Adrien Brody explains throwing his used gum at girlfriend during Oscars

The Brutalist star Adrien Brody held a gold statue in his hands at Sunday night’s Oscars, while his girlfriend, Georgina Chapman, watched from the audience with a wad of her husband’s used chewing gum in hers.

As the two-time Oscar-winning star made his way to the Academy Awards stage to accept his second career Best Actor trophy for his work in the Brady Corbet-directed drama, he briefly paused, lifted his hand to his mouth, and then tossed an object toward his girlfriend’s outstretched palms. In a post-victory interview that aired Monday morning on Live With Kelly & Mark, Kelly Ripa inquired as to what happened in the moment — and Brody quickly clarified.

“Gum! Because I forgot I was chewing gum, and I can’t [chew gum in a] thank you speech,” Brody said.

Cohost Mark Consuelos observed that “you can’t swallow it” because “it’s bad for you,” as Brody replied, “I could’ve! I didn’t think about that. [I just thought] I’ve got to get rid of this somehow!”

Brody and Chapman, a former judge on Project Runway All Stars, have been together since 2020. Chapman was previously married to disgraced film producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein, whom she divorced following sexual harassment and assault accusations from dozens of women, including A-list actresses.

Brody won his Best Actor prize for his performance in The Brutalist, which follows a Holocaust survivor who expands his career as an architect in the United States while attempting to reconnect with his wife (fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones) as she makes her way to America as well.

In addition to Brody’s win, The Brutalist also scored Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Cinematography, while Corbet contended for Best Director (he lost to Sean Baker) and the film competed for Best Picture (which it lost to Baker’s Anora).

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Elsewhere at Sunday’s Oscars, Brody and history-making Best Actress winner Halle Berry made headlines after reuniting on the red carpet, where the pair exchanged a kiss in a nod to the infamous moment Brody gave an unsuspecting Berry a kiss as he accepted his first Best Actor statuette (for The Pianist) from her at the 2003 Academy Awards.

Jay-Z Sues Jane Doe Rape Accuser, Claiming She Admitted to Lying

Zoe Saldaña Says the Heart of ‘Emilia Pérez’ Is ‘Not Mexico’ After Oscars Win

Jay-Z has filed a hard-hitting new defamation and malicious prosecution lawsuit against the Alabama-based Jane Doe who publicly accused him of a sexual assault involving Sean Combs but then later admitted inconsistencies in her story and voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit last month.

In his new lawsuit filed Monday and obtained by Rolling Stone, Jay-Z says the woman and her lawyers — Tony Buzbee and David Fortney — engaged in an “evil conspiracy” to extort him with the “completely fabricated” and “wildly horrific” claim that he raped Doe alongside Combs in 2000. The woman first revealed her claim in an October lawsuit that alleged Combs and an unidentified male celebrity took turns violently raping her at an afterparty for the MTV Video Music Awards when she was 13 years old. She filed a revised version of her lawsuit on Dec. 8, 2024, naming Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, as the male celebrity.

According to Carter’s new lawsuit, representatives for the Grammy-winning rapper made direct contact with Doe recently, and she allegedly admitted she concocted her claim about Carter and felt pressured by her legal team to repeat it during an on-camera interview with NBC News in mid-December. That NBC interview maintained Doe’s anonymity but exposed several notable discrepancies in her account. For instance, while the woman claimed she met musician Benji Madden at the same party, it turns out Madden was in another state on tour at the time. Doe’s father also disputed her claim that he picked her up in a vehicle after the alleged assault. The father said he lived far upstate at the time and would have remembered driving more than five hours to retrieve his daughter.

“Doe has now voluntarily admitted directly to representatives of Mr. Carter that the story brought before the world in court and on global television was just that: a false, malicious story,” Carter’s new lawsuit claims. “She has admitted that Mr. Carter did not assault her; and that indeed it was Buzbee himself – whom she met for the first time at a coffee shop in Houston on the day of her maliciously false NBC News interview – who pushed her to go forward with the false narrative of the assault by Mr. Carter in order to leverage a maximum payday.”

