1x1 With Kristian Harloff

Reneé Rapp is one of the most exciting and inspiring forces on the rise right now in entertainment. Not only is she bubbling over with next level talent, but she also boasts a number of extremely admirable qualities, ones that can be hard for any artist to establish, let alone one just starting her career. Rapp operates with maximum conviction. She’s someone who knows what she wants, and has absolutely no problem advocating for herself. Even better? She keeps her collaborators’ best interest in mind while pursuing her own dreams.Rapp is often in the spotlight courtesy of her flourishing music career and highly influential social media presence, but her name is in even more headlines than usual right now thanks to her feature film debut, Mean Girls. After playing Regina George on Broadway, Rapp returns to the role for the new Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr. directed film. Mean Girls 2024 holds tight to the 2004 original, incorporates a slew of songs from the musical, and manages to put its own fun, fresh s

Carla Gugino has been quietly amassing one of the most diverse bodies of work in Hollywood, and it’s about time that’s recognized. She’s got a disaster movie in San Andreas, loads of family-friendly adventure films including Race to Witch Mountain, Night at the Museum, and the Spy Kids movies, and she’s currently soaring in the horror space with projects like Gerald’s Game and The Haunting of Hill House. We’d be here all day if I listed everything, but do give her lengthy filmography a quick scan. I’d be willing to bet that in almost all cases, consecutive projects fall in different genres.Just recently, Gugino got the opportunity to show off a good deal of her seemingly limitless range in a single project, The Fall of the House of Usher. The stellar new Netflix series from Mike Flanagan and the “Flanafamily” focuses on Roderick and Madeline Usher, the extremely wealthy and powerful brother-sister duo pushing Fortunato Pharmaceuticals up and up while leaving a trail of dark secrets in their wake. They think t

During our Collider Ladies Night interview, Maura Tierney emphasized that the role of Doris in The Iron Claw “was not an easy role,” which is plain to see in the finished product for a multitude of reasons. Not only is the new A24 film based on a staggeringly tragic true story, but, as a supporting actor in the movie, Tierney is also in a position where she must justify a number of a significant choices her character makes within a high-pressure family dynamic with minimal screen time. She does just that in the movie, delivering a performance that’s brimming with effective subtlety and subtext.The Iron Claw is inspired by the true story of the Von Erich family. They’re Texas professional wrestling royalty with their sights set on rising even higher in the sport, a goal that’s dashed by a string of deeply gut-wrenching personal tragedies.With The Iron Claw now playing in theaters nationwide, Tierney took the time to join me for a Collider Ladies Night interview to revisit her journey from early unforgettable c

We started the Pre-Party branch of Collider Ladies Night for artists like Aria Mia Loberti. The show is designed to highlight newer filmmakers who are undeniable stars and are bound to soar in this industry while changing it for the better both in front of and behind the lens. That is Loberti.Loberti is in the midst of celebrating her first professional acting role ever, a performance that earned her a Best Breakthrough Performance in a New Scripted Series nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards. She leads the Netflix limited series All the Light We Cannot See as Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French teenager who flees German-occupied Paris with her father (Mark Ruffalo) to live with her uncle (Hugh Laurie) in St. Malo where he transmits secret radio broadcasts as part of the resistance. When her father fails to return home, Marie continues the broadcasts herself, transmissions that continue to be highly valuable to the resistance and also serve as opportunities for Marie to try to reconnect with her father

Kate Siegel is a Collider Ladies Night favorite for a multitude of reasons. Just to name a few, she’s wildly talented, does exceptionally thoughtful and detailed backstory work, and she values the opportunity to build a filmmaking community and lift others up through it. She’s been doing all of that for years now, but as the Flanafamily grows and as her individual star rises higher and higher, there is no doubt she’ll become an even stronger force in boosting high-quality, bold storytelling made by good, talented people.The most recent example of Siegel being a key part of such a production is The Fall of the House of Usher. Created by Mike Flanagan and directed by Flanagan and Michael Fimognari, the series focuses on the Fortunato Pharmaceuticals empire run by siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher (Bruce Greenwood and Mary McDonnell). Having always operated as though the Usher family is untouchable, Roderick and Madeline are shocked when their empire starts to crumble as the members of the Usher dynasty are k

