Movies

SZA, Finneas, And Summer Walker Take On ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ Songs For A Soundtrack Album

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Dear Evan Hansen has become one of the most beloved musicals of the last decade, so much so that the 2015 production has a film adaptation coming out next month. Part of that is the soundtrack album, and aside from the cast, the OST features some big-name artists.

Dear Evan Hansen (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) includes covers of some of the musical’s songs. Sam Smith and Summer Walker will take on “You Will Be Found,” SZA has “The Anonymous Ones,” Carrie Underwood and Dan + Shay performed “Only Us,” Finneas sang “A Little Closer,” and Tori Kelly covered “Waving Through A Window.” The album is set for release on September 24, the same date the movie hits theaters.

Check out the Dear Evan Hansen (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) tracklist below.

1. Ben Platt and Dear Evan Hansen Choir — “Waving Through A Window”
2. Ben Platt — “For Forever”
3. Colton Ryan, Ben Platt, and Nik Dodani — “Sincerely Me”
4. Kaitlyn Dever, Danny Pino, and Amy Adams — “Requiem”
5. Ben Platt and Kaitlyn Dever — “If I Could Tell Her”
6. Amandla Stenberg — “The Anonymous Ones”
7. Ben Platt, Amandla Stenberg, Liz Kate, DeMarius Copes, Isaac Powell, Hadiya Eshe, and Dear Evan Hansen Choir — “You Will Be Found”
8. Kaitlyn Dever and Ben Platt — “Only Us”
9. Ben Platt — “Words Fail”
10. Julianne Moore — “So Big / So Small”
11. Colton Ryan — “A Little Closer”
12. Sam Smith — “You Will Be Found” Feat. Summer Walker
13. SZA — “The Anonymous Ones”
14. Carrie Underwood and Dan + Shay — “Only Us”
15. Finneas — “A Little Closer”
16. Tori Kelly — “Waving Through A Window”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Daveed Diggs Praised His ‘Little Mermaid’ Co-Star Halle Bailey: ‘She’s Really, Really Special’

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Daveed Diggs, known for his work in Hamilton andd Blindspotting as well as the LA noise-rap trio Clipping., is set to star as the ever-beloved Sebastian in Disney’s reimagining of The Little Mermaid. Diggs said wrapped his own role in the show a while ago, but as the rest of the set just finished up their last days of filming, he gave an interview about how excited he is for fans of the classic film to see their new take on the original. Talking with Sirius XM Stars about the fantastic music in the movie, and some of Sebastian’s best songs like “Kiss The Girl” and “Under The Sea,” Diggs also praised Halle Bailey, who has her breakout role as Ariel.

“I’m excited too, I haven’t seen anything,” Diggs said. “It’s not like Disney be giving me private screenings of nothing… Halle is a star. She’s really, really special.” He reassured his interviewers that all the canon songs from the original film are in the new version, and shared his own childhood memory of lining up to go see The Little Mermaid in theaters back when the first film was released. Check out his interview above and stay tuned for more teasers of Halle’s big moment.

People Had A Lot Of Reactions To James Corden And Others Stopping Los Angeles Traffic For A ‘Cinderella’ Stunt

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James Corden is an oddly controversial public figure: an entertainer who seeks only to bring joy to the world. But sometimes he goes too far. (Then again, sometimes he gets texts from Tom Cruise about landing a helicopter in his yard.) An example of this happened recently, when he and three cast members from the forthcoming musical movie take on Cinderella — in which he plays one of the mice turned into a footman — ran into a Los Angeles street, all for a flash mob stunt meant to advertise the film. But for some, the move did the opposite of delight.

Footage disseminated on social media Saturday showing Corden, star Camila Cabello, Billy Porter, and Idina Menzel dancing and singing in traffic to Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud,” in costumes as their characters. (Porter plays the gender-neutral fairy godparent while Menzel is the evils stepmother). And what better way to make the throngs aware of this than to stop traffic in one of the most car-clogged cities on earth?

Indeed, rather than charmed, some people on social media found themselves livid. They pointed out that Corden and company probably made people late for work.

Others questioned the logic of the happening in the first place.

And there were lots of movie and TV jokes.

For what it’s worth, Cinderella — which comes a mere six years after Disney’s live-action stab, which starred Lily James and Cate Blanchett — hits Amazon Prime on September.

