Tag Archives: Ben Stiller

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A-listers Join Oprah’s Event Uniting Zooms for Kamala Harris Groups

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A number of A-listers had been among the many 1000’s who joined a live-streamed occasion Thursday, hosted by Oprah Winfrey, that united the various grassroots political teams supporting Kamala Harris’ presidential marketing campaign.

At first of the Unite For America name, Winfrey shouted out Meryl Streep, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Tracee Ellis Ross and Bryan Cranston for Zooming in. She additionally highlighted the grassroots teams which have hosted their very own Zoom occasions supporting Harris in latest months, together with Win with Black Ladies, White Dudes for Harris, Win with Black Males, Republicans for Harris, Swifties for Kamala, amongst others.

“I’ve by no means felt this a lot pleasure and optimism in a marketing campaign in a very long time,” the Breaking Unhealthy actor mentioned. “I’m simply so appreciative of Kamala to have the ability to deliver again that sense of optimism and to squash the cynicism and the vitriol and the rancor that simply appears to be floating throughout Washington. And I hope that at that we’re going to experience this wave into Washington. I’m right here, I’m right here to assist. I can’t be happier for this candidate. I believe she’s going to be a terrific president.”

Comic Rock added, “I wanna deliver my daughters to the White Home to satisfy this Black girl president. … I believe she would make an incredible president and I’m prepared to show the web page, man. All the hate and the negativity. It’s gotta cease.”

The Zoolander actor praised Harris’ speech on the Democratic Nationwide Conference final month and mentioned the sensation of the vitality “type of going from a cease Trump mode right into a go Kamala mode” has been “simply unimaginable.”

Later within the occasion, Roberts applauded Winfrey for internet hosting an occasion “to speak, to hear, to be heard, to have this backwards and forwards is so distinctive on this marketing campaign.” The actress additionally famous that this would be the first time her youngsters are in a position to vote in an election, and she or he “couldn’t be extra excited for them to have the legacy to say that their first vote they ever forged for president was for you. I’ve simply chills saying that out loud.”

Ross additionally mentioned the live-streamed occasion is “thrilling as a result of I imagine in democracy, I imagine in the way forward for our nation and reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy, girls main, I imagine in decency. The concept of main with pleasure and kindness has at all times been in my DNA and I’m right here each for the seriousness of this election however the pleasure with which it’s being dealt with. It’s gorgeous.”

After shouting out “all of the superb moms,” Ross added that as a “52-year-old childless girl,” she’s realized that “you do not want to push out a child to assist push humanity ahead.”

Elsewhere on the Unite For America name, Streep mentioned she feels “the phrase of the day has been preventable,” including that “all of this, the encompass of hatred and venom and toxicity and inspiring some phase of Individuals to hate different segments of Individuals,” is preventable.”

“It’s simply loopy and no one desires it,” the actress continued. “We’re carried out, we’re carried out with it.”

Winfrey additionally introduced out Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer earlier than Harris joined her onstage to reply voters’ questions on border safety, her financial plan, the rising value of dwelling, girls’s reproductive rights and gun violence, amongst different subjects.

“I go searching at these screens, Oprah, I take a look at who’s within the room and that is America,” Harris mentioned. “I believe on this second, the place we’ve handled a lot that I believe is kind of exhausting round highly effective forces that will attempt to divide us and attempt to have us as Individuals pointing fingers at one another, that this motion that’s about reminding one another that now we have a lot extra in frequent than what separates us is so critically essential.”

The vp mentioned her marketing campaign is “concerning the energy of who we’re as Individuals and this motion that we’re in about, as I prefer to say, ‘Seeing within the face of a stranger, a neighbor.’”

After Harris changed President Joe Biden on the prime of the Democratic ticket for the 2024 presidential race, grassroots teams have united individuals throughout the county on prolonged, celebrity-studded Zoom calls, elevating tens of millions for the vp’s marketing campaign.

Watch Oprah Winfrey and Kamala Harris Unite For America

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Ben Stiller Says Making Movies in Canada Is “Amazing Experience”: TIFF

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The Toronto Movie Pageant on Thursday returned post-strikes with Hollywood star wattage as Ben Stiller and director David Gordon Inexperienced gave a glittering lift-off for his or her opening evening movie Nutcrackers.