It’s not easy to steer clear of getting boxed in to one particular thing in Hollywood, but Shelley Hennig has done that especially well, amassing a body of work that ranges from a soap opera to horror to extreme action-comedy with her brand new Netflix series Obliterated.The show comes from Cobra Kai creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, and stars Hennig as Ava Winters, a CIA operative in the midst of a very tense and dangerous mission to track down a nuclear threat in Las Vegas. When she finally manages to lead her team to victory, they encourage her to treat herself and enjoy some Las Vegas debauchery. She reluctantly agrees and out they go, indulging in a hefty dose of sex, drugs, and alcohol. With a wide variety of substances coursing through them, they get a call from their superior. The bomb they deactivated was a fake, and they have to get right back to work. And so they do — extremely drunk and/or high.With Obliterated now available to stream on Netflix, Hennig joined me for a Colli

Back in April I was watching Dexter Fletcher’s Ghosted. The majority of the movie focuses on Chris Evans and Ana de Armas’ characters, Cole and Sadie, but at the beginning of the film, there’s a delightful short sequence that unfolds at Cole’s family home. That sequence includes some pitch-perfect interactions between Evans and the actor playing his sister — someone I was unfamiliar with at the time.About four months later, I began my Gen V journey and was instantly taken by the entire cast, but especially by the actor playing Emma. Who was it? It was the same artist. It’s Lizze Broadway.Broadway shoulders one of the most complex storylines in The Boys spin-off series. Emma is a supe with the ability to get small, but in order to do so, she must purge to shrink to the size of an ant and then eat to grow tall again. Constant body image monitoring and pressure from her own mother leaves Emma with a warped perception of the value of her powers and feeling “unlovable, gross and ugly.” However, Broadway makes it a

It isn’t snagging a breakout role in a major Hollywood film, but once you do, the pressure doesn’t stop there. Picking the right follow-up projects, ones that allow an actor to continue honing their craft while also further solidifying the artist one wants to present to the industry, is of the utmost importance. That’s the phase we find Rachel Zegler in. After delivering a staggeringly beautiful debut feature performance in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, it's on to a beloved franchise, a remake of a Disney classic, and an A24 comedy.The first out of the gate for that trio is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The role of Lucy Gray Baird is a massive challenge to take on for a number of reasons. First off, Zegler must follow in the footsteps of Jennifer Lawrence who delivered impeccable work as Katniss Everdeen in the original Hunger Games movies. Not only must Zegler take up the mantle of Hunger Games lead, but she’s doing so with a character with an especially bubbly personality who v

There’s one department the Marvel Cinematic Universe is especially consistent in -- casting. And that’s in large part due to the brilliant eye of longtime franchise casting director Sarah Finn. She’s been with the series since 2008’s Iron Man and has been sending careers soaring ever since. One of her latest A+ finds? The effervescent star of Ms. Marvel and now The Marvels, Iman Vellani.There is no better fit for the role of Kamala Khan than Vellani. As an extremely passionate Marvel fan herself, she has effortlessly infused Kamala with an infectious enthusiasm for everything Avengers. Yes, she did experience quite the evolution in Ms. Marvel after discovering she’s a superpowered individual herself, but she still has a lot of growing to do while facing her biggest test yet in Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels where Kamala is challenged to hold her own alongside two wildly powerful MCU forces, Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau and Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel. With The Marvels now in th

It’s been far too long since we’ve seen a movie like Bottoms — and in some respects, we’ve never seen anything quite like it. Sure, we’ve seen some recent high school comedies that venture into ranch territory, but Bottoms jumps feet first into that zone without even an ounce of hesitation, and once there, delivers non-stop hilarity while also deconstructing the high school comedy classic and highlighting what the formula’s been missing (and often getting wrong) all these years.Emma Seligman's sophomore feature reunites her with Shiva Baby's Rachel Sennott who stars in Bottoms and also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Seligman. Sennott headlines Bottoms with The Bear breakout Ayo Edebiri playing PJ and Josie respectively, the “ugly, untalented gays” of Rockbridge Falls High School. Eager to get with the girls of their dreams, PJ and Josie start a new school club — a fight club. What begins as an extremely bold move to get cheerleaders to notice them turns into a community that gives schoo