HER Lands Her First Acting Role For The Upcoming Musical, ‘The Color Purple’

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HER is a woman of many talents, and she’s looking to expand to a different part of the entertainment world. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the singer will appear in her first Hollywood film, namely director Blitz Bazawule’s new adaptation of the musical version of The Color Purple. HER will play Squeak, who progresses from a juke joint waitress to an aspiring singer. HER is working with the filmmakers to possibly create an original song for the movie as well. As for Bazawule, he was also the filmmaker behind the Beyonce-led film Black Is King.

Corey Hawkins from In The Heights will also star in the film. Oprah Winfrey, who earned an Oscar nomination for the 1985 (non-musical) film version will produce the film through her Harpo Films banner while Steven Spielberg, who directed that movie , is also listed as a producer. The Color Purple is set for a release on December 20, 2023.

While the film will be HER’s first acting role, it will continue the recent success she’s had in the film industry. Earlier this year, she landed her first Oscar for “Fight For You,” which appeared in the Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Steinfield-led film Judas And The Black Messiah. The win brought her halfway to the coveted EGOT award as she already has four Grammys to her name.

Eminem Has Locked Down One Of His First Acting Roles Since ‘8 Mile,’ In 50 Cent’s ‘Black Mafia Family’

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It’s been nearly two decades since Eminem made his film debut in the box office hit 8 Mile, and he’s now ready to work on another acting project. The rapper has now accepted one of his first acting roles since 8 Mile, and it’s in 50 Cent‘s upcoming Starz TV show Black Mafia Family.

50 confirmed the news of Em’s role on Instagram. The rapper is set to portray the famed FBI informant White Boy Rick, aka Richard Wershe Jr., who was convicted of drug charges and sentenced to life in prison at just 17 years old. Wershe was officially released in 2020, and the 2018 eponymous film starring Matthew McConaughey told his story.

Speaking about Em’s involvement in the upcoming series, 50 wrote: “Oh yeah i’m bringing the big dogs out, I couldn’t do a show based in Detroit without incorporating the legend @eminem. Got him to play white Boy Rick in BMF, this sh*t is out of here.”

Eminem has just a few acting credits on his IMDb page since 8 Mile (aside from music videos): He’s been on Crank Yankers, Funny People, Entourage, and The Interview.

Em isn’t the only rapper 50 Cent is enlisting the help of for his TV series. Last year, the rapper implored Rick Ross to use his track 2010 “BMF” on the show, which would be a fitting addition seeing as the title is already the same. Ross accepted, but on one bizarre condition: 50 Cent had to agree to promote Wingstop on his Instagram page. Ross owns a number of Wingstop storefronts, so he said he’ll agree to clear the track for 50’s Starz show, but first wants to “profit off of him.”

Barbra Streisand Was Not A Big Fan Of The Bradley Cooper-Lady Gaga Version Of ‘A Star Is Born,’ Saying It Took The ‘Wrong’ Approach

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There have been four movie versions of A Star is Born — five, if you count 1932’s What Price Hollywood?, which tells basically the same story. The one before the smash hit 2018 version with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga hails from 1976, and it starred another powerhouse duo: Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. While also a box office cash cow, that Star‘s the one with the worst reviews. But at least according to Streisand, it’s the Cooper-Gaga one that deserves the scorn.

In an appearance on the Australian talk show The Sunday Project (as caught by Deadline), Streisand had some very critical words about the 2018 iteration, which tracks one singer as her star rises and another as his falls.

“I thought it was the wrong idea,” the musical and acting legend said. “Look, it was a big success. I can’t argue with success. But I don’t care so much about success as I do originality.”

It’s true that the Cooper-Gaga Star had the same general idea as the 1976 one, which moved it away from Hollywood movie stars and relocated it to the music industry. That said, she thought one of the original ideas for the 2018 version — starring Will Smith and Beyoncé, with Clint Eastwood directing — was a good one.

“I thought…that’s interesting. You know, really make it different again—a different kind of music, integrated actors. I thought that was a great idea,” Streisand confessed. “So, I was surprised when I saw how alike it was to the version that I did in 1976.”

Streisand took credit for moving her Star into the music biz, although arguably the most famous version — from 1954, starring Judy Garland and James Mason — did take place in the world of movie musicals. And as brilliant as Streisand is as both a singer and an actress, she didn’t want to compete with Judy.

“When I did A Star Is Born…Judy Garland was so great in it, I thought, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to do this?” she said. “‘I have to change it. I’ll become a guitar-playing singer-songwriter, and Kris Kristofferson is already a singer-songwriter, and we’ll change the story a bit.’”

If you want to see if Streisand’s right, you can watch her version on HBO Max alongside the Cooper-Gaga. You can stream the Garland-Mason on there as well. For the original one from 1937, with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March, you’ll have to head to IMDb TV.

