The 40-year-old Puerto Rican composer, lyricist, singer, actor, producer, and playwright will appear on Apple’s new biographical docuseries Dear….
Dear…takes an inventive and cinematic approach to biographies of the most iconic figures in society today by using letters written by those whose lives have been changed through their work.
In addition to Miranda, widely known for creating and starring in the the Tony Award-winning Broadway musicals In the Heights and Hamilton, the 10-episode series will profile internationally recognized leaders including Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Spike Lee, Yara Shahidi, Stevie Wonder, Aly Raisman, Misty Copeland, Big Bird and more.
The docuseries, inspired by Apple’s “Dear Apple” spots hails from Emmy and Peabody Award-winner RJ Cutler and Matador Content. The series will premiere globally this spring on Apple TV+.
The “Dear Apple” spots feature a mix of Apple Watch users who personally write a letter to thank the tech giant for the watch technology that has helped them live healthier lives. In one spot, a man notes how the watch’s SOS feature helped him call for help when he was injured in a car crash.
The 43-year-old Afro-Cuban American actor will star in BET’s The Bobby Brown Story, a two-part miniseries starring Woody McClain as the veteran R&B singer.
In addition to Alonso and McClain, the miniseries will also star Mekhi Phifer, Lil Rel Howery, T.K. Carter, Lance Gross, Alyssa Goss and Sandi McCree.
The New Edition Storybroke BET ratings records when it aired in January 2017, and The Bobby Brown Story picks up where it left off following Brown’s successful solo run.
McClain is reprising his role as Brown, one of the genre’s original “bad boys” whose life epitomizes the meaning of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. His hits may have kept him at the top of the charts, but his antics kept him on the front page.
Alonso (The Mysteries of Laura) is Louil Silas Jr, an MCA producer-executive who helps make Bobby a solo star.
Phifer plays Tommy Brown, Bobby’s brother. Howery is Brian Irvine, Bobby’s business manager. Carter plays Herbert “Pops” Brown, Bobby’s father. Gross is set as Steven Sealy, a childhood friend of Bobby’s who is killed in a gunfight after hanging with him at a hometown bar. Goss plays Bobby’s current wife, Alicia Etheridge, and McCree will reprise her New Edition Story as Bobby’s mother Carole Brown.
The Bobby Brown Story is directed by Spike Lee protégé Kiel Adrian Scott.
Production is currently underway in Atlanta.
BET plans a two-night September premiere for The Bobby Brown Story.
The 25-year-old Puerto Rican actor and Hamiltonstar has been cast in Legendary/Warner Bros.’ upcoming monster sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Ramos, who recently landed a role opposite Lady Gaga inA Star is Born, joins a stellar cast that includes Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, Ken Watanabe, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Aisha Hinds.
Michael Dougherty is directing from a script he co-wrote with Zach Shields.
Ramos will play Cpl. Mendoza, who keeps calm and cool on the surface but whose bravery isn’t to be underestimated in battle.
No plot details have been released for the film, which hits theaters March 22, 2019.
Ramos stars as Mars Blackmon in Spike Lee’s forthcoming Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It and co-stars in the Sundance Film Festival’s breakout film Patti Cake$, which Fox Searchlight nabbed for $9.5M and will release it in select theaters July 7.
He originated the roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton‘s eldest son, in the Broadway musical Hamilton. Prior to that, he created the role of Justin Laboy in the Lin-Manuel Miranda short musical, 21 Chump Street.
Rodrigo Prieto is stepping into the director’s chair…
The 51-year-old Mexican cinematographer, who has worked on films such as Martin Scorcese’s Silence and Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, will make his directorial debut with the revenge thriller Bastard.
Based on an original script penned by Bill Gullo, Bastard is a taut revenge thriller with a riveting antagonist at its core, set against a looming flood that will ravage the small town of Bird’s Point, Missouri.
A Mexico-City native, Prieto started his career shooting television commercials at the age of 22 before moving into features in 1992. He broke out into the film scene with his work on Amores Perros, which kicked off his collaboration with director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Prieto boasts a top-notch list of film credits including Julie Taymor’s Frida; Curtis Hanson’s 8 Mile; Spike Lee’s 25th Hour; Iñárritu’s 21 Grams andBabel;Oliver Stone’s Alexander; Kevin Macdonald’s State of Play; Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces; Francis Laurence’s Water for Elephants; Cameron Crowe’s We Bought A Zoo; Lee’s Brokeback Mountain; Ben Affleck’s Argo; and a clutch of Scorcese titles.
He’s most recently worked on HBO series Vinyland Silence, the latter of which saw him earn an Oscar nomination.
