Austin Butler Can’t Help Falling in Love With Sarah Sherman’s ‘Jewish Elvis’ on ‘SNL’

Austin Butler brought his “casual” version of Elvis to Saturday Night Live, and SNL cast member Sarah Sherman graced the stage as “Jewish Elvis.”

Sherman’s “Jewish Elvis” was the star of Butler, Cecily Strong, and Ego Nwodim’s retirement home in a sketch Saturday night. Butler dressed like a grandma and appeared to be the performer’s biggest fan in the theater — even revealing a T-shirt under her blouse with her catch phrase, “This is a zizzaster!”

“The first night of Hanukkah, they really kick things off with a bang,” Strong says in the clip below.

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“Oh my god, I’m so horny I’m gonna friggin’ explode,” exclaims Butler, who was the host of SNL for the night in an episode that featured Lizzo as musical guest.

“Oh! I’m like Niagara Falls over here,” adds Butler later in the sketch. “My chair is gonna friggin’ drown. Ruin me, Jewish Elvis!”

Butler at one point throws a pair of underwear on stage, and at another jumps on stage to kiss Sherman’s Elvis. (The actor starred as Elvis Presley himself in Baz Luhrmann’s film released this year.)

Watch the “Jewish Elvis” sketch to see how the retirement home performance ends.

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How Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon Changed a ‘George & Tammy‘ Scene That Initially ‘Disturbed’ Her

Jessica Chastain says a scene was altered in George & Tammy with the help of co-star Michael Shannon to give country icon Tammy Wynette more agency in the Showtime limited series.

In the first episode of the series, based on Wynette’s personal and professional relationship with fellow musician George Jones, the duo is confronted with their future while Wynette is still married to her soon-to-be ex-husband Don Chapel.

In an interview with Marie Claire, the actress and producer on the Golden Globe-nominated show shared that, in an early outline of the scene, Jones gets Wynette alone by distracting Don with an escort. For Chastain, the sequence around this moment was upsetting.

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“I read it, and I was deeply disturbed,” Chastain recalled. “[Tammy] was just kind of sitting there. People were creating stuff so she could be caught rather than her making decisions.”

Giving the country music icon and voice behind hit “Stand By Your Man” agency in her narrative was incredibly important to Chastain. “The song isn’t about being a doormat,” she said of Wynette’s famed single. “And the reality is Tammy Wynette was married five times.”

Ultimately, the subplot was nixed and during filming, Shannon would make a tweak of his own, changing a line that implied George didn’t acknowledge Wynette’s agency in their physical relationship into one that underscored it.

“[Michael] changed the line from, ‘Yes, I’m going to f— her’ — excuse the language — to ‘I sure would like to,’” Chastain remembered. “The second he said, ‘I sure would like to,’ it was like, ‘Oh, yes, this is happening.’ Because he sees her as someone who gets to make the decision. And that’s working with an actor who’s very aware he doesn’t own me.”

Shannon, who worked with Chastain on 2011’s Take Shelter and celebrated their shared collaborator Guillermo del Toro during his recent MoMA career tribute, said the line switch was a byproduct of them being “so in tune with one another.”

“The notion of sitting in front of another man and looking at a woman and proclaiming that you’re going to f— her seems a little neanderthal to me,” he said. “I mean, if I was the woman in question, I wouldn’t enjoy that so much.”

The scene is ultimately just one way Chastain saw to not just assert Wynette’s choices and humanity in the limited series about her life and relationship — “she made decisions in her life,” the actress noted — but ensuring she was equally respected within the storytelling.

“To be a producer, and to have a production company, means you get to police that in the writing,” she said. “You get to say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. We need to honor women as human beings. And they make their own choices — just like men do.’”

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.

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Fans Choose The Weeknd’s ‘Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)’ as This Week’s Favorite New Music

The Weeknd‘s latest offering “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” has topped this week’s new music poll.

Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Dec. 16) on Billboard, choosing the bombastic ballad, which plays over the end credits of the long-awaited sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, as their favorite new music release of the past week.

“Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” beat out new music by Rosalía and Cardi B (“DESPECHÁ RMX”), Juice WRLD (“Face 2 Face”), PinkPantheress (“Take Me Home”), FLO (“Losing You”), and others.

“Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” takes a sonic cue from Gerard McCann’s “Cry Little Sister” from the 1987 cult classic The Lost Boys.