(Via Deadline)

André 3000 Has Been Cast In Netflix’s Don DeLillo Adaptation, ‘White Noise’

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Outkast favorite André 3000 has reportedly been cast in the upcoming Netflix film White Noise, which is directed by Noah Baumbach (who helmed Marriage Story) and also stars Adam Driver, Don Cheadle, Greta Gerwig, and Jodie Turner-Smith. Based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Don DeLillo, the movie, according to Netflix, “dramatizes a contemporary American family’s attempt to deal with the mundane conflicts of day-to-day life while grappling with the larger philosophical issues of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world.”

Since leaving Outkast in 2007, André has acted in a handful of roles over the last 15 years, notably appearing as Jimi Hendrix in the 2013 biographical drama Jimi: All Is By My Side, for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.

In 2019, the Atlanta rapper delved into why he has no interest in releasing a solo album, telling Rick Rubin on the Broken Record podcast, “I haven’t been making much music, man. My focus is not there. My confidence is not there. I tinker a lot. I’ll just go to a piano and sit my iPhone down and just record what I’m doing. Move my fingers around and whatever happens, but I haven’t been motivated to do a serious project. I’d like to, but it’s just not coming. In my own self I’m trying to figure out where do I sit? I don’t even know what I am and maybe I’m nothing. Maybe I’m not supposed to be anything. Maybe my history is kind of handicapping in a way.”

White Noise is currently filming in Cleveland, Ohio and is expected to hit Netflix sometime in 2022.

‘Wom/n Worldwide’ Breaks Down The Fem Superheroes That Ruled The Summer

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Who ran the world this summer? Women, that’s who.

In Uproxx’s latest video series, Wom/n Worldwide, we’re giving a much-deserved shout-out to the fem superheroes that are filling up our timelines with some much-needed good news. And women? They’ve been BUSY this year. Host Drew Dorsey breaks it all down in this, shining a light on the athletes, activists, actors, and all-around badasses affecting positive change in their respective fields. From decorated Olympians like Simone Biles putting a spotlight on mental health — and inspiring us all to take self-care more seriously — to the hip-hop queens ruling the charts, and the women revolutionizing the film industry from behind the camera — we’re hyped for it all.

The Olympics are still on everyone’s mind so now’s a good time to remind fans of how superstars like Biles, Katie Ledecky, and Naomi Osaka changed the game when it comes to how we view excellence in sport, and a couple of 13-year-old skateboarding phenoms blew our minds in Tokyo too. Speaking of empowerment, plenty of female artists have been delivering body-positive bangers this summer — we see you Cardi B — as icons like Billie Eilish, Lorde, and Halsey get ready to drop new music this Fall. (Our playlists needed updating anyway.)

We’re also ready for the world to update its beauty standards so naturally, we had to applaud Nikkie Tutorials for leading the way, and if you didn’t have enough to watch already, we’ve got a couple more female-helmed films to add to your binge-watching queue. All that and an update on the historic Generation Equality Forum that took place in Paris this summer pops up in our inaugural episode.

Check it out above!

Nancy Wilson Tells Us How She Taught Billy Crudup About LSD And To Be A Rock Star For ‘Almost Famous’

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Nancy Wilson is, of course, along with her sister Ann, the headliners of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band Heart. But, today, we are here to talk to Nancy Wilson because she was highly involved in the making of Almost Famous (with her then-husband, Cameron Crowe): from writing Stillwater’s “hits” like “Fever Dog,” to recreating what backstage at a ’70s rock concert actually looked like, to teaching Billy Crudup and Jason Lee how to physically look like rock stars on stage. (Almost Famous has just been released on a new 4K disc.)

Oh, yes, and then there’s the famous, “I am a golden god,” scene after Billy Crudup’s Russell Hammond takes LSD. You see, Billy Crudup had never taken LSD and didn’t know quite how to act. Nancy Wilson was familiar with the experience and gave Crudup some advice that, well, let’s just say that scene is just about perfect.

Ahead, Nancy Wilson explains how the song “Fever Dog” happened and what ’70s band she based the style on. And she explains why they had to teach Billy Crudup and Jason Lee to play while panties and gummi bears are flying at their heads.

Here’s how you can tell a movie has stuck around. When the Matt Damon movie Stillwater came out, there were a lot of “Fever Dog” jokes on social media.

Oh my God. That’s so funny. It’s great when it all connects. All the references all connect with each other, that’s great.

Speaking of “Fever Dog,” I’m always fascinated when someone has to create, in the universe of the movie, what would be a hit song. Because making a hit song sounds very difficult. Though, obviously, you know how to do that.