Buzbee said in a statement to Rolling Stone, “This new case which alleges the same thing as another one he pieces together and filed in Los Angeles also has no legal merit. Shawn Carter’s investigators have repeatedly harassed, threatened and harangued this poor woman for weeks trying to intimidate her and make her recant her story. She won’t. Instead she has stated repeatedly she stands by her claims. These same group of investigators have been caught on tape offering to pay people to sue me and my firm. This is just another attempt to intimidate and bully this poor woman that we will deal with in due course. We won’t be bullied or intimidated by frivolous cases.”

Attempts to reach Fortney were not immediately successful Monday. Buzbee previously denied any wrongdoing in court filings opposing separate extortion and defamation claims filed against him by Carter in Los Angeles County.

A prominent Texas lawyer who has boasted he’s collected more than $10 billion in damages for his clients, Buzbee made a splashy entrance into the fray of civil litigation against Combs last September. At a press conference streamed online, he announced he had more than 120 clients with allegedly credible claims against Combs who went through a “stringent” vetting process. He has since filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the Bad Boy Records founder who’s currently in federal custody fighting criminal charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. (Combs has vehemently denied all accusations of sexual assault and criminal conduct.)

Carter’s new lawsuit repeats the allegation that Buzbee’s firm sent him an “extortionate” demand letter on Nov. 5, 2024, requesting a private mediation ahead of a planned lawsuit. Carter claims the letter threatened financial and personal devastation if he didn’t work out a deal to “silence” Doe.

Last week, a Los Angeles judge said he was on the verge of dismissing Carter’s extortion claim against Buzbee unless Carter could produce additional evidence. It wasn’t immediately clear Monday if the alleged new statement from Doe would be admissible in that case. The California judge said Carter’s related defamation claim against Buzbee appeared strong enough to proceed toward a trial. The judge took the matter under submission, promising a ruling on Buzbee’s dismissal motion soon.

In a sworn statement filed in the Los Angeles case last month, Carter said it was no exaggeration that he viewed Buzbee’s promise to name him in the rape lawsuit as an “existential threat” to his reputation, career, and family. “I felt that Mr. Buzbee was placing a gun to my head that I either bow to his demands or endure personal and financial ruin. His actions caused me mental anguish about the ticking time bomb and what it would do to me, my family, and my hard-earned reputation,” he wrote. “It was incredibly painful for my wife and me to sit down with our children, one of whom is at an age where her friends would surely see the press and ask questions about these claims, and explain this. I mourn this loss of innocence for my children, including one who is around the age that the female minor claims to have been when she falsely claims that these heinous acts happened. I am heartbroken that my children have to endure hearing these things about their father, especially at their young age.”

Carter claimed that after Buzbee went public with the “false accusations,” his company Roc Nation lost contracts worth $20 million per year. He also questioned the timing of the amended complaint filed in early December. “I was harshly criticized by others for accompanying my daughter to the premiere of her movie (Mufasa: The Lion King) a day after Mr. Buzbee filed the Jane Doe lawsuit against me. Media outlets reported that Disney was hesitant over my attendance at the premiere because of the accusations,” Carter said. “I feel that Mr. Buzbee purposely filed this lawsuit on the eve of my daughter’s premiere to put me in the position of having to choose between supporting my daughter or hiding to avoid the negative press coverage.”

In his new lawsuit filed in federal court in Alabama, Carter again mentioned damage to his family and reputation as well as the alleged $20 million in lost business for Roc Nation. He also included claims for abuse of process and civil conspiracy and is seeking real and punitive damages with the new complaint.

“Defendants acted with malice in pursuing and initiating the meritless lawsuit against Mr. Carter,” the filing reads. “Defendants devised and executed their plan to accuse Mr. Carter of sexual assault and used national news and media outlets to disseminate the fabricated accusations to millions despite the falsity of the accusation. Defendants’ actions were willful and purposeful in order to maximize the reputational harm to Mr. Carter and induce Mr. Carter to pay them. At a minimum, they initiated the lawsuit with a reckless disregard for the falsity of the allegations.”

The new lawsuit claims Buzbee’s firm failed to adequately vet Jane Doe. Without naming her, the filing says that less than 90 days before the demand letter was issued, Doe had been in court on mental health-related issues and charged with assault in the second degree. It further alleges she “has several mental health disorders and takes multiple medications according to testimony from her psychiatrist laid bare in public court records.”

