‘The Pitt’ Leads With 25 Emmy Nominations and ‘Hacks’ Is Top Among Comedies with 24

This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)
This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)
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‘The Pitt’ Leads With 25 Emmy Nominations and ‘Hacks’ Is Top Among Comedies with 24

This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)
This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)

“The Pitt” led all nominees with 25 in a dominant sophomore season, while “Hacks” led all comedies with 24 for its final season as the Emmy nominations were announced Wednesday.

HBO Max’s emergency room series “The Pitt” was a rookie upstart last year with big wins including best drama series, best actor for Noah Wyle and best supporting actress for Katherine LaNasa.

Already a beloved veteran show, it owned this year’s acting categories. Wyle was nominated again, as was LaNasa. Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif and Sepideh Moafi also got nominations, with “The Pitt” taking four of the seven supporting actress spots.

Three of their castmates were nominated for best supporting actor: Patrick Ball, Shawn Hatosy and Gerran Howell.

Emmy voters love a departing show, and have loved “Hacks” since its first season. Those two colliding phenomena let it rake in nominations for its fifth and final season.

“Hacks” star Jean Smart has won best actress in a comedy for all four previous seasons. It would be stunning if she didn’t claim a fifth in September.

Her sidekick throughout the series Hannah Einbinder, who last year broke through and won supporting actress in a comedy in her fourth nomination, got a fifth nomination Wednesday, as did her castmate, the show’s co-creator Paul W. Downs.

Recent winners Liza Colón-Zayas and Jeff Hiller announced the nominees at the Television Academy in Los Angeles. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, airing on NBC, will be held Sept. 14 at the Peacock Theater, the longtime Emmys home that will soon also be home to the Oscars. Mariska Hargitay, who for decades has been one of NBC’s standard-bearers as the star of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” will host.

Two new shows from AppleTV+, the one-woman-against-the-hivemind drama “Pluribus” and the horror comedy “Widow’s Bay,” both scored big in their first seasons.

“Pluribus,” from “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” creator Vince Gilligan, got 18 nods. They included best actress in a drama for its only lead cast member Rhee Seahorn, who is considered the favorite to win the category.

“Widow’s Bay” got 19, second only to “Hacks” among comedies, including a best actor nod for star Matthew Rhys. Two other Apple shows got best comedy nods, “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” whose stars Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer also got acting nominations, and “Shrinking.”

The nominations for “Shrinking” included a best supporting actor in a comedy nod for Harrison Ford. The buzz is strong for Ford, with prognosticators picking him to finally win an EGOT-tier award after a storied career. His castmate Jason Segel got a lead actor nomination for the show about therapists crossing boundaries.

Netflix’s “Beef” was tops in the limited or anthology series categories with 16 nominations. “Beef” had a dominant first season in 2023, and the anthology’s all-new grudge holders, Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac and Charles Melton, all got nominations.



ByteDance Signs AI Copyright Pact with Hollywood Trade Group

The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)
The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)
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ByteDance Signs AI Copyright Pact with Hollywood Trade Group

The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)
The ByteDance logo is seen in this illustration taken February 8, 2025. (Reuters)

ByteDance ‌and the Motion Picture Association on Monday signed an agreement to strengthen copyright safeguards on the Chinese company's AI video and image-generation models, months after the Hollywood trade group challenged its handling of ‌intellectual property.

The ‌deal, which covers ‌ByteDance's ⁠Seedance video and Seedream ⁠image-generation models, follows a cease-and-desist letter the MPA sent in February over these tools.

Disney and other studios in ⁠February raised concerns the ‌AI ‌tools could generate content featuring copyrighted ‌characters and celebrity likenesses ‌without authorization.

ByteDance said newer versions of the models include stronger intellectual-property protections.

Models ‌are offered through services including TikTok, CapCut and Dreamina.

The ⁠MPA's challenge came amid concerns that Seedance could generate content featuring copyrighted film and television characters without permission.

Both sides said they will continue collaborating on safeguards for copyrighted content as AI technology evolves.


Andrew Garfield Finds Wonder in Everyday Life in ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’

Andrew Garfield at a special screening of "The Magic Faraway Tree" in New York City on July 29. (Getty Images)
Andrew Garfield at a special screening of "The Magic Faraway Tree" in New York City on July 29. (Getty Images)
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Andrew Garfield Finds Wonder in Everyday Life in ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’

Andrew Garfield at a special screening of "The Magic Faraway Tree" in New York City on July 29. (Getty Images)
Andrew Garfield at a special screening of "The Magic Faraway Tree" in New York City on July 29. (Getty Images)

Andrew Garfield wants audiences to look up from their phones and remember that there is still plenty of magic in the world around them.

That idea drew the two-time Oscar nominee to “The Magic Faraway Tree,” a family adventure about Tim, a stay-at-home father whose family is forced to reconsider life after his wife, Polly, quits her job. They move to the countryside, where their children discover the magical Faraway Tree and its ever-changing worlds, sending the family into a series of fantastical adventures. The film, based on Enid Blyton’s children’s books, arrives in US theaters on Friday.

For Garfield, the story’s themes of nature, imagination and community feel especially timely as technology increasingly shapes everyday life. “I think people are craving connection and community and a kind of reconnection to the earth and to each other,” he said.

