Gugu Mbatha-Raw is on the cover of the March issue of Town & Country. She’s in gorgeous formfitting white gown with a bustle serving as a subtle nod to her Belle character. T&C’s profile of Gugu, 31, is just as flattering as their classy editorial. She’s a formidable actor with an interesting background, and multiple actors gush to T&C about her talent and the pleasure of working with her. I know Gugu from Belle, in which she plays historical figure Dido Elizabeth Belle. After seeing the trailer, I assumed it would be an overwrought period film, but it’s not. Belle is a delight and Gugu plays the lead with such grace and vulnerability. I’m surprised she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for that role, but I suppose it would be even more of a surprise if the Academy actually paid attention to actors of color for more than a year in a row. (Despite coming out in 2013 at TIFF, Belle was eligible this year.)

The article notes that Gugu played an entirely different kind of character, a narcissistic pop star, in Beyond The Lights, out last year. She’s also in that bloated scifi mess, Jupiter Ascending. (Who isn’t in that? I almost feel sorry for the Wachowskis, because I actually liked Cloud Atlas. So did the content director for Netflix apparently.)

Here are some quotes from Gugu in Town & Country, with much more in their full article:

On acclaim for her film Beyond The Lights
I mean, it’s really lovely. It’s great for the movie to, you know, have that establishment stamp from the New York Time. But reviews, numbers—they’re not for me. They’re for other people to read and absorb and analyze.

On her personal style
In my daily life it’s about being comfortable. I wear a lot of black. But now, to promote these films, I’ve been working with a stylist. I’ve had some fun Cinderella moments in red carpet land. I love the Audrey Hepburns of this world, and I think Cate Blanchett is stunning and always nails it.

It’s important to know that it’s okay to be your natural self. It’s also okay to dress up and wear makeup and hair extensions if you want, so long as you don’t feel like you need that or will be worthless without it. The point is, it should be a choice.

[From Town & Country]

Gugu strikes me as smart and grounded here. Her quotes about going natural vs. glamming it up are in reference to her Beyond The Lights character. I’ll have to rent that. Gugu has three films coming out this year including The Whole Truth with Keanu Reeves and Renee Zellweger and Concussion with Will Smith. I was hoping to see more of her and it looks like that’s about to happen.

photos credit: Victor Demarchelier for Town & Country via E! and WENN.com

Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker got bundled up with 5-year-old daughter Tabitha in New York City on Monday (February 9).

Braving the chilly Manhattan weather, the mother-daughter duo were seen walking to school. Perhaps twin sis Loretta was home with the flu?

Also mom to 12-year-old son James Wilkie with husband, fellow actor Matthew Broderick, SJP is currently collaborating with chic shoe company Tome.

“I just think they’re so talented,” Parker told Vogue of design partners Ryan Lobo and Ramon Martin. “It’s really so exciting to see.”

The men of Tome went on to gush about working with SJP.

“Not only is she an actor that we respect and a woman that we respect, she has this incredible fashion legacy as well, and now the shoe line,” they share. “She’s so much like all of the women who have influenced our collection, when you talk about dedication and work ethic, you know, you have three kids, you have a film career, and now you have a shoe collection, like what? Who has the time?”

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Michael Keaton heads into the awards season home stretch with an NPR Fresh Air interview. I perhaps loved Birdman too much. All of the principal actors (Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone) gave Oscar-worthy performances. No joke, and no snark. All three of them delivered. Naomi Watts (who is usually bland) was surprisingly good too. There’s one scene in particular — where Keaton dashes through Times Square in his tighty whities — that resonates about the celebrity experience. It’s not a flattering scene at all, but he works it, and I’ve got a screencap as my current Twitter background image. In this interview, Keaton talks about that scene.

He talks about how he randomly swapped out his real name (Michael Douglas) for this well-known stage name: “I sort of resent it.” The whole interview is full of good stuff. He’s one of nine children, grew up in a tiny Western Pennsylvania farmhouse, and so on. It’s NPR, so the interview is humongous. Here are a few excerpts:

His underwear scene in Times Square was with real spectators: “Real people because you couldn’t …. not just this scene, the entire movie – it was, for Riggan Thomson, one indignity after another. Yes, just horrible, just getting worse and worse and worse. Just so sad and pathetic, and him trying to hold his dignity up somehow. There are certain things you just can’t know definitively how to shoot, so that always happened and you had to rewrite or refigure, sit down, or have a meeting. And one of them was, OK, we’ll get extras for a while, and then they’re probably going to disappear and get bored.”

He almost “swam” through the crowd in his undies: “I’m a runner, you know, so and a jogger and a hiker and a walker, etc., so I still – my wind’s pretty good, my legs are pretty strong, and I can move. I can still go, you know, for a guy, you know, my age, I can – but you can’t really because camera can only go so fast. So you start to invent things, and one of the things I thought was just hold yourself upright kind of and do a – just a strut that’ll work for camera but also look like kind of stupid – not stupid, but kind of, you know, kind of like – not silly, because you can’t go silly, but in a way, like, kind of hold up his dignity.”

