15/07/2026

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The Pitt, Hacks lead Emmy nominations GRITTY medical drama The Pitt and inter generational comedy Hacks recently topped the nominations for the Emmys, television’s equivalent of the Oscars. The Pitt racked up 25 nominations including one for best drama, while the fifth and final season of Hacks earned 24 nominations including one for best comedy. The one-two punch was a bright spot for HBO Max, the home of both programmes, and the platform with the most nominations overall at 122. Netflix’s Beef topped the nominations among the limited series contenders with 16 and the streaming giant was second-best overall with 111 nods. The Pitt – a cross between ER and 24 , and last year’s winner for best drama – follows the stressed-out workers in a Pittsburgh emergency room, with each episode unfolding in real time. Tackling everything from abortion rights to immigration crackdowns to mass shootings, the show started slowly but became a word-of mouth sensation. Noah Wyle – who rose to fame on ER – has racked up prizes as star of The Pitt , including an Emmy, and is again a nominee for best drama actor this time around. Another top drama contender is Pluribus – created by Vince Gilligan ( Breaking Bad ) – with 18 nominations. The Apple TV show is set in a post apocalyptic world in which most of humanity has been infected with an alien virus creating a peaceful hive mind, with only 13 outliers immune. Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn, who won a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award earlier this year for the show, is an early favourite for the Emmy for best drama actress. The other contenders for best drama include Keri Russell’s political soap opera The Diplomat , spy series Slow Horses and Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. On the comedy side, the competition looks set to feature an old favourite and a newcomer. Hacks , the tale of a stand-up comedian trying to revive her career and the dysfunctional millennial assistant who helps her, leads the way with 24 nominations. The show’s star Jean Smart has already won four Emmys for her portrayal of Deborah Vance and is nominated once again, as is co-star Hannah Einbinder, who won her first Emmy last year. The Sept 14 gala in Los Angeles will be hosted by veteran Law and Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay.

Enduring The Odyssey Damon attends The Odyssey world premiere in London. – REUTERSPIC

M ATT Damon has played action hero Jason Bourne, an astronaut stranded on Mars and dozens of other characters, but it was his role as the Greek king Odysseus that he said presented his biggest on-screen challenge. Director Christopher Nolan insisted on practical effects and real-world scale over digital shortcuts for his telling of The Odyssey , which will debut in cinemas on July 17. The nearly three-hour movie from Universal Pictures, the first feature film shot entirely with Imax cameras, adapts one of the oldest surviving stories in human history. “This is how a movie would have been made 80 years ago. Everything’s in-camera. You know, if you see a thousand people, then o Christopher Nolan’s movie is Matt Damon’s most challenging ever

relevant it is, you know, and the lessons that we can all learn from this piece of material. That is the importance of love and loyalty, perseverance, failure, facing your consequences, understanding right and wrong, and all that sort of stuff. I think that it’s super topical,” said Holland. The movie, Nolan’s follow-up to the 2023 blockbuster and best picture winner Oppenheimer , cost US$250 million (RM1 billion) to make. Fans began snapping up Odyssey tickets a year ago when seats at select Imax cinemas were put on sale. Box office forecasters expect its opening weekend will haul in between US$80 million and US$100 million at US and Canadian box offices. Zendaya, who plays the goddess Athena, said she felt “speechless” after seeing Nolan’s take on the classic story.

there are a thousand people there. The ships, those are real ships in the background,” Damon told Reuters. Nolan’s Odyssey was shot in six countries, including Morocco, Greece and Iceland. Damon and fellow cast members worked through extreme weather conditions with high winds and pounding rain that battered them on ships out in the open ocean. “It was without question the hardest film, the most challenging, that I’ve ever done,” he said. The Odyssey , the epic poem, dates back in written form to around the seventh or eighth century BC and is widely believed to have been sung before that in oral tradition. The story centres on Odysseus as he tries to get home after devising the strategy that won the Greeks the Trojan War. On his voyage across the seas, Odysseus encounters witches, monsters and gods before finally getting back to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland). “What’s so cool about the text is how runway show for Paris Fashion Week, discovers she has breast cancer. Jolie’s mother Marcheline Bertrand died of breast cancer at the age of 56, and Jolie underwent a double mastectomy in 2013 after discovering she was carrying the same genetic mutation as her mother. “I thought often of my mother and how much I think this film would have been wonderful for her when she was going through this,” she told Reuters. But it was not just about her mother; Jolie also got involved to bring Walker’s experience to the world. “You sit in that chair, and whether it’s cancer or anything, whether you’re male or female, we’ve all had that moment. “We’ve all had that moment where we’ve gotten some news that has shifted our lives,” the Maria actor said. Jolie had to go through a scene where operation lines were placed on her chest by an oncologist. “It felt a strange moment to have Hollywood in my hospital room. “Here I am, you know, in my gown, getting my needles, doing all the stuff that I do, but now we are sharing it. And so, it felt very vulnerable,” Jolie added. Alongside Jolie, the cast of Couture includes Ada, played by Anyier Anei, who is a model struggling with the fashion industry putting her on a pedestal, and make-up artist Angele, played by Ella Rumpf, who is trying to break out of the fashion scene by becoming a writer. Jolie hopes each character’s story will

“It is such a visceral emotional experience and you feel very much that you are on this odyssey with Odysseus the whole time. You are with him, you know, from the beginning to the end. It’s unrelenting,” she said. Angelina Jolie turns personal pain into performance for Couture

ACADEMY Award winner Angelina Jolie faced one of her deepest fears on screen for the French film Couture – being diagnosed with cancer. Based on personal experiences of writer and director Alice Winocour, Jolie plays fictional American filmmaker Maxine Walker, who, while producing a film to accompany a

Jolie plays a filmmaker diagnosed with cancer in Couture . – PICS FROM IMDB resonate with viewers. “I think what we found in doing this and hopefully what the audience will feel, is that we’re connected. “We’re connected as human beings, and we all go through something... And it’s very necessary to pull us all through being human,” the 51-year-old Jolie added.

Couture is a personal project for Jolie, whose own mother succumbed to breast cancer.

The Emmys are television’s equivalent of the Oscars. – AFPPIC