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For three seasons, Hannah Waddingham played the owner of a struggling football club on Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso. As Rebecca Welton, Waddingham evolved from the show’s assumed villain to its surprising hero, going on a journey of self-discovery that ended (for now) with her staying behind in England to champion her found family on and off the pitch. By the show’s series finale, Rebecca had bought into the Lasso way, encouraging her best friend and business partner to pursue the idea of a women’s team for the club that she once despised.

It feels like a natural transition then that Waddingham would take up the torch for more visibility in women’s sports once her Ted Lasso tenure ended (or went on hiatus).

Earlier this month, Waddingham lit the ceremonial torch before a match between Gotham FC and Angel City FC at Red Bull Arena as part of Johnnie Walker’s Watch Women’s Sports campaign. Waddingham is hoping to bring attention to the FIFA Women’s World Cup with “Match Day Memos” that fans can sign up to receive so they can keep track of all the on-field action in Australia and New Zealand this summer. But she’s also making the case for why women’s sports deserve more coverage year-round.

As it stands, 10 percent or less of sports coverage (on TV and in the media) is dedicated to women’s sports despite women making up 40 percent of the professional athlete pool. That disparity directly contributes to inequality when it comes to pay and working conditions — on the field, the court, and beyond. While more and more teams like the USWNT are taking a stand to demand fair wages and better facilities, the bigger goal is to prove to marketing execs and sponsors that fans have and will show up for women’s sports.

And who better to spearhead that initiative than TV’s favorite soccer boss?

Below, UPROXX chatted with Waddingham earlier this week about the final season of Ted Lasso, surprise Emmy nominations, and the parallels between female athletes’ fight for recognition and her own career.

You’re using (your work on) Ted Lasso to draw attention to women’s sports. How did this partnership come about?

I am very transparent about these things. I want to make sure that I don’t align myself with any company or any ethos that I don’t believe in. In this instance, Johnnie Walker had seen that I was taking my daughter to women’s football matches. I’m very much a proud supporter of the Lionesses here in England. My father, who’s quite an old-fashioned, 82-year-old traditionalist, brilliantly and surprisingly informed me that he prefers the women’s game because they actually play as a team. And I just thought, ‘More people of all generations need to actually observe that that is the case.’ We talk about pure football in Ted Lasso, and that is what the women play because they have fought for it.

You’re just now getting recognition in your own career. Can you empathize with that fight?

Absolutely. I would say it’s like myself in theater. I feel a real affinity with female athletes, not just footballers, but female athletes because when you go into theater, you’re not doing it for money or for fame because there’s not really either of those in theater. It’s the same with women in sports. You have to work that much harder to get where you want to be. So I wanted to join that fight because I understand that tribe’s way of thinking — of it being a vocation in life. And if I can help put bums in stadiums, then I’ll literally lead the charge from the front.

If I can elevate it in any way, get more people just thinking about it… The women’s teams in England and America are both more successful than the men’s teams and yet the stadiums are half empty and there’s only 10 percent total sports coverage. I mean, I don’t know how anyone anywhere can think that that’s all right. It makes no sense. Because we are historically, and socially conditioned to think that men are in charge of sport. Aren’t we? That the women’s game is somehow the B game. It’s not taken as seriously, but my God, have you seen how they go at each other? They are on for it.

Female athletes are fighting for better working conditions and pay. The WGA and possibly SAG-AFTRA are doing the same. Is there an overlap there?

Undoubtable parallels. I looked around at NY Gotham’s stadium the other day and I thought, ‘Here’s all this sponsorship.’ And at the moment I would imagine they’re getting very little return, but they believe in it so much that they’re not going anywhere.

Is there a lesson for both groups?

Stick it out. Raise [each other] up. Hold hands and move forward.

How would Rebecca Welton solve the issue of visibility in women’s sports?

She would take the tray of food that Edwin Akufo [Sam Richardson] throws at everyone and throw it right back in his face. That woman’s had enough.

Congratulations on your Emmy nomination, by the way. You know I have to ask, who was your first call?

