scene when filming Great Expectations. As she put it:

This makes a great deal of sense. Paltrow has seemingly become more confident as she got older, and cared less about what her family might say about love scenes. Indeed, Gwyneth had some sex scened opposite Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme, making headlines in the process.

Marty Supreme is in theaters now as part of the 2025 movie release list. As for Great Expectations, it's streaming for free over on Sling TV.

Ethan Hawke may be many things: Oscar-nominated actor; author; eternal Gen X heartthrob. But in a viral clip making the rounds this week, he is also a man who remembers exactly where he kissed Gwyneth Paltrow nearly three decades ago and would like that location treated with the appropriate reverence.

The moment comes from a recent Vanity Fair Instagram post featuring Hawke in conversation with the Academy Award–winning actress, as the longtime collaborators chatted about their 2025 movie releases, future projects, and the odd intimacy that comes with a shared on-screen history. At one point, the Dead Poets Society star jokingly asks Paltrow about a new kissing scene with Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme, specifically whether it took place in the same Central Park location where she and Hawke once kissed. Smiling, he presses:

For context, Great Expectations featured a scene of the Four-time Oscar nominee and Paltrow kissing in Central Park near a water fountain, a moment that has clearly lived rent-free in Hawke’s mind. Paltrow, for her part, assured him that the spot remains untouched, replying with playful seriousness:

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, the 1998 film is a modern, New York–set book to screen adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel, with the beloved Training Day actor playing Finn, an aspiring artist who never quite gets over Estella (Paltrow), the wealthy, emotionally guarded girl he falls for as a child. Their on-and-off romance unfolds alongside Finn’s rise as an artist, blurring the line between ambition, love, and the kind of obsession that feels like destiny when you’re young.

And judging by how easily this exchange resurfaced, the movie and that kiss clearly left a lasting impression. Fans had plenty to say about the back-and-forth.

Fans React To Hawke And Paltrow's Kissing Confession

Responses on X ranged from swooning over Hawke to lovingly roasting Paltrow’s selective memory, with plenty of Great Expectations callbacks mixed in. Highlights from the timeline include:

• @heyitsme_irenee: “honestly, Ethan has always been total hottie”
• @Samiizsleepin: "She remembers a kiss from 100 years ago but not her co workers from Avengers? Lmao
• @repressionnap: “After Sunrise and Sunset but before Noon”
• @FirstCuriosity: “desecrated 😭🤚”
• @Massiel3_: “I love everything from Great Expectations up to the crazy grandma. It should be on @NetflixLAT 🥹”
• @iainjordan: “She obviously should have said no I kissed him on the mouth”
• @waterdragon588: “she did all that just to get his attention women are so corny”
• @bub_bobino: “Ethan still got that dawg in him”
• @boyd_stevenz: “That’s kinda iconic”
• @heyrimz: “Outstanding 😍
• @theOfficeofSB: “Obsessed with this energy”

Fans clearly agree that the moment was funny and genuinely charming. Between the jokes and throwback affection for Great Expectations, fans were clearly happy to see the A-listers slip so easily back into the chemistry that made their pairing memorable in the first place.

As the year wraps up, both actors are staying busy. Gwyneth Paltrow returned to acting after a seven-year hiatus with Marty Supreme, the upcoming A24 film marking her first major screen role in years. Ethan Hawke, meanwhile, has been everywhere, appearing in Blue Moon and FX's series The Lowdown, reprising his role in The Black Phone 2, and lending his voice to Ken Burns’ The American Revolution documentary miniseries.

If you asked me if I preferred vampires or werewolves, I would say werewolves, 100%. However, here’s an inconvenient truth: There are arguably a lot better vampire movies than there are werewolf movies, such as Interview With the Vampire.

Before you say, “But, An American Werewolf in London!” or “The Wolf Man!” I just have to counter and say that, while yes, there are a few good werewolf movies and TV shows, vampires just have so many better appearances, like The Lost Boys, From Dusk till Dawn, and the recent Nosferatu. Hell, there are so many great vampire movies that some even seem to get forgotten, such as the 2009 banger, Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe.

So, while I do like movies like The Howling, Dog Soldiers, and Ginger Snaps, here’s why a film like Daybreakers is in a class of its own.

It's Like I Am Legend, But With A Fascinating Twist

You know, I once wrote an article comparing all three movies based on the Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend–those being 1964’s The Last Man on Earth, 1971’s The Omega Man, and 2007’s I Am Legend–and guess what! I found that the one that shares the book’s title actually felt the least like the source material. And, that’s mostly because the creatures in I Am Legend really felt the least like vampires (even though the weird cult family in The Omega Man is a close second).

That said, I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the novel. In it, there’s a single man named Robert Neville who is basically surviving a vampire apocalypse. In a sense, he’s what you might call a “vampire survivor” (Hence the title, since he’s become legendary to vampires as the last human on earth). Well, Daybreakers takes that idea and flips it. Instead of us following a human hero, we’re actually (mostly) following the vampires. In this world, vampires are in charge, and they’re hunting down humans to harvest their blood to sustain their society.

That said, with the vast majority being vampires, and humans being the minority, the majority are running out of a food source, since they’ve almost tapped out humankind. When this happens, vampires start to devolve into more batlike creatures called “subsiders.”

It’s a really cool concept, and it almost feels like a “what if” story to I Am Legend. I love it.

The Dystopian Setting Is Unlike Any Other Vampire Movie

I love post-apocalyptic and dystopian movies. I mean, even though none of us would want to live in that kind of world, who doesn’t love these kinds of settings? Well, Daybreakers presents an interesting one, since it’s not inviting to either the humans or the ruling class vampires, as the latter are constantly worrying about their food supply running out.

It’s a world where human beings are swept off the streets and plugged into Matrix-like pods in order to be siphoned for their precious blood. Meanwhile, corporate execs pretend to be searching for a synthetic substitute for human blood, while really plotting behind the scenes to keep all of the actual blood for themselves and their rich friends. OG Jurassic Park veteran, Sam Neill, plays said corporate exec, Charles Bromley, and he has nothing but nefarious intentions.

You see, there are some who believe that vampires can actually turn back into humans, and Bromley wants no part of that. Why would he when he lives a nightlife in charge of billions of dollars, and in the daytime, he can drive around in a fancy UV-filtered car? Because that’s the thing about this world. Vampires can be “daybreakers” with their vehicles and conduct business throughout the day, which is another cool twist.

Honestly, for a world infested with vampires, it kind of feels like our world, what with the parallels between blood farming and Big Pharma charging an arm and a leg for lifesaving medication. And that’s pretty scary in itself.

Ethan Hawke Plays An Interesting Vampire Hematologist

Now, it’s interesting that the title of this article features Ethan Hawke’s name, and I haven’t even talked about him yet. But that’s just how interesting the world of this film is as a whole. Hawke does play an important role, though, as our protagonist, a vampire hematologist who actually wants what’s best for his world.

Ethan Hawke, who recently starred in another horror movie, that being Black Phone 2, has his heart in the right place. He plays a doctor named Edward Dalton, who is trying his best to find a blood substitute to save the world as they know it. They test their trials on brave vampiric soldiers, but they haven’t really seen much success, which is stressful, since the clock is ticking on their food supply.

That said, much like Hawke’s role in the first The Purge movie, his sympathetic heart is what gets him into trouble, as Dalton accidentally runs a car containing humans off the road. Well, instead of reporting them to the police like a good vampire would, he instead decides to hide them, which ends up getting him embroiled in their world, where he learns that it’s actually possible to turn human again as a vampire.

It’s an interesting, albeit slightly boring, role since he has to be all good, all the time. That said, the more interesting role goes to another actor…

Willem Dafoe Is Also Excellent, But When Is He Not?

You know, Willem Dafoe just can’t seem to avoid vampires. He played one in the excellent Shadow of the Vampire, which is about Max Schreck from the original Nosferatu, and, more recently, he played a vampire hunter in the remake of Nosferatu.

Well, in Daybreakers, he plays another vampire hunter…sort of. You see, in this film, Dafoe actually was a vampire who was transformed back into a human, and now he leads the charge against vampires, as he wants to “cure” them and turn them back into humans. Ethan Hawke’s character, who won’t even drink human blood, is, of course, on board, and he bands with Dafoe (whose name is Lionel “Elvis” Cormac in this) in order to bring the world back from the brink.

Dafoe, as always, is excellent in this film. The movie is kind of dour (and dark. Let’s not forget dark), but Dafoe provides some levity to the events taking place on the screen. He’s pretty much the comic relief, and by all measures, he’s the more interesting character out of himself and Ethan Hawke, but that’s only because he’s allowed to be. In other words, he doesn’t have to be the straight man. He can be the fun one.

And, fun he is! In fact, a lot of the movie (though some of it drags) is fun, which leads me to my last point.

In The End, Daybreakers Is A Novel Concept That Delivers

Daybreakers didn’t have to be as good as it is. The concept alone could have carried it, but with Willem Dafoe’s enjoyable vampire survivor and Ethan Hawke’s interesting (but safe) vampire hematologist, you have a film that delivers in every aspect that it needs to.

However, add in Sam Neill chewing scenery as a corrupt corporate exec in the “drug” industry, and you have a film that has a message amidst its sci-fi horror action. Daybreakers is a vampire film that I often feel gets overlooked (Sort of like 30 Days of Night, which I should also write about), and it shouldn’t, since it’s awesome.

It’s a novel idea, and it delivers. What more could you possibly want?

There are tough auditions, and then there’s walking into a room with Denzel Washington and realizing the script is basically a suggestion. Ethan Hawke says that was his Training Day trial by fire—the moment that set the tone for one of the great cop-movie duos of the 2000s, heck, best movies of the ‘00s, and landed him his first Oscar nomination.

The Before Sunrise star unpacked the story while accepting the Miami Film Festival’s Variety Virtuoso Award, in a wide-ranging chat that also touched on his nine-film collaboration with Richard Linklater, teaming with Taylor Swift on “Fortnight,” and a career-spanning 2025 movie schedule that includes Blue Moon, The Black Phone 2, The Lowdown, and a documetnary narration, which you can enjoy with an Apple TV subscription. The A-lister shared:

Improv opposite Washington is the kind of gauntlet that can rattle even a seasoned pro. The Gattaca lead says he beat the nerves by channeling the filmmaker who taught him to listen first and push the scene second, Richard Linklater, his creative north star since Before Sunrise. The actor continued:

If you’ve watched Training Day, that tracks. Jake Hoyt’s shell-shocked sincerity never reads timid; it reads reactive and alive, which is precisely what you’d expect from a screen test born in controlled chaos. Washington’s Alonzo Harris weaponizes unpredictability; Hawke’s solution was to stay present and keep answering the moment–a real “Yes, And” moment, for my Improv comedy nerds. The chemistry we see on screen started right there in that room.

The Miami conversation wasn’t just a nostalgia tour. Hawke’s having a real big year. He’s earning awards buzz for Linklater’s Blue Moon; he returned as the Grabber in the new horror movie, The Black Phone 2, which has had a strong box office performance, and he starred in FX’s The Lowdown; directed a Merle Haggard doc; and narrated Apple TV’s Vietnam: The War That Changed America.

That “future-facing” energy is kind of the point, he told the crowd he’s grateful for the accolades, but already itching for the next at-bat. And that’s what makes him such a fascinating actor to watch, even after nearly four decades in the biz.

Ethan Hawke’s “really difficult” audition sounds like the best kind of stress test, especially for the kind of pressure cooker of a movie Training Day turned out to be. The pair of actors proved that the tension created in that audition room could hold once the cameras rolled, and the rest, as they say, is modern movie history. If you want to revisit the classic crime drama, it's available to stream with a Netflix subscription.

I remember the first time I heard the album title The Tortured Poets Department, and I immediately thought “Dead Poets Society.” Really, it was hard not to connect Taylor Swift’s eleventh album to that iconic ‘80s movie, and it turns out the pop star thought about that too. That became clear when some of the movie’s stars appeared in the music video for the album’s lead single “Fortnight,” and now Ethan Hawke has opened up about why he was asked to be in it.

In Taylor Swift’s music video for “Fortnight,” Hawke and Josh Charles made cameos, which created a very fun Easter egg for Dead Poets Society. Speaking to Parade about that cameo, and why they were asked to do it, Hawke said:

There’s no question, the second Taylor Swift announced TTPD at the Grammys, parallels were being drawn between it and Dead Poets Society. The titles alone made that happen. However, the poetic, sad and melodramatic nature of the album parallels the film, which is one of Ethan Hawke’s best, in some ways. Also, the academic aesthetic of TTPD is reminiscent of the movie that also starred Robin Williams.

So, a nod to the 1989 film felt warranted. I’m happy Hawke and Charles, who played Todd and Knox, respectively, were so down to do this, too.

Happy might even be an understatement. Back when “Fortnight” came out, Hawke talked about getting the call for it and making his way to the set with The Good Wife actor. He explained that as they traveled to be part of this, they walked through the airport and past tons of people in Eras Tour merch. Then, throughout the process, they “laughed [themselves] silly,” which goes to show how much these two enjoyed the experience. Opening up about that again, the Before Sunrise actor said:

I’m sure their kids did find this cool, whether they told their dads that or not, and I also know Dead Poets Society fans were thrilled about it. Considering the excitement surrounding the movie and the album when it came out, it was savvy of Swift to capitalize on it and nod to the two projects that many had associated with each other.

Overall, it’s incredible that Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles were called to be in “Fortnight.” It was such a cool Easter egg that nodded to the association between The Tortured Poets Department and Dead Poets Society (which you can stream with a Hulu subscription), and it was truly incredible to see these two beloved actors collaborate with one of the world’s biggest pop stars.

Ethan Hawke’s movies remain effortlessly entertaining in great part due to his stellar performances. While Hawke has put in a considerable amount of excellent work throughout his career, Training Day remains one of his most iconic films. The actor received praise for his role in Antoine Fuqua’s 2001 crime drama, in which he starred opposite Denzel Washington. Unlike his co-star, Hawke didn’t score an Oscar for his work, but he did receive some keen advice from Washington about that loss, which turned out to be “right.”

As part of the 74th Academy Awards, Ethan Hawke was nominated for Best Supporting Actor alongside Ben Kingsley, Ian McKellen, Jim Broadbent and Jon Voight. The category was stacked, and Broadbent ultimately won the award for his performance in Iris. I’d be tempted to think that losing such a prestigious award would sting to some degree. However, as Hawke explained during his appearance on Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast, he explained that some wise words from his co-star put it all into perspective for him:

That nomination marked the Dead Poets Society alum’s first from the Academy, so I can understand what his thinking is. Had Hawke won the award that night, he obviously would’ve been excited but, if he’d won it so quickly, he may not have treasured it as heavily since he scored that honor his first time around. I’d imagine that an actor appreciates such an honor even more if they’ve worked years to accomplish it. All in all, I find this perspective shared by Hawke and his equally famous co-star refreshing.

In Training Day (which is currently available to stream with a Netflix subscription), Ethan Hawke plays a young LAPD officer named Jake Hoyt, who’s looking to join the department’s narcotics squad. As part of an evaluation for the job, Jake must work with celebrated detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) for a day. It’s during that patrol that Jake learns Harris is a corrupt and dangerous lawman.

Ethan Hawke’s performance in the 2000s thriller film is strong, and he was more than deserving of his nomination. While he didn’t win, Hawke was just excited to receive a nod for his work. Amid his interview with Variety, the actor also recalled what happened on the day he learned of his nomination:

Denzel Washington certainly knows how to keep a level head, and he seemingly maintained it throughout awards season as well. For his role as Harris, he won the Oscar for Best Actor, becoming only the second Black actor to win in that category. Washington’s turn as Alonzo is both scary and mesmerizing, and who could forget the iconic “King Kong” scene? Washington may not fret about Oscar wins or snubs, but it’s fair to say it would’ve been surprising had he not been awarded one for this stellar performance. To put it simply, that kind of dramatic turn is like lightning in a bottle.

As for Ethan Hawke, he later received three more nominations from the Academy – two for Best Adapted Screenplay and another for Best Supporting Actor. Eyes are once again on him, as many are predicting he’ll be a major awards contender this year due to his leading role in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon. It’s likely Hawke will receive various nominations in the coming months, including an Oscars nod. Yet, based on his Training Day-related comments, I doubt Hawke will be fixated on trophies (though it’d be great to see him win).

Check out Hawke’s range by seeing Blue Moon and The Black Phone 2, which are now playing in theaters amid the 2025 movie schedule.

For those who like to turn up the scares this time of year, there are plenty of upcoming horror movies set to hit the 2025 movie calendar this month and beyond. Among those is Black Phone 2, the sequel to the 2022 book-to-screen adaptation of a Joe Hill short story. Scott Derrickson has returned as director and co-screenwriter, with Ethan Hawke back as The Grabber. Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw and Jeremy Davies also reprise their roles. So what are critics saying?

The first movie got positive feedback from critics — including 4.5 out of 5 stars from our own Corey Chichizola — so how does the sequel measure up? Well, it’s “better,” if you ask Stephen King, and in CinemaBlend’s review of Black Phone 2, Nick Venable would agree, saying the follow-up is “haunting, hypnotic, and surpasses all my expectations.” He gives it 4 out of 5 stars, writing:

Jordan Bassett of NME also rates it 4 out of 5 stars, saying Scott Derrickson goes even bigger with the sequel, dialing up the menace for a flick that’s bloodier than its predecessor. The critic says:

Matt Donato of IGN gives it a “Good” 7 out of 10 and says Black Phone 2 is proof that horror sequels don’t have to be retreads of the original and can instead go further to push for standalone appeal. Donato continues:

Peter Debruge of Variety is one of many critics to find parallels between the upcoming Blumhouse horror and A Nightmare on Elm Street, due to how dreams are involved in both movies. The critic notes that while The Black Phone is about the threat of violence and abuse, its sequel deals with the trauma of surviving these things, not just for the victims but for their families. Debruge writes:

Not all of the critiques are so positive, though. Matt Singer of ScreenCrush says he was not grabbed by this horror flick and its outdated technology. He rates the movie 4 out of 10 and says:

Overall, critics seem to have enjoyed Black Phone 2, as it stands at 78% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer. If you enjoyed the first movie and want to catch up with Finney, Gwen and The Grabber, the sequel will be in theaters starting Friday, October 17. If you haven’t seen The Black Phone (or want a refresher), the movie is available to stream with a Peacock subscription.

Black Phone 2 is a rare breed from top to bottom. For one, it’s the only time director Scott Derrickson’s crafted a follow-up to one of his own films, and while the first was an expansion of a short story from horror maven Joe Hill, the second is only based on an idea that Hill had in mind. Ninety-nine times out of 100, that would start a recipe for disaster, but The Grabber’s return is haunting, hypnotic, and surpasses all my expectations.

In fact, Black Phone 2 is Derrickson’s most mature film to date and sits among the few horror sequels that outperforms its predecessor in just about every way. The cast, headed up once again by Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw, takes it to the next level in the same way that the story does, convincingly giving Finney and Gwen the chance to prove themselves as genuine heroes on top of being survivors. And of course, Ethan Hawke commands attention every time he’s on screen donning tweaked versions of The Grabber’s already iconic mask.

Defying all the usual horror sequel tropes and avoiding nearly all of the expected trip-ups, Black Phone 2 is a breath of fresh and snowy air that has more heart, more humor, and more humanity than a lot of non-genre films hitting theaters this year. But let me now admit something that I’m kind of ashamed to say in hindsight: I didn’t actually feel quite this positive immediately after watching, and this review would have been a vastly different beast had I not had the time to let all those thoughts simmer.

Black Phone 2 is so different from The Black Phone that I initially questioned its very existence.

I had the privilege of watching Black Phone 2 among other highly invested horror fans for the world premiere at Fantastic Fest 2025, and the energy for the movie was palpable – not only in my screening room, but across the entire theater. For good reason, too, since it’s precisely the kind of movie that festival is known for, down to the throwback Universal logo that kicks things all off. What it isn’t, though, is a lazily crafted shadow of its predecessor.

Four years have passed since Finney walked out of The Grabber’s twisted hovel as the serial killer’s only known survivor, and he’s clearly dealing with that trauma in certain ways that reflect the events that came before. (Namely, beating the stuffing out of whoever deserves it.) However, the high schooler isn’t the only one being paranormally targeted this time around, as his sister Gwen’s psychic abilities also put her in the path of The Grabber’s beyond-the-grave wrath.

Rather than once again limiting the core events to a single location, Derrickson and his go-to co-writer C. Robert Cargill expand the scope of the story through Gwen’s visions. She sees the spectres of various children who’d suffered violent deaths and are being kept from moving on to the great beyond. An investigation leads them to the winter ski camp Alpine Lodge, with noteworthy elements including its supervisor Armando, portrayed by Demián Bichir, and a phone booth that hasn’t worked (properly) in over a decade.

So much of the film from this point on heavily incorporates Gwen’s visions and dreams, visually indicated by the switch from traditional film to the extremely grainy and slightly ethereal look of Super 8, which Derrickson utilizes in both bold and subtle ways – particularly when Gwen is being hunted and taunted by Ethan Hawke’s exceedingly toxic wraith. Even at its spookiest, the aesthetic maintains a warmth (perhaps ironically) where the first film often made me feel left out in the cold.

With so many differences to point out between 2021 movie and its sequel, my earliest opinions were blobby mixtures of enjoying what I was watching and questioning why this story wasn’t being told using completely a completely different ghoulish monster, an unfamiliar pair of antagonists and some new-fangled communication device. Not until well after the credits rolled did the real question truly sink in: why was I viewing this sequel’s pointedly intentional originality as if it was a problem instead of a solution?

Some of my favorite horror sequels also went in completely different directions from the originals.

Following the film's Fantastic Fest premiere, Scott Derrickson talked about his reticence to return to previously established worlds, as he never wants to deliver anything resembling a copy of what came before it, which myriad other franchises have zero issues with. One of the biggest reasons Black Phone 2 took years to come together is because Derrickson wanted his young co-leads to realistically grow into the next phase of Finney and Gwen's lives for an evolved coming-of-(r)age tale.

