Emily Zemler

Emily Zemler is a freelance writer, reporter, and critic who covers entertainment and travel, with a focus on film, television, and pop culture across major international outlets. Her through-line is detailed, news-driven coverage of screen entertainment and its creators, from breaking casting and production stories at Rolling Stone to long-form interviews and book projects that explore how these worlds are made.

Film and TV news for Rolling Stone

Zemler reports regularly for Rolling Stone on film and television news, with an emphasis on new projects, creative decisions, and how they land in the wider culture. Her coverage includes pieces on filmmakers such as Ben Affleck, examining his use of AI for “lots of things” in the Netflix film Animal and what that signals about technology’s growing role in moviemaking. She also covers casting and development announcements, like the forthcoming film Tangled Up in Blue led by Kylie Minogue and Quentin Tarantino, situating such projects within ongoing conversations about genre, legacy, and star power.

Her work extends across Rolling Stone’s TV and Movies and culture news verticals, giving her a vantage point that connects entertainment headlines to broader cultural and industry shifts.

Her byline runs across several international editions of Rolling Stone, reflecting a remit that spans local and global entertainment stories. On the television side she has written about late-night hosts taking aim at political events, such as their response to Donald Trump’s meeting with China’s president, using show segments to capture how politics is refracted through comedy and broadcast media. She also contributes culture news pieces, including coverage of the grand jury investigating the death of Nolan Wells and its decision against indictments, where she tracks legal outcomes that reverberate through a community and its public narrative.

Obituaries and cultural legacy reporting

A distinctive strand of Zemler’s work is obituary and memorial coverage of figures from film and music, where she documents careers as well as their impact on audiences and peers. Her obituaries include pieces on saxophonist Plas Johnson, known for the Pink Panther theme, noting his sessions with artists such as Frank Sinatra, B.B. King, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, and the Beach Boys. She has also written about actor Sam Neill, best known for Jurassic Park, framing his death within a long career that moved between blockbuster cinema and character-driven roles.

These pieces emphasise discographies, filmographies, and collaborative histories, and they treat obituaries as a record of cultural legacy rather than only breaking news.

Beyond formal obituaries, she extends this interest in legacy to reported features, such as coverage of Anthony Bourdain’s biopic Tony, where she explores how the film balances fact and fiction in retelling a well-known life. Her approach foregrounds the choices of directors and performers, and how they interpret real people and events for the screen, tying individual films back to enduring questions about representation and memory in popular culture.

Interviews and features on creators

Zemler writes in-depth interviews and profiles of writers, showrunners, and actors, giving attention to process as much as to promotion. For Shondaland, she has written about Grey’s Anatomy writers Julie Wong and Michelle Lirtzman, focusing on how they build “the perfect script” and the collaborative mechanics behind a long-running series. She has also profiled Oli Higginson from Bridgerton, tracing the “many lives” of his career and how work on a high-profile period drama intersects with other creative pursuits. These features centre craft, work routines, and professional pivots, positioning television not just as content but as a workplace for writers and performers.

Her interview work extends to major filmmakers and showrunners at other outlets, including a lengthy conversation with Ridley Scott that touches on his career, end-of-the-world storytelling, and his views on AI. She attends events such as the opening night of The Mad King, speaking with figures connected to George R.R.

Martin and fans in attendance, and then builds pieces that mix scene reporting with voices from the creative community. Across these assignments, she blends access - whether via Zoom, red carpets, or live events - with an emphasis on what drives the work itself, making her coverage useful for stories that benefit from context on creative decision-making.

Entertainment and travel writing beyond Rolling Stone

Alongside her work for Rolling Stone, Zemler maintains a broad freelance portfolio across entertainment, culture, and travel.

She regularly contributes to outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, Observer, and other major publications, where her assignments range from cover stories and features to reviews, list pieces, and reported news. In travel, she writes for titles including CN Traveler, bringing an entertainment sensibility to destination writing and aligning trips with film, television, and pop culture interests.

She is also a book author and critic, with multiple volumes that explore Disney properties, iconic films, and pop-culture figures, as well as co-authored memoir and music projects. Her professional profiles note that she is a Rotten Tomatoes–certified critic and an active member of critics’ organisations, including the London Critics Circle and BAFTA, underscoring her standing in film criticism alongside her reporting work. This combination of newsroom experience, long-form authorship, and travel writing gives her a wide lens on how entertainment functions both as industry and as lived experience, and it shapes coverage that moves easily between hard news, cultural analysis, and audience-focused service pieces.