Garfield said he became passionate about the project after reading Simon Farnaby’s screenplay. “I really just adore his sense of whimsy and heartfeltness and magic and joy,” he said. “I felt very, very passionate about it.”

Tim’s journey reflects the film’s larger ideas about finding wonder outside the routine and distractions of modern life. For Garfield, that sense of wonder extends beyond fantasy. “I think it’s all around us,” he said. “There are so many things to be in awe of on this planet.”

The film, he said, is ultimately about recognizing that “there’s magic in the ordinary” as well as in the extraordinary.

Garfield, whose credits include playing Spider-Man, says he is drawn to roles with an element of play, community and the natural world. He focuses on “anything that keeps me awake to the remembering of the connection that we have to each other, the connection we have to nature, how we are all interconnected,” he said.

Garfield grew up reading Enid Blyton’s “The Famous Five” with his brother but did not read “The Faraway Tree” series as a child. His mother introduced him to another beloved literary adventurer: Bilbo Baggins, the hero of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.”

“Any underdog story, really, those are the ones that get me,” Garfield said.

Another childhood escape was the video store. Garfield remembers being fascinated by the rows of VHS tapes and the possibilities behind their covers. The habit has survived in a new form in adulthood: spending an evening browsing streaming services without picking anything, enjoying the feeling of looking “into the windows of all these imaginary worlds.”

That may help explain why Garfield welcomes the resurgence of VHS and other analog technology among younger audiences.

“I dig that,” he said. “The regression to analog is looking good to me.”


Hayden Panettiere, who Starred in ‘Heroes’ and ‘Nashville,’ Dies at 36

FILE PHOTO: Hayden Panettiere at the SAP arena in Mannheim, Germany, May 4, 2013.   REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Hayden Panettiere at the SAP arena in Mannheim, Germany, May 4, 2013. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo
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Hayden Panettiere, who Starred in ‘Heroes’ and ‘Nashville,’ Dies at 36

FILE PHOTO: Hayden Panettiere at the SAP arena in Mannheim, Germany, May 4, 2013.   REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Hayden Panettiere at the SAP arena in Mannheim, Germany, May 4, 2013. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

Hayden Panettiere, star of popular television series including “Heroes” and “Nashville,” has died. She was 36.

Panettiere’s father, Skip, announced the actor’s death in a statement provided to ABC News on Sunday.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen,” his statement said.

No cause of death was announced, and a publicist for Hayden Panettiere did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press.

Panettiere, who would have turned 37 on Friday, began her career as a child actor in commercials and soap operas.

Her role as a cheerleader with superpowers in “Heroes” propelled her to fame in 2006, with the series revolving around the mantra “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”

“I think ‘Heroes’ is really hot because it’s just a really great combination of everything that people love — they love reality, they love sci-fi and things like X-Men where they get to dream of something bigger,” Panettiere told The Associated Press in 2008. “And at the core of it are these human stories that people can relate to, very rugged. And it’s just grabbed everyone in every age group.”

She went on to win three Teen Choice Awards for that role and was a Grammy Award nominee for a children’s spoken word album recorded a few years after the release of the animated movie “A Bug’s Life.”

Panettiere later played a brash country upstart opposite Connie Britton on “Nashville,” which aired on ABC for four seasons before being canceled and revived on CMT. She did her own singing in the show, which scored some hits on country charts, spawned US tours and earned Panettiere two supporting actress Golden Globe nominations. Panettiere had 11 songs recorded for “Nashville” appear on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs charts during the show’s run, including two featuring Britton.

Panettiere's younger brother, Jansen, who was also an actor, died of a heart condition in 2023, at age 28.

She had been open about her struggles with alcohol addiction and depression, including after the birth of her daughter with Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.

In an interview with podcaster Jay Shetty after her memoir came out in May, Panettiere talked about the custody arrangement for her 11-year-old daughter, who lives full-time with Klitschko in Ukraine. News of the 2018 decision prompted headlines about Panettiere giving up custody of her daughter.

“I think there’s been this very common misconception that I just gave up my child,” she said. “That could not be farther from the truth.”

Panettiere said Klitschko suggested their daughter live with him full-time when the child was 2, as Panettiere struggled with mental health challenges and addiction. She said she was in a “horrible cycle for years of battling depression and anxiety and alcoholism and substance abuse” while “just trying to find my way back, my way out of the darkness.”

She entered rehab in 2015, while filming “Nashville.”

“I was the one who put myself in the first treatment center. I was drowning,” she said in a 2023 interview with Women’s Health magazine.

On Shetty’s podcast, Panettiere recalled the explosion of her fame when she was cast on “Heroes,” including the first time she was tracked by the paparazzi. When she’d imagined the moment as a younger actress, she’d planned to look chic.

Instead, she said, “it was just sheer terror.”

Panettiere also appeared in two of the “Scream” movies, starred as the title character in the 2009 film “I Love You Beth Cooper” and played the young daughter of a football coach in “Remember the Titans.” She had spoken positively about her experience filming “Remember the Titans,” saying she felt so similar to the character she played — Sheryl Yoast, the opiniated, football-loving daughter of Will Patton’s Coach Bill Yoast.