• THR Cicely Tyson is still winning at age 95. This time it's the Peabody Lifetime Achievement Award. In the past seven years she's received a competitive Tony Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an an Honorary Oscar. Talent + longevity is an unbeatable combination!
• Variety fine actress Keke Palmer (Hustlers) writes a guest column on the current moment and what it asks of us
• The Guardian We were not prepared for "chainsaw accident" and "Cate Blanchett" to be in the same headline. Thankfully she's fine.
more after the jump including Daniel Radcliffe's outreach to fans who are angry with JK Rowling...
• Theater Mania the Drama Desk Awards will be held this Saturday after delays. The event will be streamed live on DramaDeskAwards.com
• Cinema Blend talks to one of the stunt doubles from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise
• My New Plaid Pants Stephan James (Homecoming S2) 13 times
• Vulture Young rising star Justice Smith (The Get-Down, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) comes out and confirms he's dating another young actor Nicholas Ashe (Queen Sugar). "If you're revolution does not include Black Queer voices, it is anti-black"
• / Film production has begun on the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• / Film Indie horror film The Wretched has passed $1 million at the box office, thanks to drive-in movie theaters!
RIP
• Gr8terDays gymnastic champ and 80s star (Gymkata, anyone?) Kurt Thomas has died at 64
• The Root Bonnie Pointer of The Pointer Sisters has died at 69
Finally...
• Advocate Harry Potter himself attempts to salvage the legacy of JK Rowling's books after fan outrage at her comments about trans women:
To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you. If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life — then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much.
Everyone is on edge these days so why JK Rowling keeps going on the offense about this sensitive issue rather than keeping her mouth shut is a mystery. But then she really does have trouble not saying anything that occurs to her. She's already done enough damage to her legacy by constantly attempting to rewrite the books after the fact to take credit for things she didn't actually put in them, like making Dumbledore gay retroactively.
Exit Video
Alex Newell (of TV's Glee and Broadway's Once On This Island) does a powerful rendition of Hairspray's number "I Know Where I've Been" in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.