Phil Dunster.

Really?

I was actually very proud of myself because a few minutes before, I gave myself a talking-to and just said, ‘Come on, girl, there are so many brilliant performances in this category. You’ve already had two nominations. Let’s just chill our beans here.’

So I’d already prepared myself. So that was an amazing moment. And then after my manager told me I said to him, ‘Come on, tell me, has Phil been nominated?’ And he started to go through the list of people, and I was going, ‘Yes. Okay.’ And then he said, ‘… and Phil,’ and there was a feeling in my body that I have never felt before. It makes me realize that all is right with the world.

With Jamie’s arc, it definitely felt like this was his season.

He is a special man. He doesn’t have an arrogant bone in his body. Even with his nomination now, he was full of humility and joy and surprise. There is nobody that deserves it more than him. And all our lot, all of us, the Greyhounds, are beside ourselves. It’s all about Philip.

Does all that attention make him uncomfortable then?

[Laughs] No, he likes it.

Has there been any movement on potential spinoffs for the show?

No, no talk whatsoever. It was a natural three-season triumvirate of a story. And that’s that. As much as we honored and respected each season, you have to honor and respect a decision. Who knows whether there’ll be anything down the line? But at the moment, no.

Does it feel good to at least be able to say goodbye on your terms?

No. [Laughs] I mean, I never want to say goodbye to Rebecca, ever.

Rivers Cuomo‘s TikTok account has raised concerns in the past. Why does the Weezer leader — who is currently on the Indie Rock Road Trip Tour — look like he’s being held at gunpoint to do dance trends? This hasn’t been answered, but now he’s in another eyebrow-raising video on that cursed app.

Cuomo can be found in an ad for Ash & Erie, a clothing brand specifically for short men. “As you can see from the cover of any album that has the four of us standing in a line, I’m the shortest one,” he says in the clip. “Shopping for clothes has always been frustrating for me.” He even says that when trying things on, he looks “like a kid wearing a grown-up’s clothes.”

Cuomo is known for being quite the eccentric. In our recent interview with him about SZNZ, he discussed his interest in AI for music. “Well, I love ChatGPT, and it actually, I’ve been using it ever since that post,” he said. “If you look at my Twitter replies, so you can see I’m replying to about 30 people a day. And that’s all fueled by ChatGPT. Now, as a songwriter, I was excited to try it out, and it’s definitely on my list of tools I can use. So far, I haven’t actually used anything it’s generated. I guess it has inspired a few things, but I don’t love the results. It may just be the kind of writer I am, because I’ve never even really gotten into a rhyming dictionary.”

There is one question that looms above all others as Major League Baseball approaches its trade deadline on August 1: What is going to happen to Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani? The best baseball player on the planet has been dominant on the mound and is having his best year yet at the plate, all while staring down free agency this summer where he’s expected to get the most lucrative contract from someone in the sport’s history.

In the midst of all of this, the Angels are 45-46, which puts them in fourth place and seven games back of the Texas Rangers in the AL West. Their prospects of a Wild Card berth aren’t much better, as they’re five games out after going 1-9 in the 10 games prior to the All-Star Break. Keeping him, making a playoff push, and hoping to convince him to re-sign this offseason would make sense, but according to Jon Morosi of MLB Network, the Angels aren’t going to dismiss the possibility of a trade without listening to what’s out there.

“As I reported on @mlb Network this morning, sources tell me the Angels front office will consider incoming trade inquiries for Shohei Ohtani,” Morosi wrote on his Threads account. “The club is not ruling out the possibility of a deadline deal, even though the standard to move Ohtani is extraordinarily high.”

Morosi did make it a point to note that a trade is “viewed as unlikely,” and that things could change based on how the Angels start the second half of the MLB calendar — Los Angeles has a 9-game homestand that runs from July 14-23 with three matchups against each of the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Earlier this week, Buster Olney of ESPN said that teams like the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays would be interested in acquiring Ohtani in a trade, but called the Yankees “potentially” the “most motivated.”

