by tyler | Jun 29, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
While they both are “American Idol” winners with great voices, please don’t pit Kelly Clarkson against Carrie Underwood.
During a recent appearance on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” a viewer started to ask Clarkson about seemingly being pitted against Underwood by media over the years.
Clarkson jumped in to quickly point out, “We don’t even know each other well enough to be pitted together.”
“We’ve run into each other a handful of times,” Clarkson said. “There’s no beef between us.”
Turns out the viewer’s full question was actually about Clarkson’s thoughts on having Underwood on her daytime talk show.
Clarkson laughed it off, saying everyone always asks her the “pitted against each other question” before going on to answer the actual question.
“It was awesome,” she said of Underwood’s appearance. “It was great to have her on the show. I think the thing that was cool about is that everybody always pits us against each other. I don’t know why they do that. They don’t do that with dudes.”
Underwood’s appearance was during the height of the pandemic, so she appeared via Zoom. Clarkson said she’d like to have her return to the show in person.
by tyler | Jun 28, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Idris Elba says he felt “super complimented for a long time” when it came to suggestions he should play James Bond.
Until things took a turn.
During a recently released conversation on Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett’s podcast “Smartless,” Elba addressed the many times he’s been asked about replacing Daniel Craig in the James Bond film franchise.
Lots of people have rooted for Elba to be the first Black James Bond, and he said he was aware of the compliment in that.
“We’re all actors and we understand that that role is one of those sort of coveted types,” he said. “It’s like being named sexiest man.”
(People magazine named Elba “Sexiest Man Alive” in 2018.)
He said during the podcast that he was flattered by those who were rooting for him to be considered for the role.
But not everyone was doing that.
“Those that weren’t happy about the idea made the whole thing disgusting and off-putting because it became about race,” Elba said. “It became about nonsense dude, and I got the brunt of it.”
Elba is currently starring in the Apple TV+ series “Hijack.”
by tyler | Jun 28, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Tom Cruise – he’s just like us.
Speaking in London ahead of the release of “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One,” Cruise shared that, yes, he feels fear.
“It’s not that I don’t get scared,” the actor said. “It’s that I don’t mind being scared.”
And there ends our delusion.
Cruise, who famously does his own stunts, has put his body on the line time and again for the multibillion-dollar franchise. As superspy Ethan Hunt he’s dangled from the world’s tallest building, clung on to the outside of a plane during take-off, and performed a military-level high altitude, low opening (HALO) skydive no less than 100 times.
In the latest movie Cruise can be seen riding a motorcycle off a cliff before BASE jumping on to … actually, let’s keep this spoiler-free. The stunt was filmed in Norway back in 2020 on the first day of the film’s arduous, Covid-stricken production. It was one thing for Cruise to perform the stunt, quite another to watch, powerless to intervene, said writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise’s long-term creative partner affectionately known as “McQ.”
“I was just staring at the crosshairs on the screen, and I was waiting to see blue – blue was the color of his parachute,” he recalled. “Once I saw blue, I was just making sure it was a square, because if it wasn’t a square, it meant there was a malfunction. There was no coming back from it.”
Cruise put his director through the experience six times to capture the stunt from all the necessary angles, which looks even more spectacular in the finished movie than the marketing material suggests.
With all that heart-in-mouth action, is McQuarrie still able to have fun? “It’s more fun to finish a ‘Mission Impossible’ movie, for sure,” he said. “It’s a huge relief when it’s all behind you and everybody’s safe.”
“Dead Reckoning” sees “Mission: Impossible” lean into 21st century anxieties in the form of its villain. Dubbed The Entity, this faceless, stateless antagonist is an artificial intelligence capable of infiltrating pretty much any digital network to chaotic ends. (Yes, Tom Cruise hates streaming so much he’s now squaring up to an algorithm.)
The star was reluctant to say much about the AI baddie, but when CNN’s Becky Anderson caught up with the cast and crew in Abu Dhabi – the next stop on the film’s globetrotting promotional tour – McQuarrie was more candid.
