{"id":24363,"date":"2026-06-16T17:01:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/disclosure-day-ends-with-a-bang-heres-how-a-former-news-anchor-stole-the-show-los-angeles-times\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T17:01:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T17:01:46","slug":"disclosure-day-ends-with-a-bang-heres-how-a-former-news-anchor-stole-the-show-los-angeles-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/16\/disclosure-day-ends-with-a-bang-heres-how-a-former-news-anchor-stole-the-show-los-angeles-times\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Disclosure Day\u2019 ends with a bang. Here\u2019s how a former news anchor stole the show – Los Angeles Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Getting cast in a Steven Spielberg movie is a big deal for any actor. For some, it can lead to awards season acclaim. For others, it signals an arrival in Hollywood, a sign that they\u2019ve finally made it in the business. For Courtney Grace, the role represents the biggest opportunity she\u2019s had \u2014 and a surprising return to her broadcast roots.
Spielberg\u2019s \u201cDisclosure Day,\u201d<\/a> which finds him revisiting the alien genre of blockbuster that his earlier classics all but defined, centers on two characters brought together by cosmic forces beyond their understanding. After Emily Blunt and Josh O\u2019Connor go on a thrilling adventure filled with car chases and villain monologues, Spielberg hands some of the movie\u2019s biggest emotional heavy lifting to a relative newcomer to Hollywood in the final act.
Grace plays the role of an unnamed NBC news anchor tasked with presenting to the world an archive of video evidence proving the existence of extraterrestrials on Earth stretching back decades. By most metrics, her role is small. She\u2019s on screen for a matter of minutes during the film\u2019s final act. She doesn\u2019t interact with the other characters and she\u2019s mostly speechless. But moviegoers won\u2019t soon forget her impressive turn, communicating the stakes of a massive cover-up that sought to prevent the knowledge of aliens walking among humanity for decades.
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With \u2018Disclosure Day,\u2019 the director returns to a longtime preoccupation. Two Times staffers explore his ongoing fascination with extraterrestrials.
Spielberg rests the finale on her performance \u2014 done entirely behind a TV news desk with a close-up on her face \u2014 which takes viewers from shock and dismay to fear and confusion, ultimately leading us into an uncertain but resolute future. Already, fans on social media are pointing<\/a> out<\/a> Grace<\/a> as a standout.
Grace has starred in five episodes of Netflix\u2019s \u201cSweet Magnolias\u201d and played the role of a nurse in \u201cStranger Things.\u201d But portraying journalists has been her specialty of late, with reporter credits in a series titled \u201cMiss Governor,\u201d the Sydney Sweeney vehicle \u201cChristy,\u201d<\/a> \u201cTulsa King\u201d and \u201cMurdaugh: Death in the Family.\u201d Bitten by the acting bug while performing in church plays as a child, she won\u2019t soon forget her latest gig. \u201cI will hold on to that for the rest of my career \u2014 for the rest of my life,\u201d she says of being directed by Spielberg.
We caught up with Grace to chat about working with Hollywood\u2019s foremost expert on alien life, her role and more. Here\u2019s what she disclosed about her day on the set.
Not many up-and-coming actors can say they <\/b>worked with<\/b> Steven Spielberg in so prominent a role<\/b>. What was it like walking onto set<\/b>?<\/b>
I was pretty overwhelmed with the thought that he would invite me. With that alone, I already felt like I won at that moment. \u2026 I went, OK, I\u2019m just going to bring my best and did a take. Then they said cut and I hear in my ear, \u201cSteven\u2019s coming up.\u201d I went, \u201cYou\u2019re referring to Steven Spielberg right now.\u201d He came in and I can\u2019t remember his exact words but he just affirmed for me what I was doing, and that meant the world. Some of the tears that you see on screen are also probably me still being very much overcome by his kindness and his compassion and his excitement for the work.