As The Boys fans patiently wait for Season 4 to arrive, the highly-anticipated spinoff Gen V is rapidly approaching with its college-based take on the dark and raunchy superhero world. Set at Godolkin University, the series will follow a group of burgeoning young Supes as their corporate sponsors at Vought International mold them into becoming powerful patriotic heroes like Homelander, for better or worse.

Here’s everything we know about Gen V so far:

Plot

Amazon has kept plot details for Gen V under wraps, but the show’s promotional materials have offered glimpses of what to expect of what to expect from The Boys spinoff.

First off, here’s the official synopsis, which offers a broad setup for the series:

Gen V is an irreverent, R-rated series that explores the lives of hormonal, competitive Supes as they put their physical, sexual and moral boundaries to the test, competing for the best contracts in the best cities. It’s part college show, part Hunger Games — with all the heart, satire, and raunch of The Boys.

Judging by the teaser footage and interviews with executive producer Seth Rogen, obviously, things do not go well at the superhero university. Just imagine what would happen if real college students got a hold of superpowers, and you’ve got a pretty rough idea of what can and will go wrong. Throw in the notoriously image-conscious Vought International, who’s not above covering up the crimes of The Seven (or throwing members under the bus when they don’t fall in line), and you’ve got a recipe for mayhem.

Cast

Gen V stars Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, Shelley Conn, Maddie Phillips, London Thor, Derek Luh, Asa Germann, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sean Patrick Thomas, Marco Pigossi, Clancy Brown, Alexander Calvert and Jason Ritter. Also look for guest appearances from The Boys stars Jessie T. Usher, Colby Minifie and P.J. Byrne.

Release Date

While Amazon hasn’t announced a specific release date yet, the streamer did confirm that Gen V will arrive in September 2023 with a sizzle reel that you can see below:

Trailer

You can watch a teaser trailer for Gen V below, which also offers the best (and bloodiest) look at what to expect from The Boys spinoff when it matriculates later this year:

Gen V enrolls on Amazon Prime Video in September.

Future and Quavo reignited their creative chemistry on Quavo’s new single “Turn Yo Clic Up,” but that isn’t the only thing being revived. It seems Future’s been carrying a torch for Russell Wilson all this time, and he drops a couple of lines on the song that has fans believing he’s stoking the flames of his one-sided rivalry with his ex-flame Ciara‘s current husband.

In his verse, Future throws out the line, “Big dawg status, bill hopper / I ball in his mall for my brothers / Goyard bag, tote the cutter / I got it out the field, fuck Russell.” The punchline plays on rappers referencing “the field” — i.e. “the streets,” “the mud,” “the trap” — with Wilson’s occupation as quarterback for the NFL’s Denver Broncos. Here’s the track:

Future has seemingly long resented Wilson; after splitting up with Future, with whom she shares one child, in 2014, Ciara moved on with Russell Wilson in 2016. They were married in July of that year, and ever since, it seems Future can’t seem to help throwing petty shots at Wilson, despite co-parenting with Ciara. In 2019, he accused Wilson of “not being a man in that position,” after Ciara responded to him naming her in his song “My Collection. (Seems like she’d stop talking about him if he’d stop talking about her, though. Also, he was the one who allegedly blew it, so he’s kind of throwing stones from a glass house.)

Russell has, thus far, shrugged off Future’s antics — which could all just be pantomime for fans of his “toxic” persona, anyway.

Jung Kook is a man of very few words. Instead, it seems, the “Dreamers” singer would rather pour it into his music. But during his recent appearance on Good Morning America, the BTS star spoke about his new single, “Seven,” featuring Latto. After inclement weather shut down his live performances as part of the network’s Summer Concert series, he entered the studio to chat with anchor Juju Chang.

When asked about working with Grammy-nominated rapper, the musician told Chang, “It was amazing. She was the perfect fit for the song,” adding, “[Overall,] I love how the song turned out.”

Fans aren’t the only ones that support “Seven,” according to Jung. The recording artist confessed that his fellow BTS members have heard the track giving it their stamp of approval. “They loved it,” Jung said.