“We were talking about it probably in early 2018, as something that even a few years prior would have been an intellectual or an abstract idea,” he explained. “I felt that people were starting to become aware of the way information and information technology was affecting their lives.”
As for AI’s impact on the movie industry itself, McQuarrie was diplomatic. “Like any of the technologies that have been used in previous ‘Mission Impossible’ movies, it’s less about the technology and more about who’s using (it),” he said. “What we’re presenting here is just what happens when the technology potentially falls into the wrong hands.”
For resident gadget man Benji Dunn, The Entity is “his worst nightmare,” shared actor Simon Pegg. A series veteran who’s known Cruise for 17 years, Pegg saw the actor-producer forced to go through more off-screen action than either would have liked when the film became the first major production impacted by Covid, while on location in Venice, Italy in February 2020.
“We kind of wrote the rulebook on how to make a film in a pandemic,” he said. “The time that that took was challenging, because often we’d have to stop, and there’d be pauses in shooting, but we wanted to be as safe as possible.
“Tom is never reckless with the stunts; with everything he’s always very careful. But that was a challenge. It took much longer than it would normally do. But I think it’s all up there on the screen.”
Pegg did point to one upside, however: because of lockdowns, the cast, which included newcomers Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff, bonded quickly.
For Klementieff, a childhood fan of “Mission Impossible,” it was “a dream come true” to sign on as Paris, who puts Hunt through his paces, including a thrilling hand-to-hand fight scene down a dark alley.
Delivering a similarly athletic performance, Atwell described it as “an all-encompassing experience that asked everything of me physically,” adding, “I think I’ll probably never have the experience again.”
Never say never, because as the movie title suggests, Part Two is coming. “It was McQ’s idea,” said Cruise. “When we were there (on shoot) I was like, ‘remember, this is your idea.’ There’s so much story … it won’t be confined by one film.”
“Everything is on track,” McQuarrie divulged of the sequel, slated for release in June 2024. “We’ve shot in Africa, we’ve shot in the Arctic, we’re back here in London. Everything is standing by for us to go back to work after we’re done promoting this movie.
“We’ve done some amazing, amazing things – and the biggest is yet to come.”
Cruise, arguably working in a category of one when it comes to Hollywood action heroes, is only competing with himself these days. “I strive for excellence,” he said. “There’s always another story to tell, there’s always another mountain to climb. And I always feel like I can do it better.”
“I’m not the kind of person that will beat myself up,” he added, “but I’m constantly working to become competent and strive to understand my craft and the world, and just keep pushing myself.”
As for what happens after Part Two, the cast and crew are keeping mum. “I have been misquoted many times – I don’t know what happens next,” said McQuarrie.
Pegg is a little surer about Cruise, Ethan Hunt and the franchise’s fate. “I don’t see this story stopping,” he said. “I think he’ll be jumping off things when he’s 100.”
“Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One” is released in cinemas worldwide starting July 12.
by tyler | Jun 28, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Following a difficult performance at the Glastonbury Festival over the weekend, Lewis Capaldi is taking a break from touring.
The 26-year-old singer has been struggling with Tourette’s Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary movements and sounds. On Tuesday, Capaldi shared word he is taking a pause in a note on social media, “The fact that this probably won’t come as a surprise doesn’t make it any easier to write.”
“I used to be able to enjoy every second of shows like this and I’d hoped 3 weeks away would sort me out,” the note reads. “But the truth is I’m still learning to adjust to the impact of my Tourette’s and on Saturday it became obvious that I need to spend much more time getting my mental and physical health in order, so I can keep doing everything I love for a long time to come.”
In the weeks leading up to his Glastonbury performance, Capaldi said he was resting to prepare for the festival.
Capaldi appeared to struggle on Saturday while singing his hit, “Someone You Loved,” when the audience stepped in to help him finish the song.
He wrote about feeling fortunate that he is in a position to be able to take time off, even as he expressed regret that he had to.