Prieto directed his first short film Likeness, starring Elle Fanning, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.
Production is slated to begin in the first quarter of 2018.
The 24-year-old Puerto Rican actor has been cast as one of the male leads in Spike Lee’s 10-episode Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It, a contemporary update of Lee’s groundbreaking 1986 indie film.
The series centers on Nola Darling, a Brooklyn-based artist in her late 20s struggling to define herself and divide her time amongst her friends, her job and her three lovers: the cultured model Greer Childs; the protective investment banker Jamie Overstreet; and da original b-boy sneakerhead Mars Blackmon, who still wears Jordans but now is a social-media phenomenon.
Ramos, who originated the roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the smash Broadway musical Hamilton, will play Mars, portrayed in the movie by Lee.
Lee is set to direct all episodes of the series.
This is the first series regular role for Ramos, a baseball prodigy who changed course when he enrolled in the American Musical and Dramatic Academy’s music theater program.
He got his big break when he landed the roles of Laurens and Hamilton in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.
La La Anthony is experiencing a Spike in her movie career…
The 36-year-old Puerto Rican actress, businesswoman and radio/television personality has joined Spike Lee’s Amazon Studios film Chi-Raq.
Anthony will portray Hecuba, a very strong, fiesty, outspoken woman who is part of a female crew/gang.
Set against the violence in inner city Chicago, Chi-Raq touts a top-billed cast that includes Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson, Angela Bassett, John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.
Anthony is a series regular on A&E’s Unforgettableand starred in the Think Like A Manfranchise.
Rosie Perez is headed back to the halls of learning…
The 49-year-old Puerto Rican Oscar-nominated actress, dancer and community activist will star opposite Jack Whitehall in ABC’s single-camera comedy pilot An American Education.
Based on the BBC Three series Bad Education, British actor-comedian Whitehall – who created and starred in the original series – is reprising his role as Alfie Wickers, now a British transplant and an unorthodox young teacher in the San Diego public school system. Alfie loves his students but his youthful, often naive enthusiasm and unconventional methods put him at odds with the test-obsessed administrators.
Perez will portray Rita Gomez, the school’s hard-assed Vice Principal, a terrifying force that grew up in a bad neighborhood who intimidates Alfie by her no-nonsense, bullish, self-righteous, by-the-numbers approach to ruling the school, or how she sees it, her kingdom.
Peter Huyck and Alex Gregory wrote the script from a story they co-wrote with Whitehall and Ben Cavey.
Perez, who got her big break in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in 1988, last appeared on television on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie and Fox’sThe Cleveland Show in 2012.
He may only be a student filmmaker at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped Rafael Cortina from getting noticed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The young Latino filmmaker has been named one of the winners of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Student Academy Awards competition.
Cortina, a film student at Occidental College, was selected as one of the finalist’s in the Alternative category for his film Bottled Up.
He’s one of 13 students from nine U.S. colleges and universities, as well as three students from foreign universities, selected as winners.
Cortina and his fellow winners will be brought to Los Angeles for a week of industry activities that will culminate in the awards ceremony, hosted by 1978 Student Academy Award winner and comedian Bob Saget, on Saturday, June 8 at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The medal placements – gold, silver and bronze – in each of the award categories will be announced at the ceremony.
The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title):
Alternative Bottled Up, Rafael Cortina, Occidental College The Compositor, John Mattiuzzi, School of Visual Arts Zug, Perry Janes, University of Michigan
Animation Dia de los Muertos, Lindsey St. Pierre and Ashley Graham, Ringling College of Art and Design Peck Pocketed, Kevin Herron, Ringling College of Art and Design Will, Eusong Lee, California Institute of the Arts
Documentary Every Tuesday: A Portrait of The New Yorker Cartoonists, Rachel Loube, School of Visual Arts A Second Chance, David Aristizabal, University of Southern California Win or Lose, Daniel Koehler, Elon University
Narrative Josephine and the Roach, Jonathan Langager, University of Southern California Ol’ Daddy, Brian Schwarz, University of Texas at Austin Un Mundo para Raúl , Mauro Mueller, Columbia University
Foreign Film Miss Todd, Kristina Yee, National Film and Television School, United Kingdom Parvaneh, Talkhon Hamzavi, Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland Tweesprong, Wouter Bouvijn, RITS School of Arts, Erasmus College Brussels, Belgium
The Student Academy Awards were established in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level. Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive 46 Oscar nominations and have won or shared eight awards. The roster includes such distinguished filmmakers as John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Robert Zemeckis, Trey Parker and Spike Lee.