The easiest comparison to make, given The Grabber's transition from real-world monster to supernatural threat, is with the Nightmare on Elm Street films, most of which built up unique dream-tethered storylines atop a basic foundation of "Freddy killing him some teenagers." Dream Warriors and Wes Craven's New Nightmare are among my favorite genre films of all time, and both are vastly different from each other, as well as from the flagship slasher.

From Ti West's Pearl-centric X trilogy to Aliens to Army of Darkness to Bride of Chucky, there are thankfully quite a few examples of game-changing horror sequels out there, while a movie like Ouija: Origin of Evil achieving greatness despite having a truly terrible predecessor. With that perspective grasped, appreciating Black Phone 2 specifically for its differences became effortless.

I'm thankful that the way I experienced Black Phone 2 specifically helped me appreciate it more.

Had I watched Black Phone 2 on my tablet without a clue as to what any of it was about, I could probably still appreciate the cinematography in the dream sequences, the characters and The Grabber's look on a surface level, though I might be that much more critical of the storyline and some of the performances. However, this is one of those movies where my ever-increasing gratification and understanding stemmed entirely from how it was enjoyed, similar to a movie watched on a first date or another special occasion.

Not that I think others would need to follow in my footsteps to reach the same levels of enjoyment, given my initial qualms also came from a very specific place. The far-plainer version of this review could have easily read as: "Black Phone 2 is bigger, darker, and better," because that will no doubt be the takeaway that a lot of other viewers will have. But that kind of approach just wouldn't...grab...anyone's attention.

At this point, I'm willing to say that I'd watch Finney and Gwen go on cross-country adventures to bring justice to tortured spirits, always staying a step ahead of that dastardly Grabber. (And if the next movie is presented through the lens of a Scooby-Doo episode, that's all the better, I think.) Time will tell how well Black Phone 2 stacks up against 100 years of previous horror sequels, but I bet you can only count on one hand the number of horror movies with psycho killers on ice skates.

We may live in a world where mobile devices are standard, but over in the 1980s timeline of Scott Derickson’s Black Phone 2, one doesn’t always need wires, cell towers, or any power at all for phone calls to go through. So it goes for Finney and Gwen Blake, who once again find themselves wrapped up in a supernatural fright fest spawned by Ethan Hawke’s kidnapper-turned-spectre The Grabber. But just because it’s happening again doesn’t mean audiences should expect a similar story, because Derrickson utilized a different bag of tricks here.

Scott Derrickson talked to SFX on CinemaBlend about going back to bat for the second sequel of his career thus far — the first being his directorial debut, 2000’s Hellraiser: Inferno — with a pronounced focus on not just repeating the same elements that made the first film so effective. For instance, he and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill chose to transition The Grabber from a corporeal monster into a supernatural nightmare, making the upcoming Blumhouse movie that much more unpredictable, while also allowing for a larger scope. As the director put it:

A lot of what he's referring to stems from the film's frequent switches from traditional film stock to Super 8 footage. Derrickson previously talked to CinemaBlend about using Super 8 footage in his films, with Sinister being the more prominent example before this sequel. As well, the change in setting to a remote summer camp in the snow presented its own challenges.

All in all, Derrickson considers it as big a cinematic achievement as his other accomplishments, and in that way, he points out that his MCU film Doctor Strange is the most comparable, just on a grander scale given that film's more sizable budget. As he put it:

Audiences will need to hit up theaters to see and hear exactly what he's talking about, as I won't be the one to give away anything spoilery. But I think it's safe to say all of the elements he brings up are used in effective ways that do give the sequel more of a dream-like aura not unlike an Elm Street movie. It's not buildings folding in on buildings like Doctor Strange, obviously, which is a good thing for the grounded scares here.

In the end, Scott Derrickson convincingly sounds like he had zero regrets with the finished product, saying:

For all that big-budget sequels tend to lean hard on massive set pieces and cartoonishly heightened situations, the Black Phone 2 creative team chose to veer away from heightening some elements that made the first film memorable. As Derrickson put it:

He purposefully held off until co-stars Mason Thames and Madeline McGraw were a few years older, so that he could tell an older coming-of-age story with Finney and Gwen as more matured teens. To me, the wait was worth it, and there is indeed an added emotional element to catching up with characters years after such a baffling trauma.

Derrickson did technically return to the world of The Black Phone already with his segment in the horror anthology V/H/S/85, which was indeed a different approach, even if it obviously wasn’t as fully fleshed-out as the ideas brought to life in the second feature. (Speaking of, sorta, check out our review for V/H/S/Halloween, which had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest the night before Black Phone 2 debuted.)

Black Phone 2, which already got a stamp of approval from Stephen King, is set to hit theaters on Friday, October 17. Will you answer the call?

With spooky season upon us (or here now, if you measure it by the availability of pumpkin spice lattes), there’s a whole bunch of upcoming horror movies on the way. But arguably the most anticipated is Black Phone 2, which we’ve been waiting for since we learned it was officially happening two years ago. While the first Black Phone movie was touted for bringing a freshly bloody take on the genre, the sequel is getting some welcome comparisons to A Nightmare on Elm Street – including with new comments from one of its stars.

Black Phone 2 Star Compares Ethan Hawke’s Grabber To Freddy Krueger

Mason Thames is back for Black Phone 2 alongside a number of his co-stars from the first movie, like Ethan Hawke, of course, reprising The Grabber, and Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies and Miguel Mora. When talking about the upcoming sequel with Entertainment Weekly, he said this about what’s to come:

As you might recall from the 2021 movie, Mason Thames’ Finney succeeds in killing the terrifying serial killer known as The Grabber by the end. So how can he return for a sequel? Well, since the whole premise of The Black Phone had to do with the line between the dead being open, Finney and his sister’s run-ins with him are not over. And, much like Freddy Kreuger, it seems like The Grabber can now haunt and cause harm in dreams.

Fans Have Been Comparing Black Phone 2 To A Nightmare On Elm Street, Too

Given that A Nightmare on Elm Street is thought of as one of the best horror movies of all time, it’s certainly a compliment for Mason Thames to compare the movie’s villain to the franchise. I mean, we’re still thinking about all of Freddy Kreuger’s gruesome kills even though the film series has been without a new entry since 2010.

But Thames comments echo what fans have been saying about Black Phone 2 since the latest trailer dropped on YouTube last week. Check out some of the top comments:

• “They turned Black Phone 2 into an 80s supernatural slasher like Nightmare on Elm Street and I'm all for it.” - @XMen-m1t
• “Freddy Krueger: I'm so proud of you, son... The Grabber: TY, dad…” - @nightponyinrface6009
• “I know many of us compared it to Nightmare on Elm Street after the first trailer, but....this REALLY elevates that, especially with the dreams, and the people getting thrown around, but then the people who are awake seeing no one. It really reminds me of the first death in the first NOES. I'm so hyped for this!!” - @h20delorian
• “Hey, if we can't get another Nightmare on Elm Street, I'll take this instead” - @SelfDescribedNerd

The Black Phone is based on a 2004 short story by Joe Hill, who is the son of Stephen King. Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill wrote the script for the movie adaptation, which earned $161.4 million worldwide against the modest budget of around $17 million. The second movie is based on an idea Joe Hill pitched to Derrickson and adapted by the same script team of the original. You can see it in theaters on October 17.

Ethan Hawke has never been one to chase traditional Hollywood stardom. While many of his peers starred in some of the best movies of the ’90s, the Training Day alum went another way, starring in smaller movies. He also took time to write novels, direct plays, and teamed up with Richard Linklater on experimental films that have aged into not only Hawke's best films but also classics in their own right. In a recent interview, he reflects on narrowly missing out on the role of Jack Dawson in Titanic and why he’s kinda glad the role ultimately went to Leonardo DiCaprio.

In a recent interview with GQ, promoting his jam-packed 2025 movie schedule slate of upcoming projects, the Quiz Show actor admitted that he wasn’t the right man for James Cameron’s juggernaut. As he put it:

Hawke isn’t exaggerating. When Titanic hit theaters in 1997, Leonardo DiCaprio’s fame exploded to a level few actors have ever experienced. Practically overnight, he went from rising star to global heartthrob, mobbed by screaming fans at premieres, splashed across teen magazines, and hounded by paparazzi who treated him less like an actor and more like a rock star. It was the kind of cultural frenzy usually reserved for pop icons, cementing his place as one of the most recognizable faces on the planet.

This casting “what-if” is a fascinating behind-the-scenes Titanic moment, and also a candid moment from the actor that is quintessential Hawke. At 54, he’s managed to carve out a career that avoids the suffocating intensity of superstardom while still earning respect across film, television, theater, and even literature. He’s the guy who can star in the upcoming The Black Phone 2 one month, shoot a prestige FX drama like the 2025 TV schedule release The Lowdown, and in the next month, turn around and disappear into Lorenz Hart for Linklater’s Blue Moon. That range, unbothered by conventional box office metrics, is exactly why he’s still here (and thriving) in 2025.

It should come as no surprise that the talented performer’s acknowledgment of missing out on Titanic isn’t just self-effacing, but is, in fact, born of personal experience. The Before Sunrise actor saw up close what overnight superstardom can do. Working alongside talents like River Phoenix and Robin Williams early on, he witnessed how the spotlight could magnify vulnerabilities. By sidestepping the role that turned DiCaprio into a global idol, Hawke avoided a level of fame that he now sees might have broken him. Instead, he built longevity through a commitment to art.

And yet, it’s not as if the Dead Poets Society veteran has avoided mainstream projects altogether. He played second lead to Denzel Washington in Training Day, earning an Oscar nomination, dipped into the MCU with Moon Knight, and appeared in buzzy Netflix thrillers. Still, these have always been detours rather than destinations. As he explained:

“Spiderwebby” is a fitting description, but another way to see it is that, for Hawke, these choices have always been about using commercial gigs to fuel the passion projects that keep him grounded in the craft — and that’s something movie fans should celebrate.

Next up, Ethan Hawke takes on his first leading role in a television series with FX’s The Lowdown, premiering September 23. New episodes will air Tuesdays and hit streaming the following day for anyone with a Hulu subscription. He’ll also return to theaters in the upcoming horror movie sequel The Black Phone 2, opening October 17.

There are numerous stories throughout the history of Hollywood of famous roles that were almost played by somebody else. Will Smith himself has admitted to turning down several major roles in his career. However, it turns out that the most important role in Smith's career only came along after somebody else turned it down, because Ethan Hawke almost starred in Independence Day.

Hawke has actually told the story multiple times. It seems that all these years later, he still hasn't forgotten turning down such a huge movie.

Why Ethan Hawke Turned Down Independence Day

The story goes that following one of Ethan Hawke's best movies, 1994's Reality Bites , he was in very high demand as an actor, leading to lots of offers. One of those was the lead role in Independence Day. He admits he thought the script was absolutely ridiculous. Speaking to Larry King in 2015, Hawke said…

Hawke later told Conan O’Brien that he literally threw the script out the window while on a road trip in Texas. That’s how much he didn’t see what was going on with the film.

Hawke Went To See Independence Day Opening Weekend And Realized His Mistake

Following Ethan Hawke turning the movie down, Will Smith would join the Independence Day cast, this being his first major movie role following his TV success with the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Ethan Hawke then explained to Conan O’Brien what happened when he and some friends went to see Independence Day. It was then, watching the audience's reaction to the film, that he realized what a mistake he had made. He said…

Independence Day would be a career-making role for Will Smith, leading to other major blockbuster films, including Men in Black the next summer. Certainly if Ethan Hawke had taken the role, it’s possible he would have become the darling of blockbuster cinema. However, Hawke told Larry King that ultimately he doesn’t regret turning down the role because it was clear to him that Will Smith was the right person for it all along. He said…

Will Smith has his own iconic role that he turned down. After becoming a darling of sci-fi cinema, Smith himself was inundated with offers. He famously turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix, which he now regrets.

Today it’s a little hard to imagine Ethan Hawke in Independence Day, but I guess that’s exactly what Hawke means by saying Smith was the right one for that role. Ethan Hawke’s career hasn’t included quite as many blockbusters, though Hawke did join the MCU before Will Smith. he’s never appeared to have a hard time finding work. It looks like everything has worked out pretty well for both actors.

These days, Maya Hawke is likely more known for her role in the megahit project Stranger Things than for being the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. However, it’s not lost on the public or the actress that she is part of the nepo baby debate, considering the A-list status of both her parents. With all that in mind, she recently opened up about how her mom’s relationship with Quentin Tarantino probably helped her land a role in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. 

While some call the nepo baby debate “lame,” like Dakota Johnson did, or get defensive when the topic of nepotism is brought up, Maya Hawke took a different position. In an interview with The Times of London, via Deadline, Hawke spoke about this topic and how it probably helped her land a role in Tarantino’s movie thanks to her mom’s working relationship with him:

Thurman played major parts in both the Kill Bill movies and Pulp Fiction. So, it’s hard not to draw a connection between that and her daughter’s role in the Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio-led movie. 

Along with Hawke, the Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood cast featured more actors with famous parents, as Margaret Qualley, who is Andie MacDowell’s daughter, and Rumer Willis, whose parents are Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, were also part of the movie. The Stranger Things actress explained that Tarantino wanted to “cast a lot of young Hollywood” in the film.

Continuing to speak about nepotism and the role it plays in her career, Maya Hawke was honest about it. When asked if she “deserves” the opportunities she’s gotten, she told the interviewer:

This isn’t the first time Maya Hawke has spoken about nepotism and her career. She worked with her dad on the film Wildcat, which recently premiered on the 2024 movie schedule, and while they were promoting it, they weighed in on the debate. 

Much like her recent comments, the actress told Variety that it’s fine that people criticize her over this topic, and in the end, she simply just wanted to work with her father on a project. As for Ethan’s thoughts, he noted his daughter’s fame and talent, saying he’s a “nepo dad.” Before that, the Dead Poets Society actor also gushed over his daughter’s work on Stranger Things, which makes it even clearer how much he respects her as an artist as well as his kid. 

The Asteroid City actress is by no means the only famous person who has gotten candid about being a nepo baby. For example, Tilda Swinton’s daughter was honest about how her mom’s fame helped her develop important professional connections. 

These quotes illuminate the idea that Maya Hawke understands and accepts the role her parents and their fame have played in her career. Overall, she seems to have a very level-headed perspective on the nepo baby debate, and she gets where it comes from. However, she’s also proven herself over the years that she’s just as good an actor as her parents. 

For a fortnight, Taylor Swift’s new album The Tortured Poets Department, has been taking over the earwaves of the masses and going viral online with all the reactions. When the singer first unveiled her new era, she enlisted the help of Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles for two sneaky Dead Poets Society cameos, with the actors playing scientists in the black and white music video. Now that Hawke’s involvement in The Tortured Poets Department era is here, he has shared the story behind becoming involved.

Dead Poets Society is one of the best movies of the 1980s, and very much on brand with Taylor Swift’s new album, full of heartbreaking lyrics to quote. Here’s how the cameo came to be, per Ethan Hawke:

Hawke shared how he ended up in the “Fortnight” music video while guesting on a segment of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Ever since making the 1989 movie, alongside the late Robin Williams, he and Josh Charles have been friends for life. It sounds like they had an absolute blast together on the set of the video. As he continued:

On the set of the video, Hawke also recalled Charles asking for sushi while they were there and proceeding to try the “best sushi” of his life. When Colbert asked whether he got to tell his two daughters about the experience prior to the music video’s release, he explained that he signed an NDA for a very understandable reason. In his words:

While one might think it’d be a dream for Hawke’s daughters to then find out that their dad was in a Taylor Swift music video, that’s not the response he received. As he explained it:

Ethan Hawke has four kids, his eldest being 25-year-old Maya Hawke, who has become an actor in her own right with a growing list of movies and TV shows to her name. Along with Maya, he shares his son Levon with ex-wife Uma Thurman. Hawke also has a 15-year-old and 12-year-old daughter, Clementine and Indiana, with his current wife Ryan Shawhughes.

As he shared on the late night show, his two youngest daughters were actually quite disappointed in Taylor Swift for having their father cameo in the music video. Mostly because they wanted it to be them. Sometimes you just can’t win as a parent, I guess. Their reactions are rather hilarious though! Check out the video:

You can check out what upcoming Taylor Swift music and more are coming up next here on CinemaBlend.

Some of our best horror movies have been centered around characters who just so happen to be legendary creatures of the night: vampires. And, because of the enduring popularity of these mythological bloodsuckers, not only do we also have a number of TV vamps, but many famous actors who’ve portrayed some version of the famed, usually-human-looking beasts. Here for you now are 32 actors who’ve played a vampire.

Eddie Murphy (Vampire In Brooklyn)

So many vamps have been seen on screen that even a comedy and action movie legend like Eddie Murphy has played one. The 1995 horror comedy, Vampire in Brooklyn, saw the star play the last member of a group of Caribbean vampires, who hits New York to find a mate so that he can continue his family line.

Tom Cruise (Interview With The Vampire)

Who could forget the 1994 film that gave us Tom Cruise as the captivating and cruel (And blond!) bloodthirsty fiend, Lestat de Lioncourt, from author Anne Rice’s legendary novel series, The Vampire Chronicles? Of course, it also gave us Brad Pitt’s tortured vamp, Louis, and made a star out of young Kirsten Dunst.

Dakota Fanning (The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

While there are some obvious stars to add to this list, let us not forget that the cast of famous (and soon-to-be-famous) vampires in The Twilight Saga films was quite stacked. That roster included noted child star Dakota Fanning, who portrayed the villainous Volturi guard member, Jane, who was able to mentally create sensations of pain in those who she deemed worthy of punishment.

Evan Rachel Wood (True Blood)

Several vampire-focused TV shows have hit the airwaves over the past 20 or so years, so we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the HBO hit, True Blood. Many of its stars portrayed members of vamp-kind for most or all of the series’ seven seasons, but Evan Rachel Wood made an equally impressive (bloody) splash as the Vampire Queen of Louisiana, Sophie-Anne Leclerq, during her recurring guest appearances in Seasons 2-4.

Robert Pattinson (Twilight)

Back to Twilight! It’s not worth mentioning this franchise without bringing up lead romantic vamp Edward Cullen, as well as the man who brought him to life in five movies, eventuall live action Batman actor Robert Pattinson. Despite the fact that his love interest’s portrayer, Kristen Stewart, would have dumped Edward “immediately”!

Chloë Grace Moretz (Let Me In)

It’s possible that we don’t get creepier than kid vampires in movies and television shows, and that’s what we got with Chloë Grace Moretz’s Abby in the 2010 film, Let Me In. She befriends a young loner after moving into his apartment complex, but is (you guessed it) hiding nefarious purposes he could have never guessed, which end up taking his life in a most unexpected direction.

Salma Hayek (From Dusk Till Dawn)

This might be the shortest movie vampire appearance on the list, as 1996’s From Dusk Til Dawn saw Salma Hayek play the fanged exotic dancer, Santanico Pandemonium, only for about five memorable minutes that simply cannot be forgotten once witnessed.

Taika Waititi (What We Do In The Shadows)

Undead life isn’t always filled with glamorous globe-hopping adventure, gorgeous mates who can’t resist you and other perks, at least according to 2014’s What We Do in the Shadows, which concerns the rather mundane day-to-day lives of vampire roommates, of whom Taika Waititi’s uptight and nearly 400-year-old vamp, Viago, is among.

Theo James (Underworld: Awakening, Underworld: Blood Wars)

Another big screen franchise that depended on heaps of stars to populate its supernatural world is that of Underworld. Two sequels saw Theo James play the heroic vampire, David, heir to one of the main vamp covens, and lead Selene’s one steadfast ally during an important time in her journey.

Willem Dafoe (Shadow Of The Vampire)

Not many cinematic vampires are said to be based on a real person, but the one played by Willem Dafoe in 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire is. He portrayed a fictionalized version of the real Nosferatu lead actor, Max Schreck, whom the crew begins to suspect is an actual vampire because of his behavior and the strange goings-on surrounding filming.

Gerard Butler (Dracula 2000)

Speaking of vampires who are based on real people…Author Bram Stoker based his Dracula on Vlad the Impaler, and Gerard Butler played yet another version of the ever-popular character in a film from, yes, 2000. This tale sees the ancient vamp accidentally awoken by a group of thieves who find and steal his highly protected coffin, which had been watched over by generations of the Van Helsing family.

Wesley Snipes (Blade)

A Marvel character that will soon have another portrayer when the upcoming Blade reboot finally begins filming, the original action/horror trilogy famously saw Wesley Snipes take on the vampire/human hybrid titular lead, who’s a nearly unstoppable vamp hunter bent on taking down all members of the species who bit his mother and infected him with their supernatural blood while he was still in utero.

Colin Farrell (Fright Night)

If a scary and suave undead night stalker is your type, look no further than Colin Farrell’s Jerry Dandrige in 2011’s remake of the 1985 cult classic, Fright Night. He may have to eventually do battle with a couple of teenagers, but he sure looks darn good doing it.

Ethan Hawke (Daybreakers)

A movie that takes a more science-fiction approach to a world overrun by vampires is the 2009 film Daybreakers, which sees Ethan Hawke play a vamp hematologist who refuses to drink human blood and is looking for a synthetic option to their usual meal of choice that will stop humanity from being wiped out by his more brutal peers.

Luke Evans (Dracula Untold)

Again with Dracula? Why, yes! This time, Luke Evans plays a Vlad the Impaler who only becomes a vampire to have the strength, speed and ferocity to turn back an invading army in an attempt to save the people of his kingdom. Does it work out for him? Well, yes…and no.

Kate Beckinsale (Underworld)

There’s no mentioning the Underworld franchise without giving respect to the main heroine, Kate Beckinsale’s Selene. In the first film she’s a vampire looking to destroy the werewolves that killed her family, but she ends up uncovering a major secret about the two sets of creatures and falling in love with a human, instead.