Dolly Parton’s longtime husband, Carl Dean, dies at 82

NASHVILLE (AP) — Carl Dean, Dolly Parton’s devoted husband of nearly 60 years who avoided the spotlight and inspired her timeless hit “Jolene,” died Monday. He was 82.

According to a statement provided to The Associated Press by Parton’s publicist, Dean died in Nashville, Tennessee. He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony with immediate family attending.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy,” Parton wrote in a statement.

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The family has asked for respect and privacy. No cause of death was announced.

Parton met Dean outside the Wishy Washy Laundromat the day she moved to Nashville at 18.

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“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton described the meeting. “He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

They married two years later, on Memorial Day — May 30, 1966 — in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia.

Dean was a businessman, having owned an asphalt-paving business in Nashville. His parents, Virginia “Ginny” Bates Dean and Edgar “Ed” Henry Dean, had three children. Parton referred to his mother as “Mama Dean.”

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Dean is survived by Parton and his two siblings, Sandra and Donnie.

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He inspired Parton’s classic, “Jolene.” Parton told NPR in 2008 that she wrote the song about a flirty a bank teller who seemed to take an interest in Dean.

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” she said. “And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention. It was kinda like a running joke between us — when I was saying, ‘Hell, you’re spending a lot of time at the bank. I don’t believe we’ve got that kind of money.’ So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”

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Parton and Dean kept strict privacy around their relationship for decades, Parton telling The Associated Press in 1984: “A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me.”

She joked that she’d like to pose with him on the cover of a magazine “So that people could at least know that I’m not married to a wart or something.”

In 2023, Parton told AP Dean helped inspired her 2023 “Rockstar” album.

“He’s a big rock and roller,” she said. The song “My Blue Tears,” which was written when Parton was with “The Porter Wagoner Show” in the late 1960s and early ’70s, is “one of my husband’s favorite songs that I ever wrote,” she said. “I thought, ‘Well, I better put one of Carl’s favorites of mine in here.” She also covered a few of his favorites on the temporary detour from country music: Lynard Skynyrd ‘s “Free Bird” and Led Zeppelin ‘s “Stairway to Heaven.”

Netflix drops trailer for the Russo brothers’ The Electric State

Anthony and Joe Russo have their hands full these days with the Marvel films Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret War, slated for 2026 and 2027 releases, respectively. But we’ll get a chance to see another, smaller film from the directors this month on Netflix: The Electric State, adapted from the graphic novel by Swedish artist/designer Simon Stålenhag.

Stålenhag’s stunningly surreal neofuturistic art — featured in his narrative art books, 2014’s Tales from the Loop and 2016’s Things From the Flood — inspired the 2020 eight-episode series Tales From the Loop, in which residents of a rural town find themselves grappling with strange occurrences thanks to the presence of an underground particle accelerator. That adaptation captured the mood and tone of the art that inspired it and received Emmy nominations for cinematography and special visual effects.

The Electric State was Stålenhag’s third such book, published in 2018 and set in a similar dystopian, ravaged landscape. Paragraphs of text, accompanied by larger artworks, tell the story of a teen girl named Michelle who must travel across the country with her robot companion to find her long-lost brother, while being pursued by a federal agent. The Russo brothers acquired the rights early on and initially intended to make the film with Universal, but when the studio decided it would not be giving the film a theatrical release, Netflix bought the distribution rights.

It’s worth noting that the Russo brothers have made several major plot changes from the source material, a decision that did not please Stålenhag’s many fans, particularly since the first-look images revealed that the directors were also adopting more of a colorful 1990s aesthetic than the haunting art that originally inspired their film. Per the official premise:

Millie Bobby Brown stars as Michelle, an orphaned teenager navigating life in a society where sentient robots resembling cartoons and mascots, who once served peacefully among humans, now live in exile following a failed uprising. Everything Michelle thinks she knows about the world is upended one night when she’s visited by Cosmo, a sweet, mysterious robot who appears to be controlled by Christopher — Michelle’s genius younger brother whom she thought was dead. Determined to find the beloved sibling she thought she had lost, Michelle sets out across the American Southwest with Cosmo and soon finds herself reluctantly joining forces with Keats, a low-rent smuggler, and his wisecracking robot sidekick, Herman. As they venture into the Exclusion Zone, a walled-off corner in the desert where robots now exist on their own, Keats and Michelle find a strange, colorful group of new animatronic allies — and begin to learn that the forces behind Christopher’s disappearance are more sinister than they ever expected.

