The Man Who Stole Brad Pitt’s Girlfriend
The Man Who Stole Brad Pitt’s Girlfriend and Other True Tales
He’s gone to war with Mike Ovitz, made peace with Steven Seagal, forded rivers in Thailand with Brandon Lee and once swiped Brad Pitt‘s fiancée. And now director Dwight Little — the 68-year-old auteur behind such notable 1980s and ’90s movies as Marked for Death, Murder at 1600, Rapid Fire and The Phantom of the Opera (the scary one with Freddy Kruger, not the musical) and TV hits like Bones, The Practice and The X-Files — has put it all down on paper in a memoir, Still Rolling, now in bookstores. “A few years ago, I gave a couple of guest lectures about directing at some extension courses at UCLA, and I was surprised to see how full the auditoriums were,” Little explains. “And that got me thinking, ‘Maybe I should write this down.’ ” (That stolen fiancée, by the way, was actress Jill Schoelen, whom Little wooed from Pitt in 1989 — but you’ll have to buy the book to learn how he did it.)
Naked and Loving It at the Cannes Film Festival
The French practically invented onscreen nudity, but even for them, this is a bit much. At Cannes this year, everybody seemed to be taking their clothes off. For starters, there’s Demi Moore’s nude scene in the sci-fi flick The Substance, in which the 61-year-old actress plays an aging starlet who rewinds her biological clock with a cell-replicating formula that transforms her into … Margaret Qualley. Qualley, by the way, also gets naked in the film and in Kinds of Kindness, Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest black comedy, which also sports a nude scene by Emma Stone (who appeared naked in Poor Things, winning an Oscar for her trouble). Then there’s Diane Kruger baring all in David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, Brazilian actress Nataly Rocha in Motel Destino and Emily in Paris co-star Lucas Bravo going full frontal in the nudity-packed The Balconettes. “There’s nothing I’m less comfortable with than being naked onscreen,” Bravo tells THR. “But it’s only fair. If everybody in the movie is showing skin, I should show skin.” That should have been the festival’s motto this year. — CHRIS GARDNER
Bill Maher’s New Friend Gets a Podcast
After slaying at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 28, mimic Matt Friend is putting the finishing touches on the most ambitious impersonation of his young career: a talk show host. In June, the 25-year-old comic will launch Friend in High Places, the first vlog on Bill Maher‘s new Club Random podcast network. “It’s going to have a traditional late night feel, but it’ll be for the modern era,” Friend tells THR. “We’ll do a topical monologue up top, a 60-minute interview with a guest, and then I might even do desk bits toward the end.” Although Friend says he’ll likely unleash some of his uncanny impressions during the show — his sendups of everyone from Donald Trump to Howard Stern were something of a regular feature on awards show red carpets this past year (Stern is such a fan, he’s had him on his radio show several times) — he’s hoping audiences will get to know a different, albeit still humorous side of him on his podcast. “I’m Gen Z, and I think people are losing faith in my generation’s ability to be funny,” he says. “I want this podcast to prove that my generation can still laugh.”
What to Make of the Picketer Outside the San Vicente Bungalows?
Usually, it’s what’s going on inside the San Vicente Bungalows — the deals, the spiels, the meals — that gets Rambling Reporter’s attention. But lately we couldn’t help noticing what’s going on outside the buzzy Hollywood clubhouse: For nearly a week, a lone 26-year-old woman, often dressed in extravagant evening wear, has been picketing the property, brandishing a sign claiming, “I Have Been Sexually Harassed @ San Vincente Bungalows.” Her name is Anazia Akhalu, and it turns out the target of her accusation is none other than Dimitri Dimitrov, the legendary 74-year-old maître d’ who has been a decades-long Hollywood high life fixture, working for years at the Sunset Tower before decamping for the Bungalows in 2018 (both are owned by hotelier Jeff Klein). Akhalu, who worked the front desk at SVB for five weeks last winter, is accusing Dimitrov of, among other things, “squeez[ing] on my waist and arm” and eyeing her “up and down.” Says a spokesman for the club, “SVB investigates all claims of harassment and discrimination, whether meritorious or not. SVB does not tolerate such conduct and promotes an environment free from harassment and discrimination.” Other sources at the Bungalows noted that the club has in the past expelled its own staff and members when charges of harassment were substantiated and questioned why Akhalu would wait several months before coming forward. Akhalu, for her part, says she was afraid to complain because “Jeff Klein is a huge mogul — I felt so helpless,” adding that she has since filed a report with the police. “They haven’t done anything, either,” she says. “I feel silenced.” — Julius Miller
This story first appeared in the May 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