Wearing the Batman suit: “Simultaneously ridiculous to the point where you had overcome it and risky. And I guess kind of cool. I’m claustrophobic so I had to work through that. It ended up working really perfectly for the character. It made me feel real isolated inside there – couldn’t really hear and – but – so that really was a – ended up being a bonus – plus for me. But once again, you think, oh, boy. This is one of those things – this could really go down. This could just be a huge mistake. So you commit to it, and you say OK, you know, I’m in. Let’s make this thing work. And plus I had the advantage also – the imagery was so strong and powerful. And once I saw that, I went, oh, I’m going to work this thing, man. I’m going to work the angles of the suit, the shadows of the suit, the frighten-ness of it, the sexiness of it. I’m going to the work the [expletive] out of that.”

[From NPR – Fresh Air]

There are theories about the magical realism aspects of Birdman that I’d love to discuss but don’t want to spoil the film. A lot of people didn’t like the ending, but (with my whacked out theory) it made sense to me. There was an alternate script that included a Johnny Depp ending, which would have been cool five years ago. Nowadays, Depp’s presence turns everything into a joke, so it’s a good thing Johnny turned down the appearance.

Keaton says he’s still the “same dimensions” as when he wore the Batman suit in the late 1980s. Do you believe him? I do. I also want to ascribe more shade to his remarks. Can I do that? Why not. “Michael Keaton to DC & Marvel superheroes of today: I don’t need your stinkin’ diet and workout plan.” There, done.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN

Sports Illustrated interviewed Tom Brady after he’d had a chance to process his Super Bowl win. At the end, they discussed what it was like, coming home, coming down after the high of the victory. Here’s how he described it. And it’s making everyone horny:

Brady: “I ha…      

I feel sorry for Sam Taylor Johnson. I know she’s not a victim of anything or anyone, but I still feel sorry for her. She had to deal with a mountain of crap from E.L. James and the studio, and I get the feeling that Fifty Shades of Grey isn’t really HER vision, her film, or anywhere close to the film she wanted to make. But she’s still shilling it and she’s being remarkably honest in her interviews. In fact, out of everyone involved in Fifty Shades, I think Sam’s interviews have been consistently the most interesting. Anyway, in the midst of Sam’s HuffPo Live interview a few days ago, she was asked a personal question about when she knew she was going to marry then-Aaron Johnson, who was just 18 years old when they got together (and she was 41). She was asked when she knew and this was her reply:

“The instant he asked me. There were two proposals, one before we had even kissed. It was pretty instant.”

[From HuffPo]

Whenever I write about Sam and Aaron, I feel like the world has gone crazy. In previous interviews, she’s said that Aaron was the one to bring stability and family values into the relationship, and now she’s saying that he proposed to her before they had even kissed and she knew instantly that they would marry? Still, they’ve been together for five years or so and they have two kids together. Maybe it really will work out in the long run.

Sam also has a Q&A with THR and she once again name-checks E.L. James as a “difficult” person to work with. I appreciate that neither of them are sugar-coating it. But what was really interesting in this piece was the part where Sam talked about Charlie Hunnam dropping out:

“It was devastating at the time. It was tough because I thought I had a true collaborator with Charlie. But I started to sense that he was getting nervous about the fact that there were three books. It suddenly proved a little difficult of a concept that 10 years of his life could be this character. I think that made him nervous. But I now can’t imagine anyone else but Jamie playing it. We just went through a real bumpy ride to get there.

[From THR]

Well well well. You know that’s not the official storyline, right? The official story was supposed to be that Charlie’s work schedule was just crazy and he didn’t have the necessary time to commit to the role. Charlie spoke very highly of Sam throughout his cop-out though, and I believe they truly liked each other. But now Sam says Charlie tapped out for other reasons: Charlie didn’t want to play the same dumb Sparkles-wannabe character in three films.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Mom-of-three Jennifer Garner was spotted with son Samuel in Brentwood, Calif. on Tuesday (February 10). Looking casual chic in plaid, skinny jeans and ankle boots, the actress toted her tot – who turns 3 on Feb. 27 – and chatted with a fan before heading home.

The Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day star, 42, recently said she is done with diets and high maintenance beauty.

“I eat a lot—a lot—of salads. That’s the way that I get my veggies,” Garner told Yahoo! Beauty. “I eat lots of leafy greens, dark greens, with rice, too, because I want it to be a meal. I just have a big bag of greens that I get from the farmer’s market on Sunday. I keep it in a Ziploc bag and I just pull out handfuls of it for lunch everyday and add whatever I have to it.”

And her husband, Batman v. Superman‘s Ben Affleck, eats a similar diet most of the time, “unless he’s in the middle of really, really training for something,” she said. “And then, it’s such a different thing. Every calorie and every gram of protein—everything’s counted in a way that…I don’t know how he does it.”

The actress – who is also mom to daughters Violet, 9, and Seraphina, 6 – has no interest in wearing “crazy” dresses on the red carpet.

