Bill Hader has been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Supporting Actor for his work on Saturday Night Live. Now Emmy nominations for SNL aren’t anything new, but no SNL actor has been nominated for that particular award since Eddie Murphy in 1983.
Chris Rock might have seemed like an odd choice to star in Julie Delpy’s indie romantic comedy 2 Days in New York, but that’s only if you haven’t been paying attention to Rock’s recent career. Sure, he might have starred in Pootie Tang years ago, but in the last several years Rock has manged to branch out not only as a writer, director, and producer, but also as an actor.
Online review sites like Yelp can be really helpful, but one always has to remember to take it from the source. I remember reading one that gave a hotel a poor review because the lobby chairs weren’t comfortable and the hotel TV didn’t have the writer’s favorite channel.
Despite Anne Hathaway having a lot of exciting projects coming up (The Dark Knight Rises, Les Miserables), there is only one question she is consistently asked. What’s it like wearing the Catsuit?
When asked how she felt about the ongoing campaigns, Sigourney Weaver (“Aliens,” “Gorillas in the Mist”) put it delicately: “I think it’s a pretty daunting thing to watch. It’s our dysfunctional political process front and center, and I actually think it’ll be one of the reasons people will tune into ‘Political Animals.’ As dysfunctional as we are, it’s fiction.”
Willem Dafoe remains one of those actors who is as versatile as he is prolific — he regularly appears in about 3 movies per year, ranging from expensive studio projects like Spider-Man and John Carter to independent films like this year’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth and The Hunter.
Michael Shannon was asked a handful of mostly New York-centric questions recently but this one about acting caught my eye.
A few years ago a band called the Silver Brazilians released a song titled “Kate Winslet”, which served as an ode to the beauty of the titular Titanic actress. However, with lyrics like “Kate Winslet / You know you look so fine / When they talk about your weight girl / I wouldn’t pay no mind / I’m no diplomat / but you look better fat / Kate Winslet,” it does mention Winslet’s often-discussed figure in a less-than-flattering way.
Actor Jeff Daniels has been making the rounds in promotion of his latest role in Aaron Sorkin’s new hit HBO series, The Newsroom, that just managed to rake in 2.1 million viewers in its debut.
It’s ironic that one of the most experienced Broadway musical actors on the NBC television series Smash, Brian D’Arcy James, plays one of the characters who isn’t involved in the Broadway business.
During the run of the show, he and actress Laurie Metcalf (who is currently starring as Mary Tyrone in O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night on London’s West End) exchanged emails about the pressures of working with O’Neill’s text, food before shows and pre-show preparation.
In Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Keira Knightley’s character Penny joins the ranks of cinema’s Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Not familiar with the term? Coined by film critic Nathan Rabin to describe the type of free-spirited, indie-music loving, quirky young girls who seem to only exist in movies to open up emotionally hollow men (like Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State and Zooey Deschannel’s in 500 Days of Summer), Knightley’s version of the MPDG serves as inspiration to Steve Carrell’s character in the film, who is trying to come to terms with the failures in his life as the world is coming to an end.
After learning from the best as a young actor – Jack Lemmon, Joseph Papp, Mike Nichols – Kevin Spacey is ready to give back.
Julianne Hough is talking a lot about Rock of Ages, the film adaptation of the smash hit Broadway musical that features some of the greatest rock hits of the 1980s. She talked about how Dancing with the Stars helped her acting career and whether or not her fellow actors are singing on the soundtrack.
Actor Joe Manganiello has learned to take a light-hearted approach to his career. How could he not? He plays a werewolf on HBO’s True Blood and a stripper in Steven Soderbergh’s new movie Magic Mike.
By the time most franchises reach the third film, audiences are either sure they’ve seen enough (does anyone really want to see a Men in Black 4?) or still clamoring more. In the case of Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, which topped the box office this past weekend, the franchise might still have legs.
Giancarlo Esposito, best known for his role as murderous Gustavo Fring on AMC’s Breaking Bad, is starring in John Patrick Shanley’s new play, Storefront Church. The show, which also stars Ron Cephas Jones and Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins, is part three in a series that also includes the acclaimed play Doubt.
Here’s a nice Q&A with Philip Seymour Hoffman from CBS’ Sunday Morning. They have a quick career retrospective, showing his first appearance on Law & Order and up to his performances in Capote and Moneyball.
Starr admits that very often those small roles don’t pay much, but that doesn’t matter much to him.
Andrew Rannells recently appeared on HBO’s hit show Girls as formerly-closeted ex-boyfriend, Elijah and in an interview with Vulture, Rannells touched on some of the racial controversy surrounding the show.