“I thought I could protect you from paying for my sins/ You give me strength/ I would do either way/ Nothing’s lost/ No more pain, just you,” he sings on the track, which was co-written and co-produced by Swedish House Mafia,

The Weeknd is no stranger to big movie soundtrack singles, having previously scored Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits from Fifty Shades of Grey (“Earned It”) and Black Panther (“Pray for Me”) alongside Kendrick Lamar).

Trailing behind “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” on the fan-voted poll was Rosalía’s remix of the MOTOMAMI smash “DESPECHÁ.” The Cardi B-assisted track brought in nearly 40% of the vote.

See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.

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Billy Joel Postpones Madison Square Garden Concert Due to Illness

Billy Joel‘s last concert of the year has been canceled, the Piano Man told fans on Sunday (Dec. 18). Joel revealed that he is sick and has been advised to rest his voice.

“I’m disappointed to share that I’m under doctor’s orders for vocal rest due to a viral infection so unfortunately, I must postpone my Monday, December 19th concert at Madison Square Garden to June,” Joel wrote on Twitter and Instagram.

“I’m so sorry to let you know so close to show day, but I was hoping to be closer to a full recovery by now,” he added. “Sadly, that hasn’t happened. I look forward to seeing you in the New Year.”

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An additional update from a spokesperson for Joel that was posted on his official website confirms that Monday night’s concert is currently rescheduled for June 2, 2023: “All tickets purchased for the December 19, 2022 concert will be honored on Friday, June 2, 2023 and will not need to be exchanged. Please note, the June 2nd performance is subject to change if it conflicts with a playoff game. For more information, please visit www.msg.com. Joel’s Madison Square Garden franchise run will resume as scheduled on January 13, 2023.”

See Joel’s upcoming list of tour dates here, and his announcement below.

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‘Mamma Mia!’ Sequel Director Ol Parker Teases Future for Film Franchise

It sounds like Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again director Ol Parker might be ready to take a chance on pursuing another film in the musical franchise.

Parker, who helmed Universal Pictures’ 2018 follow-up to director Phyllida Lloyd’s 2008 hit Mamma Mia!, told Screen Rant in an interview published online Saturday (Dec. 17) that producer Judy Craymer has always intended to make a film trilogy. Craymer has credits on both films and also the ABBA-centric jukebox musical of the same name, which was the basis for the first movie and has had runs on the West End and Broadway.

“Judy Craymer, the genius producer behind the musical and the first two films, always plans for it to be a trilogy,” Parker teased. “That’s all I can say. The first one made an enormous amount of money, and I think we made a fair amount too.”

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The Ticket to Paradise filmmaker continued, “I know that there is a hunger for a third, and I know that she has a plan. Wouldn’t it be lovely?”

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again brought back such castmembers from the first film as Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper and Christine Baranski, along with adding new players including Lily James and Cher.

In her review for The Hollywood Reporter, film critic Leslie Felperin noted that the sequel’s selection of ABBA tunes was less notable than that of the first: “Indeed, the movie’s biggest failing is that so much of its soundtrack, the very engine that propels it, is made up of far too many actual B-sides, or at least lesser-known tunes from the back catalogue of Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the two Swedish singer-songwriters who made up half of the 1970s pop quartet ABBA.”

Here We Go Again collected $395 million worldwide, which was well below the 2008 film’s $609 million global take.

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.

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Billie Eilish Welcomes Childish Gambino, Khalid to the Stage in Los Angeles

Billie Eilish was joined by some special guests at her concert Friday night (Dec. 16) at the Kia Forum: Childish Gambino and Khalid.

The show — Eilish’s last scheduled for 2022, before the Happier Than Ever world tour picks up again in March 2023 — was her third of a trio of hometown dates at the Los Angeles venue. Being just two days before her Dec. 18 birthday, Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) took a moment to wish her a happy birthday with the crowd.

He also performed his Grammy-winning song “Redbone” from his 2016 album Awaken, My Love!

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Khalid took the stage with Eilish elsewhere during the concert, for both his 2018 “Lovely” collaboration with Eilish and his own 2016 single “Location.”

The night prior, Eilish’s concert at the Kia Forum had featured a special duet of the 1998 Foo Fighters hit “My Hero” with Dave Grohl, in tribute to the late Taylor Hawkins, as well as an appearance from Phoebe Bridgers for a duet of her 2017 breakthrough song “Motion Sickness.”

Watch fan-filmed concert clips of Childish Gambino and Khalid’s Friday night performances at Eilish’s show below.

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