#premiere article

[appropriatelystupid]

[b-skarsgard]

The Crow premiere after party hosted by SSENSE

[natlacentral]

2 Indigenous designers collaborate on Kiawentiio's Hollywood red carpet look

It was a Cinderella moment for two Indigenous designers who hustled to make the perfect dress for Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) actress Kiawentiio's red carpet moment.

The Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender, in which she plays Katara, had its red carpet premiere Feb. 15 in Los Angeles.

Tasha Thompson was commissioned for the hand-beaded corset and Evan Ducharme for the tiered skirt. The two collaborated to make the dress without ever meeting each other in person.

"When it was a go, everything went quick," said Thompson.

"I tore my fingers up a little bit but I have no regrets." 

Thompson said beading the bodice took her a week and a half. 

The teen actress turned to her friend Thompson to help her represent herself and her character through the garment. Thompson and Kiawentiio are both from Akwesasne, on the Quebec, Ontario and New York state borders.

"First we figured out the shape of the corset and then we had the idea for it to be a little avant-garde, you know, with the wave coming up," Thompson said.

"Then we just kind of kept adding from there."

Although Thompson said she's been beading for as long as she could remember, this is the first time she's seeing her work on a Hollywood red carpet. 

With three daughters, Thompson had her own cheer squad at home. 

"They pushed me more than I pushed myself because they see my talents and potential like even more than I do myself," said Thompson.

Big fan of show

Ducharme, who is a Métis designer based in Winnipeg, said he first connected with the actress on Instagram when she was cast in the role.

"I did what every PR agency would tell you not to: I just lost my cool factor, as they would say in the industry. I sent them a DM," said Ducharme.

As a long-time fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ducharme said his heart stopped when he got the email asking if he was interested in this opportunity. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by EVAN DUCHARME (@evanducharmestudio)

"The character of Katara is very important to Indigenous people, Indigenous kids, Indigenous fems in particular," said Ducharme.

With the plan, the colour palette and the OK to go, within two weeks Ducharme had sent off the bottom part of the dress in the mail.

"To have the opportunity to build something for them for this premiere was a moment that the nerdly little Michif kid inside of me wouldn't have believed in a million years," he said.

[sincericida]

ANDREW GARFIELD

photographed by Emil Ravelo for The Los Angeles Times.

[tomhollandnet]

Amanda Seyfried Shares How Tom Holland Bonded With Her Kids on Set of The Crowded Room | eonline.com

"He was so sweet with my daughter. So sweet. She would be drawing, and he would like go, 'Hello!' He loved my dog. I did have some visits a lot. It was nice."

[hendolish]

[From SBNation, 2016]

[fromtheseventhhell]

New "TWOW announcement is coming soon" rumor to be delusional about just launched, I'm up

[noahschnappinfs]

hoping the crying is tears of happiness

i can confirm that noah totally cried after he read about will’s happy ending with his husband and children🤞🏻

[lovetgr76]

Slow Horses Season 4's Missing Character Creates A Major Gary Oldman Problem

No Standish... is definitely a problem!!

[chirpsythismorning]

Concept: ST5 promo slowly revealing things over the next year that basically indicates they lied about a bunch of things.

First this new character announcement, despite saying there would be no new characters (the first lie). Next thing you know there’s gonna be some cryptic promo about a birthday, and everyone will be confused like WTF?? Then they’ll do an interview and laugh audibly over a question about the birthday debacle and be like ‘you guys actually believed we don’t rewatch our show??’… Then we’ll get something that indicates Mike was lying in his monologue, with even just the most subtle side joke about it…

Aka Friends don’t lie coming full circle with the creators @ their audience in real time 😭

[theolsentimes]

Premiere Magazine, May 2004

“This is the funniest thing, we've been asked this question so much lately. It was some silly thing that came out for Premiere Magazine. And it was a press release, probably ten years ago. Yeah, ten years ago and they just got a hold of it. And, you know, it's 'something to talk about.' It's just nice to be known by your name, I guess. You can call us "Olsen Twins," we don't get offended at all! It's just something people are having fun talking about.” —Ashley Olsen (Letterman, May 2004)

[whiteshipnightjar]

Andy Samberg is the perfect choice to play David E. Scherman in 'Lee' (2023) and here's why: (1) he's a great actor and that's non-negotiable, it's a fact; (2) this scene in the film:

and the real life from David E. Scherman's perspective:

illustrated by these photographs:

(3) . It's going to be so good, you guys!

[theghostofashton]

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[natlacentral]

Kiawentiio Grew Up with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Twice.

The actress, who plays Katara in the new Netflix adaptation, has a long history with the show—and took care to honor it on premiere night.

The 17-year-old Kiawentiio (pronounced gya-wuhn-dee-yo) is fortunate to have grown up with older siblings: They had the raised-on-cable insight to show her Avatar: The Last Airbender. The hugely popular animated series, which premiered on Nickelodeon in 2005—almost a full year before Kiawentiio was born—slowly became a backdrop to her childhood on the Akwesasne Mohawk reservation in Ontario known as Kawehno:ke, or Cornwall Island. When, years later, all three seasons dropped on Netflix and topped the streamer’s charts, Kiawentiio watched the show again with new eyes—and a new appreciation. She was mere months away from an official announcement, introducing her to legions of Avatar fans as the actress who’d play Katara in Netflix’s live-action adaptation. 

Katara, as Kiawentiio puts it, is “the heart of the group” of characters that round out the main Avatar cast. Among them, of course, is Aang, a century-old Air Nomad with the ability to manipulate the elements and (in theory) save the world from the terrorizing Fire Nation. But his closest partners are siblings Sokka and Katara, the latter of whom is herself a water-bender, capable of moving water with tai chi-inspired motions. “She is the optimistic, hopeful person in this group that keeps them moving forward,” Kiawentiio says. “I feel like that was something that you could definitely tell in the original series, and that’s what I really wanted to keep about her in our adaptation.”