Before<\/b> \u201c<\/b>Disclosure Day,\u201d you worked<\/b> as an anchor, most recently in Tampa, Fla., at WTSP<\/b>,<\/b> right?<\/b>
I was a news anchor and I want to shout out all of the news anchors and journalists out there. I did that for off and on throughout like seven-ish years, but I always loved acting. Then one day I had a mentor look me in the eyes as I was training to become a better interviewer and he said, \u201cYou don\u2019t want to do this, do you?\u201d And I said, \u201cNo, I do<\/i>.\u201d He said, \u201cWhat do you really want to do?\u201d And I just broke down. I said, \u201cI want to be an actress.\u201d So I quit my job a month later. I had only a $500 booking ahead of me. This was three years ago and here we are. Here we are today. My dream was to hope that this industry would want me in it.
It\u2019s hard to imagine a bigger vote of confidence than Steven Spielberg saying,\u201dI want you to be in my movie.\u201d<\/b>
Right?
When did you first meet him? Was it that <\/b>day on set?<\/b>
Yes, I was looking at the monologue, the two pages that they gave me. I showed nobody. I just sat in my room for a day and marinated on [screenwriter] David Koepp\u2019s words and I wept as I read them, because they were so beautiful. Then I get to set and I got to shake the hand of the legend that [Spielberg] is.
At what point did you realize that you were being handed the reins at the end of the film? We\u2019re really just watching your face for much <\/b>of the climax<\/b>.<\/b>
I didn\u2019t get the entirety of the script, I got just my scene so I didn\u2019t know where it was going to live in the film. It was the day before the New York premiere when I watched it with the cast and crew. [Producer] Kristie Macosko Krieger was so gracious to invite me, so I got to watch it for the first time. I remember taking a mental note of time as I was watching the film so I could let people know I might be coming up around the 40-minute mark or the 30-minute mark. I was watching it and I was like: It\u2019s definitely been longer than 30 minutes. I was figuring it out in real time and I was so honored that Steven Spielberg would trust me with such an important moment in his story. It\u2019s very overwhelming and I\u2019m just so grateful for him.
I\u2019m curious about how you prepared. Were you watching other news anchors? Were you looking at historical footage?<\/b>
No. I can\u2019t remember how much time I had with it. It was a couple of days and so truly it was on the page for me. There are just some times where a script will just pull everything. It attaches to your soul instantly. There\u2019s a line that I still can\u2019t really get through without getting emotional. [Shakily<\/i>] It says, \u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming to think about this footage that raises profound questions about what has been happening in our skies, and what the nature of who we are and what our place is.\u201d It overwhelmed me to think about all the possibilities of our world only being like the tip of the iceberg and all of creation.
Are you just reacting purely off of the words on the page<\/b> or did they give you some of the visuals you\u2019d be seeing?<\/b>
They didn\u2019t show me anything. What I had was a prompter, which I\u2019m so grateful they gave me. I don\u2019t want to go into the mechanics of everything but no \u2014 it was all imaginative.
My final question was going to be about <\/b>you having to keep <\/b>the ending a secret for so long, but it sounds like you got to experience that with everyone.<\/b>
I got to experience it with everybody. Now I will say, when you go back and listen to the words, there is important information in there, which is why I still have never shown anybody those pages. It was quite special for me to be trusted with something that was really important in the story. But we ain\u2019t sharing nothing, OK?
A good reporter never gives up their sources.<\/b>
This is the first interview that I\u2019ve had since everything and I really would like to add this: I\u2019ve been pretty quiet on social media because I really haven\u2019t known what to say, but I want people to know that I have read every single comment, message, watched every video, listened to every voice memo. It has deeply moved me and their kindness is a reminder of how much good there is in people and in this world. So from the bottom of my heart, I just want to say thank you to them.
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David Viramontes is an audience editor for Entertainment and Arts. Before coming to the Los Angeles Times, he worked at Variety, the entertainment industry magazine. He graduated from the USC and grew up in Los Angeles.
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This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. Getting cast in a Steven Spielberg movie is a big deal for any actor. For some, it can lead to awards season acclaim. For others, it signals an arrival in Hollywood, a sign that they\u2019ve finally made it in the business. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}