• Helen Mirren publicly backed embattled MobLand co-star Tom Hardy on Thursday by posting a photo of him on Instagram captioned “love you now and always” — her first public statement since reports emerged that Hardy was fired from Season 3 of the Paramount+ series
• The Hollywood Reporter confirmed Hardy has been clashing with producers, including executive producer Jez Butterworth, though a THR source said his fate is “yet to be decided” — not a finalized firing
• New details allege Hardy “refused to come out” of his trailer during production, keeping both Mirren and Pierce Brosnan waiting for hours; the behavior was described internally as “career suicide”
• Hardy has a documented history of on-set tensions, most famously with Charlize Theron on Mad Max: Fury Road; the MobLand situation is being compared to that pattern across multiple outlets

Helen Mirren has three words for Tom Hardy: love you always. The Oscar-winning actress stepped into the swirling MobLand controversy Thursday by posting a photo of Hardy on Instagram — him in character as Harry Da Souza — and captioning it simply: “love you now and always.” It was her first public word on a situation that has dominated entertainment coverage for days, per TMZ.

The drama around Hardy and the Paramount+ crime series escalated this week after The Hollywood Reporter confirmed he had been clashing with producers, including executive producer Jez Butterworth. One source told THR that Hardy’s future on the show is “yet to be decided” — a somewhat softer characterization than the flat firing reports that initially circulated. Still, the details that have emerged in reporting are pointed: Hardy allegedly refused to leave his trailer during production, leaving both Mirren and Pierce Brosnan waiting for hours. The behavior was described internally as “career suicide.”

Mirren’s post notably doesn’t address the specifics — it’s an endorsement of Hardy, not a press statement. But in a situation where most of the noise has been negative, it landed as exactly the kind of public-facing loyalty that Hardy’s camp needed, per The Wrap.

Pattern Recognition

Whether the MobLand situation resolves in Hardy’s favor or not, it has revived coverage of his history of on-set tensions — a list that includes his documented feud with Charlize Theron during the production of Mad Max: Fury Road, which became public years after the fact. MobLand is one of Paramount+’s most-watched series; whether Hardy returns for a potential Season 3 — and how Mirren’s public support factors into any decision — remains unresolved.

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• Sam Elliott, 81, stars as T.L. Norris in Landman season 2 alongside Billy Bob Thornton in the Taylor Sheridan series, and says audiences are gravitating toward the show as an antidote to modern stress — they want to “escape the ‘s—‘ in the world today”
• Elliott says his character’s physical decline and frailty feel “very true” to his own experience: “I’m just old and I’m still lucky to be working,” he told Variety — a line he delivered after reportedly being called “iconic” at a Directors Guild event
• Despite six decades in Hollywood, Elliott says he is still learning from his Landman costars, and frames the show’s appeal around character-driven storytelling and comfort entertainment rather than spectacle
• The Oscar-nominated actor reflected on one of season 2’s most emotionally resonant storylines involving aging and physical vulnerability, saying the material mirrors his own lived experience

Sam Elliott has never been one for self-congratulation, and that hasn’t changed in his ninth decade. The actor, 81, is in the middle of a late-career run that has introduced him to a new generation of fans through Landman — the Taylor Sheridan oil-patch drama that has become one of the most-watched shows on Paramount+ — and he has a theory about why the show connects the way it does.

“Escape” is his word for it. In an interview with Fox News, Elliott said fans are flocking to Landman to get away from the noise — to escape the “s—” in the world today. It’s not a complicated theory, but coming from Elliott, who has spent 60 years playing characters who don’t explain themselves much, it lands.

The show’s second season cast Elliott as T.L. Norris, a character whose age and physical decline are written into his bones. Elliott told Variety that the frailty feels personal. “What I feel like is that I’m just old and I’m still lucky to be working,” he said — a response, delivered without apparent irony, to people at a Directors Guild event who were describing him as “iconic.”

Still Learning

One of the things Elliott keeps coming back to in press for the season is how much he’s absorbed from his costars. Six decades into a career that spans Mask, Tombstone, The Big Lebowski, and an Oscar nomination for A Star Is Born, he says he’s still picking things up on set — a posture that fits neatly with both his reputation and the kind of grounded performance Landman requires from him, per People.

