There may have been a Time-Turner in the building at the BAFTA TV Awards in London on Sunday night as “Harry Potter” stars past and present collided at the ceremony.

On the red carpet, Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy in the original movie series, posed alongside Lox Pratt, who is set to play Draco in the upcoming HBO adaptation.

Lox was at the ceremony to present the awards for children’s non-scripted and children’s scripted alongside his “The Lord of the Flies” co-star Winston Sawyers. In a recent interview with Variety he said: “I’m excited for people to see it because he’s so different to how Draco was in the films.”

Also on hand were Nick Frost and Paapa Essiedu, who have been cast as Hagrid and Severus Snape, respectively. They jointly presented the award for best supporting actress to “Adolescence” star Christine Tremarco.

Introducing the duo, BAFTA TV Awards host Greg Davies quipped he had auditioned for the role of Hagrid himself and was only now just finding out he hadn’t got the part – it wasn’t entirely clear if he was being serious about the audition or not.

Meanwhile Katherine Parkinson, who will play Molly Weasley in the HBO adaptation, was also present as she was nominated for best comedy actress for “Here We Go,” which she went on to win.

The HBO series, which is believed to be adapting one novel in the series per season, is set to launch this December with an (almost) entirely new cast. Dominic McLaughlin will play the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, while Alastair Stout plays his best friend Ron Weasley and Arabella Stanton plays know-it-all Hermione Granger.

John Lithgow co-stars as beloved Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

Last week HBO confirmed the show had already been greenlit for a second season, which will be based on the second book in the series, “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” It is set to begin filming this fall.

The team behind Channel 4 documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, which the BBC had shelved, citing impartiality concerns, won an award at the BAFTA TV Awards on Sunday and used their acceptance speech to criticize Israel and the BBC.

British journalist Ramita Navai, the doc’s reporter, and Ben De Pear, the program’s executive producer and a former Channel 4 News editor, spoke out on the BAFTA stage, addressing the U.K. public broadcaster, after the doc won the current affairs BAFTA during the second half of Sunday’s ceremony.

“This award means so much to us,” Navai said. “Israel has killed over 47,000 children and women in Gaza so far. Israel has … targeted every single one of Gaza’s hospitals. It’s killed over 1,700 Palestinian doctors and health care workers. It has imprisoned over 400 in what the UN now calls a ‘medicide.’ These are the findings of our investigation that the BBC paid for but refuses to show. But we refuse to be silenced and censored.”

De Pear then took over, saying that the team behind the doc also wanted to dedicate the award to the two journalists on the ground “who made this film for us,” adding: “They did so amongst the killing spree that killed over 250 of their colleagues, journalists in Gaza.”

He ended with a direct question for the BBC, which is airing the BAFTA TV Awards with a delay later on Sunday. “Finally, just a question to the BBC,” he said, looking into the camera. “Given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the BAFTAs screening later tonight?”

The 2026 BAFTA TV honors are being handed out at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in the British capital. Netflix drama Adolescence led the nominations with 11, followed by Disney+’s A Thousand Blows with seven. Comedian and Taskmaster host Greg Davies is hosting the awards ceremony. 

Three years after a crippling strike by the writers and actors, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has already wrapped up deals with both unions, ahead of schedule and with no drama.

On Monday, the studio alliance will try to make it 3-for-3 as it sits down with the Directors Guild of America, the one guild that didn’t go on strike in 2023.

As with the Writers Guild of America talks, the primary focus will be on healthcare.

DGA members enjoy a gold-plated plan, with no individual premiums and $1,000 out-of-pocket maximums for in-network care. The WGA agreed to a deal in April that significantly increases the cost writers pay for their coverage, including individual premiums for the first time, and the DGA will be under pressure to make similar concessions.

The studios are expected to significantly increase their contribution rate as part of the deal, though the precise balance is still to be seen.

“The employers are going to have to raise their contributions — that’s just a fact of life,” DGA President Christopher Nolan said in a roundtable interview in January, noting that the plan had already imposed some benefit modifications. “We’ll do our part, but the employers are going to have to step up and do theirs.”

The DGA health plan is not doing as badly as the WGA plan was, but it’s not in great shape either. Skyrocketing health costs caused the plan to lose $38.8 million in 2024, following a $4.6 million loss in 2023, according to the plan’s most recent tax returns.

