Margaret Qualley is a true one-of-a-kind force in film and television. Her work is always appointment viewing because her filmography is brimming with variety and unique characters that challenge her to swing big in new ways. From The Leftovers and The Nice Guys to The Substance and Honey Don’t, those roles don’t work unless they’re filled with an actor willing to pour every ounce of themself into bringing them to life on screen, and that right there is a consistent truth of Qualley’s work.

In her latest, Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Drive-Away Dolls follow-up film, Honey Don’t, Qualley headlines as the title character. Honey is a private investigator in Bakersfield, California who gets caught up in a series of deaths tied to a mysterious church. With the help of her assistant (Gabby Beans), Honey’s attempt to crack the case puts her in Reverend Drew Devlin’s (Chris Evans) orbit and overlaps with her budding relationship with Aubrey Plaza’s MG, and her role as a supportive sister and aunt to Kristen Connolly and Talia Ryder’s characters respectively.

With Honey Don’t now playing in theaters nationwide, Qualley joined me for a Collider Ladies Night chat during which we revisited her days as a dancer, including what prompted the switch to focus on acting. She also looks back on memorable lessons learned making The Leftovers and The Nice Guys, considers how working on The Substance changed her, and talked about her top-tier scene partners in Honey Don’t.

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Back in April 2024, I was lucky enough to visit the set of Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth in Thailand where I played detective with stars Samuel Blenkin and Alex Lawther. At the start of our three-day visit, we knew little about where Hawley and co. were taking the iconic franchise, so my one-on-one chats with Blenkin and Lawther were all about trying to figure out who their characters are, how they fit into this situation, and what they want out of it. A little over a year later, we reunited at San Diego Comic-Con for another chat where the duo built upon what we discussed in Bangkok and dug into some of what we see unfold in the first three episodes of the series.

Alien: Earth takes place in the year 2120, two years before the events of the first film. Blenkin’s Boy Kavalier created one of the five companies that run the planet, Prodigy Corporation. Considered a “boy genius,” Boy K created the program that gives us Wendy, Sydney Chandler’s character, the first synthetic to be infused with human consciousness. Her brother, Lawther’s Hermit, has no idea she’s undergone such a procedure, so when the two reunite and he realizes who she is, it’s a mighty complex situation, to say the least.

With the first three episodes of Alien: Earth now available to watch, it’s time to release my conversation with Blenkin and Lawther filmed at SDCC in FX’s podcast studio created in partnership with Press Play: Creatives and At Will Media. In true Collider Forces fashion, we carved out time to discuss their journeys on the stage and screen, and pivotal experiences of honing their crafts as actors, and then veered into Alien: Earth territory where Blenkin and Lawther dug into key scene partners, character motivations, and deleted scenes.

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Few actors kick off their careers with productions as big as the opportunities Hermione Corfield secured early on. One of her first feature film credits is Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation in which she shares a key scene with Tom Cruise, and soon after came xXx: Return of Xander Cage, and Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi. After that, it was the indie crime thriller Rust Creek which earned Corfield a couple of film festivals honors, and then it was the movie that quite firmly solidified her as a must-follow actor for yours truly, the eco-horror movie Sea Fever in which she stars opposite Connie Nielsen and Dougray Scott. Ever since our TIFF 2019 chat for that film, Corfield’s been a prime target for Collider Ladies Night and now, with the debut of the Outlander prequel series, Outlander: Blood of My Blood, the time has finally come.

The new Starz show puts the spotlight on Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) and Claire Beauchamp’s (Caitríona Balfe) parents. For Jamie, it’s Jamie Roy’s Brian Fraser and Harriet Slater’s Ellen MacKenzie, and Claire's parents, Henry Beauchamp and Julia Moriston, are played by Jeremy Irvine and Corfield. Whereas Brian and Ellen’s romance starts and remains in the same time period, Henry and Julia experience a significant upheaval when, similar to their daughter, they travel from 1917 to 1714, crossing paths with Brian and Ellen.

Soon after a brief chat with Corfield and much of the main ensemble at San Diego Comic-Con, Corfield swung by the Collider Ladies Night studio for an extended conversation about the first two episodes of Season 1, and to offer up a few teases of what’s to come.

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If you’re a fan of genre, there was no better place to be at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 than in Ballroom 20 on Thursday night for the Collider Ladies Night After Dark panel. Ladies Night joined forces with the IFC Entertainment Group to celebrate two titles gearing up for their Shudder debut, and to unveil first looks at three upcoming theatrical releases. Even better? It all happened with five big-screen powerhouses - Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Alexandra Shipp, Katie Douglas and Hassie Harrison.

In true Collider Ladies Night fashion, the group began by pinpointing pivotal early career experiences that helped pave the way to their latest projects. After that, Douglas and Harrison revisited their time on the Clown in a Cornfield and Dangerous Animals sets, respectively, and then Keen, Nélisse and Shipp debuted the very first footage for their upcoming films.

For Keen and Nélisse, that meant celebrating the world premiere of the teaser trailer for their new horror film, Whistle. Directed by Corin Hardy, Whistle puts the focus on a group of friends who happen upon an ancient Aztec death whistle. When someone blows the whistle or hears its sound, the countdown begins. Their future deaths start coming for them.

