![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/8b9e64dc06a1688168c670922ae6a4d2fd-vulture-press-junkets.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images, TODAY via YouTube\n <\/p>\n
It\u2019s no longer enough for a movie to have a memorable poster and a preview. It\u2019s no longer enough to have an A-list cast do a few photo shoots and appear on late-night TV. Audiences want more, and the game book for celebrity press tours<\/a> is now a game of attention-based hot potato. Casts not only subject themselves to relentless promotion but strive to generate their own story alongside their movie, oftentimes becoming a meme of their own making. 2025 capped off with the bizarre and bemusing press tour for Wicked, which drew upon Barbie\u2019s culture jacking and unprecedented amount of \u201cacting delulu,\u201d perhaps inspiring a number of other celebrities to behave in all sorts of ways as they went out to plug their flicks throughout the year. Most of them did a good job. Some went above and beyond.<\/p>\n SNL50 was many things: a celebration of Lorne Michaels, three hours long, and yet another chance to see Meryl Streep and Martin Short together. Perhaps most compelling of the special\u2019s interwoven narratives is who of the contemporary celebrity culture was worthy of playing a part. Sabrina Carpenter was there, yes, duetting with Paul Simon, as was Bad Bunny, but it was the omnipresence of the very game and very charming Pedro Pascal that felt like the biggest announcement of the star\u2019s presence. SNL\u2019s Domingo was solidly a product of 2024, but it was Pascal\u2019s performance in the sketch as Domingo\u2019s brother, Ronaldo<\/a>, that kicked off his big year featuring four central performances: three on film in Eddington, Materialists, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and wrapping up his stint on The Last of Us. SNL50 was chockablock full of celebrities, alums, and well-wishers alike, but it was Pascal\u2019s appearance that felt like the biggest launchpad for the ever-growing and internet-beloved star.<\/p>\n A new slew of directors became household names. Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby), Celine Song (Materialists), Benny Safdie (The Smashing Machine), and Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme) cemented themselves as individual artists to know and watch beyond their cinephile fan bases \u2014 but it was the success of Sinners and Ryan Coogler\u2019s big-time blank check that launched the Black Panther and Creed director into the pantheon of greats. His heartfelt thank-you letter to fans<\/a> for making the film a runaway smash emphasized his influences, inspirations, and ongoing belief in the strength of the big-screen experience. If anyone single-handedly championed the power of pictures this year, it was Coogler.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The best bit of press for Andrew DeYoung\u2019s Friendship wasn\u2019t an interview with the director or even its stars, Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, but a late-2024 anecdote from Brooks Whelan on Late Night With Seth Meyers about his ongoing group chat with Robinson called \u201cSpider League.\u201d Robinson, Whelan, and a few friends will frequently compare spiders they find and see, but Whelan\u2019s ongoing penchant for jokes and bits in that chat led to Robinson suspending him<\/a>. It would have been plenty funny as a one-and-done story, but Robinson<\/a> and Whelan<\/a>, and Robinson<\/a> once again, continued to provide updates throughout the year on Los Angeles\u2019s most tumultuous group chat.<\/p>\n You wouldn\u2019t have any idea that most of what happens in Warfare involves guys screaming and bleeding out on the floor of an abandoned house from the way A24 hammered home the undeniable giggly, sweetie quality of the film\u2019s ensemble. Okay, maybe you would, because the movie is literally called Warfare. Still, most of the promotional material around the movie sidelined the ever-dour Alex Garland and his real-life veteran co-writer, Ray Mendoza, in favor of gimmicks like Michael Gandolfini introducing his co-stars<\/a>. Even Cosmo Jarvis looked like he was having fun<\/a> (well, not exactly, but \u2026 as close as he gets, maybe).<\/p>\n The History of Sound is nowhere near as physically violent as Warfare (emotionally violent, however; there, it might have the latter film beat), but that didn\u2019t stop its otherwise serious co-stars Josh O\u2019Connor and Paul Mescal<\/a> from cracking each other up<\/a> throughout their shared press tour. They made the case alongside the Warfare boys that some of these press obligations are better done with company<\/a>: someone to riff<\/a>, laugh<\/a>, or do Ron Burgundy impressions with<\/a>.<\/p>\n Remember when he drove up to the red carpet<\/a> of his own movie?