Baby & Wedding News

In our previous column, we told you about Rachel Weisz’s new film Disobedience. But we didn’t tell you about her big news, which broke after we published the story: Weisz and her husband Daniel Craig are expecting their first child together. Weisz, who is Jewish, has an 11-year-old son from her relationship with director Darren Aronofsky and Craig, who is not Jewish, has a 25-year-old daughter with his ex-wife Fiona Loudon. Mazel tov!

Congrats also go to Lea Michele: She’s getting married! The former Glee star and her boyfriend Zandy Reich were engaged last week when Reich proposed with a 4-carat diamond ring that he designed. Michele, who is Jewish and from an interfaith family, has been dating AYR clothing company president Reich since last summer.

Charlize Talks Tully & Postpartum

Pregnancy and motherhood may be a blessing, but they’re not always blissful. Charlize Theron stars in Tully as Marlo, an exhausted, overwhelmed mother of three, including a newborn. Writer Diablo Cody has a very honest, darkly funny take on the subject. “The struggle of being a new parent is real,” says Theron. “It’s exhausting and nothing can prepare you for it. You can’t know until you’re actually in it. It can sometimes feel like you are in a dark tunnel and there really is no light at the end of it. The movie is very honest about the things you go through as a new parent but don’t necessarily feel comfortable talking about.”

Theron, who has de-glamorized herself for roles before, most notably in her Oscar-winning turn in Monster, gained 50 pounds for the part. “Charlize has the kind of bravery to take on a role like that and do it unflinchingly, never winking at the audience,” says director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air, and Young Adult, starring Theron). “She’ll be as unlikeable as she needs to be, as unattractive as she needs to be. The goal is to be real and she’ll do whatever it takes to get there.”

Reitman, the son of director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), is Jewish on his father’s side with Czech ancestry; his French-Canadian mother converted to Judaism. In Tully, out May 4, he directs a cast that includes Mark Duplass, Ron Livingston and Mackenzie Davis as the young night nurse who becomes a friend and confidante to the sleep-deprived Marlo.  Reitman’s next film is The Front Runner, about the scandalous affair that derailed Senator Gary Hart’s 1988 campaign for president. Hugh Jackman heads a cast that includes J.K. Simmons and Ari Graynor.

On May 6, Graynor returns for the second season of Showtime’s I’m Dying up Here, which follows the careers of standup comics in 1970s Los Angeles. Brad Garrett joins the cast as an aging, broke has-been comic struggling to hang on. Graynor, the daughter of a Jewish mother and Catholic father who converted to Judaism, returns as Cassie Feder, a Jewish comic trying to make her mark in the boys’ club comedy world.