A “private creator” no more. After spending a good deal of time developing ideas and keeping them to herself, Molly Gordon makes her feature film writing, directing, and producing debut on Theater Camp, an achievement that will hopefully pave the way to continued work behind the lens with original ideas.Gordon shares her writing and producing credit on the film with longtime friends and collaborators Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, and Nick Lieberman, and also co-directs alongside Lieberman. Inspired by their short film of the same name, the feature version of Theater Camp focuses on a group of teachers deeply dedicated to their work at AdirondACTS, a theater camp in upstate New York. Right in the midst of some financial trouble, the camp’s founder (Amy Sedaris) falls into a coma and her “clueless tech-bro” son, Jimmy Tatro’s Troy, is put in charge. The camp’s only hope is for the teachers to help Troy understand what they love so much about camp and theater in general, bu

Avy Kaufman didn’t move to New York City with big screen ambitions, but one thing led to another, and she wound up becoming one of the most successful and prolific casting directors in Hollywood. She cast Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries and Haley Joel Osment in his unforgettable one-two punch, The Sixth Sense and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. She’s worked on a number of films with Ang Lee and two films with the legendary Wes Craven, Music of the Heart and Scream 4. If we jump to her most recent credits, the list is loaded with Oscar contenders and winners like Tár, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, King Richard, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and more.Kaufman’s had great success with the series format as well having cast a number of acclaimed Emmy-winning shows, but there’s one series in particular that’s been an especially significant force during awards season the last few years, a show that will likely go down in history as one of the best shows ever made. It’s HBO’s Succession.While celebrating her thir

There are a number of artists having big years right now but, dare I say, Ayo Edebiri is having one of the best of the bunch. Not only did she just score her first Emmy nomination for her work in Season 1 of The Bear, but she’s also exceptional in the recently released second season of the hit series and has three stellar films coming out back to back to back — Theater Camp, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and Bottoms.Hopefully you’ve seen Molly Gordon’s episode of Collider Ladies Night and Noah Galvin’s episode of Collider Forces in honor of the release of Theater Camp, but just in case you need a refresher, the Searchlight Pictures film focuses on a theater camp struggling to stay afloat after its founder falls into a coma. Edebiri steps in as Janet, a new teacher at camp working amidst a group of AdirondACTS diehards who’ve spent their summers there for years. The film delivers big laughs as it pokes fun at camp clichés, but it also rocks a powerful beating heart that celebrates what a special

Noah Galvin continues to show off his boundless potential as an actor and also as a filmmaker and storyteller in general with Theater Camp. He’s already found great success on stage and screen, and now he also adds two brand-new credits to his filmography because Theater Camp marks his very first time writing and producing a feature film.Inspired by the short film of the same name, Theater Camp takes place at AdirondACTS, a theater camp in upstate New York. When its founder (Amy Sedaris) falls into a coma, her son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) must take over even though he knows absolutely nothing about the longstanding traditions that make a summer at AdirondACTS a deeply cherished experience.With Theater Camp now in theaters nationwide, Galvin took the time to join me for an episode of Collider Forces to look back on his journey in the industry thus far and to discuss the highly collaborative on-set environment that helped make Theater Camp a true gem oozing with love and respect for the theater camp experience — and

It can’t be easy joining a franchise in its seventh installment and holding your own opposite an industry juggernaut like Tom Cruise, but Hayley Atwell still winds up being a major standout in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.The new M:I film introduces Atwell’s Grace, or rather “Grace,” a thief who finds herself in the middle of Ethan’s (Cruise) mission to track down both halves of a key needed to control a self-aware artificial intelligence program called The Entity. That mission lands Grace in a Fiat 500 with a mind of its own, on a train plummeting into a ravine, and in a number of other mighty dangerous situations. Not only is Atwell an ace in the stunt department, but she also finds great success in bringing a hugely charming, well-layer, and complex character to screen in the midst of all of this mind-blowing action. It’s a performance feat that makes Grace feel real and contributes to keeping Dead Reckoning Part One somewhat grounded, which ups the suspense of the film tenfold.With M

