“Extrapolations”, the climate change anthology series that will be coming to Apple TV+, has added even more stars to its cast. Today, it was announced that Edward Norton, Indira Varma, Keri Russell, Cherry Jones, and Michael Gandolfini will be joining the cast of this Scott Z. Burns show, Variety reports. Norton will play a scientist named Jonathan Chopin. Playing the role of Jonathan’s son, Rowan Chopin, will be Gandolfini. Varma will portray an inventor named Gita Mishra. Russell, known for her starring roles in The Americans and Felicity, will play Olivia Drew, a gun for hire. Jones will portray the president of the United States, Elizabeth Burdick. The new list of cast members comes hot on the heels of the original announcement that Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Kit Harrington, Tahar Rahim, Matthew Rhys, Daveed Diggs, Gemma Chan, David Schwimmer, and Adarsh Gourav would be the leading stars in the series. Extrapolations will take 8 interconnected episodes to delve into how impending changes to the planet will ultimately affect every aspect of the way people experience life in ways such as love, faith, work, and family.

We don’t know yet what Streep’s role will be in the series, but we do know about the others. Miller will play a marine biologist named Rebecca Shearer, Harrington will portray CEO Nick Bilton who will be the head of an industrial behemoth, Rahim will play Ezra Haddad who is a man struggling with memory loss, while Rhys will portray Junior, a real estate developer. Diggs will take over the part of Marshall Zucher, a rabbi in South Florida, Chan will play Natasha Alper, a single mother and micro-finance banker, and Schwimmer will play Harris Goldblatt. All we know about Schwimmer’s character is that he is a man with a teenage daughter. Gourav will play a driver for hire ironically named Gaurav. The series sounds like it will tie everyone together by the end as they all grapple with the constant changes in climate and what that means for their own lives. Extrapolations does not yet have a release date.

In today’s The New York Times, Meryl Streep explains how she prepared to play a fictional (and not especially competent) U.S. president in Adam McKay’s apocalyptic satire “Don’t Look Up.” Who would you turn to if you learned a comet was on a collision course with Earth and decisive action was required to prevent the extinction of all life on this planet? If your first thought was Meryl Streep, you have made both an excellent and terrible choice. In “Don’t Look Up,” from the writer-director Adam McKay (“The Big Short,” “Vice”), two scientists played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence find themselves facing this end-of-the-world scenario and must turn to a United States government led by the fictional President Orlean for assistance. The good news (for the movie, which will reach theaters on Dec. 10 and Netflix on Dec. 24) is that Orlean is played by Streep, the venerated film and TV star; the bad news (for humanity) is that Orlean is a self-centered scoundrel who cares a great deal about her public image but little to nothing about running the country. Orlean is one of several malefactors in “Don’t Look Up,” a social satire that McKay wrote about climate change but that he fully expects will be interpreted as a commentary on the pandemic. The president is also a character whose many faults and shortcomings Streep delighted in bringing to life, and she credits McKay for giving her and her co-stars the latitude to indulge in awfulness. The complete article can be read over at The New York Times. Two pictures from the article and another new picture from Empire Magazine have been added to the photo gallery.

Great news according to The Hollywood Reporter: Apple TV+ has lined up a star-studded cast for a climate change anthology series. Meryl Streep, Kit Harington and Matthew Rhys will head the ensemble for Extrapolations, an eight-episode drama from writer Scott Z. Burns and The Morning Show production company Media Res. The cast also includes Sienna Miller, Gemma Chan, Tahar Rahim, Daveed Diggs, David Schwimmer and Adarsh Gourav, with additional actors to be announced. Extrapolations, which is currently in production, will tell interconnected stories about how the upcoming changes to the planet will affect love, faith work and family. “The only thing we know for sure about the future is that we are all going there together — and we’re taking with us our hopes, our fears, our appetites, our creativity, our capacity for love and our predilection to cause pain,” said Burns. “These are the same tools that storytellers have been using since the beginning of time. Our show is just using them to keep time from running out.” Miller will play a marine biologist. Harington plays the CEO of an industrial giant. Rahim plays a man struggling with memory loss. Rhys will play a real estate developer. Diggs (Snowpiercer) plays a rabbi in South Florida. Chan plays a single mother and micro-finance banker. Schwimmer plays the father of a teenage daughter. Gourav plays a driver for hire. Details of Streep’s role, her first series work since HBO’s Big Little Lies in 2019, are being kept under wraps.