Alicia Silverstone (Vamps)

This 2012 horror comedy sees Alicia Silverstone play Goody, an old vampire who tries to stay young and hip while helping her much younger bloodsucking buddy, Stacy (Krysten Ritter), get used to her powers as they try to abstain from the red stuff during their immortal and unholy (sorta) lives.

Pedro Pascal (Bloodsucking Bastards)

Ever wondered what working in an office that was slowly being overrun by vampires who care as much about the bottom line as they do about drinking blood would be like? Just watch Bloodsucking Bastards, where beloved The Last of Us cast member Pedro Pascal begins turning his employees into the titular immortals.

Jim Carrey (Once Bitten)

Jim Carrey’s first leading role came in this 1985 comedy, where he played a teen virgin turned into a vampire by an alluring, 400-year-old creature of the night, who seduced him so she could use his blood to keep her youthful appearance.

Paul Reubens (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

In the 1992 horror comedy that eventually led to the long-running series of the same name, the late Paul Reubens starred as Amilyn, a vamp doing the bidding of a much more powerful bloodsucker who’s ruling his kind in Los Angeles.

Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood)

While HBO’s True Blood was positively filled with the undead, few of them made as much of an impact on audiences (and the lead, Sookie) as Alexander Skarsgård’s cunning and alluring (but sorta evil) 1,000-year-old Eric Northman. This also happens to be the role that really made Skarsgård famous.

David Boreanaz (Buffy, Angel)

When it comes to popular TV vampires, no one can discount the reign of David Boreanaz as evil vamp turned heroic vamp (and then sometimes evil vamp again) Angel, whom he played on Buffy the Vampire Slayer beginning with the first episode in 1997, through wrapping his run on the fifth season series finale of his own show, Angel, in 2004.

Sterling K. Brown (Supernatural)

Sterling K. Brown may best be known now for delivering heartfelt emotions as Randall Pearson on This Is Us, but for four episodes across Seasons 2 and 3 of the CW mega-hit, Supernatural, he played Hunter and dedicated vamp-hater-turned-vampire, Gordon Walker, to astounding, understandably cold-blooded effect.

Kiefer Sutherland (The Lost Boys)

Even though Kiefer Sutherland was certainly a star on the rise by the time he starred in The Lost Boys in 1987, his part as apparent vampire motorcycle gang leader David cemented his leading man qualities and turned him into a household name.

Rami Malek (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part II)

Sure, Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the best Rami Malek movies to watch, but let’s not discount his turn as the powerful (and ancient) Egyptian vampire, Benjamin, in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part II, one of the few creatures of the night in the franchise who can directly manipulate things, with his specialty being controlling fire, water, air and earth.

Bryce Dallas Howard (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse)

Yet another actor you may have forgotten was fanged in the expansive Twilight franchise is Jurassic World star Bryce Dallas Howard. She took over the role of evil, vengeful vamp Victoria (who’s looking to kill Bella in retaliation for Edward killing her love, James) from Rachelle Lefevre, for the third movie, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

Tilda Swinton (Only Lovers Left Alive)

As one half of the very old vampire couple at the center of the 2013 dramedy, Only Lovers Left Alive, Tilda Swinton is a wife forced to visit the husband (played by Tom Hiddleston) she’s long been separated from once she realizes his lengthy undead existence has begun to bring him down, as she tries to force him to reevaluate the value of living forever.

Bill Nighy (Underworld, Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans)

Every good vampire needs a parental figure to show them the ropes, and for Underworld’s Selene, that role was filled by Viktor, who was portrayed by Love, Actually star Bill Nighy. His Vampire Elder turned out to be more of a threat than the heroine ever expected, though, leading to some tense moments between Selene and her mentor.

Gary Oldman (Bram Stoker's Dracula) 

Back to Drac! One of the most popular films about the character is still 1992’s Bram Stoker's Dracula, which saw eventual Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban star Gary Oldman play Vlad Dracula.

Christopher Meloni (True Blood)

Where there is one vampire there are generally enough to have a whole hierarchy among their brethren, and as with the series True Blood, sometimes we get to see what that could look like. In Season 5, Law & Order: SVU and Organized Crime star Christopher Meloni portrayed the Guardian, Roman Zimojic, who led the Vampire Authority and (ostensibly) set the rules for all vamps. Many, however, didn’t agree with his desire to have his kind fit in with human society, which caused a lot of problems for the calm, determined and deadly when challenged leader.

Nicolas Cage (Renfield)

If you guessed that this is yet another Dracula story, well, you’re sort of correct. 2023’s horror comedy, Renfield, stars Nicholas Hoult as the count’s titular long-time familiar, who’s tired of helping him kill innocent people and all the abuse he’s taken from the being who gifted him with immortality, as well as super strength and speed (when he eats bugs) 90 years prior. So, he gets help from a support group for people in codependent relationships in order to be able to live his own life again. Nicolas Cage is our Dracula here, and he’s a perfectly winking one, who still manages to be creepy and deadly.

Johnny Depp (Dark Shadows)

Johnny Depp has become known for his outrageous characters, and his Barnabas Collins is no different. The 2012 Dark Shadows film (which was based on the 1966-1971 gothic daytime drama of the same name) follows Barnabas after he’s cursed with vampirism in 1760, buried alive in a coffin, and then accidentally freed in the early 1970s. He rejoins the Collins family at the estate they still hold, while trying to keep his true nature a secret, but hijinks ensue as his past comes back to haunt them. 

This, of course, is just a small sampling of the famous actors who've portrayed vampires over the years, but if you decide to do a vamp movie/TV show marathon, you can start right here and have hours of entertainment.

Of all the mysteries of life, one that continues to confound us is what, exactly, lies beyond our planet. After thousands of years of peering into outer space as far as we could, we began to look for those answers in a very concrete way by sending people to the stars, and our movies have reflected our desire to know more, meaning that a number of humanity’s biggest and brightest stars have played space-faring individuals on screen. Here for you now are 32 famous actors who’ve played astronauts.

Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

Let’s start with one of the more harrowing views of space travel, Gravity, which garnered a number of Academy Award wins after its 2013 release. Sandra Bullock stars as Dr. Ryan Stone, who’s on her first space mission in order to help upgrade a telescope. But, things very quickly go wrong when she’s doing a spacewalk, and debris from a recently deactivated satellite hits the shuttle and leaves her stranded with many of her crew dead, Ryan floating through space, and desperate to find a way back to earth all on her own.

Brad Pitt (Ad Astra)

A space trip that doesn’t go too much better involves Brad Pitt’s Roy McBride in 2019’s Ad Astra. When Roy is tasked with traveling to Mars to see if the crew of a mission that was searching for other intelligent life, which was led 29 years earlier by his father, is still alive, he’s unwittingly thrust into a situation that’s far more dangerous than even standard space travel is known to be.

Ryan Reynolds (Life)

Noted comedic actor and big-screen superhero talent Ryan Reynolds has also donned a space suit for the very much not comedic Life, a 2017 ode to terror in space. After a probe returns to the International Space Station with soil samples from Mars, what is at first a dormant cell quickly turns into, well, life, and begins to cause a lot of horrific trouble for Reynolds’ engineer and the rest of the crew.

Halle Berry (Moonfall)

If you’re starting to sense a theme here, that outer space is dangerous, congratulations, because you really are paying attention. In the sci-fi disaster epic, Moonfall, Halle Berry’s NASA deputy director has to investigate when the moon begins to leave its orbit and come closer to Earth, threatening all of civilization. When she digs deeper into the mystery, however, she finds a government cover-up that goes back many decades and is forced to head back into space with a small crew to take care of the growing problem herself.

Michael Peña (A Million Miles Away)

Considering the incredible number of films we have where those who head into space are prominent characters, there are actually relatively few based on the lives of real people. A Million Miles Away stars Michael Peña as José M. Hernández, a Mexican-American engineer who served as a migrant worker when he was a child and went on to become an astronaut who worked aboard the International Space Station.

Viola Davis (Solaris)

There are many sci-fi films of the mind-trip variety and Solaris is no different. Viola Davis portrays one of the last surviving members of a space station crew orbiting the titular alien world, who must then try to help George Clooney’s visiting psychologist understand the truly strange phenomena that led to the death or disappearance of most of the crew. If you enjoy a twisty ending that leaves you with lots of questions, you’ll enjoy this one.

Mark Wahlberg (Planet Of The Apes)

You know this story; you love this story. Planet of the Apes saw Mark Wahlberg take over the role of an astronaut who crashes on a foreign planet, only to find that apes are now the dominant species, while humans are mostly without speech and used as slave labor. 

Chris Evans (Sunshine)

And here we have yet another space movie where a mission does not quite go as planned. Sunshine features stars like Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh and a pre-Captain America Chris Evans as the crew of a ship that’s been tasked with traveling to our dying sun to deliver a bomb in the hopes of reigniting it so that our planet can avoid another catastrophic ice age.

Adam Driver (65)

Ever wonder what Earth was like about 65 million years ago when dinosaurs still ruled the land? Well, that’s what alien astronaut Mills (Adam Driver) accidentally finds out when his ship is struck by a large field of asteroids and crashes on our planet, leading him to have to protect the only other survivor as they flee many dangerous beasts in an attempt to get to a faraway escape pod so they can return home.

Sigourney Weaver (Alien)

It’s possible we’d have far fewer of these “if it can go wrong on a space mission it will” science fiction films without what many consider one of the best horror movies of all time, Alien. The classic stars Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, one of a seven-person crew who unknowingly stumble upon the ultra-dangerous xenomorphs that would go on to become legendary in sci-fi horror, which quickly leads to pretty much nothing but increasingly bad times on their doomed mission.

Tom Hanks (Apollo 13)

We’ve hit upon another story based on some real-life adventures! In Apollo 13, Tom Hanks stars as Commander Jim Lovell who, along with Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) and Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), board their 1970 mission to the moon in order to become the third American crew to land there. However, trouble starts almost immediately.

Natalie Portman (Lucy In The Sky)

While not completely a true life story, 2019’s Lucy in the Sky is billed as being “loosely inspired” by the life of NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak. The plot concerns Natalie Portman’s Lucy, who has just returned from her first space mission, which had such a huge impact on her that she no longer feels connected to her family or life here. As she pushes herself to return on the next mission, she undergoes a mental breakdown that sends her life into a tailspin.

Glen Powell (Hidden Figures)

While the amazing biopic, Hidden Figures, focuses on three Black women (Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) who worked as NASA mathematicians during the height of the Space Race in the 1960s, we do still get an astronaut in this film. Twisters star Glen Powell plays John Glenn, who became the first American in orbit in 1962.

Robert Pattinson (High Life)

You’d think a movie called High Life would finally focus on some good times in space, but…nahhhhh. Robert Pattinson is a member of a crew of convicts on death row who’ve been sent to retrieve energy from a black hole, with the experiments of their commander leading to a child being born on board while crew members spiral out of control.

Tom Cruise (Oblivion)

Tom Cruise’s 2013 film, Oblivion, features him in a twisty plot that involves a post-apocalyptic Earth, evil A.I., even more evil aliens, and his character trying to figure out exactly what’s going on with his assigned mission. This is a good one that people hardly ever talk about.

Jodie Foster (Contact)

Based on the 1985 novel by Carl Sagan, Contact stars Academy Award winner Jodie Foster as a scientist who specializes in the search for extraterrestrial life, and finds a big clue toward that goal when she locates a radio signal that appears to be sent from a distant star, and is eventually chosen as the person to make first contact with the alien race behind the signal. Contact is an amazing film that is a must-see for sci-fi and space movie lovers.

Colin Farrell (Voyagers)

This movie is a real (space) trip. Voyagers stars Colin Farrell as the leader of a crew of very young adults who were bred away from humanity and had some of their hormones and emotions suppressed in the hope of keeping them manageable. But, when two of the crew realize what’s been done to them and convince everyone to stop taking the chemical, well, the proceedings get extremely emotional and tension doesn't let up for quite some time.

Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar)

By now, it’s probably pretty clear that our idea of space travel and exploration is mainly one of danger, especially from the unknown, and Christopher Nolan’s wildly successful Interstellar is certainly another addition to the film canon that shows us that. In it, Matthew McConaughey plays a former NASA test pilot who’s chosen to lead a mission through a wormhole that is hoped to lead to at least one habitable planet for humanity, which is dealing with a global famine that’s threatening an extinction event. 

Idris Elba (Prometheus)

Those Alien xenomorphs just won’t leave us alone, will they? In Prometheus, we get their origin story as a crew following an ancient star map searches for the beginnings of humanity, but instead finds…you know, a secret plot and lots of terror. Idris Elba portrays Janek, the heroic captain of the doomed spaceship.

Adam Sandler (Spaceman)

If you’ve ever gotten the sense that space travel can be kind of lonely, Adam Sandler’s Spaceman turns that idea up to 11. His astronaut is six months into a solo mission that sees him missing his wife and the unborn child he left behind, when he realizes he has a stowaway: an alien creature who can communicate telepathically with him, and seeks to understand humans while helping alleviate the astronaut’s loneliness.

Ryan Gosling (First Man)

This biographical drama sees Ryan Gosling play Neil Armstrong, who became the first man to walk on the moon in 1969. The story follows Armstrong, his wife Janet (Claire Foy), and other astronauts and NASA figures as they prepare for the famed Apollo 11 mission that led to Armstrong making history.

Angela Bassett (Supernova)

Even two-time Oscar nominee Angela Bassett has taken a turn at playing a space explorer whose time there does not go as planned. When she and her crew answer a distress call from thousands of light years away during their deep space mission, things go from bad to worse at, well, the speed of light.

Matt Damon (The Martian)

Matt Damon famously starred in one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, playing astronaut Mark Watney, who’s forced to survive on Mars alone after being accidentally left behind when he’s presumed dead by the rest of his crew as they’re forced to evacuate. 

Bruce Willis (Armageddon)

Possibly the best non-traditional astronaut movie ever made, Armageddon stars good guy Bruce Willis as an oil driller recruited to go into space with a team of his mean so that they drill into a massive asteroid, implant a nuke in it and blow it up in the hope of stopping it from destroying the planet and human civilization as we know it. I got excited just writing that!

Laurence Fishburne (Event Horizon)

In space, no one can hear you scream. Unless you’re on a spaceship with other people that’s destined to run into loads of trouble, then, you know, all of those people will probably be able to hear you. There’s lots of screaming in 1997’s Event Horizon, which stars Laurence Fishburne as the captain of a rescue ship that goes to answer a distress call sent by a ship that disappeared several years prior. There’s a vivisection in this one. I’m starting to think we should just leave space alone.

Robert Duvall (Deep Impact)

You must remember Deep Impact, as it was released about two months before the more popular Armageddon, but featured a comet being on a collision course with our precious homeworld. Robert Duvall plays the pilot for the crew that’s dispatched to (you guessed it) drill into the comet and nuke it to smithereens. The mission does not go off without a hitch, and that’s why they call this a disaster movie.

Ethan Hawke (Gattaca)

In a society where most babies are created with genetic altering to make sure they have only the best traits of each parent, a man (Ethan Hawke) who was born without that practice poses as a man who was altered so that he can reach his dream of becoming an astronaut without all of the discrimination that people like him suffer in a society where people are expected to be “perfect” to have the best opportunities in life.

Sam Rockwell (Moon)

Ok, so maybe being in space, in general, isn’t always terrible. But it definitely seems like being alone in space for an extended period could be a bad sign for your future. Such is the case with Moon, where Sam Rockwell plays the lone human operating a mining facility on the titular celestial body, who comes to a startling revelation as he nears the end of his three-year work term.

Clint Eastwood (Space Cowboys)

Clint Eastwood has portrayed a number of (basically) good guys, so it makes complete sense that he would have stepped into the shoes of an Air Force pilot who retired long ago, but ends up leading a mission of other retired pilots to fix an old Soviet communications satellite that’s in danger of crashing to Earth.

Liv Tyler (Space Station 76)

As you’ve likely noticed, there are not a lot of comedies among this bunch, but Space Station 76 is definitely one of them. This “retro-futuristic” parody stars Liv Tyler as the newly arrived station’s co-pilot, who soon comes to realize that the apparently utopian lives of those on board are hiding some very real problems.

Alan Rickman (Galaxy Quest)

Here is another comedy that’s been a cult hit pretty much since its release in 1999. Galaxy Quest focuses on the cast of a fictional Star Trek-like series who are pulled into a hilariously real war between alien races, when the kind, gentle aliens have seen their show and believe it’s a documentary.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Cloverfield Paradox)

The Cloverfield franchise grew with this 2018 entry, which stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as an engineer aboard an orbiting space station where the plan is to test a particle accelerator in the hope of using it to provide the planet with infinite energy. You know what happens, right? Things don’t go as planned.

Many of our finest actors have pretended to travel in space for our entertainment, and this list gives you a number of amazing options should you decide to launch an astronaut movie binge session.

Flannery O’Connor is considered by some to be one of the best American writers of the 20th century thanks to her sardonic voice, Southern Gothic stylings, and a wide range of characters, both beautiful and grotesque. At some point soon, those not all too familiar with the Georgia novelist, essayist, and short-story writer will get to learn more about O’Connor and her complicated life with Ethan Hawke’s Wildcat.

The upcoming biopic from the actor-turned-filmmaker will see Stranger Things standout Maya Hawke take on the role of the controversial writer in a unique biographical drama diving into not only her relatively short life but also her most famous works. Here’s everything we know about Wildcat… 

What Is The Wildcat Release Date?

We won't have to wait all that much longer to see what Wildcat is about, as the upcoming biopic is slated to open in select theaters on May 3rd, according to Deadline. This news came not long after it was revealed that Oscilloscope had picked up the film's distribution rights in the United States. However, it's not yet known when it will have a larger, national roll-out.

Wildcat has been ready to go for several months and the film had its premiere in September 2023 at the 50th Telluride Film Festival, which was then followed by a showing at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Maya Hawke Leads The Wildcat Cast As Flannery O’Connor

When Wildcat opens on the big screen later this year, it will be one of the rare occasions where an actor or actress’ performance is directed by their famous parent, as Maya Hawke leads the upcoming biopic as its focus, Flannery O’Connor. The younger Hawke told Variety in September 2023 that while she had “moments of insecurity” about how people would react to landing the starring role in her dad’s film and being a “nepo baby,” she and her father wanted to work together and “like being with each other.”

In addition to having Maya Hawke at the top of the list, Wildcat will also feature a tremendously talented ensemble consisting of established stars and up-and-coming talent. Back in January 2023, Variety reported that Laura Linney, Philip Ettinger, Rafael Casal, Steve Zahn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alessandro Nivola, Willa Fitzgerald, and Cooper Hoffman, the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, would all show up in some capacity in the upcoming biographical drama 

Wildcat Focuses On Flannery O’Connor As She Returns To The South After A Stint In New York

One of the greatest struggles an artist can face is going back home after moving away to start a new life on their own, and according to Vanity Fair, Wildcat will tackle that in its story about Flannery O’Connor. The movie centers on the Southern Gothic writer as she returns to her Georgia home after her first stint in New York where she worked on her first novel. Gone are her writer friends and the freedom of the Big Apple and now she is left to face the cruelty of the South and her own mortality after being diagnosed with lupus, the very disease that caused her father's death some years earlier.

By the way it sounds, Wildcat will very much be a biographical drama about the struggles O’Connor faced during her short life, both as an artist and a patient dealing with a disease that causes their immune system to attack their body.

The Movie Will Also Bring Several Of Flannery O’Connor’s Stories To Life

Wildcat is a biographical drama but it will also take a unique approach with what sounds like a genre-bending experience that takes the biopic in a different direction. In addition to focusing on Flannery O’Connor’s life, career, and death, the film will also bring to life several of the late writer’s most well-known stories. According to the Telluride Film Festival, where it premiered in September 2023, the movie will dramatize scenes from stories like “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” “Revelation,” “Good Country People,” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” and incorporate them into O’Connor’s life.

When Deadline wrote about Oscilloscope acquiring the rights for Wildcat in January 2024, it described the film that blurs the lines between reality, imagination, and faith as O’Connor begins to explore her craft and her own place in the world around her. In a statement provided to the outlet, the distributor’s president, Dan Berger, said the movie is an “inventive and unique” look at an artist that was “inventive and unique.”

Ethan Hawke Co-Wrote The Movie With Longtime Collaborator Shelby Gaines

Over the years, Ethan Hawke has worked extensively with musician, composer, and writer Shelby Gaines on everything from the former’s Off-Broadway revival of A Life of the Mind to the 2018 music biopic, Blaze. That partnership continued with Wildcat, as Hawke and Gaines shared a screenwriting credit for the forthcoming biographical drama that was inspired by Maya Hawke’s Juilliard audition.

In a September 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ethan Hawke recalled how Maya delivered a monologue from Flannery O’Connor’s A Prayer Journal, which she then attempted to adapt after debuting on Stranger Things. But as the process went on and he met with Joe Goodman, the rights holder of O’Connor’s work, the Before Sunrise star saw something bigger saying,

After this, Hawke started to work with Gaines on the script and the two ironed it out to create a portrait of the artist, her work, and her complicated life.

How Long Is Wildcat?

We don’t exactly know when Wildcat is coming out, but we do know that the movie has a runtime of 108 minutes. This information comes from the movie’s page from the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. This could very well change if the movie has to make any cuts for a rating ahead of its theatrical release, so make sure to check back for more information in the coming weeks and months.

We should know more about Wildcat very soon, but in the meantime don’t forget to check out the rest of the 2024 movie schedule to see what else is coming to the big screen this year.

Everything is bigger in Texas, they say, and that certainly includes the star power of its homegrown celebrities. From the biggest stars in music to the biggest on the silver screen, the biggest celebs in the squared circle, and almost everywhere else, Texas has bred them all. 

