Now playing: The press tour (shh, it’s better than the movie)
UNITED STATES – In the 1999 romcom Notting Hill, the sheepish bookseller played by English actor Hugh Grant goes to a hotel expecting a date with the megawatt star played by American actress Julia Roberts. He is surprised to find he has arrived at a press junket and looks adorably flustered as he is shuffled from room to room, pretending to be a reporter from Horse & Hound to interview the stars of her space movie.
The sequence is a handy introduction to this strange custom of film publicity: actors sitting in sterile suites for a parade of brief interviews. But these days, that almost seems quaint. The press tour has taken on a life of its own, with stars like American actresses Dakota Johnson, Jennifer Lopez and Zendaya making news for the tour itself with quippy sound bites, inscrutable looks and fashion moments.
It can be gruelling for celebrities. Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o recently described junkets as a “torture technique” in an interview with Glamour. But these cycles can be more entertaining than the movies themselves. Grant’s bookseller would be baffled to learn that you can categorise the tours as follows.
The Animosity Tour
The promotion stops for nothing, not even cast members who appear to hate being in one another’s company. This seemed to be the case during the cycle for Atlas, Netflix’s 2024 sci-fi flick starring J. Lo and American actor Sterling K. Brown.
During joint interviews, Brown seemed unable to help himself from making fun of J. Lo. In one viral moment, he feigned surprise when she said she is of Puerto Rican descent, before repeating her comfort meal of “rice and beans and like, you know, chicken” in overemphasised Spanish.
In another moment, he jumped in and helped her out when her Spanish failed her. After supplying the right word, he did a little dance. That clip prompted social media users to wonder what J. Lo had done to Brown. During these interactions, she looked perturbed, leaving plenty of room for observers to jump to conclusions.
But their joint appearances cannot hold a candle to the grandmother of animosity tours, the great Don’t Worry Darling debacle of 2022. American actress Olivia Wilde directed the retro drama, which featured English actress Florence Pugh, and what went unsaid was almost more tantalising than what was. After rumours of bad blood between the star and the director, Pugh did not show up for the Venice Film Festival news conference, but was spotted strolling around the Italian city in a purple get-up while Wilde fielded tough questions.
Director Olivia Wilde (centre) and other stars arrive for the premiere of Don't Worry Darling in Venice on Sept 5, 2022. PHOTO: EPA-EFE
The Flirty Tour
Some actors consider publicity an annoying obligation; American actors Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney embrace it. One way to sell a movie? Sex. Or at least the illusion thereof. So the two leaned into dating rumours when promoting their 2023 romcom, Anyone But You, with some hardcore flirting.
“The two things that you have to sell a romcom are fun and chemistry. Sydney and I have a ton of fun together, and we have a ton of effortless chemistry,” he told The New York Times. “That’s people wanting what’s on the screen off the screen, and sometimes you just have to lean into it a bit – and it worked wonderfully. Sydney is very smart.”
Then again, actors can play mortal enemies and still put out exquisitely flirtatious vibes. Case in point: English stars Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy of HBO’s House Of The Dragon (2022 to present). During one of their interactions, D’Arcy described their favourite drink as a “negroni sbagliato, with prosecco in it” and Cooke responded, “Oo, stunnin’” – a moment that went so viral in 2022 that now, fans are eager for whatever publicity pushes the new season may bring.
The Fashion Tour
Zendaya poses on the red carpet upon arrival for the World premiere of the film “Dune: Part Two” in Leicester Square, London, on Feb 15, 2024. PHOTO: AFP
One group making the most out of lengthy press tours: stylists. Over the past year, in particular, creative partnerships between stars and their fashion teams have yielded red carpet looks that are not only beautiful, but also on theme, sometimes even aggressively so.
Perhaps no one does the fashion tour better than Zendaya and her American stylist Law Roach. In 2024, they have already given fans two very different approaches in quick succession for Dune: Part Two, when she wore futuristic looks that echoed the vibes of that sci-fi hit, and Challengers, when she remixed tennis wear in support of that romantic triangle.
In an interview with Vogue, Roach called their strategy “method dressing”. The crowning achievement was an archival Thierry Mugler robot suit that had mouths agape at the London Dune premiere. And the Loewe gown with the silhouette of a tennis player mid-serve for Challengers was also pretty excellent.
The Apathy Tour
Sometimes a performer is aware that the movie is a stinker, and yet the press tour is required anyway. That seemed to be the case when Johnson hit the road for Madame Web in 2024. Did she really hate the movie? Was she just joking around? Or was it somewhere in between?
The Repetitive Tour
When American singer-songwriter Lady Gaga was promoting A Star Is Born in 2018, she repeated one line over and over again. At various stops, she would praise her American director and co-star Bradley Cooper by saying, “There can be 100 people in the room and 99 don’t believe in you”, indicating he was her one-in-100. When you are doing so many interviews, it is natural to repeat yourself, but Gaga was so intent on this refrain that it almost became endearing. NYTIMES