Gordon Inexperienced launched Stiller to the group at Roy Thomson Corridor within the Canadian metropolis that regarded primed for movie fest enjoyable with the opening evening comedy. The Zoolander and Tropic of Thunder star then recalled making motion pictures in Canada.

“When individuals will discuss to me generally in regards to the Evening on the Museum motion pictures, they’ll say, Wow, what’s it wish to shoot within the Museum of Pure Historical past? And I’ll say it was really a warehouse in Vancouver,” Stiller recounted.

“I’ve made a bunch of flicks in Canada, and it’s at all times been a tremendous expertise,” Stiller added. His feedback adopted Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau touting Canada as a international location vacation spot for Hollywood. “Our cities can generally sub in for American cities, however, fairly frankly, increasingly more ceaselessly they get to be really set in Toronto or Vancouver or different locations,” the Canadian chief mentioned.

“However greater than that, we’re one of many few locations on the planet that actually understands that range and variations can and most be a supply of power,” Trudeau added about inspiration for homegrown motion pictures exported to the world.

David Gordon Inexperienced, Arlo Janson, Ben Stiller, Ulysses Janson, Homer Janson and Atlas Janson attend the premiere of “Nutcrackers” at Roy Thomson Corridor.

(Photograph by Emma McIntyre/WireImage)

Director Gordon Inexperienced advised the first-night Toronto viewers when introducing Nutcrackers that displaying his movies at TIFF “is sort of a ceremony of passage, it’s like a beginning for therefore most of the movies I’ve made. It’s wonderful to be right here.” Later, throughout a post-screening Q&A, he defined that, after a run of constructing dark-themed motion pictures, his newest movie, a heartfelt comedy, answered an interior want for “some lightness.”

Gordon Inexperienced additionally argued Hollywood motion pictures at the moment lack “heat” and Nutcrackers regarded to fill a spot within the theatrical film enterprise. “We’re in a comedic drought,” he added as Gordon Inexperienced regarded to feed his personal inventive wants and what he hopes is a market demand for family-themed motion pictures.

For his half, Stiller mentioned after some years solely directing or producing initiatives, he had been on the lookout for a film that actually grabbed his curiosity and will get him again into appearing. Then the script for Nutcrackers landed in his e mail.

“For some cause, I learn it straight away and instinct actually hit me. I mentioned, I wish to make this film, I wish to meet these children, I wish to be part of this expertise,” Stiller recalled as Arlo Janson, Ulysses Janson, Homer Janson and Atlas Janson — the 4 real-life brothers who starred alongside Stiller in Nutcrackers and had been seated as effectively on the Roy Thomson Corridor stage for the Q&A.

“This film was made due to you guys,” Stiller added to heat applause as he turned to the Janson brothers, who as actors had been making their function movie debuts. “I simply wish to thanks all for watching our film and being right here,” Homer Janson advised the first-night viewers to applause as he spoke on behalf of his brothers.

Written by Leland Douglas, Nutcrackers follows Mike (Stiller), a straight-laced workaholic who has to journey to rural Ohio to look after his 4 nephews after their mother and father die in a automotive accident. After weeks of farm-life mayhem, Mike realizes he gained’t should discover a new residence for the orphaned youngsters. They discovered a brand new residence for him.

The ensemble forged for Nutcrackers consists of Linda Cardellini, Edi Patterson, Tim Heidecker and Toby Huss. The comedy opening TIFF marks Stiller’s first starring function in a film since Mike White’s Brad’s Standing and Noah Baumbach’s Netflix household drama The Meyerowitz Tales in 2017.

Launching this yr with a mainstream Hollywood comedy in Toronto comes as Roy Thomson Corridor is often stuffed with extraordinary moviegoers (and never solely business individuals as in Cannes and Venice).

Stiller’s crowd-pleaser marked a change of tempo in Toronto from 2023 when Japanese anime legend Hayao Miyazaki’s remaining movie The Boy and the Heron kicked off TIFF’s extra solemn forty eighth version.