“With food I’m probably good 80 percent of the time. I’ve found out that I cannot pass up pizza without having some. I just can’t! My kids have a lot of pizza,” Garner shared. “I can’t go to a kid’s birthday party without having a slice.”

She added: “I mean, believe me, there’s always a point in the fitting where I feel like, ‘Why I didn’t I just try to lose four pounds and then I could wear any dress?’ I just can’t, though. I dieted for so long in the middle of doing Alias and being a superhero, that there’s something in me that can’t do anything that extreme.”

The Men, Women & Children star went on to share this anecdote: “Last night, I had some blue corn chips and cheddar cheese. And I have a photo shoot today! You know, whatever.”

As for her red carpet look, the actress keeps her makeup minimal.

“It drives my makeup people crazy! I mean, I have done that stuff before, but red lips on me is obnoxious,” she said. “I have enough of a big ol’ face that the last thing anyone needs is to have anything exaggerated that much.”

As for her “wholesome” upbringing in West Virginia, it sounds like beauty was not the focus in her household.

“I mean, we weren’t allowed to pierce our ears growing up,” Garner said. “We didn’t wear makeup. We couldn’t have layers in our hair, perms, or color, or manicures. My dad didn’t think it was ladylike. My dad just felt like his daughters should be wholesome. Luckily for my dad, none of us really bucked him on it. We were all fine with it.”

As for her own daughters, it might not be that easy.

“I think it’s going to be harder,” she shared. “My eldest already wants her ears pierced. I don’t know how you do it. I think you try to lead by example. The funny thing about that is my kids see me wearing more makeup than I ever could have imagined. So, they kind of think that’s normal.”

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Sylvester Stallone’s daughter is set to appear in the latest issue of Teen Vogue and she looks absolutely stunning!

Sistine Stalone even dishes on how her dad taught her how to throw down if she needs to:

“I don’t box, but he’s taught me how to throw a punch.”

So, there you have it. Who better to teach you to throw a punch than Rocky himself?

Read the full interview with Sistine Stallone by going here.

We seriously haven’t discussed Christina Aguilera since last August, when she gave birth to her second child, daughter Summer Rain Rutler. Christina has been with Matt Rutler for several years now, and they announced their engagement around the same time they announced this pregnancy. Summer Rain is Rutler’s first child, but Christina has an older son, Max, from her first marriage. Anyway, Christina and Summer Rain cover this week’s issue of People Magazine. I was kind of hoping for a cover devoted to the Grammys, but I guess not.

As for the timing – because no one was really asking “What’s Aguilera up to these days?” – she’s rejoining The Voice after going on hiatus for a year with her pregnancy. My mom watches The Voice and my mom did not miss Aguilera at all. My mom loved Shakira and wants Shakira to come back. But I guess Christina wants all of those other ladies to know that The Voice is HER gig and she will shill for her gig with baby photos. As for this baby… Summer Rain is gorgeous. But did People Magazine Photoshop Summer’s eyes to make them bluer? Here are some assorted quotes from the cover story:

Aguilera on Summer’s birth: “I was speechless. She was literally like an angel … We had an immediate calm bond, and I felt unexplainably connected to her and her spirit.”

Working motherhood: “It’s definitely not easy juggling work and motherhood, as being a parent is a full-time job within itself. You just have to make it work for you. My life has so many different moving parts, but my kids are the center focal piece, and everything else shifts around them.”

Mom guilt: “It’s hard to know you won’t have all the right answers at the right times. And ‘mom guilt’ is the worst thing ever. But you have to surrender and let go, knowing you’re doing your very best and no one loves them, or wants what’s best for them more than you.”

[From People]

Christina also says Matt Rutler was there for the birth (obviously) and she’s got lots of projects coming up, like producing an ABC Family show and returning to The Voice, I guess. I kind of wonder if The Voice is really jazzed about her return? They brought in a lot of guest judges and many of those people were really popular. People loved Pharrell and Gwen Stefani and Shakira. I kind of wonder if the producers are going to look for a way to get Aguilera out of her contract.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Dear Gossips,

You know who was at the Grammys with hardly a mention? Courteney Cox. Maybe you didn’t recognise her. I wish she had chosen a better pair of shoes.

Anyway, that’s my not very subtle segue to Dragons. Courteney Cox was born in the Year of the Dragon. And it’…      

Have you ever wondered what books Kourtney Kardashian reads to her little troopers before bedtime? Well, wonder no more, because she shared that info on Instagram! Kourtney, 35-year-old mother of three, shared the books that she reads to her three children, Mason, 5, Penelope, 2, and Reign, 1 month. As a bonus, she even shared a picture of her bedtime read, as well.

Bed time.

A photo posted by Kourtney Kardashian (@kourtneykardash) on Feb 9, 2015 at 8:31pm PST

As for Kourtney’s bed time reading material, she added the following photo: Kourtney captioned the photo: “Goodnight. My favorite face wash oil, sleep mask, a book, blanket and some dry shampoo out for tomorrow morning…??”

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