California may be home to Hollywood, but there might not be a Hollywood without its biggest legends who hail from the Lone Star State, so here is our list of some of the biggest stars from Texas

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey was born in Uvalde, Texas, raised mostly in Longview, TX, went to college in Austin, and got his first big break in show business in Dazed & Confused, which was, of course, filmed in Texas. McConaughey still lives in Austin. It makes sense that the proud Texan wants to see more movies made in his home state. McConaughey has also sparked rumors in the past that he might be interested in running for political office in Texas, though he's usually brushed them aside. Politician or not, the man sure loves his home state. 

Renée Zellweger

She may have won accolades for playing an English woman, but Renée Zellweger is Texas through and through. The Bridget Jones' Diary star was born outside Houston in Katy, TX, and grew up there before attending the University of Texas. It was in Austin that she discovered her love for acting and she landed her first on-screen role as an extra in Dazed & Confused. 

Owen Wilson

Dallas-born Owen Wilson has played a lot of fantastic roles over the years, but none better than his many roles in the films of Wes Anderson. Wilson and fellow Texan Anderson have been friends since their college days at the University of Texas. It's also worth noting that both of Owen Wilson's brothers, Luke and Andrew, also hail from Texas, of course. 

Jim Parsons

While some people ooze "Texas," Houston native Jim Parsons doesn't, really. You might guess he'd be from New York or Chicago, but nope, he's a Texan. Born and raised in the suburbs of Houston, he also attended the University of Houston before striking out for Hollywood and making it big. 

Carol Burnett

Comedy legend Carol Burnett grew up in California, attending high school right in Hollywood, but the Annie star was born deep in the heart of Texas, in San Antonio in 1933. Though her vast career has taken her far from Texas, the state can still call her one of its own. 

Beyoncé

If the stars are brighter and everything is bigger in Texas, then it only makes sense that one of the biggest stars would come from Houston. There is no bigger star on the planet than Beyoncé, who was born and raised in Texas along with her sister Solange and her Destiny's Child bandmate, LaTavia Roberson. 

Selena Gomez

Like many other native Texas, Selena Gomez is proud of her Mexican heritage. The Only Murders In The Building star was born in Grand Prairie, Texas, near Dallas, and although her many acting roles and career took her to California early in life, her family's roots are firmly in the Lone Star State. Gomez is named for another Texas native as well, the late Tejano superstar Selena, who was murdered in Corpus Christi in 1995. 

Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson first got famous playing a farm boy-turned-bartender from Indiana on Cheers, and while he moved to Ohio as a teenager, Harrelson was born in Midland, Texas. He's also tight with his occasional co-star and fellow Texan, Matthew McConaughey, and, according to McConaughey, the two could even be brothers! 

Tommy Lee Jones

Sure, he was roommates at Harvard with Al Gore, but Tommy Lee Jones is all Texan. The No Country For Old Men star was born in the small town of San Saba, Texas, and raised in Midland. He's never really strayed far either, as he has resided in Terrell Hills, TX, near San Antonio, for years. He's also a member of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, and the Texas Film Hall of Fame. There really isn't another actor who screams "Texas" like Jones, is there?

Steve Martin

Waco-born Steve Martin is one of the funniest people in film history. While he grew up mostly in Southern California, his roots are originally in central Texas, where he was born in Waco, on August 14th, 1945, the same day that the Japanese surrendered in World War II. 

Jamie Foxx

The multi-talented Jamie Foxx started acquiring his many skills as a kid in Terrell, TX, outside Dallas, where he was born and raised. As a kid, he played piano and excelled at sports at Terrell High School. He moved to Southern California after school and in 1991, scored a role on In Living Color, and the rest is history. 

Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner moved to West Virginia when she was just three, so she probably doesn't remember much of anything from her early life in Texas, but the Daredevil star was born in Houston. 

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson exploded into show business by winning the first-ever season of American Idol and she's been a star ever since. It's a journey that started when she was born in Forth Worth, TX, and raised in the suburb of Burleson, just outside the city. While her career may have taken her to LA and New York, her heart (and sports allegiance) has stayed in Texas.

Wes Anderson

People love to debate what the best Wes Anderson movie is, but if you are wondering what is his most personal, it's probably Bottle Rocket, which was filmed almost entirely in Anderson's home state of Texas. It stars a couple of fellow Texans as well, Owen and Luke Wilson. While the Wilsons are from Dallas originally, Anderson hails from Houston. 

Megan Thee Stallion

Megan Thee Stallion is a triple threat. She proved herself on the mic, and on the dance floor, first, then she started taking over TV and movies by starring in her first film in 2023. Before all that happened, though, she grew up in and around Houston. The “H-town Hottie” even got her nickname, Stallion, in the city. 

Michelle Rodriguez

Michelle Rodriguez has been in some huge film franchises, like Fast & Furious and Avatar. She kind of grew up all over, including in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, but she was born and lived for a few years of her life in San Antonio, TX. 

Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke's parents were high school sweethearts who had Ethan shortly after they were married. Born in 1970 in Austin, TX, Hawke moved to the Northeast with his mother but spent his summers in Fort Worth with his dad. His grandfather even served in the Texas House of Representatives for 10 years. He has deep Texas roots that he is proud of. 

Hilary Duff

Lizzie McGuire star Hilary Duff is another Texas girl. Born in Houston, her family also spent time in San Antonio before moving to California when Duff was still young to pursue her acting career. Boy did that pay off quickly! 

Jennifer Love Hewitt

From a young age, Jennifer Love Hewitt was showing off her talents, singing and dancing across Texas, where she was born in 1979. Eventually, even the Lone Star State could not contain her and she moved to LA with her family, where she soon landed her first starring role on the legendary Party Of Five, after having roles on the Disney Channel and elsewhere as a kid. 

Eva Longoria

Born in Corpus Christi, TX in 1975, Eva Longoria has always been proud of her Tejano roots. In fact, her ancestry and culture are so important to her that she returned to college to earn a Master's degree in Chicano studies from Cal State-Northridge.

Forest Whitaker

Though he went to high school in Los Angeles, Forest Whitaker's life began in Longview, Texas. Every summer of his youth, he spent time with his grandparents in Longview and still has family all over Texas. 

Taylor Sheridan

It's no surprise that Taylor Sheridan is from Texas. While he was actually born in North Carolina, the Yellowstone creator is the definition of a true Texan. Not only did he grow up in Fort Worth, but he owns a working ranch in the Lone Star state called 6666 Ranch. He and his family live in Weatherford, Texas.

Farrah Fawcett

She might have had the reputation of being the all-American blonde from California, but Farrah Fawcett was born and raised in Texas. After high school in Corpus Christi, she attended the University of Texas before heading to Hollywood where she immediately started landing acting and modeling jobs. Once she scored her role on Charlie's Angels, the rest is history. 

Isaiah Washington

Controversial actor Isaiah Washington's most prominent role was in the first three seasons of Grey's Anatomy. Since then, he's worked on numerous films and TV shows, before announcing his retirement in 2023. He was born and raised in Houston. 

William Jackson Harper

Star of The Good Place William Jackson Harper is a native Texan, born in Dallas and raised in Garland, TX, where he first started acting in high school. His Texas-sized determination kept him going when he struggled early in his career, before finding a starring role on the Kristen Bell-led sitcom. 

Dakota Johnson

It might be surprising to learn that despite being the daughter of Hollywood royalty, Dakota Johnson was born in Texas. She was born to Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson in Austin while her father shot a movie in the Lone Star State. The star was then raised in Los Angeles, of course, but Austin will always be where she came into this world. Since then, she's built a great career. 

"Stone Cold" Steve Austin

Steven James Anderson loves his home state so much, that he took a name based on its capital, Austin. Better known as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, the WWE superstar was, in fact, born in Austin, though he was raised mostly in Edna, TX. The wrestler still owns property in the state, Broken Skull Ranch, near Tilden, TX. It's not like he hides his love for the state either, as one of his many nicknames is "The Texas Rattlesnake."

Gary Busey

People sometimes forget that Gary Busey was once nominated for an Oscar for playing Texan Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story, and the actor also hails from Holly's home state. Busey was born in the Houston area; Baytown, Texas, to be exact. He moved to Oklahoma in elementary school and it was in Tulsa that the enigmatic actor began his show biz career. One of his first big breaks in Hollywood was a TV show that was set in Texas called, appropriately, The Texas Wheelers.

Gina Carano

Gina Carano was controversially dismissed from The Mandalorian and whether you agree with the decision or not, it's hard to argue that the MMA star brought a little bit of that strong individualism Texas is known for to the role and her career. Something that might be inherent in her, as she was born in Dallas County Texas.

Shaquille O'Neal

Texas is a huge state, with a lot of personality, so it only makes sense that a celebrity who's physically large and has a personality to match would hail from the state. Shaquille O’Neal is an Army brat, so he moved around a lot as a kid, including being born in New Jersey. It's in Texas, however, where the world started to pay attention to O'Neal as he became a standout basketball star, eventually becoming a top college recruit and going to LSU for school. He was drafted into the NBA as the #1 overall pick in 1992, and the rest is history.  

Robin Wright

Robin Wright might be best known for playing a Washington insider on House Of Cards and a Buttercup in The Princess Bride, but before all that, she was born in Dallas in 1966. Her parents divorced when she was young and her family moved to Southern California, but for those two years, she was a Texan. 

Michael Strahan

He first made a name for himself playing football in New York, and now he's known for hosting Good Morning America in New York, but Michael Strahan is a born and bred Texan. He was born in Houston, and went to high school there, though for a little while he lived with his family in Germany where his father was stationed in the Army. 

There you have it, a list that proves everything is, indeed, bigger in Texas. The toast, the steer, the plains, and the stars. Not just the stars in the sky, but the stars in Hollywood and beyond. Few states can compete with the Lone Star state when it comes to star power. 

Netflix has seen its share of A-list talent starring in its original movies this year, with Adam Sandler, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Lopez, Natalie Portman and more going straight to streaming with some of their latest projects. Now Julia Roberts will team up with a number of other big names for Leave the World Behind, a movie from Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground. The movie is set for release December 8 on the streamer, and it’s been racking up quite a bit of positive feedback from the critics.

Julia Roberts stars as Amanda Sandford, whose family finds itself in unsettling circumstances on vacation when Mahershala Ali’s G.H. Scott shows up at the door claiming to be the owner of the rental home. The all-star cast also includes Ethan Hawke, Myha'la and Kevin Bacon, so let’s see what the critics are saying, starting with Constance Grady of Vox. The critic rates the 2023 Netflix movie schedule entry 3.5 out of 5, praising writer/director/producer Sam Esmail as well as Mahershala Ali — in a role originally intended for Denzel Washington — who makes a meal out of the role. Grady continues: 

Tom Gliatto of People says it’s a suspenseful film that plots its course from tiny aggressions to colossal ones, with tension strong enough to snap a pencil. Gliatto continues: 

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gives Leave the World Behind 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising the sharp pacing, wonderful ensemble cast and near-perfect payoff. Roeper writes: 

Carla Renata of The Curvy Critic calls the movie “spectacularly smart,” and one that will leave audiences stressed out and longing for hope. Its cast is a “pure chemistry fire of riches,” with each actor bringing specificity and authenticity to their character. The critic says of this 2023 new movie release: 

Kristen Lopez of The Wrap calls the apocalypse film a “two-hour descent into chaos,” warning that audiences will be compelled yet utterly terrified. While Julia Roberts and Myha’la are “amazing” to watch play off of each other, this critic agrees with others who say Mahershala Ali steals the show. Lopez concludes: 

Leave the World Behind has already compiled impressive scores on Rotten Tomatoes, with 39 critics cumulatively rating it 79% Fresh, and the audience score even higher at 89%, though that’s also from fewer than 50 ratings. We’ll have to see how audiences continue to receive the movie when it becomes available to stream with a Netflix subscription on Friday, December 8. In the meantime, check out what else is new and coming soon to Netflix. 

Earlier this year, The Black Phone 2’s surprise announcement had me and many other fans of this outstanding picture wondering where the sequel’s plot could go? More importantly, questions surrounded whether Ethan Hawke or any of the other members of The Black Phone’s cast would return for director Scott Derrickson’s upcoming horror movie. Well, we have our answer now, as Hawke and more familiar faces are back, and I love this strong connection to the past!

Reported by Deadline, a handful of the roster to 2022’s Universal hit are indeed heeding the call of this second round. While it’s not 100% confirmed that everyone will be playing their respective characters, here’s the acting talent that’s returning for The Black Phone 2, and who they played in the first film: 

• Ethan Hawke (The Grabber)
• Mason Thames (Finney Blake)
• Madeleine McGraw (Gwen Blake)
• Jeremy Davies (Terrence Shaw)
• Miguel Mora (Robin Arellano)

To be honest, I’m only hedging my bets with the “not 100% confirmed” angle because I totally think that these Black Phone players are coming back. With author Joe Hill’s source material already being supernaturally tinged, and ghosts very much being able to communicate with the realm of the living, Finney’s conversations with Robin and ghosts of the past don’t seem to be over.

Perhaps some of the leftover questions from The Black Phone are set to be answered, or at least become a little clearer in scope. Maybe we'll see the origins of The Grabber? Perhaps Finney and Gwen Blake's abilities will be used for catching another killer that's inspired by The Grabber's motives? Has Terrence learned to stop hitting his children for good? Again, it's hard to be sure, but I think we're going to see the The Black Phone 2 play as a continuation rather than an anthology.

Another fun fact to keep in mind is that Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill have already started to build out the universe in another spinoff. Through the V/H/S ‘85 short “Dreamkill,” Gwen’s existence is already being spoken of seven years after the events of The Black Phone. So this sequel is more than likely going to be set not too much longer after the first chapter, leaving the memory of Finney’s abduction fresh in the minds of all involved.

As such, the ghosts of the past are primed to haunt The Black Phone 2, with Ethan Hawke’s Grabber and Miguel Mora’s Robin potentially serving as an angel and devil on the shoulders of Finney and Gwen Blake. While I was both scared and excited for this sequel, my anticipation is moving towards “excited,” as whatever unfinished business coming from the previous call has to be pretty serious to linger. 

There's plenty of time to look for those answers, as The Black Phone 2 is set to debut in theaters on June 27, 2025. In the meantime, the previous installment is currently streaming with a Peacock subscription, just in case you want to revisit The Grabber’s reign of terror and supposed defeat.

The phrase “former child star” is most often associated with someone who was famous when they were much younger, but is not quite as well-known — or, perhaps, does not even act anymore — as a grown-up. Yet, for every starlet who has risen and fallen, there are just as many who have beaten the odds and have gone onto bigger and better things as adults, like these beloved celebrities.

Macaulay Culkin

The first person you might think of when you think of “former child stars” could be Macaulay Culkin, who was on top of the world when he led the original Home Alone cast as Kevin McCallister. While his notoriety would slow in subsequent years, it is always a treat to see him show up in ensembles like the American Horror Story Season 10 cast or Kid Cudi’s Entergalactic cast.

Lukas Haas

Lukas Haas was one of the most acclaimed young actors of his time with leading roles in 1985’s Witness, opposite Harrison Ford, and the underrated ghost story, Lady in White, from 1988. He has since made a living taking smaller roles in otherwise big movies like Inception and Babylon, plus he's shown up on TV shows like The Righteous Gemstones and War of the Worlds.

Jurnee Smollett

With an Emmy nomination for HBO’s Lovecraft Country, a scene-stealing role in DC’s Birds of Prey, and a stellar turn in Amazon Prime’s The Burial, Jurnee Smollett has established herself as one of the strongest talents of her time. However, that was already clear with her recurring role in Full House and her astonishing performance in 1997’s acclaimed Black horror movie, Eve’s Bayou, when she was still a child.

Jason Bateman

From his debut role on Little House on the Prairie to his years on the sitcom Valerie (which would become The Hogan Family), Jason Bateman showed great versatility as a performer in his younger years. He has upheld that reputation ever since, as seen by his Emmy-nominated work leading the Arrested Development cast and, later, the Ozark cast. His ability to shift from starring in funny movies like Horrible Bosses to dramas like Air is remarkable.

Dakota Fanning

Racking up more than 20 credits before she turned 10, Dakota Fanning was everywhere in the early 2000s — catching the attention of filmmakers like Steven Spielberg for War of the Worlds and holding her own against actors like Robert DeNiro in Hide and Seek. Save her age, nothing much has changed for the actor, who appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood cast and reunited with her Man on Fire co-star, Denzel Washington, in 2023’s The Equalizer 3.

Ryan Gosling

A 13-year-old Ryan Gosling entered show business as a Mouseketeer, paving the way for him to star in back-to-back scary anthology TV shows for kids (Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps), lead Young Hercules, and more. Leading 2004’s The Notebook cast paved the way for him to be an action hero in Drive and Blade Runner 2049. On top of all that, he also earned Oscar nominations for Half Nelson and La La Land, and made us laugh as part of the The Nice Guys ensemble and the Barbie cast as Ken.

Brie Larson

After some faux ads on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show marked her debut at 9, Brie Larson went on to star in a family sitcom with the late Bob Saget (Raising Dad), was in a YA novel adaptation (Hoot), and she even had a singing career in her teens. Now, she is a comic book movie star (for appearing in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and playing the MCU’s Captain Marvel), and she has an Oscar for Room from 2015.

Kenan Thompson

On All That — Nickelodeon’s answer to Saturday Night Live — one of the young cast’s most prominent breakouts was Kenan Thompson, who went on to co-lead his own kid-friendly sitcom with Kel Mitchell, aptly named Kenan & Kel. The Emmy winner went on to break the record for longest-running SNL actor and lead his own adult sitcom, Kenan.

David Krumholtz

After making his debut playing a child actor in 1993’s Life with Mikey, David Krumholtz became a prominent child actor with roles in Addams Family Values as Wednesday’s love interest and Tim Allen’s head elf, Bernard, in The Santa Clause. The crime procedural, Numb3rs, earned him greater recognition, leading to a career that includes lending his voice to Sausage Party, appearing in the Oppenheimer cast, and reprising Bernard on Disney+’s series, The Santa Clauses.

Neil Patrick Harris

Playing a kid genius on Doogie Howser M.D. made Neil Patrick Harris a household name, which he acknowledged when he later played himself in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Of course, the five-time Emmy winner is better known today as Barney Stinson from the How I Met Your Mother cast, Count Olaf on Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and so much more.

Josh Brolin

At 17, first-time actor Josh Brolin immediately made his mark on pop culture as part of the Goonies cast in the role of Brand Walsh. However, he really got heads turning at 39 when he starred in one of the best movies of the 2000s, No Country for Old Men. The son of Hollywood veteran James Brolin has an Oscar nomination for Milk and multiple comic book movie roles under his belt (Jonah Hex, MCU’s Thanos, and Cable in Deadpool 2), among other great achievements. 

Haley Joel Osment

After debuting in Forrest Gump and starring on The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Haley Joel Osment’s Oscar-nominated performance in, arguably, the best M. Night Shyamalan movie, 1999’s The Sixth Sense, made him a sensation. He went on to earn leading parts in Pay It Forward and Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. More recently, Osment has been known to pop up in the most unexpected places — Kevin Smith’s Tusk, a guest role on The Boys, Netflix's animated fantasy series Dogs in Space, to name a few — but always with grand results.

Ethan Hawke

After debuting in Joe Dante’s Explorers at 15, Ethan Hawke only grew in prominence in his later teens and throughout his 20s by starring in Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites, etc. He went on to earn Academy Award nominations for Training Day and Boyhood. He completed Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy with 2013’s Before Midnight, became a Scream King with great horror movies like Sinister, and he's done a fair amount of work behind the scenes, too.

Abigail Breslin

Just four years after M. Night Shyamalan gave 6-year-old Abigail Breslin her big break with Signs, her role in the Little Miss Sunshine cast made her one of the youngest Oscar nominees of all time. As she matured, so would her roles — such as a teenage murder suspect in Stillwater or a vigilante in the Accused cast for Fox.

Mayim Bialik

Mayim Bialik stole the show from the Big Bang Theory cast as Amy Farrah Fowler and later led Fox’s Call Me Kat in the title role. However, the Jeopardy! host’s status as sitcom royalty dates back to the ‘90s as the star of Blossom.

Brenda Song

Perhaps Brenda Song’s most iconic character is London Tipton from the Suite Life franchise — which is just one of the roles that made her a prominent Disney Channel star. Beyond the children’s cable giant, she was in one of the best David Fincher movies, The Social Network, led Netflix’s Secret Obsession, and had a main role in Hulu’s Dollface.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Despite being removed for disruptive behavior when making his show business debut on Romper Room at 3 years old (as he revealed to David Letterman), Leonardo DiCaprio went on to lead a winning child actor’s career that included a season on Growing Pains and an Academy Award nomination for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? Things would only get better as he grew up, earning even more Oscar nominations — and one win for The Revenant — and becoming as important to Martin Scorsese’s filmography as his This Boy’s Life co-star, Robert DeNiro, whom he reunited with in 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Tyler James Williams

Tyler James Williams started out appearing on Sesame Street before landing the title role of Chris Rock’s autobiographical sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris. Following an acclaimed indie comedy (Dear White People) and a recurring role on the Walking Dead cast, the actor became sitcom royalty again when he joined the Abbott Elementary cast, which earned him multiple Emmy nods.

Kurt Russell

Former Disney star Kurt Russell made his feature debut in 1963’s It Happened at the World’s Fair alongside Elvis Presley, and he went on to play him in a made-for-TV biopic and Forrest Gump. Several great movie roles later, Russell is one of the top action heroes of all time, and now he's working with his family by joining the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters cast alongside his son, Wyatt, who is playing his younger self.

Jodie Foster

After getting her start on TV at a very young age (the first gig being The Doris Day Show), Jodie Foster got a head start on the more mature roles she would become known for when she appeared in Taxi Driver at 14. The two-time Academy Award winner (for The Accused and Best Picture Oscar winner The Silence of the Lambs) would continue to work from both in front of and behind the camera.