From there, Shipp put the spotlight on Violent Ends, a revenge thriller that poses the question, “If you lost the most dear thing to you, what the fuck would you do to the people who took it from you?” Collider Ladies Night After Dark had the privilege of showing off one of Shipp’s most breathtaking moments in the movie before turning towards another upcoming release, Forbidden Fruits. In that one, Shipp stars opposite Lili Reinhardt, Victoria Pedretti and Lola Tung as a group of women who “work at a Free People-esque mall shop,” and also practice witchcraft.

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This year we had the pleasure of hosting two Collider Ladies Night panels at San Diego Comic-Con. The first leaned heavily into the horror genre by putting the spotlight on Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Alexandra Shipp, Katie Douglas, Hassie Harrison and their upcoming IFC and Shudder titles. Then, the next night, I had the great honor of taking the stage with Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland, Danielle Pinnock and Marissa Bode to celebrate Peacemaker, The Bad Guys 2, Ghosts and Wicked.

Every edition of Collider Ladies Night demands a significant amount of prep work, including these live versions of the show. But, ultimately, the success of a Ladies Night interview comes down to the guests, and with this group, we truly hit the jackpot. Bode, Pinnock, Holland and Brooks all took the stage with a sky-high passion for their current projects, a deep respect for what it took to hit this point in their careers, and an eagerness to celebrate one another.

During the panel, Holland recalled first moving to Hollywood as a teenager and her ongoing journey of finding a sense of belonging, Pinnock looked back at her time “scamming” and the day she found out she booked her first series regular role, Brooks discussed why her time at Juilliard teed her up for great success in the superhero genre, and Bode discussed making her feature debut with one of the biggest hits of 2024, Wicked.

After that, all four took a moment to look forward to all the good on the horizon - specifically Peacemaker Season 2, Ghosts Season 5 and Wicked: For Good.

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Chase Sui Wonders has already proven herself a scene-stealing force via titles like Generation and Bodies Bodies Bodies, but 2025 is solidifying her as an undeniable star. In March, she debuted The Studio, an Apple TV+ series in which she stars opposite powerhouses Seth Rogen, Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz and Kathryn Hahn. Mere days after that show scored a whopping 23 Emmy nominations, Wonders headlines one of the most anticipated movies of the year - the new I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Similar to the 1997 original, on July 4, Wonders’ Ava and her group of friends go for a drive and stop on the side of the road to watch the fireworks. When one walks into the road, an approaching car swerves to avoid hitting him and veers off the edge of the cliff. Rather than report the incident, the group attempts to sweep it under the rug. And they’re confident they’ve done it until they all regroup next year and come to learn that they’re being hunted by a killer who claims, “I know what you did last summer.”

With I Know What You Did Last Summer now playing in theaters nationwide, Wonders joined me for a Collider Ladies Night chat to retrace her steps to the film. She looks back on her time studying at Harvard and how booking the role of Riley on HBO Max’s Generation wound up being a career game-changer. She also discusses her directing ambitions and what she took from watching Rogen wear multiple hats on the set of The Studio, and then breaks down all the biggest moments of I Know What You Did Last Summer, including sharing scenes with franchise icons Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr., and the movie’s third act twists.

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If you frequent Collider Ladies Night, you’re well aware that I’m a big proponent of filmmaking families — frequent collaborators who stick together and also add new additions to the family every step of the way. Mike Flanagan’s “Flanafamily” is a big one, and it’s a topic that keeps popping up with Molly Gordon, who’s recently found great success collaborating with close friends on films like Theater Camp and Oh, Hi. Yet another top-tier filmmaking family? The one James Gunn started and continues to thrive with, and that family has a member you’re going to be seeing a whole of in the coming weeks, months and years. It’s Mikaela Hoover.

In celebration of the release of Superman, in which Hoover plays Daily Planet gossip columnist Cat Grant, she took the time to swing by the Collider Ladies Night studio and recap her journey to joining three of the biggest franchises of all time - DC, Marvel and, most recently, One Piece. It’s a list of accomplishments that certainly can be traced back to Hoover’s natural talent, but as we often discuss on Ladies Night, in film and television, finding someone who sees you and what you’re capable of can be essential. Hoover found that in Gunn.

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You don’t get a bigger breakout opportunity than a show like The Pitt. Taylor Dearden’s already made a big impression in the gone-too-soon MTV series Sweet/Vicious and the second season of American Vandal, but The Pitt just sent her star soaring in a wholly different way.

The Pitt is undeniably (and deservedly) one of the most celebrated new shows of the year and Dearden’s performance has proven to be an especially big standout among an ensemble full of aces. She plays Dr. Mel King, a second-year resident about to begin her very first day at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital's emergency room, aka, The Pitt. While there are nerves at the start of the shift, Mel’s an extremely skilled doctor who excels under pressure and also has the emotional capacity to connect with patients in ways others can’t.

With the show on the cusp of what could be an extremely successful Emmy season, Dearden carved out some time on a day off from filming Season 2 to swing by the Collider Ladies Night studio and run through her experience playing Mel and adapting to The Pitt’s one-of-a-kind filming schedule. We also took the time to zero in on a few key scenes from Season 1, one of which has become an especially beloved fan-favorite — the “Savage” scene.

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