For Jacob Elordi, working on The Dog Stars wasn’t simply a starring role in Ridley Scott’s latest film. It was also an opportunity to learn alongside a performer he’s admired for years.

The actor plays Hig, a young pilot who survives in a brutal post-apocalyptic world. He joins forces with military survivalist Bangley, who is played by Josh Brolin. The film is based on Peter Heller’s bestselling book of the same name and also features Margaret Qualley, Allison Janney, Benedict Wong and Guy Pearce.

Elordi told ABC News that Brolin “has been someone that I’ve looked up to as an actor forever. He’s just one of the greats, you know?”

In a moment Elordi described as “sentimental,” he opened up about a memory he shared on set with Brolin. The pair were hanging out in a hangar Scott had built for Elordi’s character, Hig. While relaxing on a leather couch, the pair just sat “there, looking at the Dolomite Mountains, talking about acting. Waxing poetic on it” even, Elordi said.

The moment “meant so much” to Elordi. It was more than just a passing conversation between takes.

“To be taken in and embraced by somebody that you’ve studied and admired for so long. That was really, really special to me,” Elordi said. “He’s totally free when he acts, and that’s something that I took from him. He bears himself the second he gets to set and shows everyone exactly who he is, and then he can do what he does. He’s a master.”

Brolin said he relied heavily on Elordi.

“I was kind of under prepped because I had just come from another movie and I relied on Jacob, who’s a 28- year-old, at least in my mind, newbie,” Brolin said. “He was so available and he was willing, and I think he respects … the kind of old-school mentality so much.”

In Brolin’s eyes, Elordi “is a kid that’s the real deal.”

“Personally and professionally, we both leaned on each other very much,” Brolin said.

The Dog Stars arrives in theaters on Friday.

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Peter Cullen, a voice actor who starred as Optimus Prime in Transformers and as Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, has died at the age of 85.

Cullen died on Wednesday at his Los Angeles home, his agent, Kevin Motley, confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.

No cause of death was given.

“Peter Cullen passed away peacefully, surrounded by his loving family — and held in the hearts of his many friends and countless fans worldwide,” the family said in a statement. “His family asks that you honor his remarkable legacy by serving your communities and leading others with compassion, integrity, and loyalty and always remember ‘be strong enough to be gentle.'”

Cullen had more than 200 acting credits over his decadeslong career. In addition to his roles in several Transformers and Winnie the Pooh movies and shows, he voiced characters in Knight Rider and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers and provided vocal effects for the 1987 film Predator, according to IMDb.

He was also the announcer on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in the 1970s, which gave him his break into acting.

In a 2014 interview with NPR, the Canadian-born Cullen said he first learned he had a talent for voices when he was a child, living and working on a farm.

“One of the greatest memories I have is, I had a full dairy barn where I would collect milk pails with my brother, Larry,” Cullen said. “I found one day that I made a loud noise and all the cows looked up to me. … And I walked down the center of that aisle with these cows looking at me and I said, ‘This is fantastic.’ I must have been 8 years old … and I was the king of the cows.”

Cullen said that his second favorite role after Optimus Prime was voicing an animal, gloomy donkey Eeyore, in Winnie the Pooh.

“I enjoyed doing Eeyore because he was simply charming,” Cullen told NPR. “And I get an awful lot of reactions from, especially, young kids, when I go up and just say [in Eeyore’s voice], ‘Hello. Thanks for noticing me.'”

He continued, “And to see their faces light up, that to me is one of the great joys.”

Cullen’s gift of impersonations grew from animals to humans, which he said in a 2023 interview launched him into a career in comedy, first in Canada and then in Los Angeles.

When asked for his advice for young people, Cullen said to find something that you’re good at, or something that you want to do, and stick with it.

“No matter what it is, it’s like working a muscle, the more you work it, the bigger it gets,” he said. “And, if you do something you love, that’s what I tell kids, if you find something you love to do, do it, stick with it, and you’ll never work a day in your life. You love it, it’s just a holiday.”

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Toy Story 5, the latest chapter in the classic fun-filled toy-adventure franchise, is coming to streaming next month, and Taylor Swift is dropping a surprise to celebrate the news.

The billion-dollar box office franchise’s fifth edition will hit Disney+ on Sept. 23, 2026, Good Morning America announced exclusively on Thursday morning.

The film opened in theaters in June and is still in theaters, as well as now being available for purchase on digital.

In order to celebrate the occasion, Taylor Swift, whose single “I Knew It, I Knew You” headlines the soundtrack, shared a first-look sneak peek at the animated new music video for her piano version of the song.

An earlier music video for the new song, featuring the Toy Story 5 characters, was released in June.

In an interview aired on Good Morning America earlier this summer, the Grammy-winning singer said an early screening of the film sparked the idea for the track, which was inspired by Jessie, the beloved cowgirl first introduced in 1999’s Toy Story 2.

“We’ve seen her have her heart broken. Like, we’ve watched, you know, the car pull away,” Swift said. “I get really emotional talking about this.”

The full video is available on Disney+, Spotify and Apple Music, ahead of the film’s release to streaming next month.

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A federal judge in New York on Wednesday ordered Justin Baldoni and the studio behind It Ends With Us to pay Blake Lively nearly $400,000 in attorneys’ fees.

The decision comes after Lively requested a reimbursement of $7.5 million, which the judge said was “unreasonable.”

U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman instead ordered Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, to pay Lively just over $363,000 in attorneys’ fees and $44,000 in costs.

