Keegan-Michael Key is stepping into the Transformers universe, lending his voice to B-127 in the upcoming film, “Transformers One,” an origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron. 

The highly anticipated film, distributed by Paramount Pictures, tells the story of how the two legendary characters were once friends before becoming bitter enemies. Key’s character, B-127, joins forces with Elita, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, in a quest to save their planet billions of years before humans existed.

The voice of B-127, a younger version of the iconic Bumblebee, is very distinct. Despite sounding like it could have been computer synthesized, Key said the voice is 100% his.

“It is my voice, but it’s kind of a higher, younger, excitable version of me,” said Key. “I’ve done a lot of voiceover in my career where you’re almost trying to mask the voice so people don’t even recognize it, which is a compliment in and of itself. Yeah, this one, I really was able to bring myself to it.”

Key said he worked closely with the director to create the character’s voice and make sure it sounded like him.

The film also includes intense action scenes, and Key revealed his approach to making those moments sound realistic. Key said that when it comes to voicing action scenes like fights or running, he doesn’t just stand still in the booth. He said he physically acts out the movements, such as pretending to lift a heavy weight or mimicking a punch, to make the sounds more realistic. 

“I’ll lose weight when I’m in the booth,” said Key. 

In “Transformers One,” Bumblebee’s origin story begins with him at the lowest level in the universe, working in the depths of a corporation. Despite being in such a low position, his character remains optimistic and makes the best out of every situation, something Key found inspiring.

“He makes the best of every situation. And he doesn’t know necessarily, that he has been fired from like 50 jobs, he thinks ‘I did so great at this job, they moved me up,’” said Key. 

In addition to his voice work in “Transformers One,” Key mentioned a fun Easter egg in the film, giving a nod to his famous Key & Peele sketch, “Substitute Teacher.” 

“I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s a little tip of the hat in ‘Transformers,’” he said. “That’s all we’ll say.”

“Transformers One,” will be released in theaters on Friday, Sept. 20. 

Elvis Presley’s firstborn granddaughter, Riley Keough, opens up to Oprah Winfrey about her late mother, Lisa Marie, and life in her famous family for an exclusive prime-time special on CBS and Paramount+.

“An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley,” produced by Harpo Productions, airs Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. It will stream live on Paramount+ for “Paramount+ with Showtime” subscribers, and will be available on-demand the next day for “Paramount+ Essentials” subscribers.

Winfrey traveled to Graceland Mansion in Memphis to sit down with Keough for her first in-depth interview since her mother, Lisa Marie, died last year. Before her death, Lisa Marie recorded hours of stories from her life for a memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown,” which Riley finished co-writing.

The special features never-before-seen family photos and home videos. It also includes some of Lisa Marie’s personal audio recordings, some of which include memories of her father.

“I felt my father could change the weather. He was a god to me. A chosen human being,” Lisa Marie writes in the book.

Keough, an Emmy-nominated actress and director, shares with Winfrey the highs, lows and pressures of being a Presley, and the deep, profound relationship she had with her mother. 

The memoir, which will be released Oct. 8, is a stunning look inside one of the most legendary American families, detailing Lisa Marie’s childhood, her father’s shocking death, her marriages and her descent into addiction.

Los Angeles — Convicted con artist Anna Sorokin has hit the dance floor on “Dancing With the Stars” with a featherweight – and very sparkly – ankle monitor.

The so-called “fake heiress,” who was convicted of swindling banks, hotels and friends in 2019 after falsely building a reputation as a wealthy German heiress named Anna Delvey, debuted the ballroom-worthy ankle monitor during the premiere of “Dancing With the Stars’” new season Tuesday night.

“It’s actually not a big issue at all. It’s pretty light and I asked them to make it tight so it doesn’t dangle. So it’s not so bad,” she told The Associated Press after the premiere. She and dance pro Ezra Sosa performed a routine set to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.”

“It’s the real star of the show, let’s be honest here,” Sosa said of Sorokin’s bedazzled ankle monitor.

“I think it’s kind of funny how people like – it’s not like an ankle weight,” Sosa said. “It’s not like 20 pounds. It’s like literally less than a pound and it’s not a big deal.”

Sorokin acknowledged her debut didn’t go as planned.

“I feel relieved that it’s over,” she said. “I feel like my dance could have been a little bit better, but I’m happy I’ve done this and it was a great experience all over.”

Sorokin said she hopes viewers will be somewhat forgiving despite her criminal history.

“Hopefully people will give me, will give me a chance to show what I can do. And I served my time and I repaid my restitution,” she said.

Early reviews from fans weren’t positive, with the phrase “Anna Delvey’s Lackluster DWTS Debut” among those trending on the social media site X.

While she was released from prison in February 2021, immigration authorities picked her up shortly after she got out, claiming she overstayed her visa and must be returned to her native Germany. The “Inventing Anna” inspiration was in ICE custody for over a year before a judge cleared the way for her to switch to home confinement in October 2022 while she fights deportation.

Her release terms had to be amended to allow her to travel from New York to Los Angeles for filming.

While on home confinement, Sorokin has also gotten involved with a podcast and reality show.

A range of stars from the stage, screen and sport paid tribute Tuesday to former President Jimmy Carter ahead of his 100th birthday, the eclectic lineup meant to highlight the 39th president’s emphasis on human rights and his love of music as a universal language.