Netflix brings us a first official clip from the upcoming “Don’t Look Up”. The comedy sees Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio teaming up as astronomy grad student, Kate Dibiasky, and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, who discover a comet is going to hit Earth. The two then embark on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet – but not many people seem to care. Directed by Adam McKay, “Don’t Look Up” features a slew of stars, including Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry. Ariana Grande, Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance, Ron Perlman and Kid Cudi are also featured. A first teaser dropped earlier this month, with much awards season buzz surrounding it. “Don’t Look Up” will arrive in select theaters on Dec. 10 and on Netflix on December 24.

On September 18, 1981, United Artists released “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”, in which a 32-year-old Meryl Streep played her first leading role in a motion picture. Two leading roles to be fair, since the story depicts John Fowles’ novel not only as a straight-forward adaptation, but as an embedded film within a film that portrays the lead actors’ laissez faire fling on a movie while performing the tightlipped Victorian romance between a palaeontologist and a social outcast – a contrast on how social perception or acceptance on infidelity has changed over the years, at least 40 years ago. “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” is a curious film, a drama for grown-ups, and a very odd choice for Streep’s first leading role. After her breakthrough years and an Academy Award in 1980, an All-American role like “Silkwood” would have seemed a more logical fit to hone a movie star image. But Streep, giving us a first taste of her transformative craft that would stun audiences in the many years to come, immersed herself into the British landscape and created two very unique performances in one film.

Instead of writing a long essay on the film’s anniversary I’ll rather guide you through the extensive collection of information, pictures and articles we have amassed over the last years. Have a look at the box on the left for shortcuts. I’ll give you my top takeaways anyway: The film was a critical and commercial success, receiving 11 BAFTA nominations with three wins, inlcuding Best Actress for Streep. She also won the Golden Globe as Best Actress Drama and received her third Academy Award nomination in four years, the first as Best Actress, which was awarded to Katharine Hepburn. Streep was not the first choice for the part – Fowles’ personal choice was Helen Mirren. But the studio deemed her unsuitable, thanks to the recent release of the notorious “Caligula”. Even more surprisingly, this was Jeremy Irons’ first leading role as well, and only his second motion picture.

If you want to treat yourself with an anniverary viewing today and don’t own the DVD, you can check out if it’s available to stream in your region. If you want to share your thoughts on the film, head over to Twitter for comments and selected pictures.

In the first official look at the Netflix comedy Don’t Look Up, starring DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, the teaser trailer centers its story around DiCaprio’s character having a panic attack ahead of an Oval Office meeting after uncovering an Armageddon-like revelation. Don’t Look Up tells the story of two low-level astronomers, played by DiCaprio and Lawrence, who must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet earth. The star-studded movie is written and directed by Adam McKay, the filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated movies Vice and The Big Short. Mark Rylance, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi (aka Kid Cudi), Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Chiklis and Tomer Sisley round out the cast. The teaser trailer only runs for one minute and 18 seconds, but prompts several chuckles as Kate Dibiasky (Lawrence), an astronomy grad student, and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) set an infuriating White House meeting with a room of indifferent government officials, including those played by Hill and Meryl Streep, to explain their dire discovery of a comet orbiting within the solar system. Don’t Look Up hits select theaters Dec. 10 and releases on Netflix on Dec. 24. With the release of the trailer, three brand new production stills featuring Meryl have been published as well.

According to Variety and other news outlets, Netflix has announced release dates for its entire fall and winter film slate, a list of buzzy films that includes “Don’t Look Up,” a dark comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Adam McKay; Jane Campion’s drama “The Power of the Dog” with Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons; and Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut “Passing.” […] To close out the year, Campion’s latest “The Power of the Dog” arrives on Netflix on Dec. 1 (in theaters on Nov. 17), with Sandra Bullock’s “The Unforgivable” slated for Dec. 10 (in theaters Nov. 24), “Don’t Look Up” scheduled for Dec. 24 (in theaters Dec. 10) and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” on Dec. 31 (in theaters Dec. 17). In total, Netflix will release around 40 movies throughout the rest of 2021, continuing its promise to deliver new films every week for the entire year. Check out the full lineup over at Variety.