The primary issue facing DGA members — and all film and TV workers — is the scarcity of jobs. The union is expected to offer some proposals to try to safeguard employment for its members, though the union’s tools are somewhat limited in this area.

The other major bargaining priority is artificial intelligence. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA have each sought to protect their members’ creative work from being used to train AI models that can replace human workers, with only limited success.

For now, the studios are not reaping a windfall by licensing copyrighted work to AI companies, and are instead having to spend money on lawyers to try to protect their work from being taken and repurposed for free. A deal between Disney and OpenAI to license characters for use on Sora fell apart when OpenAI discontinued the platform.

The AMPTP has essentially agreed to notify the unions and bargain in the future if AI training does become a source of revenue, but has not been willing to prejudge what such training might be worth.

The studios’ top priority in negotiations this year has been to extend the standard three-year contract term to gain stability and labor peace. In the interview in January, Nolan was cool to the idea of going as long as five years, saying it was not a realistic proposal.

Since then, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have agreed to four-year deals, increasing the likelihood that the DGA will end up there as well.

“The DGA prides itself on being open to anything,” Nolan said.

The DGA contract expires on June 30, though the expectation is that talks will not take that long to wrap up.

Martin Short has spoken out following the death of his daughter, Katherine Short, who died in February. She was 42.

“It’s been a nightmare for the family,” Short told CBS Sunday Morning of Katherine’s death. “But the understanding [is] that mental health and cancer, like my wife’s, are both diseases, and sometimes with diseases they are terminal. And my daughter fought for a long time with extreme mental health, borderline personality disorder, other things, and did the best she couldn’t until she couldn’t.”

Katherine, the eldest of three children adopted by Short and his late wife, Nancy Dolman, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the Los Angeles coroner.

A licensed social worker in Los Angeles, Katherine dedicated her career to mental health advocacy, working with the charity Bring Change 2 Mind, which focuses on reducing stigma around mental illness. She graduated from NYU with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and gender sexuality studies in 2006 and earned a master’s in social work at USC. She worked at UCLA’s Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital before moving into private practice.

Katherine’s mother, actress Nancy Dolman, died of ovarian cancer in 2010. Short has previously spoken about the difficulty of losing a spouse, telling The Guardian: “It’s been a tough two years for my children. This is the thing of life that we live in denial about, that it will ever happen to us or our loved ones, and when it does you gain a little and you suffer a little. There’s no big surprise.”

Short is set to be featured in a new Netflix documentary, “Marty, Life Is Short,” which is scheduled to premiere on May 12. The film explores his more than five decades in entertainment, including archival footage and interviews with collaborators.

Fans and colleagues of Short have expressed condolences on social media, honoring Katherine’s work and the joy she brought into the lives of those around her.

If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.

I’ve got to thank my oldest friend and concert buddy, Tim, for turning me on to this one. Ashnymph is a London band that blends post-punk melodies with Krautrock rhythms and industrial grime. Their debut EP, Childhood, drifts between dreamy vocals buried in layers of reverb and four-on-the-floor dancefloor pounding. It’s a thrilling opening salvo from a band that feels on the cusp of a major breakthrough.

Childhood opens with an ambient recording of someone walking down a hall (I think), and some swirling synth noise before the first song, “Island in the Sky” kicks off properly with a motorik beat and bass throb. The thin, digitally manipulated vocals and robotic groove punctuated with bursts of noise, but the big chords of the chorus bring to mind Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s “Whatever Happened to My Rock and Roll.”

“Saltspreader,” the band’s first single, is next. It launches with a deep metallic grind splattered by clanking percussion and drum hits, before a soft synth arpeggio brings some melody to the party. In the back half, there are deeply chorused vocals that ooze ‘80s goth, driving guitar, and a disco stomp. Despite its slow build, it’s clear why the band chose this as their first single. It’s dark, dancey, and an absolute earworm.

“After Glow” leans even further into ‘80 fetishism, recalling Depeche Mode and early Ministry, before Al Jourgensen discovered guitars. “47” marries industrial beats with chipmunk vocals and off-kilter guitars in the vein of No Wave acts like Swans. But the last-minute switch to a half-time groove removes the more abrasive layers, letting the beauty of the guitar melody shine through while ethereal vocals float over the top.

The last track, “Mr. Invisible,” is possibly the most experimental of the bunch. It’s more explicitly electronic than the rest, relying on heavily manipulated samples, indecipherable vocals, and a relentless bass thump for the first chunk. Eventually, clearer vocal melodies and circular guitar lines play off the polyrhythmic synths. The whole thing is disorienting, dizzying, and exhilarating. It ends somewhat abruptly on a lopsided guitar groove and an echoed vocal, leaving me wanting more. So much more.