In addition to Brown and Chris Pratt, the cast includes Woody Norman as Christopher; Ke Huy Quan as Dr. Amherst (who replaced Michelle Yeoh after she had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts); Stanley Tucci as Ethan Skate; Giancarlo Esposito as Colonel Marshall Bradbury; Alan Tudyk, voicing Cosmo; and Anthony Mackie voicing Herman. Also providing voices for various robots are Jason Alexander, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Billy Bob Thornton, Hank Azaria, Colman Domingo, Rob Gronkowski, and Billy Gardell.

The Electric State premieres on Netflix on March 14, 2025.

Inside the Oscars: What You Didn’t See on the Broadcast

LOS ANGELES (AP) — What you see on the television broadcast is only part of the story at the Oscars.

There’s a whole world of action happening in between commercial breaks, and at the lobby bar in the Dolby Theatre — where nominees and winners convene, commiserate and celebrate.

Here’s a chronological recap of things you didn’t see happen on TV:

Ready for showtime

Nick Offerman, the Oscars announcer took a moment on stage reminding people to keep their speeches short and pay attention to the countdown. When the play off music started up for him, he feigned incensed: “I’m the announcer, I announce the show. You can’t start the show without me!”

Wickedly supportive co-stars

Sure, everyone in the Dolby was standing after the Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande medley but Jeff Goldblum and Bowen Yang seemed the most excited in the crowd.

A Sandman cameo

A man in a bright turquoise hoodie is escorted into the Dolby, near the stage. It was, of course Adam Sandler, right behind Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who giggled along to Conan O’Brien’s headshot bit.

Soon, the cameras took their place in front of him and he joined the joke too. He high fived dozens of people on his way out of the theater.

Emma Stone cheers Kieran Culkin

Emma Stone was the first to jump, quite literally, out of her seat to applaud Kieran Culkin’s win.

Ten minutes later, Stone ran to the bar after the supporting actor prize with her husband Dave McCary and Jack Antonoff.

Stone, a producer on “A Real Pain,” was celebrating Culkin’s win and regaling Antoff with the story about how he tried to drop out of the film two weeks before shooting.

“I literally got on the plane,” she said about bringing him, his wife and kids to Poland. “Jesse was going to murder him. I’m so proud of him. He’s such a little (expletive.) He’s so crazy. I want to punch him and I’m so proud of him.”

Immediately after Culkin won, “Anora” nominee Yura Borisov made his way to the lobby bar with his costar Mark Eydelshteyn.

The bartender reached for a fresh bottle of champagne, but Borisov stopped him.

“I’m Still Here” star Fernanda Torres grabbed some trail mix to eat and chatted with someone in Spanish. Nearby, Miles Teller chose the same snack, along with a beer. He and his wife commandeered a hightop.

Sebastian Stan spoke to Universal chair Donna Langley, while off to the other side “Nickel Boys” stars Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson were rapt watching the Lisa and Doja Cat performance honoring the James Bond franchise.

Ariana Grande applauds Zoe Saldaña

Zoe Saldaña got a standing ovation when her name was called, naturally, but only Grande jumped up to applaud at the end of her teary speech. Grande then turned to Selena Gomez, sitting behind her, and the two hugged for a moment.

On the floor during the following commercial break, Torres took a phone call, Elle Fanning spoke to Marlee Matlin and Colman Domingo posed for photos. With 25 seconds until the show resumed Stone and Demi Moore wrapped up their chat.

A Kendall Roy Moment?

Jeremy Strong looked a little morose near the lobby bar, standing with his wife who had her hand on his shoulder in a comforting way. His spirits seemed to rise when someone stopped to chat. Elsewhere “Nickel Boys” filmmaker RaMell Ross was holding court.