“Seven” is a follow-up to his 2022 single “Dreamers” off the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 soundtrack and his appearance on Charlie Puth’s song “Left And Right.”

Before the interview concluded, the entertainer was sure to passionately thank his devoted fans for, in some cases, camping out in the New York City streets for the week for the chance to see him live in Central Park.

Watch Jung Kook’s performances of “Seven” and “Euphoria” below.

Claud’s new album Supermodels is finally out today after alluring singles like “Every F*cking Time,” “Crumbs,” and “Wet.” They’re not taking this release day lightly; the new record comes with a music video for the song “A Good Thing,” and it features Paul Rudd, who they met at a Taylor Swift concert.

Before the song, the video starts with a 90-second skit, in which Rudd is a confused mailman trying to deliver a package to Claud. Claud takes over from there, but Rudd pops up again towards the end. (Supermodels, by the way, features a song called “Paul Rudd.”)

Claud said in a statement:

“Over the last couple months, I’ve revealed the more intimate parts of Supermodels, but now I’m really excited for everyone to hear the windows down radio up moments of my album. Songs like ‘A Good Thing’ and ‘Paul Rudd’ capture an anthemic, everything works out in the end type feeling. That’s why I had to have Paul Rudd in the music video for ‘A Good Thing.’ I met him briefly in passing at a Taylor Swift concert and explained that there was a song on my upcoming album named after him, and he so generously gave me his email asking to hear it. In the email I explained that ‘Paul Rudd’ and many other songs on the record are about me trying to imagine myself as a cool and confident person similar to the types of characters he plays, in contrast to the real-life shy and nervous person I often am. Filming this music video really pushed me out of my shell in a lot of ways, as did making this album. I hope you like Supermodels as much as Paul Rudd and I do!”

Watch the video for “A Good Thing” above.

Supermodels is out now via Saddest Factory Records. Find more information here.

You know how people complain that trailers these days reveal too much of the movie? That will not be an issue with The Boy and the Heron.

The latest (and final) film from director Hayao Miyazaki, the mastermind behind My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Spirited Away, has been shrouded in mystery since it was announced. This is by design: Studio Ghibli made the “unprecedented decision” to release no trailers or promotional material, outside of one image, from the animated film; there isn’t even an official plot synopsis. It’s the anti-Barbie, in other words. But The Boy and the Heron (which was formerly referred to by its tentative title, How Do You Live) is now out in Japan, so plot details have been revealed.

Skip this paragraph if you want to know nothing about The Boy and the Heron, but the film is about “a boy who moves to the countryside with his father after his mother dies in a fire in wartime Japan. There, he meets a heron who transports him to an alternate universe, where the mystery of his mother’s death is slowly revealed,” according to the Guardian.

The first reviews have also been published.

Anime News Network raved, “It’s truly astounding. Every frame of this film feels like a separate work of art — one that only becomes grander when put together as part of the greater whole. It’s a film you could watch a hundred times and still discover new things in the background of any given scene.”

SoraNews24’s review was equally effusive: “it’s Hayao Miyazaki’s magnum opus… The movie is a culmination of years of dedication to the craft of writing, creating and directing anime, displaying glimmers of past Ghibli works in its adventure scenes, but with a gravitas befitting the heavy subject material that marks Miyazaki’s skill as a director.” Here’s more:

The Boy and The Heron doesn’t have an American release date yet, but GKIDS, which has the North American distribution rights, announced it will be sometime this year. Just give it Best Animated Feature now.

Police are investigating an incident of an unknown caller contacting Drake’s father, Dennis Graham, and making disturbing comments, according to TMZ. On Wednesday night (July 12), police say someone called and texted Graham repeatedly over the course of 15 minutes, and when Dennis answered, went on a rant about the Freemasons and Drake. The police took a report, but haven’t announced any leads for who might have called Graham or what they wanted.