The third (and last?) season of “Euphoria,” HBO’s crushingly bleak portrait of wayward youths in Southern California, sees its coterie of high school friends navigate the seventh circle of hell — which, in the eyes of its creator, Sam Levinson, means entering the world of sex work.

Rue (Zendaya) goes “Maria Full of Grace,” smuggling fentanyl from Mexico to America in her body and working as an assistant manager at a seedy strip club to work off her substantial debt to Laurie; Jules (Hunter Schafer) is raking in big bucks as a high-end sugar baby to a plastic surgeon who enjoys mummifying her in Saran wrap; Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) starts an OnlyFans to pay for the $50,000 in wedding flowers she apparently needs to marry Nate (Jacob Elordi); and Maddy (Alexa Demie) reluctantly becomes her ex-friend Cassie’s manager, intent on transforming her into the next Sophie Rain.

Cassie’s OnlyFans journey begins with her making content posing as a dog, replete with dog ears, collar, leash, wrist cuffs, tail, and a satin corset from Sweeney’s lingerie line SYRN, bending over and lapping up water from a bowl on the ground. She further dresses up as a baby, spread eagle on the couch in a sheer pink shirt, her hair in pigtails and a rattle in her mouth. Cassie and Nate’s housekeeper, Juana (played by Minerva Garcia), has been tasked with snapping photos of Cassie in these revealing costumes for her OnlyFans (she deserves a serious raise).

The show’s depiction of OnlyFans models via Cassie has, however, rankled real-life OnlyFans creators, who already find themselves subject to enough mockery and scorn due to their line of work.

“There’s just a lot that’s ridiculous and cartoonish about it,” Sydney Leathers, an OnlyFans creator since 2017, tells Variety. “There’s so much that they have her doing that is not even allowed on OnlyFans, and that alone is infuriating: the age-play stuff where she’s dressed as a baby in a diaper, for example. Credit card processors have very strict rules that you have to abide by, and the rules are getting stricter all the time.”

Indeed, any age-play content involving a real or simulated minor is expressly not permitted by the OnlyFans under its “Acceptable Use Policy” in its Terms of Service, and may result in “deactivation of your Content and/or your account,” including:

Illegal activity including actual, claimed, or role-played: exploitation, abuse, or harm of individuals under the age of 18; incest; bestiality; necrophilia; rape or sexual assault; and any content or conduct that promotes terrorism.

Maitland Ward, a top OnlyFans creator and adult actress who rakes in six figures a month on the platform — and, prior to her foray into sex work, starred on the sitcom “Boy Meets World” and the comedy film “White Chicks” — found the baby costume particularly damaging to the already-skewed perception of real-life workers on OnlyFans.

“In the climate we’re in, that they dressed her up as a baby to make pornographic OnlyFans content was beyond troubling and again serves to perpetuate stereotypes that sex workers have no moral compass and that they will do anything for money,” explains Ward. “And there’s always this untrue stigma that somehow sex work is synonymous with sex trafficking and abuse. And they just said, let’s make a joke of it. That is so funny. I’m not laughing.”

Levinson, for his part, explained Cassie’s OnlyFans arc thusly:

“[Cassie] has got her dog house and her little dog ears and the nose, and that has its own humor, but what makes the scene is the fact that her housekeeper is the one filming it,” Levinson told The Hollywood Reporter. “What we wanted to always find is the other layer of absurdity that we’re able to tie into it so that we’re not too inside of her fantasy or illusion — the gag is to jump out, to break the wall.” 

When it comes to how they lit the OnlyFans sequences, Levinson explained, “Some of these scenes we only lit with these ring lights that she would use. When you’re inside, it’s a beautiful, glowing front light, but then you jump out of it and it’s just a pool of light and everything surrounding it is dark. It’s just gnarly and jarring… We wanted to capture what she’s trying to show the audience and be inside of it, but then also pull back wider and see how depressing it is.”

But his comments about Cassie’s OnlyFans arc did little to dispel the notion that it’s all a big ol’ joke that OnlyFans creators are the butt of, according to Ward.