Starstruck by a rock legend, and a pop star

Colman Domingo was the MOST jazzed about the sight of Mick Jagger.

A few minutes later, Andrew Garfield runs over to Ariana Grande to give her a hug during the commercial break.

Gallows humor from Brady Corbet

“The Brutalist” filmmaker Brady Corbet was deep in conversation with Emily Mortimer. Nearby, Dennis Quaid was happy to find a chilled bottle of water to sip on, and Stone ran to hug Adrien Brody, already laughing with his “Brutalist” brother Alessandro Nivola. Stone then sidled up to Margaret Qualley, while “Wicked” filmmaker Jon M. Chu watched the tribute to Los Angeles firefighters on the screen in the room.

Corbet greeted some people near the bar, shouting with a laugh: “We’re killing it, it’s a sweep! Just ticking them off, ticking them off.” This, notably, happened before they won for cinematography and score.

Back in the theater as the big awards loom

Queen Latifah continued dancing her way off the stage as many in the audience cheer her on, like Domingo.

During the commercial break, Felicity Jones chatted with Garfield and Sandler made his way back into the theater, this time in a tuxedo.

A Complete Mensch

Fresh off his best actor win, Brody made his way right to his fellow nominee Timothée Chalamet. They hugged multiple times and chatted for the entirety of the commercial break, stopping only to pose for a photo with Domingo and Sebastian Stan. Chalamet had a shot at usurping Brody’s youngest best actor winner title.

On to the parties

After the show ended, the stars lingered on the floor. Several went to hug Demi Moore, including Grande and Elle Fanning, after her best actress loss. Chalamet seemed to be wrangling: Chatting with Ethan Slater, hugging co-star Monica Barbaro and putting his arm around his sister, Pauline.

Grande and Slater held hands in the way out of the room as he also tried to helped her with her dress.

Laura Dern and Isabella Rossellini also left together, and Chalamet exited holding his mom’s hand, as they followed Kylie Jenner out of the room.

Someone stopped Chalamet to tell him “you so deserved it.” He thanked her, took a selfie and said, “Have a lovely night.” Then he took Jenner by the waist, from behind, and they kissed a few times.

The show may be over, but the party was just starting.

___

For complete coverage of the Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards.

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

‘Anora’ Wins Best Picture Oscar in Year When Indy Films Dominate

Anora, a drama about a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, took home the best picture prize at the Academy Awards on Sunday.

The film, from independent distributor Neon, had six nominations going into the event, which was held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. It won five. Filmmaker Sean Baker also won for directing, film editing and best original screenplay. In a surprise, Mikey Madison won best actress for her starring role in the film.

Adrien Brody Divides the Internet With Gum Toss to Georgina Chapman After Winning Best Actor Oscar

Brutalist star Adrien Brody found himself in a rather sticky situation as he went up to accept his Best Actor Oscar at Sunday night’s Academy Awards.

The actor was stunned as he was announced the winner, beating out Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), and Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) for the coveted award.

But as he approached the waiting Cillian Murphy to accept the statue, Brody suddenly froze as he realized he was still chewing his gum.

That was when his partner, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, sprung up, trying to catch Brody’s gum as he tossed it over to her.

Chapman, who was married to disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein until 2021, then returned to her seat as Brody’s acceptance speech began.

Now, the only “brutalists” are the internet commenters slamming Brody for a “disgusting” act.

‘Anora’ triumphs at Academy Awards, issues ‘battle cry’ to movie biz

The film’s director, Sean Baker, advocated to keep movie theaters open.

Hollywood’s biggest night became the property of New York after Anora, a movie filmed on location in NYC with the backing of an indie studio based there, took home five Academy Awards. The trophies — for best picture, director, actress, editing, and original screenplay — cemented the film as the clear winner of a frenetic Oscars race that displayed the movie biz’s current challenges.

Best picture = meh box office

Sean Fennessey, co-host of The Big Picture podcast, reported that from 1997 to 2004, every best picture winner grossed at least $100 million at the domestic box office. In the 20 years since then, only five films have made that much.

Anora earned $15.6 million domestically (~$38 million globally) on a budget of $6 million. That speaks to how going to the movies is no longer central to Americans’ lives — and how fringe some of the Academy’s choices have become.