I wasn’t especially familiar with Liza Koshy’s work on Vine, YouTube, and other social media platforms the first time I covered one of her feature films, but that certainly changed after our brief chat for her summer 2020 release, Work It. A big ball of infectious energy and positivity, it was immediately clear that Koshy’s star was going to continue to soar, and also that she’d be an ideal guest on Collider Ladies Night. Three years later, the time has finally come, and not only did she not disappoint, she far exceeded Ladies Night expectations.Koshy voices Margot in DreamWorks Animation’s Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, the human best friend of the title character voiced by Lana Condor. When Ruby discovers she can transform into a gigantic kraken, she does what far too many high school students do with a quality that makes them different; she goes to great lengths to keep it a secret, even from her very understanding and supportive BFFs. However, when the new girl at school, Chel

Greta Lee’s already accomplished quite a bit over the years, but 2023 is shaping up to be a banner year. Not only is she in Julio Torres’ feature directorial debut Problemista, but she also voices LYLA in the smash hit Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and leads the awards season-bound Past Lives from A24.Lee plays Nora in Celine Song’s first feature. As a child (Moon Seung-ah) living in South Korea, she's deeply connected to her closest friend, Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min). But, that connection is severed when Nora’s family emigrates. Many years later while living in New York, Nora does reconnect with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), but only virtually. Their in-person reunion doesn't happen until a decade later when Nora is married to an American author, Arthur played by John Magaro.It’s a love triangle like you’ve never seen before, one that redefines what such a story can be. Past Lives respects the very real and deeply meaningful love one can have for two people in such a situation, while also emphasizi

As the role of present-day Lottie demands, Simone Kessell made a huge impression on Yellowjackets in her debut season.Season 1 introduced the 1996 version of the character played by Courtney Eaton, but viewers were left wondering whether Lottie would make it through the wilderness ordeal alive until Kessell’s casting was announced between seasons. Ultimately, present-day Lottie becomes a significant driving force of the show. She’s the one who encouraged the Yellowjackets to start listening to the wilderness and respect its voice in the past, and now she’s pursuing similar ambitions but on a larger scale via her very own wellness compound.At the start of Season 2, Lottie isn’t preaching about the power of the wilderness but rather, offering activities and sermons that encourage “turning suffering into strength so we can live as our best selves.” Lottie starts the season sound and steady with confidence and authority, but as more surviving Yellowjackets arrive at the compound, the more Lott

Amber Midthunder is a movie star. She’s already made a big impression in a number of projects, but an especially significant amount of Prey rests on her shoulders. She’s the beating heart of a powerful character arc, the focus of a number of very challenging set pieces, and is tasked with headlining a brand new installment of one of the most beloved sci-fi franchises out there. She exceeds expectations in all of those respects and then some in the newest Predator movie, Prey.Midthunder plays Naru, a young Comanche woman who’s a very talented healer, but dreams of becoming a great hunter alongside her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers). Despite pushback from her mother (Michelle Thrush), other hunters, and village expectations, Naru commits to tracking down the mysterious threat that lurks in the woods nearby. Little does she know, this creature isn’t a bear or a ferocious lion, but rather, an alien that hunts for sport. It’s a Yautja, or rather, a Predator.  Prey isn’t just an exceptional&nbs

Another season of Yellowjackets, another Emmy nomination-worthy performance from Christina Ricci as one of the show's most complex characters, Misty Quigley.Ricci returns to Collider Ladies Night to recap her experience working on the second season of the hit Showtime series. Check out this video interview to get her take on how much Misty remembers about what happened in the wilderness, if Misty believes anything supernatural is really going on, why Karyn Kusama was the ideal director for the Season 2 finale, and more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.