Andrew Pulver

US president’s call for 100% tariffs on films ‘produced in foreign lands’ comes under fire, with actor Brian Cox saying Trump doesn’t understand how films are made

Leading figures in the British film industry have reacted with a mixture of wariness and bemusement at the prospect of tariffs announced by Donald Trump on movies produced in “foreign lands”.

Rebecca O’Brien, producer of a string of films by Ken Loach including Palme d’Or winners The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake says that tariffs appear “simply unworkable given how intertwined and global the film industry is”. “I can see that Trump watches Hollywood collapsing and losing its jobs to the rest of the world but that’s because it’s a very expensive place to make films.”

California governor Gavin Newsom announces a $7.5bn tax incentive scheme as Trump’s announcement of 100% tariffs on films ‘produced in foreign lands’ is mocked by Jimmy Kimmel and Fallon

Donald Trump appears to be softening his tone after widespread dismay in Hollywood and further afield at his bombshell announcement of 100% tariffs on films “produced in foreign lands”, saying he was “not looking to hurt the industry”.

In remarks reported by CNBC, Trump said he was planning to discuss the plan with film industry leaders. “I’m not looking to hurt the industry, I want to help the industry.”

Vague and grandstanding as the US president’s messaging may be, it has serious ramifications which could wipe out large sections of the film business

Donald Trump’s bombshell announcement that “Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands” will be subject to an 100% tariff has certainly caught the attention of Hollywood, as well as the international film industries it seems to be aimed at – principally Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, as well as European countries such as Hungary and Italy that have often acted as bases for US film production.

Pearson, who will be the first disabled actor to play the role in a film, said: ‘I can think of no greater honour than to tell the true story of Joseph Carey Merrick’

Adam Pearson, the actor who appeared in Under the Skin and the Oscar-nominated A Different Man, is to play the lead role in a new adaptation of The Elephant Man.

According to Variety, Pearson will play Joseph Merrick, whose physical disfigurement led to him becoming a freak show exhibit and then a notable figure in late Victorian London, in a film based on the celebrated play by Bernard Pomerance that became a hit in London and New York after premiering in 1977. Pomerance’s son Moby is writing the screenplay, and shooting is due to begin in 2026.

After her announcement of her transition, the actor said: ‘I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter’

Robert De Niro has expressed support for his daughter Airyn after she came out as transgender.

In a statement to Deadline, De Niro said: “I loved and supported Aaron as my son, and now I love and support Airyn as my daughter. I don’t know what the big deal is … I love all my children.”

Director Nisha Ganatra said she felt they ‘owed audiences to make it right’ in the new film

The director and leading cast member of Freakier Friday, the soon-to-be-released sequel to Disney’s 2003 body-swap comedy Freaky Friday, have criticised the “hurtful” Asian stereotypes of the older film and said they “owed audiences to make it right”.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Nisha Ganatra, a Canadian whose parents were first generation immigrants from India, said of the 2003 film: “I remember watching it and feeling torn, mostly about the Asian representation … It was something I brought up right away when I had my first meetings with the producers. I had a moment of the presentation that was like, ‘problematic Asian representation!’”