It isn’t the first time Drake’s had to deal with stalkers. Last spring, a woman named Mesha Collins, who had previously broken into Drake’s house in LA and helped herself to sodas from his fridge, tried to sue Drake for invasion of privacy (to the tune of a whopping $4 billion — which he does not have, by the way) and filed a restraining order against him. If that seems backwards, well, Drake righted the ship a month later, seeking his own restraining order against her for constantly visiting his home and sending threatening emails. In one, she encourage him to shoot himself in the head.

Drake and his dad seem like they are friendly, if not close, with Drake joking with his pops about an ancestry test Dennis took. With his dad’s 30% Nigerian heritage, Drake cheekily wondered if “I’m a Naija man.”

Blake Mills is the rare jack of all trades who also happens to be a master of many. Whether as a solo artist, collaborator, songwriter, or producer, the Los Angeles-born guitar virtuoso has become a singular force in the music industry. His recent work includes writing, performing, and producing the songs featured on Daisy Jones And The Six, which is how he connected with reclusive Vermont songwriter Chris Weisman, his co-writer on the new Verve Records release, Jelly Road. Mills first heard of Weisman during the Notes With Attachment sessions — his 2021 album with legendary bassist Pino Palladino — and shortly after inquired if Weisman would want to collaborate on some Daisy Jones music. Mills was expecting a pass from Weisman, but was hoping the connection would be fruitful down the road. Instead, the super-prolific musician agreed to work with Mills, and sent a dozen or so songs within a week. Very quickly, Mills knew they had music that wouldn’t fit the Daisy Jones scope, and thus Jelly Road was born.

This is how Mills’ world tends to work. He appeared on stage with Joni Mitchell at her concert at The Gorge Amphitheater in Washington, her first ticketed concert in over two decades. When Bob Dylan got ready to record Rough And Rowdy Ways, he recruited Mills to play guitar. Many of these connections come from Mills helming the boards at the studio he co-runs with Tony Berg called Sound City Studios in the San Fernando Valley. There, he’s become one of the most celebrated producers in rock. His credits include co-producing Feist’s Multitudes from this year, and producing Marcus Mumford’s Self-Titled and Jack Johnson’s Meet The Moonlight from 2022, Perfume Genius’ Set My Heart On Fire Immediately, and more. Mills has very quietly become a defining voice in rock and rock-adjacent music, attracting artists from all across the industry to his studio; as such, the world of left-of-center music sounds increasingly like the music Blake Mills loves to create.

In his spare time, he plays host to session staples like Sam Gendel and Abe Rounds. He’s built a community that is quickly expanding by the day, featuring any artist who wants to work with him and comes in with an open mind and willingness to experiment. As Blake Mills explains to UPROXX a few days before the release of Jelly Road (out today, July 14), recording with him is “more like a conversation and catch up, and almost invariably something wonderful comes from it.”

Ahead of release day, is your mindset different with Jelly Road versus something like Daisy Jones? Is there a different level of anticipation or nervousness? Or is it all bundled in the same realm?

There are definitely some differences between when you’re writing for a fictional character, or even when you’re writing for somebody else to be the performer. But what was interesting about doing the TV show stuff before this record was that there’s some freedom that I think you can allow yourself when you’re not the performer. You can be a little less critical of some things.

I don’t mean to say that you phone it in, but there aren’t quite as many drafts as when you’re making a lyric and you’re anticipating it being something that you’re going to sing yourself. I probably tweak a little bit more than I do if I’m co-writing with somebody and I’m making a suggestion, and I can imagine them singing it and imagine how it would sound coming through them.

But this record was also different from previous ones in that it was much more collaborative. So, there’s a co-writing element going on where you are passing something back and forth. That process alone makes it a little bit more outside yourself as well.

Is it fair to say you’re maybe a bit more self-conscious with your own writing, than when you’re working with other people or working on a hired project?

Definitely. I think there’s an element of self-consciousness, and there’s also an element of thinking on my solo records. Far fewer people are going to be hearing this than the audience for a Marcus Mumford record. So, yes and no. There are previous solo records I think I’ve viewed under the lens of more autobiographical for the most part. And then when there are songs that are not autobiographical, they still fall under the umbrella.

