Names and faces

This Jan. 24, 2016 file photo shows director Werner Herzog during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
This Jan. 24, 2016 file photo shows director Werner Herzog during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Werner Herzog is calling The Mandalorian "a phenomenal achievement" after joining the cast of the streaming series set in the Star Wars universe. Herzog said he'll likely appear in two or three episodes of Jon Favreau's series as "a character in whom you cannot trust." The series, starring Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano and Carl Weathers, is set to premiere in November with the launch of the new Disney Plus streaming service. The famed 76-year-old German writer, director and actor does have a confession: He's never seen a Star Wars movie. "I've seen some trailers. I've seen some excerpts here and there. And I know about the whole franchise and about the toys for the kids and so -- it's all a new mythology," Herzog said. The Mandalorian series is set in the aftermath of The Return of the Jedi, taking place five years after the Rebellion's victory. "Mandalorian was filmed not like all the other Star Wars or other big event films -- green screen, green screen everywhere -- and the camera motion-control moving there," Herzog said. "All of a sudden you have a phenomenal step forward. As an actor, you see the entire planet on which you are. You see the landscape." "The camera, that could even be hand-held and move in between us, sees the same landscape. It's not green-screen and artificiality. It brings movie-making back where it should be. It's a phenomenal, phenomenal achievement," he said.

• Actor Vince Vaughn has been convicted of reckless driving after his arrest for failing a drunken driving test last year. An attorney for the 49-year-old Wedding Crashers star entered a no contest plea to the misdemeanor count Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Vaughn was arrested June 10 at a sobriety checkpoint in the upscale community of Manhattan Beach. Police say he repeatedly refused to get out of his car, and then failed a field sobriety test and a blood alcohol test. Vaughn was sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation and ordered to complete a three-month alcohol program.

• A Utah filmmaker who co-founded the Sundance Film Festival and produced a movie whose lead actress won an Oscar in the mid-1980s has pleaded guilty to a second count of sexual abuse of a child in a deal with prosecutors. Sterling Van Wagenen entered the plea during a hearing last week in a Salt Lake City suburb to complete a deal that calls for a prison sentence of at least six years. Prosecutors say Van Wagenen touched a young girl on two occasions between 2013 and 2015. Both criminal counts involve the same victim. The 71-year-old co-founded a Utah film festival with Robert Redford that came to be known as the Sundance Film Festival, but Van Wagenen hasn't been with the organization for more than two decades.

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AP file photo

In this Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 file photo, Vince Vaughn arrives at the American Cinematheque Award ceremony honoring Bradley Cooper at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

A Section on 05/05/2019

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