Keke Palmer’s SXSW panel took an unexpected turn on Friday when a stranger rushed the stage and dropped to one knee in front of her, ring box in hand, in front of a live audience.

Palmer was in the middle of hosting a live recording of her podcast, Baby, This Is Keke Palmer, alongside her I Love Boosters co-stars Demi Moore, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu and Eiza González when the man appeared at the stage, knelt down and grinned up at her with a ring box propped open. 

Palmer’s jaw dropped. Her co-stars reacted with a mixture of shock and laughter.

She handled it with as much grace as the situation allowed. 

“I can’t marry you. I don’t know you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, sir,” she told him, which got a laugh from the crowd. 

Assuming it must be a set-up, she asked whether the whole thing had been planned in advance, but staffers and audience members near the front quickly made clear it wasn’t. 

Someone called out that she needed security.

Her security guard came out from backstage, and a SXSW staffer stood up from the audience, both moving to escort the man away. 

He didn’t budge easily. 

Still on his knees, he insisted she wanted to say yes. Several audience members shouted back that she very much did not. He was eventually led out of the event space, with Palmer visibly concerned for him and apologetic towards her co-stars and the crowd.

Taylour Paige, ever quick on her feet, leaned into the moment. 

“Sorry to this man,” she said with a laugh, a nod to the iconic meme that features Palmer herself.

Once the dust had settled, Palmer joked that she’d assumed Ashton Kutcher’s hidden camera show Punk’d must have been revived. 

She then asked the room to take a collective breath, the audience obliged with a round of applause, and the podcast recording got back on track.

Some of Hollywood’s biggest names, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, Sinners director Ryan Coogler and Deadpool &Wolverine filmmaker Shawn Levy have a simple strategy for dealing with the relentless noise of internet fandom: tune it out. 

The group came together this week to offer a rare and candid look at what it really takes to make blockbuster films, and how not to lose your mind in the process.

The occasion was a celebration at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where the Kevin Feige Division of Film & Television Production was officially dedicated in the producer’s honour. 

All three men are USC graduates, and the evening’s centrepiece was a frank conversation between them that touched on internet culture, test screening disasters and the messy, unglamorous reality of making great films.

Feige, widely regarded as the most successful movie producer of all time, was characteristically direct on the subject of online fandom. 

Marvel has always had a close relationship with its audience, going back to the letters pages in its comics, but the internet has changed the nature of that relationship considerably. 

“It can be wielded with such force now that you have to beware,” he said. The sheer volume of theories, opinions and hot takes across YouTube, TikTok and Reddit, he warned, is something filmmakers engage with at their peril. 

“You can read everything on everything and get a different point of view on it. You can go crazy. So, we don’t do that.”

Levy echoed the sentiment, framing it as a matter of professional survival. 

When you’re working on large-scale franchise projects, he is currently in post-production on the next Star Wars film, the ability to switch off becomes essential. 

“You’ve gotta know when to put it down, go quiet, and go back to what you had in your head and in your voice when you began,” he said.

The conversation also turned to something filmmakers rarely discuss publicly: the gut-punch of a bad test screening. 

Feige described the experience with striking honesty, noting that for Marvel, audience previews happen after major investment has already been made. 

“It happens when you’ve already spent almost $200 million on a movie and you screen it for people and they’re like, ‘What was that?'” Levy didn’t shy away from what comes next. 

“And then the panic sets in. You panic, feel like shit, and then you go back to work.”

What made the conversation particularly compelling was Feige’s admission that he spent years thinking Marvel was uniquely bad at getting films right the first time. 

He has since learned otherwise. 

He turned to Coogler mid-thought and asked whether Sinners, the most nominated film in Oscar history this year, was perfect from its first cut.

Coogler laughed. “No,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s perfect even now, bro.”

It was a disarmingly human moment from three filmmakers at the very top of their industry, a reminder that even the biggest films in the world are works in progress right up until the credits roll.

Gwyneth Paltrow has never been one to mince words, and her feelings about the Met Gala are no different. 

The actress and Goop founder, 53, has opened up about her complicated history with fashion’s biggest night out, and made clear exactly which kind of guest she’ll always be.

Writing on Goop, Paltrow shared her all-time favourite red carpet looks, including two from the annual event. But before diving into the fashion, she set the scene: “I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the Met Ball.”

It’s a feeling that dates back further than she may care to admit. 

Back in 2013, Paltrow told USA Today she was “never going again,” describing the night as “so un-fun,” “boiling” and “too crowded.”

Evidently, she got over it, she returned in 2017 and attended again in 2019.

That 2019 appearance, in a yellow chiffon Chloé gown, is one she looks back on fondly. She spoke warmly about collaborating with then-creative director Natacha Ramsay-Levi and said she loved the opportunity to work with a female designer. 

The theme that year was Camp: Notes on Fashion, which produced some of the most outrageous looks the event has ever seen, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry both leaning fully into the spectacle. 

Paltrow did not.

“I’m never going to the Met Ball in like, a hot dog costume or whatever, you know?” she said plainly. 

“I always have to be myself, first and foremost. Like, I’m not going in a costume; I’m going in a dress. There’s two camps who go to the Met Ball, the costume or the evening dress. And I’m always going to be an evening dress person.”

Of the Chloé gown itself, she was almost poetic, describing it as “so light and comfortable and chiffon-y and dreamy,” like “a lemon chiffon pie.”