It’s a play within a play. It’s a fictitious band in a film that has, in their own era, in their own universe, has their own hit song. So it was a really fun project to write the Stillwater songs. And we had to come up with a coinage, to coin a phrase. Just based on, like, “Radar Love,” or something like that where you coin a phrase and you come up with a caricature of the nastiest person in rock, that would be “Fever Dog.” You make it up. At the time, me and Cameron were hanging out at the beach in Oregon where we’d done a lot of writing before. And we were in hysterics, we were paralyzed in hysterics with tears coming out of our eyes when we thought of “Fever Dog.” Because it’s the iconography of the mid to late ’70s blues rock: a fictitious, mid-level band song. We were just aiming at focusing straight into one exact spot. And I think with “Fever Dog,” we nailed it.

What’s also interesting is you’re not writing a number one hit. You’re writing like a number 20 hit.

It’s Top 20, yeah. It’s not as good as Led Zeppelin. It’s got to be mid-level good. So yeah, exactly, you totally get it. It’s not a tall order to fill because it’s got to be in the pentatonic, bluesy world of how a lot of what maybe Bad Company songs would go. Allman Brothers songs would go like that. A lot of the songs, radio songs, but not necessarily big, big hits.

Was there ever a time where you thought to yourself that “Fever Dog” was becoming too good. That it would be a number one song and you have to dial this back a little bit?

Yeah, just dial that back. Yeah, just take a little poetry out. But, no, we didn’t have that problem. But that would be a good problem to have! It was really, very, very Bad Company for the most part. We were borrowing off Bad Company, mainly.

The other thing I keep thinking about, Heart evolved over time. From the ’70s stuff into the ’80s stuff. And then into the ’90s with The Lovemongers. By the way, I still listen to your version of “The Battle of Evermore” all the time…

Oh, that’s a good one! Oh, that’s so cool.

But how do you get back in the ’70s mindset? You evolved as a musician over all these years and then all of a sudden be like, “I have to write a ’70s hit.”

Well, it’s just like, when you’ve lived through an era like that, you’ve absorbed into your DNA so much of the information from radio and from listening to records and going to shows. And it’s part of your persona by that point. If we wanted to, for instance, try to write a Joni Mitchell song, it would be much harder, obviously, because there’s the poetry right there. Even in the film itself, there were such authentic, rich, granular details that we made sure were in the film itself. Just the scenes in the film and the backstage areas and the detail of the roadies asleep, sleeping off a hangover on some road case in the background. Just the camaraderie and the community and the family of being. And then the whole aspect of putting on a show in these big arenas and having the moments that are bigger than life, larger than life, where the music happens? I think all that stuff is portrayed really perfectly in this film. I think a rock film is really hard to accomplish realistically because usually it’s a Hollywood translation of a rock lifestyle. But in this case, I had. And Cameron also had lived the rock life and been on the road and traveled with the band and been on the buses and the hotels and the bad pizza and all of it. So it was a real love letter to the authenticity of what it really is like to be out there on the traveling minstrel circuit with all the actors.

You taught Billy Crudup and Jason Lee how to create their stage personas?

Oh, yeah. We took a couple of weeks in a rehearsal space, we called it Rock School and watched a million Who videos and Zeppelin videos. And Crudup was not a player. So, the other guys were players already, but he was the one who really needed to perfect.

And he’s supposed to be one of the greatest guitarists in rock at the time.

Peter Frampton came and helped out and was another consultant on the Rock School project. But it was a lot between me and Billy Crudup, that I think he got the body language and stuff. Because I said, “You can’t look healthy and upright. You cannot have good posture. You have to be slouchy and you have to lean on one leg and go backwards and look like you’re standing in water all the time.” A lot of these cues I gave him for body language, he was really good at picking it up and adding it to his performances.

Okay why is that? I don’t know anything about this, so why would you need bad posture and standing like you’re in a puddle?

You’re kind of standing in some water because you’re like some seaweed in the water. So you’ve got this fluidity going on in your body language.

I see.

So you’re not like an upright Olympian player. Gravity is all over the place for you and you’re slinky and slouchy and crouchy. And if you’re going to be in your other world, there’s another world you’re in when you’re playing. And people might just run up to the front of the stage in front of you while you’re trying to concentrate on your music, playing your songs. And they’ll be like, “Please, please, please, please, please, sign, sign, sign something, sign something, sign something.” And you know, you can’t sign anything. So that was some of the stuff: I would run up to them when they were rehearsing the song stuff. I would go, “Please, please, please, please…”

So you’re actively trying to distract them to get them used to it?

