Top Stories

Tom Hooper | Entertainment News, Photos, and Videos

This Is the Reason Taylor Swift Wasn't Cast as Eponine in 'Les Misérables' Movie

Taylor Swift was up for the role of Eponine in the 2012 film Les Misérables, and now, the director of that movie, Tom Hooper, is explaining why he passed on her for the iconic role.

“She had auditioned for Les Mis. She rather brilliantly auditioned for Éponine. I didn’t cast her, but I got very close to it. Ultimately, I couldn’t quite believe Taylor Swift was a girl people would overlook. So it didn’t quite feel right for her for the most flattering reason,” Tom told Vulture. The role of Éponine eventually went to Samantha Barks (pictured here).

He continued, “But I knew she was curious to work on a musical. When [Cats] came up, I wrote to her and just said, ‘Would you like to meet? Would you like to see the world I’m creating?’ And I did a presentation. Eve Stewart had these wonderful paintings she did of the world. I had a ten-second clip of a dancer with fur, lifelike. That was my pitch. She loved it and was very gracious and really supportive from then on. At that point, I had no idea she’d end up getting involved in writing the new song and getting involved as a lyricist,” Tom continued.

“In the show, [Taylor's role is] performed by two women. And for a long time, I thought, Well, it’s going to be Taylor Swift and X. Then eventually, part of me was like, Why does it have to be two people? I called Andrew [Lloyd Webber] and said, ‘Just remind me why.’ And he goes, ‘Oh, we only gave it to two people because we felt guilty that the other girl didn’t have enough to do.’ Apparently, it was originally designed for one person. I called Taylor up. ‘Do you mind if you do it by yourself?’ She was obviously totally happy with it,” Tom added.

So there you go!

'Cats' Director Is Asked to 'Explain Himself' & He Does!

Tom Hooper, the director of Cats, sits down for an interview where he’s asked about what drove him to make the film, which is being critically panned, why the Cats look the way they look, the size of the furniture and streets in the film, and more.

The interview began with him being asked, “Sir, explain yourself.”

“Where to start? [Laughs] Well, it starts with me being 8 years old and being taken to see Cats and falling in love with it. I have actually a very vivid recollection of that experience….I remember thinking Les Mis was particularly exciting because that musical had never been adapted as a movie before. And I was thinking, Well, are there any other great musicals left that have not been adapted? I thought about Cats and about how much I had really loved it as a kid. I knew Steven Spielberg had optioned it in the mid-’90s. Well, why had it never been made? Was it that people hadn’t figured out what the cats would look like? And was there perhaps some shift in visual effects, some technology that might allow a way of making it work?,” Tom explained to Vulture.

Then, speaking about if he had ever considered prosthetics over visual effects, he said, “I actually did start by going through a physical prosthetics route because, during my first conversations, visual effects seemed to be so expensive. But the tricky thing with prosthetics is you end up with a kind of full-face prosthetic and you lose all performance. And then you still have nonmoving ears. And then you’re like, ‘So you’re only going to CGI the ears? If you’ve done that, then what’s the point of doing it selectively?’ Then, if you added any kind of fur to bodies, you’d gain a centimeter of weight everywhere, which doesn’t help. So all roads led me back to the visual-effects route.”

About the perspective and size of the Cats, Tom explained, “If a cat was standing on hind legs, what’s the difference? And it’s about two and a half to one. So everything is built two and a half to one. But then you still end up with a street that’s only as wide as you can make it in the studio — whereas if you’ve applied the two and a half rule, it would be superwide. But it was never meant to be that literal. Obviously, if we’re cats, the world would be bigger. But it also puts you back in a childlike position because, of course, when you’re a toddler, the table is higher than you are. So it has that trick of perspective. The look on people’s faces when they visited our set was one of childlike wonder.”

Watch the 'Cats' Cast Go to a Cats School Run By James Corden

The cast of the new movie Cats went to a “cats school” for several months while preparing for their film… and now we’re getting an inside look at what it might have been like.

For a new sketch on The Late Late Show with James Corden, a bunch of the cast members went to school with James as the headmaster!