Fidelity to the source material is a sore spot for many Avatar devotees, who were burned during Hollywood’s first attempt at a live-action adaptation. The disastrous 2010 The Last Airbender is notoriously one of the most-hated films ever produced, and it remains something of a warning sign lurking over the latest Netflix adaptation. Don’t make the same mistakes. Kiawentiio understands the fans’ fears and desires, and she welcomes their input, if not exactly the pressure that comes with it. “It definitely is a huge spotlight, and I think it’s important to protect yourself from those things,” she says. But, she admits, “I can understand a lot of opinions and a lot of point of views, so I think, for me, seeing good or bad is helpful to understand ... that point of view of the outside watcher.”

As the new adaptation makes its long-awaited debut on Netflix, Kiawentiio is relishing the opportunity to celebrate what the series has meant to her—not merely as a fan herself, but as an active participant in its impact. She grew up with Avatar twice: first as a child, then as a teenager, having been cast at 14 years old before filming and promoting the project into near-adulthood. When it came time to walk the premiere red carpet as one of the series’ stars, she knew she wanted a gown that would honor the show itself. Working with Indigenous designers Tasha Marie and Evan Ducharme, and stylist Benjamin Holtrop, she dreamed up a beaded corset and mermaid skirt etched with Avatar Easter eggs, and an overall effect like cascading water.

Ahead, Kiawentiio takes ELLE.com behind the scenes of her premiere look, and deeper into her hopes for Avatar’s future.

For the soft, peachy makeup her premiere look called for, Kiawentiio turned to artist Dom Della, who perfected a smudged wing and sun-kissed glow. “For the makeup, I definitely wanted to keep it more subtle, not too in-your-face,” Kiawentiio says. “Especially with the hair and the outfit, I just wanted to keep it—glam, definitely, but simple as well.”

Hair stylist Laura Rugetti affixed Kiawentiio’s long, swooping braid into a crown atop her head, then draped the tail down the actress’s side to hang just below her hip. “In our culture, braids are really significant, and they are actually a form of protection as well, so it was really important to me to incorporate that,” Kiawentiio says.

As proud as she is of her work bringing the new Avatar to life, Kiawentiio is already looking forward to returning to set, should the series get its anticipated green light for season 2. She feels more comfortable as Katara now that she’s spent a few years in the character’s skin. 

“I was learning her as we went,” she says, “and I feel like you could see that on screen—when I kind of sank into her character. So I feel like the Katara that we see in [episodes] 7 and 8 is what I would hope to bring to next season. As we all know from the original series, she becomes so much more confident in herself and in her capabilities to stand on her own, so I think that’s something that I’d love to focus on for season 2.”

Kiawentiio’s premiere-night gown was entirely custom-made, and composed of two separate pieces: a corset by Tasha Marie and a skirt by Evan Ducharme. Having walked in one of Marie’s fashion shows before, Kiawentiio capitalized on her relationship with the artist, and drew up a sketch of what she hoped to incorporate in a corset. “We did go back and forth, and she gave me her ideas and I gave her my ideas,” Kiawentiio says. “I thought it would be really cool to incorporate each symbol for the four nations, so that’s in there.”

Other Avatar Easter eggs incorporated into the beadwork include a Pai Sho tile—a piece from a fictional game in the Avatar universe, beloved by the character Uncle Iroh—and a fan used by the show’s Kyoshi warriors. 

“Then another favorite thing of mine, a personal touch, was the wolf prints on the side,” Kiawentiio says, “which is actually kind of a double meaning, because I am Wolf Clan, and also Wolf Cove for Katara and where she comes from.”

On the back of the corset are the twin Koi fish Tui and La, which—as fans of the animated series will know—represent the moon and ocean spirits of Avatar. “I knew that that was something I wanted to incorporate,” Kiawentiio says, “and it just turned out so beautifully, and I definitely praise Tasha for how amazing her work has been.”

Ahead of the big night, stylist Benjamin Holtrop reached out to BYCHARI to design custom drop earrings to pair with rings from Dean Davidson. “It was so sweet,” she says. “He surprised me with those custom earrings and they just went perfectly with the whole outfit, and it really was the cherry on top.”

To turn Katara’s water-bending motions into muscle memory, Kiawentiio trained for six weeks ahead of production. “That contained mostly going over tai chi forms and building fight scenes and getting my body used to those movements,” she says. “Also, exercises to get my legs strong enough to handle them, because tai chi consists of a lot of horse stance; you really need strong legs.”

The actress wants to keep Avatar in her life for as long as possible. “I definitely hope for season 2 and season 3—I think we all really want that for this show,” she says. “I am proud of what we’ve done for season 1, but I think there’s just so much to look forward to as well. In the animated series, it just gets better and better each season. So there’s a lot of scenes that I’d love to recreate and relationships that I’d love to see.”

[sincericida]

ANDREW GARFIELD

photographed by Emil Ravelo for this article for The Los Angeles Times.

[boutique-nouri]

Jose Mourinho open to Premier League return after Europa League red card: ‘I’m ready to go’

Jose Mourinho hinted at a potential return to the Premier League after receiving a red card in a recent Europa League match. Frustrated by the decision, Mourinho expressed his readiness to manage a struggling English club outside of UEFA competitions, suggesting he could help a team battling relegation. Despite his irritation with officiating, he laughed off any notion of appealing his suspension.

For a more in-depth look, you can view the article here.