Johnny Galecki

In 1989, 14-year-old Johnny Galecki appeared as Rusty in the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation cast, and he also starred in another holiday classic, Prancer. I would not be surprised if many did not realize that Leonard from The Big Bang Theory was the same actor, but they were likely more hip to that fact by the time he reprised his role from Roseanne, David Healy, on The Conners.

Miranda Cosgrove

Even with Jack Black in the lead, Miranda Cosgrove stole the show in 2003’s School of Rock, and she went on to do the same thing as the evil Megan in the Nickelodeon sitcom, Drake & Josh. One of her most notable credits as an adult was a Paramount+ exclusive revival of iCarly — another Nickelodeon show she led as a teen.

Keke Palmer

Her bombastic debut role in Barbershop 2: Back in Business made it clear that then-9-year-old Keke Palmer was a powerhouse talent. The Emmy winner would continue to demonstrate her skill as the lead of Akeelah and the Bee and much later in life as part of Jordan Peele’s Nope cast.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar

While Zach Morris from the Saved by the Bell cast is still the role he is best known for — he even reprised it in a Peacock exclusive revival — Mark-Paul Gosselaar managed to prove his versatility in later years. He had a successful stint as a detective on NYPD Blue, played a rebellious lawyer on Franklin & Bash, and an abusive captor in NBC’s Found.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Before starring on the great ‘90s TV show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Joseph Gordon-Levitt made multiple TV appearances and starred in classic movies like Angels in the Outfield and A River Runs Through It. These days, he is best known for his many collaborations with Rian Johnson, his Golden Globe-nominated turns in (500) Days of Summer and 50/50, and running the creative collaboration platform HitRecord.

Sean Astin

Before playing the title role of Rudy and starring in the Lord of the Rings movies as Sam, Sean Astin was best known as Mikey in The Goonies. In addition to his accomplished voice acting career, one of his most celebrated roles as of late is Bob Newby from the Season 2 cast of Stranger Things — a show very much inspired by The Goonies.

Kirsten Dunst

After making her film debut in star-studded The Bonfire of the Vanities, Kirsten Dunst really made an impression at 12 playing a 70-year-old bloodsucker in Interview with the Vampire. Starring in the Spider-Man movies as Mary Jane Watson swung her right into the A-list and, in 2022, she received an Academy Award nomination for The Power of the Dog.

Kieran Culkin

With his roles in the Home Alone movies and in Steve Martin movies (both parts of Father of the Bride), it seemed like Kieran Culkin was on his way to the same level of stardom as his brother, Macaulay. However, it was not until later in life when he was thrice Emmy-nominated for starring in HBO’s Succession cast that he became the star he was destined to be.

Selena Gomez

Before leading Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place made Selena Gomez a star, she got her start on Barney in the early 2000s. She now has two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her performance on Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building cast and a Daytime Emmy nod for her Max original cooking show, Selena + Chef.

Elle Fanning

Before breaking out in the Super 8 cast, Elle Fanning’s claim to fame for a while was starring as a younger version of sister, Dakota, in I Am Sam and Taken. Now, she has an Emmy nomination for leading Hulu’s The Great, which is just one of the many Victorian-era roles she has played in more recent years.

Christina Ricci

For years, Christina Ricci’s performance in Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family movies was the definitive iteration of young Wednesday Addams. The Yellowjackets cast member got to revisit those days with her supporting role on Netflix’s Wednesday cast, opposite Jenna Ortega in the lead this time.

Danica McKellar

Some of the most memorably endearing moments from the original Wonder Years involved Danica McKellar’s Winnie Cooper and her puppy love relationship with Fred Savage as Kevin Arnold. Romance is a big part of the actor’s career these days, primarily appearing in popular Hallmark movies like Christmas She Wrote and Swing into Romance.

Knowing the kind of career they would one day lead, I am sure these celebrities wear their “former child star” identities as a badge of honor.

For quite some time, there have been actors who not only bring movies to life by acting on the big screen but also play a major role in crafting the stories. Over the years, multiple Best Picture winners have been written by talented thespians, who also happen to be accomplished wordsmiths. From stars who've pieced together films that would earn them their first Academy Award nominations to those penning passion projects, here are 32 successful actors who are also hit screenwriters.

Ben Affleck

In early 1998, Ben Affleck became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood after he and Matt Damon won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting. The movie made the longtime friends -- who didn't always work together -- into overnight sensations. Since then, he’s written four additional films: Gone Baby Gone, Live by Night, The Town and The Last Duel, which he co-wrote with Damon.

Matt Damon

As mentioned, Matt Damon took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting in 1998. The movie, of course, also featured his Academy Award-worthy performance as a troubled young genius. Since then, he’s co-written two additional Gus Van Sant-directed scripts – Gerry in 2002, Promised Land in 2012 – as well as the Ridley Scott historical epic, The Last Duel, which he penned with Ben Affleck.

Jordan Peele

After finding success with Key & Peele, Jordan Peele turned to more behind-the-scenes work, serving as both a director and screenwriter. From his 2016 comedy, Keanu to 2022’s Nope and Wendell & Wild, Peele has cemented his legacy as one of the strongest voices in Hollywood. He won an Oscar for his Get Out screenplay in 2018 and produced two of the best horror movies in recent memory: Us and Candyman.

Tina Fey

Tina Fey will forever be remembered as one of the best Saturday Night Live cast members, and that experience allowed her to fine-tune her writing and acting skills. In addition to starring in movies like Baby Mama, Date Night and Muppets Most Wanted, Fey famously wrote the screenplay for Mean Girls, which is one of the best movies of the 2000s.

Sylvester Stallone

A handful of the best action movies of all time were written by none other than Sylvester Stallone, who has flexed his muscles in front of the camera and behind the scenes. All of the Rocky films (as well as Creed II) were written by Stallone, as were the Rambo flicks and pretty much most of his best big-screen ventures.

George Clooney

George Clooney has plenty of notable movies like Ocean’s Eleven, Syriana, Michael Clayton and even the over-the-top Batman & Robin. But the Academy Award-winning actor has also penned quite a few screenplays over the years, including the ones for Good Night, and Good Luck, The Ides of March, Leatherheads, The Monuments Men and Suburbicon.

Kristen Wiig

Two of the funniest movies of the past decade-and-a-half – Bridesmaids and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar – not only featured the Saturday Night Live legend Kristen Wiig's on-screen talents, they were also co-written by the actress. And penning those screenplays alongside her was co-star Annie Mumolo.

Tyler Perry

In addition to being a committed philanthropist and all-around great guy, Tyler Perry is also an incredibly successful actor, movie producer, and screenwriter. Throughout his career, Perry has written multiple entries in the Madea film franchise as well as other films like A Jazzman’s Blues, Acrimony, and Why Did I Get Married?, to name a few.

Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig has become famous for her Barbie screenplay (which was co-written by Noah Baumbach), but that's only one of the great scripts written by the talented actress. In addition to starring in several dozen movies over the years, Gerwig also penned modern gems like Frances Ha, Lady Bird, Mistress America and Little Women.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge

In addition to being a talented actress with multiple scene-stealing performances in movies like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Solo: A Star Wars Story, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a talented writer. She created and penned the shows Fleabag and Killing Eve and received a partial writing credit for her contributions on No Time to Die.

Justin Theroux

Throughout his career, Justin Theroux has starred in movies like Mulholland Drive, Miami Vice and American Psycho. However, he also has some impressive screenwriting credits to his name. With work on Iron Man 2, Tropic Thunder, Rock of Ages and Zoolander 2, he has quite the body of work.

Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson is an actress with a great filmography, through which she's worked both in front of and behind the camera. In fact, Thompson has Academy Awards for  Best Actress (for Howards End) and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Sense and Sensibility). She’s also penned movies like Bridget Jones’s Baby, Last Christmas and the Nanny McPhee films.

Billy Bob Thornton 

Billy Bob Thornton is another actor who has won an Academy Award for writing, having scored a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for his work on Sling Blade, which he also starred in and directed. Over the years, some of Thornton's best movies -- like One False Move, A Family Thing, The Gift and Daddy and Them were also written by the actor himself.

Emerald Fennell 

After finding success with acting roles in movies like Albert Nobbs, Anna Karenina and The Danish Girl, as well as shows like Call the Midwife and The Crown, Emerald Fennell turned her attention to writing and directing. Her feature film debut, Promising Young Woman, earned her a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. She also crafted the script for the drama film Saltburn.

Tom Hanks 

Tom Hanks is another Oscar winner with a number of screenwriting credits to his name. In addition to leading some of the best movies of all time, Hanks has also penned the screenplays for That Thing You Do, Larry Crowne and the 2020 World War II thriller Greyhound.

Kumail Nanjiani 

Kumail Nanjiani has starred in all kinds of movies over the years, with Eternals, Stuber and The Lovebirds being just a few of them. But Nanjiani also wrote the screenplay for The Big Sick, the 2018 romantic comedy inspired by the battles he and wife Emily V. Gordon faced early in their relationship.

Paul Rudd 

Paul Rudd not only starred in one of the best Marvel movies such as Ant-Man, he was also one the writers given credit for its screenplay (alongside Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, and Adam McKay). But that wasn’t his first or last script, as Rudd contributed to Role Models and Ant-Man and the Wasp.

Ethan Hawke 

Throughout his career, Ethan Hawke has starred in movies like Reality Bites, Boyhood, First Reformed and The Black Phone, among many others. However, the actor has also written his fair share of screenplays as well, with everything from the second and third installments in the Before film franchise to the gripping biopic Blaze featuring his handiwork. 

 Angelina Jolie 

Over the years, Angelina Jolie has become an instantly recognizable face and name thanks to a number of wonderful performances. The actress has also a few screenwriting credits, including In the Land of Blood and Honey, First They Killed My Father and By the Sea.

Kenneth Branagh 

To some Kenneth Branagh is arguably better known as a screenwriter than actor. That's because he won Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the semi autobiographical coming-of-age drama Belfast and received a nomination for his adaptation of Hamlet back in 1995. The Christopher Nolan collaborator has also written other films like Much Ado About Nothing, In the Bleak Midwinter, Listening and The Magic Flute.

Steve Coogan 

Steve Coogan is famous for his performances in the Night at the Museum movies, Tropic Thunder, 24 Hour Party People, and The Trip, but he’s also a talented writer. Over the years, Coogan has written movies like Philomena, The Lost King, The Parole Officer and Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.

Sarah Polley 

After making a name for herself as an actress with roles in movies like Go, The Weight of Water and the underrated Dawn of the Dead remake, Sarah Polley turned her jumped into the writer/director seat. One of her most well-known scripts is probably 2022's Women Talking, which earned her an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Seth Rogen 

Seth Rogen has written some of the comedies that defined the 2000s, such as Pineapple Express and Superbad, as well as more recent hits like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. This is on top of appearing in all three of those movies, as well as other classics like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which totally deserved its R rating.

Taylor Sheridan 

Taylor Sheridan is mostly known for crafting Sicario, Wind River, Hell or High Water and other riveting dramas. But the Yellowstone co-creator also had a decent acting career before making the big shift over the past decade. He appeared on shows like Sons of Anarchy and Veronica Mars.

Lake Bell 

In addition to appearing in movies like No Escape, No Strings Attached, It’s Complicated and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Lake Bell has also written and directed a few projects throughout her career. There are the shorts Worst Enemy and El Tonto, which she followed up with feature-length films, In a World… and I Do… Until I Don’t.

Owen Wilson 

When talking about Wes Anderson's collaborators, few names come to mind as quickly as Owen Wilson, who has appeared in a number of the director’s films throughout his career. But on top of appearing in seven of Anderson’s movies, Wilson also helped write three of them: Bottlerocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Jason Segel 

When it comes to the movie sphere, Jason Segel is probably best known for his portrayal of Peter Bretter in the 2008 comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but some might not know he also wrote it. After that, Segel penned three additional feature films: The Muppets, The Five-Year Engagement and Sex Tape.

Ricky Gervais

On top of creating and starring on TV shows like the original version of The Office, Episodes and Extras, Ricky Gervais has also written some popular movies throughout his career. The British actor and comedian has crafted The Invention of Lying, Special Correspondents, Cemetery Junction and David Brent: Life on the Road.

Woody Allen 

Throughout his career, which goes back the mid 1950s, Woody Allen has written, directed, and starred in dozens of movies, many of which are incredibly well-received. Over the years, Allen has won four Academy Awards, three of which were for Best Original Screenplay – Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Midnight in Paris – on top of all kinds of other accolades. However, Allen has only appeared in four of his own movies the past 20 years.

John Cusack 

Not only did he star in some of the most iconic comedies of the 1980s, some all-time great ‘90s movies, and experience a great deal of success, John Cusack has written a handful of films throughout his career. This short list also happens to include some of his Cusack's best movies like High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank. His other writing credits include War, Inc. and We Are Not Animals.

Rashida Jones 

Rashida Jones is perhaps best known for her roles on NBC comedy hits The Office and Parks and Recreation, but the actress has also written a few screenplays throughout her career. This includes Celeste and Jesse Forever, the 2018 documentary, Quincy, which is about her dad -- music legend Quicy Jones. She also has a story credit for Toy Story 4 and wrote “Nosedive,” one of the best Black Mirror episodes.

Tom McCarthy 

Tom McCarthy is best known for writing and directing Spotlight, the riveting journalism movie that won Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 88th Academy Awards. But while he was in the process of becoming an award-winning filmmaker, McCarthy put together a decent acting resume that included a memorable turn on The Wire (during the final season), Meet the Parents, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana and Michael Clayton.

Each of these nearly three-dozen actors has quite the resume, both in terms of on-screen performances and written work, making them more than deserving of any and all praise.

Father/daughter duo Ethan and Maya Hawke prove that talent can certainly be genetic. But as the Nepo Baby debate has been going on for months, social media users are questioning whether the children of famous actors have made their name in the business due to their parents’ names. As the Hawkes weigh in on the Nepo Baby debate, Ethan Hawke proudly announces, “I’m a Nepo Dad!”

Ethan Hawke’s latest project will be directing his daughter in the biopic Wildcat where she’ll play the lead role of American writer Flannery O’Connor who went through struggles to get her first novel published. While it can be easy to say father/daughter actors working together only adds fuel to the Nepo Baby debate, the situation you could say is the reverse for Wildcat. Per an interview with Variety, the movie was actually Maya Hawke’s idea with her father declaring what his new role is.

The way the Boyhood actor says it, it would almost sound like a superhero name. Ethan Hawke knew ever since Maya Hawke was a preteen that the entertainment industry would be the path for her. In 2009, Hawke was being directed by Sam Mendes in the stage production of The Winter’s Tale and had to bring a then-12-year-old Maya to tech rehearsals since she didn’t have a babysitter. While he originally planned on sending his daughter home in a taxi to avoid having to watch rehearsals for the second time, she was the one who requested to stay. You could almost say Hawke was entranced by watching her father's work.

The internet has been very harsh towards the range of young actors taking in the shoes of their famous parents. It first started when Johnny Depp’s daughter Lily-Rose got slammed by an Italian model who called her a Nepo Baby. From then on, more celebrities of famous parents were accused of their start as pure nepotism like Jamie Lee Curtis, Kate Hudson, Allison Williams, and more. While filming Wildcat, Maya Hawke admitted to Variety the Nepo Baby debate crossed her mind when working with her dad.

It’s true that you need to go with your own intuition and not worry so much about what the internet will say about a certain collaboration. Maya Hawke has every right to want to work with her father if she wants to. As the Dead Poets Society actor started in the business at 14, he made sure to educate the Stranger Things actress about the dangers of fame before she ventured into the business, making him a great teacher as she said. You can tell Hawke is a very proud dad. He’s shown pride in his daughter’s work in Stranger Things where she gained worldwide recognition. The former child star felt the Netflix series must have been meant to be for Maya as the first season took place in 1983 which was the year he made his acting debut in Explorers. Coincidence or was it “aligned in the stars” like the “Nepo Dad” said?

In the end, the internet will say whatever they want about actors working with their kids. But like Ethan Hawke pointed out, people are free to think what they want and he’s free to team up with his daughter. Check out Maya Hawke's best movies and TV shows to date. 

Ethan and Maya Hawke seem to take a lot of pride in the work they’ve done together on Wildcats. So, it would be a waste of time for social media users to describe their teamwork as an act of nepotism instead of a sweet collaboration. Be sure to keep up with our 2023 movie releases so you’re aware of when Wildcats will be released. 

While it’s more common for parents to embarrass their kids, whether they be actual children, teenagers, or adults, there are moments when a parent does something that is seemingly cool to their kids. Nearly everyone has been there at some point. Maybe your parent told a joke that gets all your friends to laugh, maybe they actually quoted a meme correctly, or maybe they shamelessly flirted with Rihanna at a basketball game. Well, okay, maybe the last one isn’t that common. But it is true for Maya Hawke, the talented actress/singer of Academy Award Nominee parents Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. 

In a shared video from Variety, the father-daughter acting duo joke about the time Ethan was caught “openly flirting” with Rihanna at a basketball game while sitting courtside. The younger Hawke quickly corrects her father, saying he was caught “openly trying” to flirt with Rihanna — leading us to assume that his flirtations were unsuccessful. Like any great father, Ethan accepts his daughter’s correction, laughing and joking that about the moment. He goes on to say:

Maya doesn’t let her father beat himself up over it, though, immediately swooping in to shake off any embarrassment the incident may have caused him. Instead, she reassures him that the moment isn’t shameful, saying instead: 

It’s a heartwarming and hilarious moment between the father-daughter duo that has many people on X (formally known as Twitter) reliving and laughing about the iconic moment. And while the story is hilarious, it’s actually even funnier when one remembers that Hawke was at the game with his then-13-year-old son (and Maya’s brother). Pictures shared on Ethan’s Instagram show that his son was originally sitting next to Rihanna, the two clearly swapped seats during the game so Ethan could, in Maya’s words, “openly try to” flirt with the Grammy winning artist.

Ethan may not have won Dad of the Year in 2015 for the hilarious incident, but he’s certainly in the running this year. The award-winning actor has just finished directing his daughter in their new film Wildcat , a movie that Maya brought to her father’s production company because she felt he was the best fit to help her bring the story to life. The indie movie, which has signed a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement allowing the two to do press, is a biopic about American novelist Flannery O’Connor and her struggles to get her first novel published. 

Maya stars in the movie as O’Connor, while her father directed and co-wrote the script with Shelby Gaines. Not only is she the film’s main character, but the younger Hawke also plays six other characters, all of whom appear in O’Connor’s short stories.

Wildcat premiered on September 1st at the Telluride Film Festival and is scheduled to screen at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival later this month. Unfortunately, for those of us who aren’t attending the film festival, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to watch the biopic. Wildcat currently doesn’t have a public release date, but keep an eye out on the 2023 Movie Release Schedule for any updates. In the meantime, check out Maya Hawke's best movies and TV shows.

George Clooney as Ferris Bueller? Eddie Murphy in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Sammy Davis, Jr as… Beetlejuice? These are just a few actors who almost starred in classic ‘80s movies and could’ve changed film history. They aren’t the only ones either. Here is our list of 20 actors who almost starred in classic ‘80s movies.

Tom Selleck (The Raiders Of The Lost Ark)

In one of the more infamous casting decisions of all time, Tom Selleck was offered the part of one of the most iconic characters in film history, Indiana Jones in Raiders Of The Lost Ark. It’s often falsely reported that Selleck turned the offer down, but as he explained to Rachel Ray, he didn’t say no to director Steven Spielberg, CBS did. The network decided to pick up the pilot he shot for Magnum PI and they wouldn’t let him take the time to shoot Raiders. Harrison Ford is very grateful for it.

George Clooney (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)

Yep, that’s right, everyone’s favorite truant, Ferris Bueller, was almost played by George Clooney, instead of Matthew Broderick, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. According to casting director Janet Hirshenson, she had Clooney read for the part but thought he was too mature for the role and would’ve been "the college student version of Ferris Bueller."

Ethan Hawke (Stand By Me)

River Phoenix had his breakout role as Chris Chambers in Stand By Me, but director Rob Reiner also thought another up-and-coming actor at the time would have been great for the part. In an interview with The Guardian, Ethan Hawke explained that Reiner told him, "You’re really good, but I just gave the part to another kid with a bird name." 

Nicolas Cage (Fast Times At Ridgemont High)

Nicolas Cage did make his big screen debut in a small part in one of the best high school movies of all time, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, but he almost had a much more significant role. According to Judge Reinhold, who played the lead, Brad Hamilton, the producers were going to cast Cage (then known by his given name, Nic Coppola) in the Brad role. The part ended up going to Reinhold because Cage was under 18 at the time and that would’ve required working fewer hours due to child labor laws.

Yaphet Kotto (Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back)

In one of the coolest and most interesting “what could have been” moments, the now legendary role of Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back wouldn’t have been played by Billy Dee Williams. Alien star Yaphet Kotto was the first person offered the part of the former smuggler-turned-Empire bureaucrat, as Kotto was asked by Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner to star as the character. According to the actor, he turned it down because after having just starred in Alien, he was worried about staying "up there," saying,  

You can't blame a guy for worrying about being type-cast, but missing out on Star Wars must have stung! 

Eric Stoltz (Back To The Future)

In another of the more famous “almost-was” casting decisions, it was almost Eric Stoltz, not Michael J. Fox, as Marty McFly in Back To The Future. For six weeks, they filmed Stoltz in the lead role before deciding he wasn’t right for the humor. They went back to their first choice, Fox, who found a way to cram the film into his busy schedule shooting Family Ties, and the rest is history. 

Dustin Hoffman (Dead Poet’s Society)

Of all the roles on this list, the one that would’ve dramatically changed its film most (pun intended) is Dustin Hoffman as John Keating in Dead Poets Society. Hoffman was cast in the part early on and according to writer Tom Schulman, the movie would’ve been very different. In the original script, Keating was dying of leukemia, something Hoffman was ready to embrace in the character, per Schulman:

A dying John Keating played by a dour Hoffman sounds intriguing, but the tone Robin Williams struck makes for much better movie. 

