Speaking of Fifty Shades: Emilia Clarke explained that she didn't want to do it because of the nudity—even though she's already done nudity. This is a cool bit of nuance in terms of actresses' choices about their bodies on-screen. We tend to divide actors as being OK with nudity, or unwilling to do it—no in-between. Clarke, who has stripped down for Game of Thrones, made it clear that she (a) didn't want to do as much nudity as was required by the Anastasia role, (b) stands by the nudity she's done in GoT, and (c) doesn't want to be "pigeonholed" into naked-girl roles. We're thankful she spoke out on this thoughtfully, adding some dimension to the conversation.
Two cool female-driven musical dramas are taking shape. Rapper Azealia Banks will play an aspiring hip-hop star who goes to college in Coco; The Vampire Diaries' Kat Graham will play Tammi Terrell in a biopic about the Motown star, who died at 24 after developing a brain tumor.
Thirteen-year-old Vanya Shivashakar established the National Spelling Bee's first family dynasty—lead by sisters, no less. Shivashakar, who shares the 2015 title with Gokul Venkatachalam, is the younger sib of Kavya Shivashakar, who won in 2009. (In the pic above, Vanya is on the left, Kavya on the right.) The Bee has never had sibling champions before. Kavya's winning word was "Laodicean"; Vanya's was "scherenschnitte." Lest they snipe on the ride home to Kansas about whose was harder, let me just say: Girls, you're both a jillion times smarter than me. I had to copy and paste them both in.