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n There were few films this year more divisive than Celine Song\u2019s sophomore feature, Materialists, which, depending on who you talked to, either saved or condemned the romantic comedy<\/a>. Song\u2019s press tour for the film felt a little like a grad-school seminar, hammering home the themes of capitalism and the role it plays in contemporary dating and marriage, while rebuking any attempts to memeify her film (good for her). Despite all that serious stuff, when forced to choose a \u201cculturally essential\u201d movie, Song zagged and named Zootopia<\/a>. \u201cI just feel like maybe I relate to that bunny, just dreaming about something that she believes in,\u201d she said, and who are we to disagree?<\/p>\n Marketing a big-budget movie now requires its cast not only to act and perform in said big-budget movie but subsequently perform a series of lip-syncing videos that will \u201cdo numbers\u201d on Reels and TikTok. Is this why anyone goes to drama school? Not really, and most of the time, you can feel the contractual obligations wafting through your small screen. The Superman cast, however, pulled off the impossible in making this all look like so much fun. David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and (blond<\/a>) Nicholas Hoult made sketch<\/a> after lip sync<\/a> after gimmick<\/a> look easy<\/a>, breezy<\/a>, and optional<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Here\u2019s hoping by now someone has invited him to a bachelor party<\/a>.<\/p>\n Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson had great comedic and romantic chemistry in Akiva Schaffer\u2019s reboot of The Naked Gun, all of which was enriched by the too-good-to-be-true IRL romance<\/a> they seemed to be sharing during the promotional tour. They held hands, they shared sweet stories about the other on late-night shows, and Neeson straight up said he was \u201cmadly in love\u201d with his co-star. In December, however, Anderson confessed that the two only spent an \u201cintimate week\u201d with each other right after filming ended<\/a>. What happened after, she admitted, was \u201creal,\u201d but only as real friends.<\/p>\n We should be grateful, maybe, that the price of a Hamnet ticket doesn\u2019t come with a little pack of Kleenex to mop up your tears, but that might make more sense than the five-minute guided meditation<\/a> that director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao led with cast members Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley and film-festival audiences. While well intended, Zhao\u2019s practice is the exact type of self-serious stunt that\u2019s made the movie one of this year\u2019s Oscar villains.<\/p>\n Chase Infiniti was undoubtedly the breakout star of Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s One Battle After Another, not only because of her dazzling performance in the film but also her light touch when it came to making memes with her older co-stars. Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio del Toro patiently appeared<\/a> in a handful of Reels promoting the film, proving you can teach an old(ish) dog new tricks.<\/p>\n Michelle Yeoh made up for whatever it is she\u2019s doing in Wicked: For Good by leaning into a single repeated line in all of her interviews<\/a>, which helped to contextualize the deal with her teacher-gone-wrong character in the film. \u201cMadame Morrible,\u201d she\u2019d begin, stating her character\u2019s name in the movie, before explaining that if you flip those letters around, they equal WW, or \u201cWicked Witch.\u201d Complete with its own hand motion \u00e0 la last year\u2019s finger grab<\/a>, Yeoh\u2019s go-to line became the year\u2019s bewildering Wicked press-tour meme we needed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson are, in some sense, star-crossed co-stars: They both got their start as teen actors in franchises before aging into much weirder and singular stars as they hit their 30s. They worked together for the first time in Lynne Ramsay\u2019s searing Die My Love<\/a>, playing a married couple on the brink of collapse. While their agony and anger in the film is harsh and uncomfortable, their joint press tour was anything but. Both candid, funny, and delightfully strange, the two yukked it up<\/a>, bringing out that which is most lovable in each of them.<\/p>\n the #EllaMcCayChallenge<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/MI1Lmv8ZOB<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 M*chael R*berts (@michaelsroberts) November 27, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n There\u2019s still time for someone from this cast to do the Ella McCay challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n video93884728.mp4 pic.twitter.com\/JC4W0BLrQ8<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet (@RealChalamet) November 15, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Where to begin? The blimp<\/a>, Marty jackets<\/a>, the orange ping-pong balls<\/a>, the fake Zoom meeting with his PR team<\/a>, Susan Boyle<\/a>, the Sphere<\/a>, a verse on an EsDeeKid remix<\/a> \u2014 at the time of writing, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet is still going (probably), working overtime to get butts in theaters<\/a> and an Oscar in his hand<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n