Dustin Hoffman (Blade Runner)

Speaking of another movie that would have been quite different if it had starred Dustin Hoffman, the Rain Man actor was director Ridley Scott’s first choice to play Deckard in Blade Runner. According to the Mirror and production executive Katy Haber, the producers weren’t thrilled with Hoffman, and for the second time in his career, Harrison Ford caught a break and was cast in a film that would become a franchise. 

Matthew Modine (Top Gun)

It’s impossible to image anyone other than Tom Cruise in the role of Maverick in Top Gun, or its sequel Top Gun: Maverick, but it almost happened. The part was originally offered to Matthew Modine, but the Stranger Things star turned down the film because of his personal politics, telling Salon, 

You have to admire Modine for sticking to his personal morals, even if the role he turned down made Tom Cruise one of the biggest stars of all time, to the point where the 2022 sequel hit some major milestones at the box office. 

Mickey Rourke (Beverly Hills Cop)

Well, this one is just bizarre. Before Beverly Hill Cop helped establish Eddie Murphy as one the most bankable stars of the 1980s, it was a very different movie. So different, in fact, that the actor originally attached to play the Axel Foley character was Micky Rourke. The idea was for it to be an action flick, not a comedy, and, as producer Jerry Bruckheimer explained, they contracted Rourke to star for a whopping $400,000. Eventually, Bruckheimer changed his mind and we’re all grateful for it. 

Eddie Murphy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

Eddie Murphy isn’t immune from making the wrong call, either. While visiting with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Murphy talked about how he was offered the role of Jimmy Valient in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. According to the Shrek star,

At least it sounds like Murphy is pretty good at not turning down hits on a regular basis!

John Belushi (Ghostbusters)

Sadly, this isn’t a case of an actor or a producer making the wrong (or correct) call by casting someone else in a role, this happened because the actor tragically died. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd were close friends and often castmates. As such, when Aykroyd wrote Ghostbusters, he wrote the role of Peter Venkman with Belushi in mind. Luckily for us, Bill Murray stepped into the part and the film still became a classic. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger (RoboCop)

The part of the titular RoboCop is a little different than most others. This time, a big star was very interested in the role but lost out. According to The Movies That Made Us on Netflix, Fubar cast member Arnold Schwarzenegger was very keen to play the role and was riding a wave of success. It all makes sense, right? Well, no, and somewhat ironically, it was Schwarzenegger’s legendary physique that might have lost him the job. While his bulging biceps helped make him a star, the producers of RoboCop were worried he wouldn’t fit into the suit, so the gig went to Peter Weller. 

Kris Kristofferson (The Shining)

This one is almost too hard to even contemplate. There is no one that could be Jack Torrance in The Shining other than Jack Nicholson, right? Well, it almost didn’t happen that way. While Nicholson was director Stanley Kubrick’s first choice to play the writer-gone-psycho Jack Torrance, there was a backup plan in case a deal couldn’t be made for the star. Kris Kristofferson was that plan, according to Kubrick historian Lee Unkrich. 

Billy Zane (Dirty Dancing)

There has rarely been on-screen chemistry like that between Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing. Would you believe it almost never happened? According to writer Eleanor Bergstein in The Movies That Made Us, it was almost Billy Zane in the legendary role of Johnny Castle. Unfortunately for Zane, but fortunately for the rest of us, Bergstein said he danced, "like someone who looked like he had learned to dance beautifully for his bar mitzvah."

Frank Sinatra (Die Hard)

In what must have been the most ridiculous casting pitch of all time, the producers of Die Hard were contractually obligated to offer the role of John McLean to Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra. You see, Die Hard was adapted from a book called Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. That book was a sequel to his 1966 novel The Detective, and that was adapted in 1968 into a movie of the same name starring Sinatra. Because of all this, the legendary singer/actor had the first right of refusal to play the role in future films. Of course, a 70-year-old Sinatra turned down the role and fans rejoice every Christmas when we get to watch Bruce Willis as McLean taking out the terrorists. 

What If…

Finally, a few “what ifs” that were never particularly close to being cast, but directors were interested in filling some iconic roles with some really out-there choices. Take, for example, Tim Burton’s desire to cast Sammy Davis, Jr. as Beetlejuice, instead of Michael Keaton. It’s got to make you giggle at least a little bit to picture Davis trying to drive the Deetzes out of their home by crooning “The Candyman Can.”

How about instead of Sly Stallone as the grizzled Vietnam vet John Rambo, audiences got 1970s superstar, Burt Reynolds? The Smokey & The Bandit star was one of many big-name actors the producers contacted in hopes of landing them for the role. In an interview with Empire, Stallone once mentioned a few names that the part was offered to, including Reynolds, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, and Al Pacino. Frankly, the movie might have worked with any of them, but we’re lucky it “fell” to Stallone. 

Burton also had an out-of-the-box thought for the Joker in his Batman. Instead of Jack Nicholson owning that role, just imagine, for a second, David Bowie as the Clown Prince of Crime. Ziggy Stardust was the director’s dream pick, but it’s pretty safe to say that “settling” on Nicholson is a win for audiences, like almost every casting call on this list.

Somewhere in an alternate universe, all these parts were played by different actors and you have to wonder how the butterfly effect could have changed the course of careers and, indeed the film industry if these casts were different. We all believe the right choices were made, but were they? We'll never know. 

On the big screen, Ethan Hawke is capable of anything. As the incredible actor he is (see our ranking of his best movies), he can take on any character, but in real life, he is a man with weaknesses, just like the best of us. After Rihanna's iconic Super Bowl LVII performance, the star of The Black Phone (one of the best horror movies in recent years) took to his social media to share a hilarious throwback to a time when he made his son switch seats with him so he could talk to the Grammy winner. While many sounded off in response to the post, one of the best comments came from Gwyneth Paltrow, who chimed in with an A+ response.

On Monday, the Moon Knight alum posted to his Instagram a throwback series of images depicting him and his son seated next to Rihanna as they attended the 2015 NBA All-Star Game at Madison Square Garden. Hawke started the game sitting one seat away from the "Umbrella" singer, but as the photos show, somewhere during the game, the actor made his son switch his seats so he could chit-chat with the singer. He did accompany the post with a message, jokingly asking for his son's forgiveness for stealing his moment. The caption reads. "After Rihanna’s brilliant half time performance, I’m hoping my son can find it in his heart to forgive a Dad for taking his moment." You can see the image of his son originally in that seat below:

While several commenters thought the incident was funny, actress and Hawke's former Great Expectations costar Gwyneth Paltrow took umbrage with the actor, but not for the reason you would think. The Iron Man actress took issue, not with the actor undercutting his son's moment, but with his posture. The actress jokingly wrote:

That's priceless. Paltrow is being funny, obviously, but it was the perfect response to Hawke's throwback pics. We cannot fault the actor for taking his son's seat (or for his slouching) because if you found yourself only separated from Rihanna by one seat and it was your own child who was taking up said chair, what would you do? And I think my posture would be the last thing on my mind if I found myself in that close proximity to the Barbados-born singer. 

Green Room actor Mark Webber seemingly agrees. He pointed out that Hawke was right in shooting his shot. He wrote:

Gerald's Game actress Carla Gugino thought the flashback to Hawke and his son's Rihanna meeting was pretty comical. She responded:

The official account for Old Navy even got in on the action, making a pretty good joke and reference to Rihanna's collab with DJ Khaled. They wrote:

That's a… wild, wild, wild… joke coming from the American clothing and accessory retailer known for reasonable prices. See what I did there?

This minor and comical transgression against his son does not encompass who Ethan Hawke is as a parent. In the past, he has gushed over his kids, especially his daughter Maya and her acting prowess. I think we can cut him a little slack for wanting to seat himself next to the pop star. 

What do you think? Do you believe Hawke was wrong for making his son switch his seats? Or is Gwyneth correct? If he's going to undercut his kid's moment, the least the actor could do is be more concerned with his hunching in front of the superstar singer. 

Rihanna used her Super Bowl performance to announce her pregnancy with a second child with rapper A$AP Rocky, and we want to wish her and her partner all the best while they prepare for another little one. We can only speculate whether or not, in the future, the singer will force her child to give up a seat to sit next to a star she admires. And if that happens, CinemaBlend will be there to report it. 

For more entertainment news, make sure to stay tuned to CinemaBlend. You may also be interested in checking out our schedule of 2023 new movie releases to plan your next trip to the cinema.

Warning: SPOILERS for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery are ahead!

While the first Knives Out movie was unquestionably a star-studded affair, with Daniel Craig being joined by folks like Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collete, Chris Evans and Christopher Plummer, it didn’t have much in the way of major cameos. The closest was Joseph Gordon-Levitt, writer/director Rian Johnson’s frequent collaborator, voicing a TV detective, as well as Frank Oz stopping by as the legal counsel to the late Harlan Thrombey. Here’s a quick spoiler right out the gate: Gordon-Levitt once again lends to his talents to the follow-up movie as the voice of an alarm clock.

But even ignoring that, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a different beast because many of the suspects Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc is investigating this time around are famous and/or wealthy. As such, this crtically-acclaimed standalone sequel sees some of these individuals, as well as Blanc himself, interacting with various celebrities, and there are even a few Hollywood heavyweights who stops by as fictional characters rather than themselves. Now that Glass Onion is available to watch with a Netflix subscription following its short theatrical run at the end of November, now’s the perfect time to go over the movie’s cameos, as well as discuss some notable name-drops.

Jake Tapper

Every now and then, real-life TV journalists will cameo as themselves in major movies, like Pat Kiernan appearing in various MCU projects, Anderson Cooper reporting on Doomsday’s rampage in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Wolf Blitzer even playing a key role in the opening of Mission: Impossible - Fallout (though to be fair, we soon learned this was actually Simon Pegg’s Benji Dunn in disguise). In Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, CNN’s Jake Tapper briefly appears early on interviewing Kathryn Hahn’s Claire Debella, the governor of Connecticut who’s running for the Senate. Claire chats with Tapper from her home in the midst of lockdown, quickly letting audiences know that Glass Onion takes place during the height of the COVID pandemic.

Yo-Yo Ma

Kate Hudson’s Birdie Jay is technically in lockdown at the start of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery; the problem is that she invited a lot of people to party with her at an apartment. It’s hard to imagine at least one person not walking away from that event with COVID, but the silver lining is that cellist Yo-Yo Ma was nearby when Birdie and her assistant, Jessica Henwick's Peg, were solving Miles Bron’s puzzle box over speakerphone with Claire, Leslie Odom Jr’s Miles Toussaint and Dave Bautista’s Duke Cody. Thanks to Ma’s welcome assistance figuring a musical aspect of the box, simply because he was bored, Birdie and the gang move one step closer to discovering what’s at the center of the box.

Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Natasha Lyonne

When we first meet back up with Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, he’s chatting with Stephen Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Natasha Lyonne over Zoom from his bathtub, playing the deduction game Among Us, with this movie marking Sondheim and Lansbury’s final film appearances. Benoit finds the game an inferior substitute to the actual cases he thrives on solving, but hasn’t been getting because of COVID, and the quartet do their best to cheer him up before Benoit is informed there's something at the door for him.

Lest you think Rian Johnson chose these four celebrities at random, think again, as they all have different ties to the mystery genre. Johnson previously referenced Stephen Sondheim in Knives Out when Benoit Blanc was singing “Losing My Mind” from Follies, and the filmmaker also compared Glass Onion’s story to the late composer and lyricist’s production Merrily We Roll Along while speaking with EW. Angela Lansbury, of course, played Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote over 12 seasons of TV and four TV movies. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has contributed to the world of Sherlock Holmes by co-writing the books Mycroft Holmes, Mycroft and Sherlock and Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage with Anna Waterhouse. As for Natasha Lyonne, she’s starring in Johnson’s upcoming series Poker Face, which Peacock subscribers will be able to watch.

Ethan Hawke

Although Ethan Hawke was never officially announced as being part of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’s cast, we learned of his involvement through leaked set photos. As it turned out, Hawke didn’t have a ton to do in the movie. He simply appeared as Miles Bron’s assistant (credited as “Efficient Man”), who oversaw the billionaire’s guests being given a spray that prevented them from contracting COVID before being taken to the island. In the aforementioned EW interview, Rian Johnson shared that Hawke wasn’t originally supposed to appear in Glass Onion, but because he was in Budapest doing Moon Knight when the movie was shooting in Greece, he was able to visit for a day to shoot his cameo.

Hugh Grant

Ahead of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’s release, it was confirmed that Benoit Blanc is queer, although Rian Johnson didn’t want to get too bogged with the character’s backstory, and Daniel Craig didn’t want to make a big deal about Benoit’s sexuality. Nevertheless, at roughly the halfway point of Glass Onion, we meet the detective's domestic partner Phillip, played by rom-com heartthrob Hugh Grant. We see that it was Phillip who informed Benoit earlier in the movie about the arrival at the front door: Helen Brand, who's come to hire Benoit to investigate her twin sister Andi's death. Whether or not Phillip will return in Knives Out 3 remains to be seen.

Serena Williams

There’s a moment in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery when Benoit Blanc and Janelle Monáe's Helen Brand meet up in Miles Bron’s gym to discuss the case, and on the wall is what looks like a prerecorded home workout video on a fitness mirror featuring tennis superstar Serena Williams. But in the middle of Benoit and Helen’s conversation, Williams suddenly asks them if they want to do a "session" since she's on the clock, letting the audience know that Miles hired her as his personal trainer. The two characters decline, and Williams simply comments that it’s their money and hangs out silently for the rest of the scene. Williams has previously cameoed as herself in movies like Pixels and Ocean's 8.

Jared Leto

For these last two entries, we have people who didn’t actually appear in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but are heavily featured indirectly. First up is Requiem for a Dream and Morbius actor Jared Leto, who in the Knives Out universe has his own brand of alcoholic kombucha. The beverage is notable because while Helen Brand doesn’t usually drink, she wasn’t aware the kombucha she was drinking had alcohol in it. Fortunately, this particular hard stuff gives her some liquid courage to say and do some things she wouldn’t have done if she was sober.

Jeremy Renner

Then we have Hawkeye and Mayor of Kingstown’s Jeremy Renner, who has his own brand of hot sauce in the Knives Out universe. This particular item actually plays a big role during Glass Onion’s third act. While it initially looks like Helen Brand has been fatally shot right outside Miles Bron’s home (who pulled the trigger is one spoiler I won’t reveal here just to be safe), we later learn that the diary of Helen’s late sister And blocked the bullet. After Benoit learns Helen is still alive, he realizes the value in faking her death for a little bit in order to glean more information from the other suspects. As such, Benoit uses some of Jeremy Renner’s hot sauce as fake blood to sell the picture of Helen looking dead from afar. There’s a brief moment where it looks like the ruse will be ruined when a droplet of the hot sauce starts leaking towards Helen’s nose, but she holds in any sort of reaction like a champ until everyone has left the area.

Now that we’ve gone over Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’s cameos and especially notable name-drops, be sure to read our review of the Knives Out sequel and breakdown of its ending. Per the deal Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman agreed to with Netflix, Knives Out 3 is also on its way to Netflix, and once concrete details about the threequel come in, we’ll pass them along.

As we all know, one of Ewan McGregor's best performances is playing the young poet Christian in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!. But did you know that Ethan Hawke could have been the one to show off his singing chops and star opposite Nicole Kidman? The Boyhood actor recalls the time he “crushed” his Moulin Rouge! audition before he lost out to Ewan McGregor.

Released in 2001, Moulin Rouge! is the star-crossed love story between a young English poet and a cabaret actress. To think that Ethan Hawke could have been part of the Moulin Rouge! cast singing “Come What May.” In an interview with ScreenRant, Hawke spoke about how he believed the audition for Moulin Rouge! was “one of the greatest screen tests of [his] life.” He explained:

cBoy, would I like to see that audition! The closest I’ve seen Ethan Hawke sing was in his Oscar-nominated performance in Boyhood as the aspiring musician father of the film’s young lead. Hawke actually wasn’t the only actor to lose out to the role of Christian. A little behind-the-scenes fact about Moulin Rouge! is that both Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger came close to landing the role. While Luhrmann praised the singing of both actors, they were both in their early 20s, which would have been too much of an age difference for the then-33-year-old. This creative director was going more for a Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman feel.

While it may have come off as disappointing for the Dead Poets Society actor not to nail the musical role, his career did not suffer. In fact, one of Hawke’s best performances that same year was in Training Day, where he received his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. I’m sure that Moulin Rouge! would have been a completely different movie if this Golden Globe nominee was in it. I just can't imagine him being able to have the same vocal range as McGregor, but then again, I'd need to see that audition footage for myself to know for sure. 

And then fate deals you a different hand when you’re set to work with your Moulin Rouge! competitor. McGregor and Hawke star together in the Apple TV+ movie Raymond and Ray, which is about two half-brothers with a complicated relationship reuniting at their father’s funeral. This comedy-drama had its world release at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and will also be featured in the “World Cinema” section of the 27th Busan International Film Festival. So at least we know how Ethan Hawke could have channeled his character’s frustration just thinking about losing out to his co-star!

It looks like there’s no bad blood between Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor in real life. Both of these actors have had successful careers playing the roles that fate brought them. If you want to see these talented actors share the screen together for the first time, add Raymond and Ray to your watchlist on October 21st.

Although her Instagram bio hilariously claims she’s the daughter of Tony Hawk, Stranger Things star Maya Hawke is actually the product of absolute Hollywood icons Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. The 24-year-old actress has really made a splash since joining the cast of ST as the intriguing Robin in Season 3, and, apparently good ol’ dad is thrilled with where she is as an actress. The terrifying Black Phone star recently opened up about his daughter’s performance, gushing about her work on the show and also shared his own interesting personal connection to the Netflix series.

Parenthood has plenty of ups and downs, and seeing former babies become adults with their own lives and purposes can definitely be a huge up. As far as Ethan Hawke is concerned, seeing his daughter Maya Hawke come into herself and follow in his and his ex-wife Uma Thurman’s footsteps in Hollywood is seeming one of the high points of fatherhood. In an interview with ET, Hawke explained that he has immense admiration for Maya and can only sing her praises when it comes to the person she has become in adulthood. Here it is in his own loving words:

It sounds like Maya Hawke shares a lot of personality traits with her on-screen character, Robin, who with Steve Harrington makes up one of the Stranger Things duos fans just can’t get enough of. Robin, like Hawke apparently, is both serious and funny/playful and just all around awesome, as the show’s Dustin Henderson would say.

In addition to feeling connected to the show through his daughter, Ethan Hawke, in the same interview, explained another interesting, unrelated connection to Stranger Things. It would seem that he’s a bit of an expert when it comes to a key date involving the Upside Down, and that's because said day is important for him. Here’s what he says in regards to his deep connection to the show:

While it’s a pretty off-the-wall coincidence, Ethan Hawke clearly believes in fate. It’s actually super sweet that he feels the show was meant for his daughter, especially since she shines so brightly in the role. 

One other role that Maya Hawke could have practically been born for is Quentin Tarantino’s long-hoped-for Kill Bill 3. While there have been rumors of Hawke involvement alongside her mom, Uma Thurman, it doesn’t look like there's been any true movement on that front.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for a family reunion for one of Tarantino’s final films but, for right now, me and those with Netflix subscriptions will just have to be content with watching her in the recently released fourth season of Stranger Things. (And if you've seen it, ponder some of the major questions we have about Season 5.) We might not be able to enjoy the series with the same level of connection that Ethan Hawke has, but many of us can still definitely relate to the wonderful character that is Maya Hawke's Robin.

You never forget a good sleepover movie. It used to be that you could head over to your local video store, browse the aisles for a while and walk out with two or three movies your parents rented for you and your friends. With that sort of supervision, anything was up for grabs, so long as whomever was watching over you approved. This week, director Scott Derrickson and his co-writer C. Robert Cargill are adding their own contribution to this storied practice, as The Black Phone finally hits premium VOD. 

While the video store is not exactly thriving at the moment, streaming and VOD are just as helpful to such pursuits. Though the cinematic adaptation of Joe Hill’s short story of the same name is rated R, from my subjective viewpoint it’s not a particularly hard one. The Black Phone does tell a story that involves some gore, as well as the disturbing subject matters of murder, physical abuse and child abduction, but it uses those components to tell the story properly. 

This isn’t a Saw-level torture porn shockfest, as Scott Derrickson has crafted a narrative that wades through a no-holds barred story focused on adolescents. Once again, Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill seem to have set out to make a perfect horror film without aiming for that R-rating. It just so happens that, much like they did with their cult horror hit Sinister, they happened to run into that territory according to MPAA guidelines. 

Which is a shame, because outside of that arbitrary rating, The Black Phone seems absolutely fine to show to a teenage audience. However, since Sinister is now streaming for Peacock Premium subscribers, you can always use that movie as a theoretical test drive to see if The Black Phone is right for your kids.

Watching Finney (Mason Thames) communicate with the spirits of The Grabber's (Ethan Hawke) previous victims could also serve as a metaphor for all of the hard times that await young people in any age. The Black Phone may be a supernatural tale, but Joe Hill takes after his father in the source material, as he uses the fantastical to parallel the perils of youth. It’s a prime example of what horror fans know as “gateway horror,” a.k.a. those movies that help easy younger fans into the spooky stuff. 

With villains like Hannibal Lecter and The Joker inspiring Scott Derrickson’s take on The Grabber, The Black Phone is even more of a prime gateway movie that’ll lead to some of the harder stuff, like The Silence of the Lambs. True, this is a bit harder than your typical gateway horror film like Ghostbusters or The Monster Squad. However, in the modern day, a movie like The Black Phone is kind of along those lines of content; especially when franchise like Resident Evil are easily accessible on the nearest video game console or Netflix streaming device. 

One of the greatest anchors that helps The Black Phone play towards a hypothetically younger audience is its inclusion of age-appropriate leads, and rather impressive ones at that. Mason Thames’ Finney runs the gamut of strength, vulnerability and tender friendship, making for a compelling lead to follow. Also, Madeline McGraw’s performance as his on-screen sister, Gwen, is both hysterical and engrossing. Younger audiences will get a kick out of The Black Phone showing actors roughly their age using R-rated language, and to the proper comedic effect.