“Everyone here is making history,” Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, told more than 4,000 people who filled Atlanta’s Fox Theatre to toast the longest-lived U.S. executive in history. “This is the first time people have come together to celebrate the 100th birthday of an American president.”

The benefit concert, with ticket sales funding international programs of The Carter Center that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded in 1982 after leaving the White House, brought together artists that crossed generations and genres that traced back to his 1976 campaign. The concert will be aired in full on Georgia Public Broadcasting on Oct. 1, Carter’s birthday. 

Carter remains in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia. Rosalynn Carter died in November 2023 at the age of 96. The pair had been married 77 years.

“He really was the rock-and-roll president,” said Chuck Leavell, whose Georgia-based Allman Brothers Band campaigned with Carter in 1976. But more than that, Leavell said, Carter always understood music as something “that brings people together.”

Indeed, Tuesday’s run of show assembled artists as varied as India Arie singing R&B and soul draped in a resplendent purple gown; the B-52s, formed in Athens, Georgia, singing “Love Shack” and projecting psychedelic imagery across the concert hall; and the Atlanta Symphony Chamber Chorus bringing a classical and patriotic repertoire.

Former President Barack Obama, known for releasing his summer playlists on social media, marveled at the range.

“Now I have another reason to respect you,” Obama said in a video message. “He has got great taste in music. … I’ve never thrown a concert that features pop, rock, gospel, country, jazz, classical and hip-hop.”

Of course, Obama noted, “Jimmy never passes up the opportunity to send a message,” and several artists referenced one of Carter’s widely circulated quotes about music: “One of the things that has held America together has been the music that we share and love.”

Leavell took the stage multiple times Tuesday, reprising music he played and sang almost 50 years ago when Carter, then an underdog former Georgia governor, outpaced better-known Democrats to win his party’s nomination and the presidency in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

“Music was such an important part of his political legacy,” Jason Carter told The Associated Press. “The Allman Brothers helped get him elected. Willie Nelson helped get him elected. He truly believed that.

“When he was coming out of the South, running for president of the United States, the Allman Brothers and some of these other folks were really announcing this New South that was turning the page on the days of segregation – their lyrics, their whole vibe,” the younger Carter continued. “He used that to connect across generations.”

Leavell traced Carter’s love of music to his upbringing in church; the former president has written about his early church experiences, including visiting a Black congregation near his home just outside Plains. Carter recalled being more captivated by the music there than what he heard in his all-white congregation. At the Naval Academy, Leavell noted, Carter and one of his friends would buy classical recordings of the same pieces to study how music can be interpreted differently.

Part of the evening involved recounting Carter’s legacy as president and with The Carter Center, which advocates democracy, resolves conflict and fights disease across the world.

Hannah Hooper, a lead singer of the alternative rock band Grouplove, praised Carter for dramatically expanding nationally protected park lands, most of it in Alaska. Actress Renee Zellweger narrated the lifelong relationship between the former president and his wife, whom he first met when she was just days old and who died last November after 77 years of marriage.

Two former Atlanta Braves baseball stars, Terry Pendleton and Dale Murphy, celebrated Carter as the team’s No. 1 fan. They recalled what it was like to play with the Carters sitting in a field-level box, and they presented the former president’s great-grandsons with a Braves jersey to give their great-grandfather. The jersey number: 100.

Bernice King, the daughter of slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., recounted Carter’s relationship with her family — he was close to her mother, and her grandfather was instrumental in Carter’s 1976 election. Though Carter was not actively involved in King Jr.’s work, Bernice King thanked the former president for publicly crediting her father for his indirect role in Carter’s political rise. Without the successes of the Civil Rights Movement, she recalled Carter saying, the nation never would have elevated a Southern governor who came of age in the era of Jim Crow segregation.

The night was mostly void of partisan politics, although Jason Carter had spoken at the Democratic National Convention in August, saying his grandfather wished he could be at the convention. 

There were signs on Thursday night of Democratic allegiances to Carter and shadows of the 2024 election.

Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers praised Carter as being ahead of his time and added that the country would have been better off if he had gotten to “finish the job” — an obvious reference to Carter’s landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The list of former presidents paying tribute was bipartisan: Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush were packaged with Obama. President Biden added his greetings, recalling that he was the first U.S. senator to endorse Carter’s White House bid. “I admire you so darn much,” Mr. Biden said, calling Carter, “Mr. President.”

But there was a notable omission: former President Donald Trump. The 2024 Republican nominee has this year repeatedly cast Carter as a failed president as he tries to make a comeback bid. After the 2016 election, Carter questioned Trump’s legitimacy.

Arie’s selections, meanwhile, included “What If,” the lyrics of which include first names of Black women who have broken barriers. Among them: Kamala. That reference to the vice president and Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, drew roars from the crowd.

Jason Carter, for his part, said his grandfather has been captivated by Biden’s decision to end his reelection bid and the possibility that Harris could become the first woman in the Oval Office. The younger Carter, who now chairs The Carter Center board, said Jimmy Carter struggled in the months after Rosalynn Carter’s death but now is excited by another campaign.

“He’s ready to turn the page on Trump,” Jason Carter said, but more driven by the opportunity to vote for Harris. “When Kamala came onto the scene, it really galvanized the party, and it really energized him as well.”