They’re viewed through the same lens as the other songs, or at least I’m perceiving that that’s how they’re going to be heard. So, there’s a mindfulness there. On this record, it was much easier to work on a song without fully understanding the literalness of the lyrics, for example, without knowing what we were writing about and just trying to access a certain feeling, as opposed to a certain story.

As opposed to your other collaborative albums — Notes With Attachment, for instance — was this songwriting process much different?

It was very unique in the way that having a conversation with somebody might be unique. The process, if you zoom out, might seem similar, but it has an organic sense of direction. It was unique from really anything in that way, as each record is. I think the nature of collaboration is something I find to be much more natural for me than the alternative, whatever you’d call that, the kind of monologue, solo statement, where I’m playing everything and writing everything.

Luckily, I’ve gotten to do that a lot over the course of my career. I enjoy collaboration much more. I feel like it’s easier to access things that are more interesting to me that way.

It’s pretty interesting how your solo releases have gotten more experimental. Break Mirrors, your first solo record, is pretty poppy and more straightforward than something like Mutable Set.

If you have a tendency to get hung up on something that’s a detail and you’re fixating on it, working with other people helps break that feedback loop. There’s a bit of a push and pull between the things that you might feel are worth your attention, and the things that they might feel are worth attention. I think the blend of those two end up creating something that’s unique, has a mind of its own or a personality of its own.

There’s something very inspiring when you’re playing with somebody or you’re writing with somebody, and something that they play or say resonates with you and feels like it’s a part of you…It’s like hearing your favorite song. There’s a quality to your favorite music that feels very personal. As I was saying earlier, there are aspects of Jelly Road that feel closer to me than anything I’ve put on a solo record before.

Did you know that when you first invited Chris Weisman to collaborate that it would work this well? I imagine there are a lot of sessions where you invite people you respect, or people whose music you like, to work together and it doesn’t always work out to the extent that it does here.

Honestly, when I reached out to him about the TV show, I thought he was going to pass, but maybe he would pass in a way where he would appreciate the invitation, and that we would just be in each other’s good graces.

It was an excuse to make contact with somebody who was notoriously reclusive. When he said he was game and actually really excited about the idea, that was when I actually started to formulate a more realistic picture of who he is, that wasn’t just based on reputation or what his music sounds like. When he sent like 12 songs a week later, I realized this guy is a fountain and it’s all over the place.

He’s one of the more eclectic artists I think I’ve ever worked with. I think he’s just an inspired individual, and is always writing and creative no matter what he’s doing. So, I quickly realized that he’s somebody who, in any setting, he’s probably not going to ever be short of ideas. It’s fascinating to just put him in different situations and see what he comes up with.

I think a lot of my career has probably been people doing the same thing with me, and maybe we relate on some level in that way, and maybe he can see that in what I do and find some kind of kinship in that.

Did you rely on the folks that you normally recruit for your records to play on this one? Or did Chris warrant different collaborators?

Bringing Chris coming out to LA, there was definitely something I was looking forward to with bringing certain musicians in, knowing that they were going to interact with Chris. He had already been in touch with Sam [Gendel]. They had known each other for a little while. Abe Rounds was somebody that Chris was aware of through me and playing with Pino [Palladino]. Larry Goldings came in because he was actually originally responsible for turning me onto Chris’s music.

When I was working on the Pino record, Larry just said, “You’ve got to hear this guy Chris Weisman.” So, that was something I was also looking forward to. The people on this record are less about an expectation of what they can add to the record or the music, and more about who they are as people.

Sam is full of so many ideas. The things that we didn’t keep from him you could make an entire record out of. There was no fear of, “Well, what if they come down and they’re not going to know what to play?” It’s not really how those guys operate, and certainly not how I operate.

It seems like everyone on this record is someone who brings joyousness to music.

When I’m calling somebody to come down and play something, it feels a lot like I’m calling them to meet up for lunch, not because I necessarily have a specific thing I want to talk to them about all the time. It’s more like a conversation and catch up, and almost invariably something wonderful comes from it.