According to People, one lucky fan will be getting a private Zoom session with The Devil Wears Prada cast! Lollipop Theater Network is auctioning off the rare prize of zooming with the A-List cast — Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci — to benefit the organization in its 20th year. The 10-minute call will give the lucky winner the chance to see the cast reunite 15 years after the hit film was released. “We are so thrilled to be celebrating our 20th anniversary with our amazing partners at Charitybuzz and the incredibly talented cast of The Devil Wears Prada,” said Lollipop Theater Network Executive Director Evelyn Iocolano in a statement. “We have seen the tremendous impact that these kinds of interactions have on our young patients, and now one lucky bidder will have the chance to experience it themselves, all while contributing much-needed funds to keep our programs up and running! Here’s to the next 20 years of Lollipop!” the statement concluded. The auction is open now and will end on August 3 at www.charitybuzz.com/thedevilwearsprada. Many thanks to Glenn for the heads-up.

I wasn’t interested in doing a biopic on Anna; I was interested in her position in her company. I wanted to take on the burdens she had to carry, along with having to look nice every day. Absolute power corrupts absolutely…. I liked that there wasn’t any backing away from the horrible parts of her, and the real scary parts of her had to do with the fact that she didn’t try to ingratiate, which is always the female emollient in any situation where you want your way – what my friend Carrie Fisher used to call “the squeezy and tilty” of it all. [Miranda] didn’t do any of that. (Meryl Streep, Entertainment Weekly)

If looks could kill, then for 15 years The Devil Wears Prada has been a serial threat. Director David Frankel’s adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s Faustian yarn – inspired by the author’s time working under Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour – emerged as a modern classic through its mélange of impossibly chic clothes, scorching dialogue, and pointed portrayal of women in power. In time, the movie has become a beacon for gender parity, too, with its ice-queen Runway editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) occupying a delectably unapologetic position of power in a male-dominated world and, as a Hollywood antihero, a rare kind of leading lady. The film struck a chord with its feminist-tinged, broadly appealing story, and has endured largely thanks to the spectacular chemistry among Streep, Anne Hathaway (who plays Miranda’s assistant-turned protegée Andy Sachs), and scene-stealers Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and Adrian Grenier. For the first time since the film’s release in June 2006, EW has gathered those stars (and more) for a fierce reunion as they dig their heels into Devil’s legacy. You can watch the full 30 minutes reunion exclusively on Entertainment Weekly’s website.

Update: Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline will perform “Dear Elizabeth” at the Spotlight on Plays virtual benefit series from June 17 to June 21, 2021. Based on the compiled letters between poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, Dear Elizabeth maps the relationship of the two poets from first meeting to an abbreviated affair – and the turmoil of their lives in between. Directed by Kate Whoriskey. Here’s the original press release from March: According to Deadline, Meryl Streep, Mary-Louise Parker and Carla Gugino have joined the line-up of actors taking part in this year’s virtual Spotlight on Plays series benefitting The Actors Fund, with Streep reuniting with her Sophie’s Choice co-star Kevin Kline on Sarah Ruhl’s Dear Elizabeth. Parker is set to perform in Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz. Gugino will be teamed with the previously announced Ellen Burstyn in Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine. Others previously announced, in addition to Kline and Burstyn, are Kathryn Hahn, Keanu Reeves, Debbie Allen, Bobby Cannavale, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, Heidi Schreck, Alia Shawkat, Heather Alicia Simms and Alicia Stith. The Spotlight on Plays series, launched last year on the Broadway’s Best Shows website, features actors performing the works remotely, with the readings pre-recorded and edited. The series, which begins Thursday, benefits The Actors Fund. The series begins Thursday, March 25, with Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play at 8pm ET/5pm PT, and continues wit Pearl Cleage’s Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous on Thursday, April 8 at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Additional casting and dates will be announced soon. The Spotlight on Plays events are livestreamed on Stellar and available for a strictly limited amount of time. Season subscriptions and individual ticket information is available on the Broadway’s Best Shows website. Many thanks to Glenn and Alvaro for the heads-up.