Liman cited in his ruling a California state law designed to protect sexual harassment accusers from retaliation, but said that law only applies to Lively’s attorneys’ fees for defamation claims.

Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, responded to the ruling on Wednesday, saying the ruling “speaks for itself.”

“Judge Liman clearly considered the ‘outrageous and unreasonable’ $8 million plus demand and, in rejecting it, awarded only 5% of the amount sought in legal fees and costs,” Freedman said in a statement. “The ruling is a significant victory for my clients and sends a clear message that, no matter how powerful you may be, the courtroom is not a place to take advantage of the law for your own personal gain.”

ABC News has reached out to a representative for Lively.

The ruling comes over one year after Liman dismissed Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, the couple’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, as well as Baldoni’s defamation claim against The New York Times.

Lively and Baldoni, who starred together in It Ends With Us, have been embroiled in a legal battle since December 2024, when Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the film, which he also directed.

Lively also accused Baldoni and his production company of attempting to orchestrate a smear campaign against her, allegations Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios have vehemently denied.

Baldoni’s lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by Liman in June 2025. The judge later gutted much of Lively’s case against Baldoni in April of this year, including claims she was subjected to sexual harassment on set, determining that she could continue to pursue her claims of retaliation against Baldoni’s public relations team.

Baldoni, via his Wayfarer production company, and Lively agreed to settle their ongoing dispute in May this year. Liman ruled at the time that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios must pay Lively’s attorneys’ fees but denied Lively’s claim for punitive damages.

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Actress Busy Philipps says she’s “grateful to be alive” after undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor.

In an exclusive interview with People, the Freaks and Geeks actress shared how the brain tumor was discovered and what the recovery process for her was like.

Philipps said that the discovery of the tumor began in June 2025 with her asking her doctor at her yearly physical about their opinion on full-body MRI screenings, which have recently become increasingly popular for detecting early-stage cancers, autoimmune disorders and more. Her doctor told her there was no need for one because he told her she was healthy.

Months later, the actress said that she got a second opinion from a doctor in her family who told her the screenings were great, saying, “Knowledge is power.”

Philipps said that her scan was scheduled in February 2026, a day after the death of her friend and former Dawson’s Creek co-star James Van Der Beek. Days later, she received the results of the scan, which revealed a lesion in her brain.

While recalling the moment that she had to get an MRI scan done, Philipps said, “My life was sort of flashing before my eyes a little bit.”

After learning the results of her scan, the actress said she got in touch with her daughter’s neurologist, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, who treats her for epilepsy. He reviewed her scan and told Philipps that the tumor had to come out. Devinsky then introduced Philipps to Dr. Golfinos, who facilitated the surgery.

When it came to telling her daughters Birdie Leigh Silverstein and Cricket Pearl Silverstein, whom she shares with ex-husband Marc Silverstein, Philipps said that she had to be “honest” with them, adding that Birdie took the news much harder and said she was “really, really scared.”

“I just kept saying to her, ‘Birdie, you’re just not in the movie where your mom dies senior year of high school, that’s just not the movie that you’re in. I promise you,'” she said.

After the surgery, Philipps said that doctors learned that the tumor was 2.8 cm by 1.8 cm and it was located on her right frontal lobe. After testing a sample of the tumor, doctors told her that it was a stage 2 glioma “caused by an IDH mutation.” According to the National Institutes of Health, gliomas are “the most common primary brain tumors of the central nervous system.”

Treatment for gliomas may vary based on tumor stage, with some patients undergoing surgery only and some patients needing to undergo additional treatment such as radiation and chemotherapy to destroy remaining cancer cells, according to the NIH. The actress said the doctors removed the tumor completely, and she isn’t undergoing any other treatment at this time. But she does have to get scans every three months for the next two years.

“It really is sort of the best case scenario of the worst case scenario, I suppose,” Philipps said.

While the surgery appeared to have gone smoothly for Philipps, it was a second procedure that she said “really threw me.”

Six weeks after the initial surgery, Philipps said she was told her that her surgical incisions needed debridement, which, according to the NIH, is the removal of dead, damaged, infected or foreign tissue from a wound to help healthy tissue heal.

Following the procedure, Philipps said doctors found two different forms of staphylococcus infection. She also said she was on a high dose of oral antibiotics for 29 days.

Philipps said that she healed after the debridement and that she hopes that others, especially women, can learn from her experience.

“First of all, there’s nothing to be afraid of in having information, it’s only empowering,” she said. “And secondly, if you feel anything, don’t let some doctor be like, there’s — ‘I don’t like it, you don’t need to do it. That’s a waste of time.’ See things through if you can.”

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Alice and Steve is coming back for more. Deadline reports Disney+ has renewed the comedy series for a second season. The show stars Jemaine Clement and Nicola Walker as the titular best friends who have a falling out after Steve (Clement) starts dating Alice’s (Walker) much younger daughter … Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

Barry Keoghan is coming back to the Top Boy universe. Netflix has announced two new series set in the world of Top Boy. One is a five-episode prequel called Jonny Boy, which brings Keoghan back as his ruthless character Jonny. The second show has the working title of Jaq. It’s centered around the character Jacqueline, to be played by Jasmine Jobson …

David Fincher’s upcoming film has a new title. The movie is now called The Further Mis-adventures of Cliff Booth. It was previously just titled Cliff Booth, named after the character Brad Pitt will be back portraying after first playing him in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. The new film will be available to watch on IMAX screens starting on Nov. 25. Netflix subscribers will be able to stream the film on Dec. 23 …

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