“I’m so incredibly sorry to everyone who had planned to come to a show before the end of the year but I need to feel well to perform at the standard you all deserve,” Capaldi wrote. “Playing for you every night is all I’ve ever dreamed of, so this has been the most difficult decision of my life. I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can.”
A documentary about his diagnoses and living with the syndrome, “How I’m Feeling Now,” was released by Netflix in the Spring.
by tyler | Jun 28, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Chrissy Teigen has shared more about her 2020 pregnancy loss.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the cookbook author and entrepreneur spoke about that experience on Thursday at social impact agency Propper Daley’s “A Day of Unreasonable Conversation” summit held in Beverly Hills, California.
Teigen, who is currently pregnant and has two other young children with husband John Legend, reflected on the loss of their son, Jack.
“Two years ago, when I was pregnant with Jack, John and my third child, I had to make a lot of difficult and heartbreaking decisions,” the publication reported her saying at the summit. “It became very clear around halfway through that he would not survive, and that I wouldn’t either without any medical intervention.”
Following the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Teigen said she realized that what she had termed a miscarriage was actually an abortion.
“Let’s just call it what it was: It was an abortion,” she said. “An abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance. And to be honest, I never, ever put that together until, actually, a few months ago.”
The “Lip Sync Battle” host had been hospitalized for severe bleeding in the days prior to announcing her pregnancy loss.
“We were never able to stop the bleeding and give our baby the fluids he needed, despite bags and bags of blood transfusions. It was never enough,” she said in a statement shared on social media at the time.
Part of the debate surrounding abortion in some states has been whether it should be legal in cases where the mother’s life is at risk.
Teigen, according to THR, said it was during a discussion with her husband about abortion and the sympathy she felt for people who have to make an emotional decision to end a pregnancy that Legend helped her realize they were in fact those people.
“I fell silent, feeling weird that I hadn’t made sense of it that way,” she said. “I told the world we had a miscarriage, the world agreed we had a miscarriage, all the headlines said it was a miscarriage. And I became really frustrated that I didn’t, in the first place, say what it was, and I felt silly that it had taken me over a year to actually understand that we had had an abortion.”
Teigen tweeted the THR story on Friday.
“I told you all we had a miscarriage because I thought that was what it was,” she wrote. “But it was an abortion, and we were heartbroken and grateful all at once. It just took me over a year to realize it.”
CNN has reached out to a representative for Teigen for comment.
by tyler | Jun 27, 2023 | CNN, entertainment
Chairty Lawson’s hunt for a husband has begun.
Lawson met the 25 men vying for her heart on Monday’s Season 20 premiere of “The Bachelorette,” and said she was not going to settle for just anyone who she wasn’t “head over heels” in love with. Her choices include Harvard graduate Josh, record jumper Chris, who does a backflip upon meeting her, Warwick, a construction manager from Nashville, Brayden, a travel nurse, Caleb B., a professional wrestler, and others.
Lawson, who previously appeared on Season 27 of “The Bachelor” with Zach Shallcross, had made it to hometown dates but did not end up getting a rose. In order to ease her nerves, host Jesse Palmer had one more man for her to meet. When he steped out of the limo, Lawson saw that it was her brother Nehemiah, who came to support her. It was then revealed Nehemiah would disguise himself as a bartender so he can eavesdrop on his sister’s suitors.
Nehemiah later reveals himself at the cocktail party to his sister and her suitors, and says he’s worried about Brayden and how cocky he is. After he explains himself, saying he was just giddy, Lawson gives him the first impression rose.
Along with Brayden, here’s who survived another week: Aaron B., John, Xavier, Joey, Caleb B., Warwick, Aaron S., Adrian, James, Sean, Michael, Tanner, Dotun, Kaleb K., John Henry, Josh, and Spencer.
Lawson sent home Chris, Joe, Caleb A., Khalid, Nick, Peter, and Taylor. The journey continues next week.