James instructed Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, Jennifer Hudson, Francesca Hayward, and Jason Derulo in the funny new clip while director Tom Hooper observed.

Cats composer Andrew Lloyd Webber made an appearance to present “Best in Show” to one of the cast members at the end of the clip!

cats cast go to school on corden 01
cats cast go to school on corden 02
cats cast go to school on corden 03
cats cast go to school on corden 04

'Cats' Director Tom Hooper Didn't Finish the Movie Until the Day Before World Premiere!

Tom Hooper is the Oscar-winning director of the new movie musical Cats and he just revealed that he didn’t finish the film until the day before the world premiere!

While being interviewed on the red carpet on Monday night (December 16), Tom revealed that he finished making the movie on Sunday morning.

“I finished it at 8am yesterday after 36 hours in a row of putting finishing touches on, so I’m very happy to be here with it fully finished and we’ll let the audience decide. I think we’ve come a long way since our first trailer,” Tom told Variety.

It’s pretty rare these days for a movie to be finished so closely to the world premiere and Tom commented on this.

“Premieres should be the first time people get to see it and this is genuinely a premiere,” Tom said.

PHOTOS: See what the cast wore to the red carpet premiere!

Rebel Wilson, Francesca Hayward & Jennifer Hudson Team Up for 'Cats' London Photo Call!

Rebel Wilson, Francesca Hayward and Jennifer Hudson happily strike a pose together on the blue carpet while attending their photo call for their anticipated film Cats held at The Corinthia Hotel on Friday (December 13) in London, England.

The three ladies were joined at the event by their co-stars Laurie Davidson, Sir Ian McKellen, Jason Derulo, Robbie Fairchild, Larry Bourgeois and Laurent Bourgeois, as well as the film’s writer-director Tom Hooper.

Earlier in the week, just Francesca Hayward and Jason Derulo attended their first photo call for Cats in Berlin.

Taylor Swift, who also stars in the film, was not able to make it out to the photo call due to her attendance at last night’s 2019 Billboard’s Women in Music event, where she was honored with the Woman of the Decade Award.

rebel wilson francesca hayward jennifer hudson team up for cats london photo call 01
rebel wilson francesca hayward jennifer hudson team up for cats london photo call 02
rebel wilson francesca hayward jennifer hudson team up for cats london photo call 03
rebel wilson francesca hayward jennifer hudson team up for cats london photo call 04
rebel wilson francesca hayward jennifer hudson team up for cats london photo call 05

'Cats' Director Tom Hooper Responds to Backlash Following Trailer Release

Cats director Tom Hooper is finally responding to criticism of the first trailer of the upcoming movie.

After it was released in July, the movie received much backlash from fans about the appearance of the cats.

Tom says he was surprised about the criticism because he “didn’t think it was controversial at all.”

“We’d only finished shooting in March, so all the visual effects [in the trailer] were at quite an early stage. Possibly there were, in the extremity in some of the responses, some clues in how to keep evolving [the production],” Tom told Empire.

He continued, “When you watch the finished film, you’ll see that some of the designs of the cats have moved on since then, and certainly our understanding of how to use the technology to make them work has gone up, too.”

Make sure to watch the latest trailer for Cats!

READ MORE: See what Rebel Wilson had to say about critics of the film

HBO's 'His Dark Materials' Gets First Full Trailer - Watch Now!

Check out the trailer for HBO’s new fantasy series His Dark Materials!

The network released the teaser for its adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy book series (“The Golden Compass,” “The Subtle Knife,” and “The Amber Spyglass”) on Friday (May 17), just as Game of Thrones is coming to an end.

His Dark Materials, co-produced by the BBC, is directed by Tom Hooper and stars Logan’s Dafne Keen as Lyra, Ruth Wilson as Marisa Coulter, James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby.

The first season follows “Lyra, a seemingly ordinary but brave young woman from another world. Her search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children, and becomes a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. As she journeys through the worlds, including our own, Lyra meets Will, a determined and courageous boy. Together, they encounter extraordinary beings and dangerous secrets, with the fate of both the living — and the dead — in their hands.”

His Dark Materials will premiere later this year on HBO. Watch the trailer!


His Dark Materials: Season 1: Official Teaser | HBO