None of the young cast alienates the audience with behavior that’s too precocious or profanity that’s excessive. If anything, the strongest factor about The Black Phone’s total package is that it’s a grounded, supernatural horror film. Yes, the main conceit is Finney trying to best The Grabber through the advice of the dead, but it’s never overblown or sensationalized. Time and time again, we’ve seen concepts like this told in stories with younger children, and it’s that fine borderline between innocence and skepticism, or wonder and horror, that we allow ourselves to believe such a story can exist. 

I’m afraid to even use this term, but you can think of The Black Phone as an Amblin-adjacent horror movie that you can show your kids. Ethan Hawke actually terrified his young Black Phone co-stars, and the realism of such terror could even scare younger audience members who are jaded by the media they’re already allowed to partake in. 

I’m about to make a very subjective statement, but as far as I’m concerned, The Black Phone is the type of movie I’d have rented with my parents' permission as a teen. For a film that roots itself in horrific crimes and the voices of the dead, it’s actually a pretty cozy watch. The familiarity of this sort of horror tale is comforting because these are the sorts of ghastly stories we all grew up hearing at one point or another.

Don't just take my word for it though. The trailer to The Black Phone sells the horror portion of this experience pretty thoroughly, as you'll see below: 

All The Black Phone does is give the world another fine example of storytelling that identifies with young people. Showing them that they can conquer their fears with confidence and the right advice, it’s a terrifying tale that delivers a powerful message. Seeing as this is the movie that both Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill left Doctor Strange 2 to make, it’s even more fitting that these once-MCU storytellers are still thinking with blockbuster brains that know how to aim for the heart.

The Black Phone is still in theaters, but is also currently available to rent on PVOD. So if you’re inclined to potentially let the tweens or teens in your life watch this movie, you can always watch it first in that 48 hour rental period. Trust me when I say that if you let your kids and their friends watch this one, they might feel like they’re getting away with partaking in a secret, almost forbidden thrill. Which, of course, is one of the reasons we watch horror movies at a young age; as a rite of passage at the movies.

Movie theaters are starting to look a little more normal than they have been in the pandemic era, with larger crowds showing up for exciting upcoming movies. While Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion had pretty easy weekends in their reigns, it’s about to get very competitive at your local multiplex. Case in point: last night saw some impressive showings for a Thursday night, with Blumhouse’s latest The Black Phone nabbing an impressive milestone for this year in horror. 

The Black Phone Is Now The Second Highest Thursday Opening For 2022 Horror

Early receipts are being released through various outlets like Deadline, and the picture is pretty bright for director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill. Adapted from the short story by author Joe Hill, their Universal release is the second highest Thursday night opening in the genre, sitting just slightly behind Scream’s $3.5 million debut earlier this year. The Black Phone's critical reviews are pretty spectacular too, as at the time of this writing the movie has a pretty high consensus of positive reactions.

The team behind Sinister and Doctor Strange are probably celebrating this fact right about now, as The Black Phone is on a promising track for a healthy weekend. It’s a good sign, as comparing the film to other offerings on display at a theater near you, every little bit is about to help. Especially when Maverick is still flying around, with some very promising rumors about another kill shot in his sights.

Elvis And Top Gun: Maverick Are Still In The Game For A Very Competitive Weekend

Also debuting in a big Thursday night showing was Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, which left the building last night with $3.5 million. Austin Butler and Tom Hanks’ polarizing movie has seen a slew of critical reactions running the gamut from unfavorable to absolutely in love. It’s pretty much the expected course for a Luhrmann movie to run, and that sort of energy might protect The King’s story from falling to Top Gun: Maverick’s supposed rise.

Box Office Mojo saw the Tom Cruise legacy-quel reach the top of the daily box office again this week, and estimates seem to thing that Maverick will retake the overall top slot again. It doesn’t hurt that Lightyear’s surprising opening weekend seems to have Disney/Pixar’s spinoff moving out of the way. 

Plus, after hyping up the fans through a social media campaign, IMAX is bringing Top Gun 2 back to the premium format, cutting into Chris Evans’ large format toy story. That sort of result could carry Tom Cruise into that rarified air of '80s blockbusters that could achieve such feats, and hold onto the crown for multiple weeks at a time. 

The first two weekends in July are going to prove even more interesting, as Minions: The Rise of Gru and Thor: Love and Thunder are the only major debuts headed our way, and in that order. Sequel-friendly punctuation and franchise fatigue are all on the board for discussion, and the battlefield is only going to get more intense. 

Though if you’re pulling for The Black Phone in this time of cinematic fisticuffs, here’s something to consider: the estimated budget was $16 million, and its opening weekend is estimated to land between $15 - $20 million. Profitability, as always, seems to be in reach with Blumhouse; though we won’t know for sure, as that budget only covers production costs. 

The Black Phone is currently showing in theaters, if you’re not afraid to indulge in a fun but dark time. If that’s not enough to satisfy your cravings for all things spooky, then the rundown of upcoming horror movies will help you seek out your next cinematic prey.

The horror genre has been experiencing a thrilling renaissance lately, to the joy of fans. Blumhouse is behind some of the biggest original concepts to hit theaters over the past decade, including Scott Derrickson’s Sinister starring Ethan Hawke. Those two have once again collaborated on The Black Phone, with Hawke explaining to CinemaBlend why he liked terrifying his young co-stars so much.

While Ethan Hawke was the hero of Sinister, he’s appearing in The Black Phone as the masked villain known as The Grabber. I had the privilege of speaking with Scott Derrickson and his cast ahead of the movie’s release, where I asked Hawke about what it was like terrorizing his young co-stars throughout filming. As you can see in the video, he explained how it was actually a blessing, saying:

Talk about a breath of fresh air. While Ethan Hawke had to be a terrorizing presence in The Grabber’s cell, it looks like it actually felt more like play than work. And that’s because of how excited and into it his various young co-stars had while filming The Black Phone. Clearly there was some fun had on set, despite the movie’s dark (and sometimes supernatural) material.

The Grabber has various victims throughout the 102-minute runtime of The Black Phone (which truly flies by), but the movie’s main protagonist is Finney played by Mason Thames. He’s kidnapped by Ethan Hawkes’s character, and they share various scenes while he’s in the killer’s cell. I asked Thames about his experience filming those serious scenes with Ethan Hawke, and he told me:

How sweet is that? While the young cast of The Black Phone had plenty of serious material to grapple with, luckily it seems like Ethan Hawke was great to work with. And is Mason Thames’ comments are any indication, the Boyhood actor was a joy to work with. Even when wearing The Grabber’s creepy mask.

Reviews for The Black Phone have been super positive (including my own for CinemaBlend), marking Scott Derrickson’s triumphant return to the horror genre. The movie is currently sitting at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, with Ethan Hawke getting a ton of praise for creating his new horror villain. 

The Black Phone is in theaters June 24th. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.  

“The Black Phone” stars Ethan Hawke (The Grabber), Mason Thames (Finney Shaw), Madeleine McGraw (Gwen Shaw) and director Scott Derrickson sit down with CinemaBlend’s Corey Chichizola to talk about their new supernatural horror film. They discuss The Grabber’s mysterious mask, shooting on Super 8 film, why Ethan Hawke enjoys working with young actors, and much more.

Video Chapters

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:17 - Ethan Hawke on The Grabber’s personality and the power of his mask
• 01:26 - Mason Thames explains his favorite thing about The Grabber’s Mask
• 01:52 - Scott Derrickson shares what The Grabber has in common with iconic villains like The Joker and Hannibal Lecter
• 02:48 - Mason Thames explains how they shot the phone call scenes in the basement
• 03:08 - Scott Derrickson explains his choice to use Super 8 film for the dream sequences
• 04:22 - Madeline McGraw gives insight into how Scott Derrickson helped them feel at ease throughout the production
• 04:52 - Scott Derrickson shares why he loves working with Ethan Hawke
• 05:58 - Ethan Hawke explains why he enjoys working with young actors
• 07:00 - Mason Thames shares his experience working with Ethan Hawke

Horror fans have been anticipating The Black Phone’s arrival to the big screen. The adaptation of the 1994 short story of the same name by Joe Hill reunites Sinister director Scott Derrickson with Ethan Hawke as the leading man. Hawke plays the masked villain The Grabber, who takes young teen Finney (Mason Thame) as his latest victim. Critics have had a chance to screen the Blumhouse horror ahead of its June 24 release, so let’s check out what they have to say.

The titular black phone comes into play as The Grabber locks Finney in a cell that has a disconnected black rotary phone. The story takes a supernatural turn when Finney realizes he can hear the voices of the antagonist's previous victims over the phone and, meanwhile, his sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), uses her psychic visions to try to find her brother. Let’s take a look at what the critics think of the movie, starting with CinemaBlend’s review of The Black Phone. Corey Chichizola rates the horror 4.5 stars out of 5, saying that Scott Derrickson is a horror master, and this film proves it:

Mike Manalo of Nerds of Color would seemingly agree with the above assessment, grading the movie an A-. This review praises everything from the acting — both in the leading and supporting roles — to the score in what is so much more than your typical horror flick. It should be lauded as more of a coming-of-age blockbuster:

For at least one critic, however, the fantastical side of the plot did not add to the horror, but detracted from it. Owen Gleiberman of Variety says the movie feels more like a dark cousin to the comic book world, and he doesn’t find it particularly scary:

Matthew Mahler of MovieWeb agrees that horror fans looking for a straight scare fest might be a little disappointed, but this thriller is a dark and well-executed look at childhood and violence. The critic says director Scott Derrickson makes the story feel personal, which is effective because of how good Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw are in their roles:

Sam Stone of CBR says Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill’s expansion of acclaimed author Joe Hill’s short story is a success. They took a 30-page story and gave the characters a backstory and added to their emotional depth, which was executed well on the back end by The Black Phone’s talented cast.

It sounds like this Joe Hill adaptation should please moviegoers, as long as audiences know they’re in for something deeper than just tried-and-true jump scares. The Black Phone is set to hit theaters on Friday, June 24 and will be available for streaming with a Peacock Premium subscription on Monday, August 8. In the meantime, start planning your next trip to the theater by checking out CinemaBlend's schedule 2022 movie releases to see what’s coming soon.

Over the past few years, the horror genre has experienced a thrilling renaissance. Fans have been delighted to see unique new ideas and franchises hit theaters, many of which come from Blumhouse Productions. The legendary horror house has brought us modern classics like Get Out, Halloween, The Invisible Man and Sinister. The latter project was released back in 2012, directed by Doctor Strange filmmaker Scott Derrickson and starred Ethan Hawke. That pair has once again collaborated on the new horror flick The Black Phone, and they’re a match made in horror heaven.

Based on the 2004 short story of the same name by Joe Hill, The Black Phone is set in 1978 Colorado, which is a time setting that helps keep things especially creepy; it’s always more thrilling when a horror flick can avoid phones. The movie focuses on the Shaw family: siblings Finney and Gwen (played by Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw, respectively), and alcoholic father Mr. Shaw (Jeremy Davies). As the family is in the midst of interpersonal strife, Finney is kidnapped by the masked villain known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). 

Our young protagonist Finney is put in a basement cell by The Grabber, where he attempts to find a way to survive the terrifying figure. While this could play out as a standard survival story, Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill include supernatural elements to their horror story. Because Finney’s cell includes a disconnected rotary phone, with which he can communicate with the voices of The Grabber’s previous victims. What’s more, his sister Gwen has psychic visions and is trying to find and save her brother by herself.

Scott Derrickson Is A Horror Master, And The Black Phone’s Scares Proves It

Filmmaker Scott Derrickson both directed and wrote The Black Phone's screenplay, so his particular director’s vision is at the heart of the new project. While he became a household name thanks to his work on Marvel’s Doctor Strange, his roots have always been in horror. That sensibility helped bring the Marvel movie’s trippy visuals to life, but Derrickson’s return to horror is sure to delight fans of the genre.

Indeed, it seems like Derrickson applied the best parts of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister in order to bring this supernatural period piece to life. Like the latter movie, Derrickson uses Super 8 film while capturing some of the scary moments. While in Sinister it was the gruesome tapes of murder, in The Black Phone, we see each of the Grabber’s abductions through this lens. It’s an unsettling motif that helps to build tension throughout the first act of the movie.

While the horror genre has been criticized for leaning on jump scares, Scott Derrickson doesn’t go this route with his new movie. Indeed, the first one doesn’t happen until about halfway through the movie. Instead Derrickson uses simple, but effective ways to keep the audience terrifying throughout its 102-minute runtime. The calls to the dead and visits from The Grabber certainly help to buoy excitement, as are protagonist Finney’s attempts at escaping and his sister’s psychic vision of The Grabber’s victims. One particular scene shows Mason Thames’ character attempting to unlock a combination lock, which, while simple in its nature, is one of the most gripping moments of The Black Phone. The horror action pivots between supernatural and realistic, which results in the movie’s runtime truly flying by.

Ethan Hawke’s Grabber Is A Truly Captivating Horror Villain

So many great horror movies are known for their villains, including movies by Scott Derrickson. While Sinister introduced the demonic Bughuul, the antagonist of The Black Phone is nothing more than a man; one extremely unsettling man known as The Grabber, played by the great Ethan Hawke. The 51 year-old actor went from horror victim to victimizer, and the transformation is truly captivating.

Part of what makes Ethan Hawke’s Grabber so intriguing is the character’s signature mask, which was designed by Tom Savin. During Finney’s time in his cell, we see various forms of The Grabber’s mask, as it comes apart in pieces. In some scenes Hawke’s eyes are visible, in others just his mouth. This helps to make the Boyhood actor’s already strong performance into a puzzle that audiences get to slowly piece together. 

While playing the bad guy can be a challenge, Ethan Hawke's masked antagonist is a chilling new presence that has the potential to be a truly iconic horror villain. It’s easy to see how much care he took with his performance, and it’s thrilling to see how his mask informs his physical performance as The Grabber. And since we learn he’s a serial killer, there could presumably be plenty of stories for Scott Derrickson and company to mine from if they’re so inspired.

The Black Phone’s Story And Ending Are Both Super Satisfying. 

Aside from needing a captivating villain, the most common mistake to hit horror movies is a bad ending. Plenty of these flicks have simply fizzled out in the third act or introduced a new concept that took away the movie’s tone. Luckily, The Black Phone is super successful in its ending.

As previously mentioned, the supernatural element of The Black Phone comes in the form of the titular phone in Finney’s cell, as well as the psychic vision of his sister Gwen. These two stories really come together in the third act in a way that ties together plenty of moments throughout the movie’s runtime. The ending shows how methodically Scott Derrickson approached this movie’s story and why he’s such a force in the horror genre.

It’s so easy for a horror movie to not totally stick the landing, enough that fans like myself are sometimes willing to accept it after hours of scares. But The Black Phone’s finale shows why the genre is continuing to have such a moment at the box office. Overall, The Black Phone is everything you want in a horror movie: terrifying, thrilling, and delivering an ending you won't forget.

The horror genre has been in a renaissance for years now, and 2022 has already given us a number of strong entries. The next of these is Scott Derrickson’s return to horror The Black Phone, which reunites him with Sinister star Ethan Hawke. This time around Hawke is playing the antagonist known as The Grabber, with Derrickson recently name-dropping Hannibal Lector and The Joker when explaining how to create a good horror villain. 

As you can see in the video above, I had the privilege of speaking with Scott Derrickson, Ethan Hawke, and the young stars of the upcoming horror movie The Black Phone. As a fan of his work on both Sinister’s villainous Bughuul and The Black Phone’s Grabber, I asked the filmmaker the key to creating a horror villain that can carry an entire movie. Derrickson shared his perspective, saying:

He’s definitely got a point. While there have been countless horror movies over the years, some franchises get bogged down with revealing an appropriate backstory and motivation for the killer. But in the end, some of the most terrifying movie villains are ones without motivation. In addition to Heath Ledger’s Joker and Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector, the killers from The Strangers also come to mind as a prime example.

In some ways the villains of Sinister and The Black Phone can’t be more different. The former is a demonic presence, while Ethan Hawke’s masked Black Phone antagonist is a regular human. Still, Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson was careful to methodically approach each villain, and their lack of a backstory.

During our same conversation, Scott Derrickson further explained why the lack of a backstory helped to buoy the performances given by Heath Ledger and Anthony Hopkins as Joker and Hannibal Lector respectively. As he put it,

Without a moral compass or concrete backstory to cling to, these antagonists become agents of chaos. And there’s few things more terrifying than someone you can’t predict. With The Black Phone, that makes young protagonist Finney’s terrifying interactions with Ethan Hawke’s Grabber all the more tense.

Scott Derrickson rounded out our conversation about horror villains by offering one more tip to the horror fans and filmmakers out there: stay in the present, rather than harping on the past. As the Exorcism of Emily Rose filmmaker explained,

Touche. The best villain performances aren’t about what happened before the action of the movie, but during. And careful using these masked characters to terrorize the heroes and audience is how to truly build the tension of any movie. And said tension gets extra power when the villain’s intentions are a mystery.

The Black Phone hits theaters on June 24th. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.

One of the biggest questions fans have coming out of Disney+'s “Moon Knight” series so far is “Who is Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow, really?” Like most fans, we know there has to be more to the villain than the one-off comic book character he's named after, and a lot of theories online have pinpointed some BIG similarities between Harrow and the iconic Marvel villain, Doctor Victor Von Doom. CinemaBlend’s Managing Editor is here to give some credence to those theories, but he has another theory that makes way more sense.

Video Chapters:

00:00 - Intro
01:00 - Doctor Doom Theories & Evidence
02:57 - Why We Don’t Think He’s Doom
04:50 - Anubis Theory & Evidence
08:08 - What Anubis Means For ‘Moon Knight’
10:20 - Outro

Ever since it was first announced (or at least when it was given a release date), Robert Eggers’ historical thriller, The Northman, has been one of the most anticipated 2022 movies for a number of different reasons. There’s the director’s previous work like The Witch and The Lighthouse, a story inspired by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, stunning visuals, and one of the most impressive casts put together in recent memory.

If you have been lucky enough to see the new Viking thriller, or are at least planning on experiencing it on the big screen, there’s a good chance you are wondering where you’ve seen members of The Northman cast before. Well, look no further because we’re about to break it down now.

Alexander Skarsgård (Amleth)

Leading The Northman cast is Alexander Skarsgård, who went through a ‘crazy’ transformation in preparation for his portrayal of Amleth, the Viking warrior prince at the center of the film’s narrative.

A member of the expansive and prolific Skarsgård family, the Swedish actor is best remembered for a few of his major roles, with the most notable being on two of HBO’s most popular shows of the past decade-and-a-half. Fans of True Blood will immediately remember Skarsgård’s portrayal of Eric Northman during the show’s seven-season run. And then, Big Little Lies fans will think back to his take on Perry Wright during the show’s run, a role that earned him a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe, and several other accolades.

Oscar Novak (Young Amleth)

Newcomer Oscar Novak appears in The Northman as the younger version of Amleth before he goes into exile.

Novak got his first big break in show business on the historical drama series, Poldark, on which he portrayed Jeremy Poldark in the fifth and final season. Earlier in 2022, Novak played a younger version of Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne in The Batman.

Anya Taylor-Joy (Olga)

Taking on the role of Olga, a sorceress who joins Amleth on his journey in The Northman, is Anya Taylor-Joy, whose busy schedule has kept her in a number of shows and movies as of late, some of which are earning her a great deal of praise.

By 2022, Taylor-Joy had her most successful performance to date on the Netflix limited series, The Queen’s Gambit, on which she portrayed chess prodigy Beth Harmon and took home several awards, including a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award. She has also appeared in movies like Last Night in Soho, The New Mutants, and Emma in recent years. Taylor-Joy previously worked with director Robert Eggers for the 2015 psychological thriller, The Witch.

Ethan Hawke (King Aurvandil)

Ethan Hawke shows up in The Northman as King Aurvandil, Amleth’s father whose murder sets the young prince on a path of discovery and revenge against those who brought harm to his family and kingdom.

Over the years, Hawke has received multiple Academy Award nominations for roles in movies like Training Day and Boyhood, as well as his screenwriting work on Before Sunset and Before Sunrise. Hawke has appeared in countless movies throughout his career, which goes back to the mid 1980s, including White Fang, Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites, and The Purge. He was most recently on the Disney+ series Moon Knight, where he portrayed the antagonist, Arthur Harrow.

Nicole Kidman (Queen Gudrún)

Portraying Queen Gudrún, the wife of the slain king and mother of vengeful prince Amleth, is Nicole Kidman, who brings years of experience and brilliant acting talent to the expansive The Northman cast. 

The Academy Award winner and six-time Golden Globe recipient has spent the vast majority of her career appearing in critically acclaimed movies and shows like Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, Being the Ricardos, Big Little Lies, and The Undoing, but that barely scratches the surface. Over the years, Kidman has also appeared in everything from Days of Thunder to The Others and Batman Forever to Cold Mountain, with dozens of other appearances on the silver screen and small screen.

Willem Dafoe (Heimir)

Willem Dafoe teams up with Robert Eggers again for The Northman, in which he portrays Heimir, a character described as an “impish delight” in CinemaBlend’s review of the revenge thriller. Dafoe previously worked with Eggers on the 2019 psychological horror film The Lighthouse.

The list of Dafoe’s best movies includes everything from his appearances in the Spider-Man movies to The Last Temptation of Christ, and so much in between. Whether it be something like American Psycho, Platoon, or The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the veteran actor has consistently proven he’s one of the best around. He’s even managed to play one of the best John Wick characters, which is saying something.

Björk (The Seeress)

In one of her rare film appearances, Icelandic singer and composer Björk shows up in The Northman cast as The Seeress, a mysterious fortune teller who foretells Amleth’s destiny from a young age.