While accepting the award for best director, Anora’s Sean Baker delivered a “battle cry” for the film industry to save movie theaters. He highlighted how the pandemic forced over 1,000 screens to close down.

Fun fact: Baker became the first person to win four Oscars for the same film, claiming the prizes for best original screenplay, best editing, best directing, and best picture.

Bad publicity may actually be bad: Emilia Pérez, which started the Oscars campaign strong but fell out of favor when its star became the center of an old-tweets controversy, took home just two awards. The Brutalist won three of the 10 awards it was nominated for following a PR skirmish over the film’s use of AI.

‘The Electric State’ Prequel Video Game Set From Russo Brothers, Netflix (EXCLUSIVE)

A prequel video game based on directors Joe and Anthony Russo’s upcoming Netflix film “The Electric State” will launch a few days after the movie hits the streamer on March 14.

Set in the aftermath of a robot uprising in an alternate version of the ’90s, “The Electric State” follows orphaned teenager Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) who ventures across the American West with cartoon-inspired robot Cosmo, low-rent smuggler Keats (Chris Pratt) and his wisecracking robot sidekick Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie) in search of her younger brother, Chris.

A prequel to “The Electric State,” the mobile game “The Electric State: Kid Cosmo” is described as a “bite-sized adventure puzzle game” that focuses on Michelle and Chris. Per Netflix and the Russos’ media company AGBO, “This narrative-driven game takes place before the events of the movie and spans five years, blending gameplay with emotional storytelling to create an immersive experience.”

“The Electric State: Kid Cosmo” will launch March 18 on iOS and Android. The game is free to play but available only to Netflix subscribers.

Watch the trailer for “The Electric State” video game via the video above.

Based on the graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag with a screenplay written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, “The Electric State” stars Brown, Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Jason Alexander, Woody Norman, Giancarlo Esposito and Stanley Tucci, as well as Woody Harrelson, Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Hank Azaria, Colman Domingo and Alan Tudyk in voice roles.

The Russos, who direct the film and produce, helped Netflix develop the “Electric State” mobile game through their media company AGBO, which is expanding its digital experiences and gaming slate amid the recent hire of Nifty Games vet Pete Wanat as president of interactive technology.

Their plans include at least three large-scale transmedia projects based on original ideas, but they aren’t going to say no to the idea of developing games tied to their upcoming Marvel films, “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars,” or their ongoing Amazon TV franchise, “Citadel.”

“We would definitely be open to it,” Joe Russo said in an interview with Variety alongside his brother and business partner Anthony Russo. “Right now, what we’re doing is creating new IP. At AGBO, we want to tell new stories. We want to tell new stories with new characters and new worlds that people haven’t seen before. So Anthony and I and Donald are working together to build out new worlds. And we have three that we’re currently working on that the intention is, for every world we build to have the scale and depth of a “Star Wars” universe, but in a different genre. And then we’ll build materials around those new worlds. We’ll tell stories in different ways using different media in those worlds.”

Here, the Russos speak with Variety about “The Electric State: Kid Cosmos,” their growing gaming business and upcoming Marvel and Netflix projects.

Anthony Russo: We have an amazing team here at AGBO that is very tuned in to gaming, and they sort of played lead on the development of the game. So by the time that Joe and I entered the picture on the game, it was an already quite settled, in terms of concept. They had such a compelling, cool concept that there we didn’t really get into issues of, what else could we do?

Anthony Russo: It does expand upon the relationship that the lead characters have in the movie, Michelle and her brother Chris. So it does get into a part of their relationship that we don’t follow in the film, that kind of predates the film, but also post-dates the film as well. And the game is able to explore the relationship in more depth. We certainly explore the relationship very thoroughly in the movie, but there’s just a limit in a two-hour medium to how much ground you can cover, in terms of story. So the game does hold something very special in terms of like, who these people are, what their relationship is to one another, and how it evolves and grows over time. And I think people will find it very relatable. It’s a wonderful, complicated brother-sister relationship in everything that that entails.

