Hollywood Now: Baby News from Ivanka Trump, Seth Meyers & Adam Levine

Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner became parents for the third time with the birth of their son Theodore James on March 27. Ivanka, whose father is Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, was raised Christian but converted to Judaism before marrying Kushner. Their older children are daughter Arabella Rose, 4½, and son Joseph Frederick, 2.

Talk show host Seth Meyers is a first-time father to a son born March 27. Meyers, who has a Jewish grandfather but was raised Christian, and his Jewish wife, lawyer Alexi Ashe, named their baby Ashe Olsen, honoring both the new mom’s family name and Meyers’ mother’s maiden name.

The Voice star and voice of Maroon 5 Adam Levine and his model wife Behati Prinsloo are expecting. Levine, who is Jewish, and Prinsloo, who is not, will become parents this fall. Mazel tov to all!

New Movies

Jake Gyllenhaal & Naomi Watts — Naomi Watts & Jake Gyllenhaal. Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Scarlett Johansson. Credit: Walt Disney Pictures

The stars of the new movie Demolition both have interfaith connections. Jake Gyllenhaal, who identifies with his mother’s Jewish faith (his father is Christian), portrays a man whose life is unraveling and who becomes compelled to dismantle and demolish everything around him in the wake of his wife’s death. Naomi Watts, who has two children with her longtime partner Jewish actor Liev Schreiber, plays a woman who helps him rebuild his life. The movie, which opens April 8, is not as dark as it sounds – it’s occasionally very funny.

In Disney’s new film version of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, the animals are all computer-animated and voiced by A-list actors including Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o and Scarlett Johansson, who plays Kaa the python. Jewish on her mom’s side and raised in the faith, Johansson is in an interfaith marriage with French journalist Romain Dauriac. The movie’s director Jon Favreau was similarly raised interfaith, with a Catholic father and Jewish mother. Favreau attended Hebrew school and became a bar mitzvah. He and his wife Dr. Joya Tillem, who is Jewish, have been married since 2000. The Jungle Book is in theaters April 15.

Gerri Miller

Gerri Miller wrote and reported from Los Angeles about celebrities, entertainment and lifestyle for The Jewish Journal, The Nosher, Hadassah and others. A New York native, she spent a summer working at Kibbutz Giv’at Brenner in Israel and attended High Holy Day services at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood every year.