“That speaks volumes to me about why this OnlyFans storyline is being represented in the way that it is. It’s not being taken seriously,” says Ward. “It reminds me of when I pranced around in lingerie on ‘Boy Meets World.’ It’s just the guys in the writer’s room coming up with their fantasies. To take someone so traditionally blonde and beautiful with the biggest boobs and dress her up as a dog and baby is really bizarre, but at the same time so expected in Hollywood.”

One quasi-realistic portion of Cassie’s story is the way she attempts to make a name for herself on social media. At the urging of Maddy, Cassie visits a raucous mansion party hosted by a popular online influencer in the hopes of going viral. She dances on a platform and makes out with another hot girl, as a horde of creators livestream it to their considerable followings, and then allows the aforementioned hypebeast to do cocaine off her navel just before Maddy bursts into the room with a videographer to snag content of the two in a compromising position.  

“When Cassie goes to the influencer’s house to get video, coming from a marketing background myself, I thought, ‘OK, that’s fuckin’ smart. That’s a great formula,’” offers Alix Lynx, a popular OnlyFans creator and adult actress. “On the other hand, it’s portrayed that if you just dress up and do crazy shit, you’ll instantly make money, or you just have to be hot and have big boobs and you’ll instantly cash out, and it doesn’t work like that. You have to really grow and nurture a fan base.”

Indeed, to all three OnlyFans creators Variety spoke with, Cassie’s OF odyssey is inverted — in reality, they say it’s essential to amass a large online following before launching on OnlyFans, otherwise you’ll be facing a near-impossible task of building a dedicated army of subscribers.  

More than anything, though, “Euphoria’s” portrayal of an OnlyFans creator feeds into reductive stereotypes surrounding sex workers, and serves as yet another example of Hollywood showing them in an unflattering light.

“Sex workers in general, myself included, tend to be hyper-sensitive about the way Hollywood portrays us because it’s almost never nice,” says Leathers. “It’s always absurd or depressing and rarely ever on point. When you’re part of a marginalized community, it’s easy to get upset about certain portrayals of it.”

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” remains a box office force with $433 million globally after two weekends of release.

Disney’s star-studded sequel, which brings back Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci to the halls of Runway magazine, added a massive $75 million overseas in its second frame, as well as $43 million domestically over the weekend. The comedy has been a hit in North America with $144 million so far. But it’s especially popular at the international box office, where it’s generated $288 million from 51 territories. Top-earning markets are the United Kingdom ($28 million), Italy ($28 million), Brazil ($22 million) and Mexico ($20 million). Already, the follow-up film has outgrossed the entire haul of 2006’s contemporary classic “The Devil Wears Prada” ($326 million, not adjusted for inflation).

“Michael” has been another box office powerhouse with $58.5 million overseas in its third outing, down just 32% from the prior weekend. The Michael Jackson biopic, distributed by Universal internationally and Lionsgate domestically, has earned $336 million at the foreign box office and a mighty $577 million worldwide. At this pace, “Michael” could contend with 2018’s sensation “Bohemian Rhapsody” ($910 million) as the highest-grossing biopic of all time. Either way, the $155 million-budgeted “Michael” is already a box office smash.

In terms of new releases, the Warner Bros. sequel “Mortal Kombat II” debuted to a softer-than-expected $23 million from 78 overseas territories. The R-rated film, based on the popular video game, launched to $40 million domestically to deliver a $63 million global tally. It cost $80 million to produce. Comparisons to the first film are tough because 2021’s “Mortal Kombat” landed day-and-date on HBO Max. The original movie managed to earn $42 million overseas and $84 million worldwide at a time when people weren’t as keen to visit their local cinema. Warner Bros. clearly has high hopes for a theatrical series because a third film is already in development.

Also new to theaters is Amazon MGM’s charming mystery “Sheep Detective,” which brought in $12.1 million from 75 territories, marking 70% of its international footprint. The well-reviewed PG-comedy, starring Hugh Jackman, has generated $15.9 million domestically and $28 million globally. It’ll need to stick around in theaters to justify the $75 million price tag, though excellent reviews and positive word-of-mouth should help the movie’s box office legs.

“Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)”, this weekend’s final newcomer, debuted slightly above expectations with $12.6 million overseas. Paramount’s concert film brought in $7.5 million domestically, bringing its worldwide total to $20 million. James Cameron and Eilish co-directed the film, which follows the 24-year-old Grammy and Oscar-winning artist on her area tour of the same name. It was produced for $20 million through a partnership with Paramount and Interscope Records.