Anthony Russo: We don’t have anything planned right now, but we love an evolving narrative with gaming. So it’s something we’re always open to and something we’re always considering. But the fact that “The Electric State” can be explored through different medium — the type of story that it is and the type of experience that it is, can be explored in different ways — that’s something very important to us as storytellers, because it represents how we like to engage with our favorite material and our favorite stories. So we are exploring many new ways of bringing the experience of “The Electric State” to audiences and gamers.

Anthony Russo: My default is, I can’t tease any — but it is a very important part of our agenda here, moving forward, and a lot of our new storytelling is going to be working hand in hand with our gaming efforts. I can say that.

Anthony Russo: It’s the same way we approach our filmmaking. We always call ourselves sort of film agnostic, which is, basically, we value all the different forms you can express yourself in linear cinema storytelling. Same is true with games. Every idea has a different way that it can best be explored and best be brought to audiences or gamers for an experience. So we really like to tailor everything to the creative idea that we’re exploring, evolving and building upon, in terms of how we find an expression for it.

It’s a good question, because one of our beliefs, in terms of how we craft a relationship between these two different mediums, is that you can enter it from either direction. So we try to make it, if you’ve entered through the movie, you have something additive as you start to explore the game. And if you enter through the game, you have something additive in the other direction, as well. So I don’t want to get into any specifics, but there’s definitely new experiences to be had, depending on which direction you flow into it.

Joe Russo: We have a new partner at the company who is one of the greatest game developers in history, Donald Mustard, he’s the creator of “Fortnite,” and he’s come in now to work with us on building out what we think the future of storytelling could be, which is, some hybrid between linear and virtual and gaming. And we’re really interested in new ways to tell stories using technology. And so the three of us together are trying to explore and ideate around what opportunities there could be over the next decade using new tools and new technology to tell stories and can we make it can we make it true transmedia, where the same assets that we’re using for CG in movies is also the same assets that are in the game, that are also the same assets in a virtual experience. And that’s the mission of AGBO currently, at the moment.

Timothée Chalamet fans furious he lost Oscar to Adrien Brody amid AI scandal

“Just shows how little the academy actually cares about true acting skill”

Oscars viewers and fans of Timothée Chalamet have reacted angrily to the star losing out on the Best Actor award to Adrien Brody, whose performance was embroiled in an AI controversy.

Chalamet played Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown, for which he prepared extensively for several years. As well as learning to play and sing like the music legend, he gained weight and perfected the voice of Dylan for the critically acclaimed performance.

Adrien Brody has been a front-runner in the category for his performance in The Brutalist, playing a Hungarian architect who struggles after emigrating to Post-War America.

The film was embroiled in some controversy in January, however, when it was revealed that the film’s editor Dávid Jancsó used AI software Respeecher to correct a sequence where a letter written by Adrien Brody’s character, László Tóth, is read aloud.

Soon after, director Brady Corbet clarified the details. “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own”, he said, adding that “Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed”.

Nevertheless, the performance was seen as tainted by some, particularly those who were a fan of Chalamet’s work. “Timothee chalamet lose the #Oscars After taking singing lessons for five years, after gaining weight, he did everything he could to deliver the best character possible, only to lose to Adrien Brody, who used AI” said one user on X (formerly Twitter).

Another complained: “timothée chalamet spent 5 years studying bob dylan, singing live, and playing instruments, but adrien brody used ai for his performance won the oscar?”

Some users expressed sympathy for Brody’s fellow nominees as a whole. “adrien brody winning an award where they used ai to enhance his accent over timothee chalamet, sebastian stan, ralph fiennes, and colman domingo just shows how little the academy actually cares about true acting skill” wrote one.

Another said: “timothee chalamet and sebastian stan both committed to the voice and accents so hard they were unrecognizable in their performances and you’re gonna give the award to someone who used AI to enhance his accent in his performance?”

One viewer questioned whether Brody should have been nominated at all, saying: “Adrien Brody should’ve been disqualified the minute it was revealed they used AI to enhance his accent”. Another expressed support for Chalamet, tweeting: “the oscar will be yours one day”.

The Oscars saw Anora walk away with five awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Director. Host Conan O’Brien put some levity into proceedings, mocking Adam Sandler for turning up to the show in a hoodie.