Although she hasn’t appeared in all that many movies, Björk is undoubtedly one of the most recognizable faces in the international music scene thanks to her unique vocals, intricate arrangements, and outstanding music videos. However, Björk did receive a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Lars von Trier’s 2000 musical drama, Dancer in the Dark.

Claes Bang (Fjölnir)

Taking on the role of Fjölnir, Amleth’s uncle and the man who is responsible for the death of his father in order to attempt taking over his kingdom, in The Northman is Claes Bang, who looks absolutely frightening in the film's various trailers.

Although most of his career has been spent taking part in various film and TV projects in his native Denmark, Bang has made a splash with international audiences in recent years with appearances on shows like The Bridge, The Affair, and Dracula, on which he portrayed Count Dracula himself. His more recent film roles include The Square, The Girl in the Spider’s Room, and The Glass Room.

Gustav Lindh (Thórir)

Gustav Lindh shows up in The Northman cast as Thórir, one of Fjölnir’s sons who crosses paths with Amleth on his road of vengeance.

Throughout his career, the Swedish actor has appeared in movies like Riders of Justice and Queen of Hearts, and The Circle, as well as a list of TV shows that includes Jordskott, Älska mig, and multiple others released dating back to 2015.

Ingvar Sigurdsson (The Sorcerer)

Taking on the role of The Sorcerer in The Northman is Ingvar Sigurdsson, who doesn’t have all that many English speaking roles but is a major star in his native Iceland.

Over the years, Sigurdsson has popped up in movies like Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, A White, White Day, Lamb, Everest, and One Night in Istanbul, as well as a couple dozen or more roles in Icelandic-speaking movies and shows including Metalhead, Polite People, Undercurrent, The Oath, and Of Horses and Men, to name only a few.

Elliott Rose (Gunnar)

Elliott Rose appears in The Northman as Gunnar, the son of Fjölnir and Queen Gudrún who gets caught up in the bloodshed brought on by Amleth’s return from exile.

Rose’s performance in Robert Eggers’ The Northman is the young actor’s first and only feature film to date. He previously appeared in the 2021 short film, Milk, as well as multiple stage productions in England’s West End, including a musical based on Doctor Dolittle.

Kate Dickie (Halldora)

Kate Dickie shows up in The Northman as Halldora, the latest in a series of projects that have seen the Scottish actress portray characters in historical dramas and her second appearance in a Robert Eggers movie, the first being The Witch.

Most will recognize Dickie for her portrayal of Lysa Arryn, the older sister of Catelyn Stark, on Game of Thrones, making her one of the members of The Northman cast to appear on the popular HBO fantasy series. Dickie’s other notable TV projects include Tinsel Town, The Pillars of the Earth, Peaky Blinders, and The Nest. Her film credits include Prometheus, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and most recently, The Green Knight, in which she played Queen Guinevere.

Ralph Ineson (Captain Volodymyr)

Ralph Ineson is no stranger when it comes to historical dramas of this scale, with his portrayal of Captain Volodymyr in The Northman being the latest in a long line of great film and TV projects from over the years.

Throughout his career, Ineson has portrayed characters like Amycus Carrow in the final three Harry Potter movies, a Ravager in Guardians of the Galaxy, the titular mysterious figure in The Green Knight, and various other movies like Gunpowder Milkshake, Robin Hood, and Robert Eggers’ The Witch. His TV work includes the original U.K. version of The Office, Salvage Hunters, Chernobyl, and Game of Thrones, to name off just a few of his credits.

This is just a portion of the talented actors who take up a spot on The Northman cast, as Robert Eggers’ new Viking revenge thriller is full of great characters throughout its runtime. And, if you want to know what critics are saying about the movie, as well as its cast, check out a rundown of some the reviews so far. 

Light spoilers for the latest episode of Moon Knight, “Summon the Suit,” lie ahead.

So far, Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight has received positive reviews from critics as well as enthusiastic responses from fans. Many seem taken with Oscar Isaac’s performance as the main protagonist (wild accent and all) as well as Ethan Hawke’s turn as the villain. Aside from fans and critics, Shang-Chi star Simu Liu has also been tuning in for the superhero show. And it would appear that he has a specific critique of Hawke’s character on the Disney+ show, which is shared by a number of others.

During the second episode of Moon Knight, Oscar Isaac’s Steven Grant has another encounter with Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow, who subsequently shows the former gift shop employee around his compound. While touring the area, Harrow has a brief exchange with one of his cult’s younger members, during which they address each other by speaking Mandarin Chinese. When Grant inquires about their use of another language, the villain explains that everyone in their community aspires to pick up three dialects. 

Simu Liu, however, wasn’t too impressed with what he heard from the character. The Marvel Cinematic Universe star took to Twitter to drop an honest reaction to the use of Mandarin within the show. Check it out down below:

The Kim’s Convenience alum’s post was soon followed by a chorus of other reactions from fellow Moon Knight viewers. One user, who explained that they’d been studying the language for quite some time, admitted to being confused by the scene:

It’s true that Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was lauded by audiences for its astute representation of the language. In addition to that, many were also taken with the fact that the movie opted to build a cast predominantly made up of Asian actors.

Others seem to be theorizing about why the use of Mandarin Chinese may not have been accurate. Another user dropped an idea, which he relates to the cult atmosphere that’s being depicted:

On the other hand, one user didn’t care for the use of the language altogether. This is due to their belief that it’s being used to fulfill a conventional story trope:

Simu Liu has been a firm advocate for proper Asian representation within film and television. Liu, who immigrated to Canada with his parents when he was young, has expressed pride in his culture and has opened up about just how much accurate representation can mean for viewers. Based on this, it may not be too surprising to some that he would choose to speak up on the matter. 

Chances are that Arthur Harrow’s use of Mandarin Chinese will be reduced to the one scene and likely won’t come into play as Moon Knight trudges on. Should the character use any of the other languages he’s learned, though, it’s likely that other viewers could follow Simu Liu’s lead and share thoughts. 

Moon Knight drops new episodes on Wednesdays, and you’ll need a Disney+ subscription to check it out. You can also check out CinemaBlend’s 2022 TV schedule for info on other Marvel shows hitting the small screen this year.

Director Robert Eggers’ third feature film The Northman (which follows The Witch and The Lighthouse) is by far his biggest yet. With its $90 million budget and A-list cast — led by Alexander Skarsgård — the film is a combination of historical epic and revenge thriller that left its star “truly a wreck.” All of the above is why this one is so highly anticipated. Critics had the opportunity to screen The Northman, and they had plenty of strong opinions about the movie, and Skarsgård in particular, to help us decide if we’ll be heading to the theaters when this movie premieres April 22. 

Critics’ first reactions were overwhelmingly positive for the film that stars Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Claes Bang, Björk, and Willem Dafoe alongside Alexander Skarsgård's warrior prince. They said The Northman is Robert Eggers’ most accessible film yet and the critics were captivated by the tale of revenge. Let’s dive a little deeper and see what their reviews say, starting with CinemaBlend’s review. Eric Eisenberg rates The Northman 4.5 stars of ferocious excellence. He says while the cast is full of surprises and treats, this is Alexander Skarsgård’s show, and he is impressive:

David Rooney of THR says the film is respectable if for no other reason than it is a big, noisy, brawling spectacle grounded not in comic-book superhero lore but rather in culturally specific history. This critic applauds the cast and says Alexander Skarsgård has never been fiercer or more physically imposing:

Germain Lussier of Gizmodo says The Northman experiences a few bumps in the road, as it starts off as a gritty, beautifully choreographed action and then turns into a smaller psychological thriller. However, the film is never boring and is beautiful throughout. It works because we believe the characters, and he says the cast has some standouts, including the leads and a show-stealing Nicole Kidman: 

Alonso Duralde of The Wrap says Robert Eggers has made a "rousingly rough, extreme action saga" that's accessible without losing his arthouse credibility. The director knows how to get his actors to a very specific wavelength, and Alexander Skarsgård takes his performance right to the edge:

Not all of the critics were won over by the leading performance, however. Peter Debruge of Variety says despite his impressive physicality, Alexander Skarsgård lacks the charisma needed to carry such a big-budget film. Overall this critic finds the story too simple and ultimately rather dull:

If this sounds like a movie you can’t miss, you can catch it in theaters starting on Friday, April 22. In the meantime, take a look at our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to see what other films are coming soon.

The Northman starring Alexander Skårsgard is one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year, and it’s not hard to see why. The historical epic features an A-list cast, including Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Claes Bang, Björk, and Willem Dafoe, for one thing. Another is that it features an intense tale of revenge, as the thriller has a Viking prince’s quest to avenge his father’s murder. Did we mention the towering, shirtless Alexander Skårsgard? Critics have screened The Northman, so let’s take a look at their early reactions.

The Northman’s director Robert Eggers has built a reputation as a filmmaker of creating films that are as historically accurate as possible, while maintaining an atmospheric and haunting tone. His two previous feature films, The Witch and 2019's The Lighthouse, both received critical praise, but The Northman is his most ambitious project yet. What are the critics saying about his effort? 

CinemaBlend's own Eric Eisenberg really enjoyed it, calling The Northman Robert Eggers' most accessible film. It's probably also a good sign when the critic keeps whispering, "Holy shit!" during the screening:

CinemaBlend's Sean O'Connell also go to see the film, and offers similar praise, calling it "primal" and "everything you want a Viking revenge thriller directed by Robert Eggers to be."

Erik Davis of Rotten Tomatoes agrees that The Northman is the most accessible venture from the director, but clarifies that that fact doesn't take away from his filmmaking style. He praises Alexander Skarsgård's performance, so it appears the "crazy transformation" the actor went through to prepare for the role might have paid off. While Skarsgård is a "beast," Nicole Kidman's performance is stunning as well, according to Davis:

Maggie Lovitt of Wealth of Geeks says the stunning cinemetography sets the scene for this epic saga:

Germain Lussier of Gizmodo said The Northman is smaller than the trailers make it seem, but that doesn't take away from it being a satisfying and emotional tale of revenge. Apparently the final scene is pretty epic as well:

High praise also comes from IndieWire's David Ehrlich, as he says Robert Eggers succeeded in making a big-budget movie that still feels like his style:

Kate Erbland of IndieWire says The Northman had her on an emotional roller coaster, and it doesn't sound like a bad ride, if you ask me:

Matt Neglia of Next Best Picture echoes other critics' praise about Alexander Skarsgård's performance. More than one critic has called the revenge story "straightforward," but that doesn't seem to be detracting from the film's overall likeability:

It sounds like the early reactions to The Northman are overwhelmingly positive. We’ll get even more details when the reviews come out April 11, so be sure to check back to CinemaBlend for that. While you wait for the film's April 22 release date, be sure to check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to see what other films are coming soon to streaming services and theaters near you.

One of the reasons that Moon Knight is off to a strong start on Disney+ is because of the approach that Ethan Hawke is taking to Arthur Harrow, a cult leader serving the Egyptian god Ammit who uses scales on his arms to level judgement against willing participants. Like most religious zealots, Harrow believes whole heartedly in his approach to justice, comparing the lethal work that he’s doing in the name of Ammit as pulling weeds from a garden before they’re able to choke off the roses. But during a conversation with Hawke for a Moon Knight press opportunity, the character actor opened up about early ideas he had in his process, and they would have produced a different angle on Harrow.

The way that Ethan Hawke describes Arthur Harrow now, he calls it a “monk-like exterior and calmness” that envelopes the character. This is the proper foil to Oscar Isaac’s Steven Grant, a jittery, frazzled, confused, scared, and anything but calm persona who is being pursued by Harrow because of a scarab the museum employee possesses. Only Steven doesn’t know how he got the scarab, and he can’t figure out why voices in his head are leading him in different directions, and on serious missions. 

There’s a lot more coming with Arthur Harrow in subsequent episodes of Moon Knight, and we’ll learn not just his connections to Marc Spector – one of Steven Grant’s alternate personalities – but also to Khonshu, the Egyptian god the men serve. But at the moment, we’ve only scratched the surface of Arthur’s potential, and his backstory promises to unlock many more mysteries in this already mysterious Marvel Studios television series. Still, we have seen enough for Moon Knight’s director to call Oscar Isaac a genius. 

Moon Knight is the latest Disney+ program to expand out the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The next will be Ms. Marvel, which plans to introduce Jersey City’s own Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) to the MCU. In between the TV programs, the Upcoming Marvel Movies will bring fans the latest adventures starring Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the heroes of Wakanda, and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson). 

Speaking of, where is that Thor: Love and Thunder trailer? Because that movie’s only three months away, and fans are THIRSTY for it. While we wait, read up on the new cosmic hero reaching the MCU, as well as the latest on the nine major Marvel characters we think are going to show up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This could get wild.    

Being an actor is a unique job. While it offers amazing opportunities, sometimes one is tasked with going outside of the box while in front of a crew of people. Robert Eggers’ upcoming epic film The Northman looks like it’s going to be a wild one, and actor Ethan Hawke recently talked about the nude scene he has with Willem Dafoe. And yes, there’s howling at the moon involved.

Robert Eggers assembled an outstanding cast to bring The Northman alive. While the movie stars Alexander Skarsgård and the talented Anya Taylor-Joy, the supporting cast includes more names like Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, and Ethan Hawke. In an interview with GQ, the latter actor recently teased a particular scene he shares with Dafoe, where the two legends had to get in the buff. Ashe put it,

I mean, he’s got a point. Willem Dafoe is a universally acclaimed actor, who is known for always giving 100 percent of himself on screen. So if you had to do a nude scene for Robert Eggers with someone, Dafoe is definitely that guy. You just can’t feel self-conscious when he’s so committed.

Ethan Hawke shared this funny tidbit about The Northman in an interview about his starring role in Disney+’s Moon Knight series. Eventually the conversation turned to that upcoming epic blockbuster, which looks like it’s going to have plenty of gnarly violence. But the movie's also going to include some shots of Willem Dafoe and Hawke baring it all.

The first trailer and poster from The Northman understandably puts a ton of focus on Alexander Skarsgård’s protagonist Amleth. The poster showed off the Big Little Lies actor’s hulking physique and washboard abs. But apparently the nudity is being spread around for the cast of the upcoming movie. We’ll just have to wait and see how trippy Ethan Hawke’s sequence ends up being.

Robert Eggers is a filmmaker who is known for having a unique vision, mixing realism and out of this world concepts. His first movie The Witch was a terrifying and trippy tale throughout the 1630’s, while The Lighthouse told a tale of isolation and madness in the 1890’s. Both are wholly unique and disturbing projects in their own right, and Eggers is once again working with collaborators Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe on The Northman.

The action of The Northman looks like it’s going to scratch an itch for medieval action that some fans have been feeling since Game of Thrones ended years ago. But with Eggers behind the camera, smart money says he’s going to have plenty of surprises up his sleeve.

The Northman is expected to arrive in theaters on April 22nd. In the meantime, check out the 2022 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

Despite several reasons why this would most likely never happen, there is a part of me that has always wanted to see my all-time favorite superhero, Batman, join my all-time favorite franchise of superhero movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, I am perfectly happy to see Oscar Isaac portray the next best thing on the latest Disney+ exclusive Marvel series, Moon Knight.

Of course, while many have considered this fan favorite comic book hero be the Marvel equivalent of the Dark Knight, there is a little more to the character than a vengeful driving force, a fancy suit, and some cool gadgets at his disposal. There is much to learn about this unique, supernatural badass, just like there is plenty to know about the Moon Knight cast and some of their most notable efforts before starring on the highly anticipated series. We will begin our breakdown of who is playing who with our supremely talented lead hero.

Oscar Isaac (Marc Spector/Moon Knight)

Mercenary Marc Spector - the alter ego of Moon Knight - is just one of a few different identities portrayed on the series by Oscar Isaac, whose previous Marvel characters include the titular villain of 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse and Miguel “Spider-Man 2099” O’Hara, whom he voiced in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Before then, the actor played Joseph in 2005’s The Nativity Story, a supposedly reformed criminal on the Drive cast in 2011, briefly appeared alongside fellow MCU actor Jeremy Renner in The Bourne Legacy in 2012, and landed his first lead role in the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis in 2013.

In 2015, Isaac debuted as Poe Dameron in the first of three Star Wars movies, which led to further notable sci-fi roles - such as in 2018’s Annihilation (his second collaboration with Ex Machina writer and director Alex Garland) and playing Duke Leto Atreides in Dune in 2021. That same year, he reunited with his A Most Violent Year co-star, Jessica Chastain, for HBO’s miniseries, Scenes from a Marriage and reprised Gomez Addams in the animated The Addams Family 2.

Ethan Hawke (Arthur Harrow)

Making his comic adaptation debut as the villain of Moon Knight, Arthur Harrow, is Ethan Hawke, who made his acting debut at 15 in 1985’s sci-fi adventure Explorers, which he followed with the Oscar-winning drama Dead Poet’s Society in 1989. A year after 1994’s Reality Bites, he starred in Before Sunrise - the first of a romantic trilogy that was also the first of his many collaborations with Richard Linklater, including 2001’s Waking Life, Fast Food Nation in 2006, and Boyhood, for which he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination in 2015.

Hawke’s first taste of that category, however came with his role in 2001’s Training Day, and his first taste of becoming a modern day horror movie icon was as the lead of 2012’s Sinister, followed by the first of the Purge movies the next year. After reuniting with Denzel Washington and Training Day director Antoine Fuqua for a 2016’s The Magnificent Seven remake, the actor gave what many consider one of his finest performances in Paul Schrader’s brutal psychological thriller First Reformed 2017.

May Calamawy (Layla El-Faouly)

As Layla El-Faouly, an archeologist and friend of Marc Spector, we have May Calamawy, who made her acting debut with the 2006 crime thriller Thursday, opposite future Orange is the New Black cast member Matt McGorry. Most of the roles she would follow that up with were short films, except for the Tobe Hooper-directed horror flick Djinn in 2013. 

In 2017, after making guest appearances on CBS’ Madam Secretary and the short-lived NBC drama The Brave, the Egyptian-Palestinian actress starred in seven episodes of National Geographic’s 8-part miniseries The Long Road Home and, in 2021, appeared alongside Ed Helms and Patti Harrison in the dramedy Together Together. Her role on Moon Knight is Calamawy’s second experience as a TV series regular after playing the title character’s sister, Dema Hassan, on the Emmy-nominated Hulu original comedy Ramy.

F. Murray Abraham (Khonshu)

Providing the voice of Khonshu, the Egyptian God of the Moon who turns Marc Spector into the latest incarnation of the Moon Knight, is veteran actor F. Murray Abraham, who previously worked with Oscar Isaac for one memorable scene from Inside Llewyn Davis. He made his acting debut in 1971’s They Might Be Giants, which he followed with classic dramas like Serpico, All the President’s Men, and Scarface before earning a Best Actor Oscar for Amadeus in 1985.

Abraham has also tried his hand at comedy (with movies like 1993’s Last Action Hero or the Apple TV+ series Mythic Quest), sci-fi (such as 1998’s Star Trek: Insurrection), horror (with Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic, to name one), and has memorably worked with Wes Anderson twice in the last decade (namely in The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014 and in 2018’s Isle of Dogs). He also joined the Homeland cast in Season 2, played  a human in Disney+’s live-action Lady and the Tramp remake, and is joining HBO’s The White Lotus cast for Season 2.

Fernanda Andrade (Wendy Spector)

As Marc Spector’s mother, Wendy, on Moon Knight, we have Fernanda Andrade, who previously starred in the unaired pilot for a purpose spin-off to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. called Marvel’s Most Wanted. Much earlier in her career, starred in a TV movie about a reluctant, supernatural hero called Fallen and its subsequent mini series on Freeform (when it was still called ABC Family).

After a recurring spot on Sons of Anarchy in 2011, the actress scored the lead role of the found footage horror flick The Devil Inside in 2012 and, six years later, had recurring roles on two short-lived series: HBO’s Here and Now, and The First on Hulu. In 2020, she appeared in two episodes of the Netflix original spin-off Narcos: Mexico and joined the main cast of Fox’s technophobic thriller Next.

Gaspard Ulliel (Anton Mogart/Midnight Man)

Playing a master thief named Anton Mogart, otherwise known as Midnight Man, is Gaspard Ulliel. The French-born actor was best known to American audiences for the Oscar-nominated romantic drama A Very Long Engagement from 2004 and his chilling performance as the title role of Hannibal Rising, which provides an origin story for the cannibalistic criminal psychologist, in 2007. After Moon Knight, the upcoming French film More Than Ever will see the final performance of Ulliel, who passed away in January 2022 after a skiing accident.

Watch the entire Moon Knight cast in action by streaming the series on Disney+ as of Wednesday, March 30.

The stars of Disney+'s latest release, “Moon Knight,” including Ethan Hawke (Arthur Harrow) and May Calamawy (Layla), join Director Mohamed Diab, co-Directors Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, and Executive Producer Grant Curtis to discuss their new Disney+ series in this interview with CinemaBlend Sr. Content Producer Law Sharma. Tune in to their deep dive into Hawke’s villainous portrayal, the representation of Egyptian characters and themes throughout the series, Oscar Isaac’s breathtaking performance, and more.

Video Chapters

0:00 Intro
0:29 Ethan Hawke Describes Playing the Megalomaniac Arthur Harrow
1:07 May Calamawy on Developing and Playing a Strong Arab Woman in the MCU
2:22 Director Mohamed Diab on Breaking Stereotypes in “Moon Knight”
3:30 Exec Producer Grant Curtis on Dealing with Mental Illness and Egyptian Culture
4:46 Ethan Hawke Sings the Praises of Director Mohamed Diab
5:38 Directors Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson on Working on a Character like Moon Knight
6:56 May Calamawy Loves Acting with “Steven Grant”
7:17 “Moon Knight” Filmmakers Talk Oscar Isaac’s Abilities as an Actor
9:01 May Calamawy Shares the Advice Oscar Isaac Gave Her During Production
9:55 Grant Curtis Shares Excitement for the Future of the Dark Side of the MCU 
10:35 Outro