Earlier on Thursday, TIFF featured purple carpet premieres for Eddie Huang’s Vice Is Broke, the documentary about Vice Media going from growth to bust; Jia Zhang-Ke’s Caught By the Tides; and Samuel Van Grinsven’s Went Up The Hill, starring Vicky Krieps and Dacre Montgomery.

Toronto additionally opened Thursday with debuts for Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse, starring Chloe Sevigny; Samir Oliveros’s The Luckiest Man in America; and a Midnight Insanity premiere for The Substance, directed by Coralie Fargeat and starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley readily available on the Royal Alexandra Theatre.

Nutcrackers

Courtesy of TIFF

Entertainment

Ben Stiller Speaks Out on the Israel-Hamas War, Need for Peace

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Ben Stiller is talking out concerning the Israel–Hamas struggle, greater than 9 months after the Hamas-led terrorist assault on Israel on Oct. 7.

In an opinion essay printed Thursday by Time journal, the Emmy-winning actor defined why he felt obligated to share his stance on the continued battle, the rise of antisemitism and the necessity for world peace, saying he “can’t ignore the disaster that’s entrance and middle on the planet proper now.”

“Saying nothing at this level looks like I’m betraying my very own conscience,” Stiller, who’s Jewish, wrote. “However what do you say? How does one specific the difficult and really actual emotions on this scary world of social media, the place it appears any sentiment opens you to on-line vitriol from one aspect or one other? The problems we’re coping with are so nuanced and sophisticated that quick statements can’t in any method specific totally what I wish to say from my coronary heart.”

Serving as a public advocate for refugees for a number of years, the Zoolander star admitted that he’s been “struggling to reconcile” his silence on the matter with that work.

“I grieve for many who suffered within the barbaric Hamas assault on October 7 and for many who have suffered on account of these atrocities,” Stiller wrote. “My coronary heart aches for the households who misplaced family members to this heinous act of terrorism and for these anxiously ready these lengthy months for the return of the hostages nonetheless in captivity. It’s a nightmare. I additionally grieve for the harmless individuals in Gaza who’ve misplaced their lives on this battle and people struggling by means of that terrible actuality now.”

He continued, “I detest struggle, however what Hamas did was unconscionable and reprehensible. The hostages must be freed. Terrorism have to be named and fought by all individuals of conscience on the planet. There isn’t a excuse for it below any circumstances.”

The Tropic Thunder actor added that whereas he stands with “the Israeli individuals and their proper to stay in peace and security,” he doesn’t agree with all of the Israeli authorities’s selections on how they’re dealing with the struggle.

“I need the violence to finish, and the harmless Palestinian individuals affected by the humanitarian disaster that has resulted to obtain the lifesaving support they want. And I do know that many in Israel share this sentiment,” Stiller wrote. “I imagine, as many individuals in Israel and world wide do, within the want for a two-state resolution, one which ensures that the Israeli individuals can stay in peace and security alongside a homeland for the Palestinian individuals that gives them the identical advantages.”

The Evening on the Museum actor went on to denounce antisemitism, which has elevated for the reason that begin of the Israel-Hamas struggle. Stiller stated he’s witnessed a “troubling conflation in criticism of the actions of the Israeli authorities with denunciations of all Israelis and Jewish individuals,” and in consequence, it’s led to an “plain rise in world antisemitism.”

“I’m seeing it myself, on the streets of town [New York City] I grew up in. It isn’t proper and have to be denounced,” Stiller continued in his essay. “Antisemitism have to be condemned each time it occurs and wherever it exists. As ought to Islamophobia and bigotry of every kind. There’s a horrifying amnesia for historical past within the air. We should remind ourselves that we are able to solely manifest a extra hopeful, simply, and peaceable future by studying from the previous.”

He concluded, “Clearly I’m no politician or diplomat. I’ve no options for these world conflicts and declare to supply none. I feel I, like so many individuals, am scuffling with tips on how to course of this all. However as an advocate for displaced individuals, I do imagine this struggle should finish. As I write this, there are about 120 million individuals everywhere in the world who’ve been displaced by conflicts. Within the Center East, in Ukraine, Sudan, and lots of different international locations. All of them need to stay in security and peace. The human struggling should finish. We should demand this of our leaders. Peace is the one path.”