T.L. Norris is not a glamorous role. It asks Elliott to play vulnerability alongside Billy Bob Thornton, who anchors the series as roughneck fixer Tommy Norris. It’s working. The show has been renewed, the numbers are strong, and audiences, by Elliott’s read, are glad to have somewhere to land.

The post Sam Elliott, 81, Says ‘Landman’ Fans Are Tuning In to Escape the ‘S—‘ — and His Character’s Frailty Hits Close to Home appeared first on Cream.

• CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss appointed Nick Bilton — a former New York Times tech columnist, Vanity Fair investigative journalist, and filmmaker — as executive producer of 60 Minutes, marking the latest major shake-up at a program that has been in near-constant turmoil since Weiss’s arrival
• Bilton, who directed the 2021 HBO documentary Fake Famous about influencer culture and has written books about technological disruption, has no prior broadcast television experience — an unprecedented background for the EP chair at America’s longest-running prime-time news magazine
• He replaces Tanya Simon, who had been in the role for less than a year; Simon had spent three decades at the program before being named EP in 2025
• The appointment comes after Anderson Cooper announced his abrupt departure from 60 Minutes and CBS declined to renew correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi’s contract months after pulling her segment on widespread torture in Salvadoran prisons; Christiane Amanpour has publicly criticized the show’s new leadership
• In his introductory memo to staff, Bilton called the position “the best job in journalism” and framed his mandate around modernization: “The world we are reporting on, and the world we are reporting to, has moved. And if we don’t move with it, in the ways that matter, we won’t be here for the next sixty years”

60 Minutes, the CBS News program that has been America’s most-watched news magazine for 52 consecutive seasons, has a new executive producer — and he’s never worked in broadcast television before.

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss announced Thursday that Nick Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker, will take the EP chair, per The Wrap. Bilton spent years writing about Silicon Valley and technological disruption for The New York Times, then moved to investigative journalism at Vanity Fair. He directed Netflix and HBO documentaries, most notably Fake Famous, a 2021 HBO film examining influencer culture. He will replace Tanya Simon, who had been in the role less than a year — she had worked at the program for three decades before being elevated to the top job in 2025.

Weiss described Bilton as “one of the most entrepreneurial and ambitious journalists working today.” Bilton called the appointment “the honor of my career.”

‘Evolving or Dying Isn’t a Threat. It’s Simple Math.’

In his introductory memo to the 60 Minutes staff, Bilton made clear that modernization is the assignment. “The world we are reporting on, and the world we are reporting to, where people consume their news, has moved,” he wrote. “And if we don’t move with it, in the ways that matter, we won’t be here for the next sixty years.” He framed the challenge in characteristically tech-journalist terms: he’s spent his career watching industries get “obliterated” by technological change, and he intends 60 Minutes to be one of the institutions that adapts rather than disappears.

What that evolution actually looks like, he declined to say — not yet. “I have a notebook full of ideas,” he wrote, teasing changes to the show format, the correspondent pipeline, and the program’s relationship to a media landscape that no longer runs on Sunday-night appointment viewing. He said he’d spend his first 30 days listening and share a direction after that.

The appointment lands at a genuinely difficult moment for the show. Anderson Cooper announced his abrupt departure from 60 Minutes earlier this year. CBS declined to renew the contract of longtime correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi six months after pulling her segment on conditions inside El Salvador’s Cecot prison. Christiane Amanpour has publicly criticized the editorial decisions made under the new leadership, per HuffPost/Yahoo. The network’s owner, David Ellison of Paramount Skydance, has drawn criticism from journalists and media observers who see the changes as ideologically motivated. Weiss has disputed that characterization.

Bilton addressed the trust question directly in his memo, invoking the show’s very first broadcast: “On the very first episode of 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace said: ‘If this broadcast does what we hope it will do it will report reality.’ I can’t think of a better north star for 60 Minutes than that. Above all, that means a commitment to fairness — in story selection, in the edit room, and in the broadcast.” The show first aired in September 1968. Whether Bilton can bring it into 2026 intact is the question everyone in the building is now waiting to see answered.

The post CBS Taps Tech Journalist Nick Bilton to Run ’60 Minutes’ — His First TV Job, and a Defining Bet for the Embattled Show appeared first on Cream.