Yeah.

Oh, that’s interesting.

And throwing stuff at them! And there’s panties flying at your head. And there’s Gummi Bears and stuff coming at you. So, it’s not a war zone, but sometimes-

It sounds like a gauntlet.

It’s a gauntlet. That’s the right word. But once in a while, an M80 would go off behind the stage. We’re glad it wasn’t on the stage. And I gave them some other advice for the Golden God scene where he’s on the roof at the party.

Oh, what was that?

Yeah, he was like, “Have you ever been on LSD?,” because he wanted some more direction. So I said, “Yeah, I have been on LSD in the late ’60s. I wouldn’t do it now.” But he said, “What was it like?” And I said, “Well, your brain is like an observatory that opens up to see all the stars above. And you have this electricity coming out the ends of your fingers and your hair. There’s electric bolts, little lighting bolts coming out of the ends of your fingers. And you’re in the heavens.” And I think he did a really good job with that scene.

Wow.

He looked like he had electric lightning bolts coming out of his fingers. It’s a funny story and it speaks so well of him as an actor. He’s so suggestible and I thought he just really nailed it.

Billy and Jason, were you modeling their stage presence after you and Ann? Were you Billy? Were you like, “This is how we interacted on stage and if you do this this is going to work”?

That’s a good question. I think with me and Ann it was a different dynamic just because we’re sisters … and female. But with guys in the band, with the egos of guys, and the way guys’s egos interact, that’s what we, with Cameron, too, were trying to portray. The best scene that explains that most of all would be the argument over the T-shirt.

Yes.

It’s like, “I do the biggest job in the band and you’re just a guitar player with mystique. Your looks have become a problem.” And that’s the male ego. To me, that’s pretty brilliant the way that scene was pulled off. Because it just speaks volumes of the rock and roll male ego trip.

Speaking of that, re-watching this in 4K now, I had never noticed before that there’s a scene a few scenes later where it shows Jason Lee as Jeff Bebe, wearing a shirt that just says, “Jeff Bebe.” It’s so funny.

That’s really funny. I know, that’s really funny. I remember that day when we were shooting that scene that he wore the Jeff Bebe shirt, really funny. There’s so much authenticity going on in that film that Hollywood could never really get right with a rock film. They always get rock and roll wrong if you ask me, because it’s just through the lens of Hollywood.

Yeah, it seems like, especially the biopics, they have a way of showing the band together and starting to write their songs. And they somehow come up with all their hit songs all at once as they’re sitting there in one session.

It just magically appears out of thin air.

Well, I’m glad we’re still talking about this movie and we’re talking about Stillwater. And there’s a movie called Stillwater in theaters.

Oh my God. I must see that.

They do not play “Fever Dog” in it, so don’t go in expecting that.

Okay then.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Michael Keaton Compares Upcoming DC Movie ‘The Flash’ To His 90s Film ‘Multiplicity ‘

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While it might seem a stretch to compare an imminent super hero blockbuster to a 90s cult-classic comedy, it’s exactly what Michael Keaton is doing. In an interview for the YouTube channel Jake’s Takes, Keaton revealed that working on the upcoming DC movie The Flash strangely reminded him of working on one of his former movies: Multiplicity.

According to Keaton, Multiplicity’s story — which follows a father who creates clones of himself in order to keep up with his hectic life — shares a lot of similarities with 2022’s The Flash. The actor then went on to say he feels a lot of the challenges he faced while filming Multiplicity, such as having to play different versions of himself, are seemingly the same ones Barry Allen star Ezra Miller has incurred while on set:

I mean just did The Flash and there’s a similarity in how – I don’t want to give too much away – but how he has to play against himself and with himself. And we were talking about the difficulty of making multiplicity and the challenge.

While it might seem a strange pull, what Keaton’s saying actually makes perfect sense considering everything we know about the upcoming DC film. It’s been confirmed for some time that The Flash will be the DCCU’s take on the iconic comic book series Flashpoint, a story in which Barry Allen must merge three separate timelines into one in order to save the universe… s.

Honestly, and Flashpoint plot aside, just Keaton’s involvement in the film alongside Ben Affleck’s Batman makes it seem as if there are going to be alternate realities and versions of other superheroes — heroes such as Miller’s Flash — aplenty. While the abundance of Batman movies makes for quite a few Batman variants to pepper in the film, it wouldn’t be shocking at all to hear that Miller will be playing his own counterparts in a very Multiplicity-esque fashion seeing as The Flash has had much less prominence in the film. Only time will tell if our speculations are correct, but we’re pretty certain at least in some reality they are.