ESSENTIAL INDUSTRY AND AWARD NEWS 

AUGUST 31, 2021

Kenneth Branagh Gets Personal

We’re just one day away from the start of the Venice International Film Festival, the unofficial kickoff of awards season—and the first of three all-important events for Oscar hopefuls. The second is the Telluride Film Festival, beginning Thursday; the third is the Toronto International Film Festival, which will debut a slew of prestige projects including Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. Branagh spoke with Rebecca Ford for Vanity Fair’s intimate first look at the film, which finds the director and writer retracing his own personal history. “I found that this lockdown really triggered something for me that reminded me of a fragility in our lives,” he says. “I felt obliged and compelled to finally revisit this moment.” 

Elsewhere in HWD, the third episode of Karina Longworthand Vanessa Hope’s Love Is a Crime podcast is now live; Donald Liebenson remembers the irrepressible Ed Asner; Laura Regensdorf catches up with Natalie Portman; and Sandra Oh speaks out about the difficulties of sudden fame.

Past Present

Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film is set in 1969, when rioting broke out in his childhood neighborhood, but evokes familiar feelings of unease in the COVID era.

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The Plot Thickens

In the third episode of Vanity Fair’s new podcast, Joan Bennett, Walter Wanger, and Fritz Lang form Diana Productions—a promising endeavor that has nowhere to go but down.

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RIP

Ed Asner, who died this weekend at the age of 91, had a career that extended far beyond playing Lou Grant.

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Scent of a Woman

Natalie Portman, face of the latest Miss Dior eau de parfum, talks about the value of anonymity and training for the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder: “It’s so wild to feel strong for the first time in my life.”

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Grey Area

Sandra Oh started to see a therapist during Grey’s Anatomy in order to “stay grounded.”

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