Celebs
Listen to the latest celebrity news and gossip here! Breaking news and developing stories from Hollywood and the lives of the rich and famous, aired on leading talk radio shows and premium podcasts.
Audioburst Playlists
Welcome to Audioburst's Celebs Playlists
"Welcome to an Audioburst original playlist where you’ll hear bite-size bursts of the latest celebrity gossip, sourced from premium entertainment podcasts. Let’s dish.
The BosBabes
Ashley Peterson: An NFL Wife, Model, & Entrepreneur PT2 - burst 01
"Yes. So actually, so he proposed on the fourth and we were going to be there for like a few days because my dad's birthday is actually almost 6 of July. So we were there and I don't remember how long we stayed, but he proposed on the 4th of July. We did our whole family thing on the 4th of July. We were there for probably a few days. And then we went back to Houston where we were living and the season was about to start. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm not going into another football season unmarried, so we're choosing a date before training camp starts. This is not your typical sports show. It's real, it's wrong. There's a positive pop. You are now Robin with the ball phase. I was definitely more of a print model because I'm only like, I'm right at 5 8. So I wasn't super tall to do a lot of runway. I did do the wrong way. I love runway, but I was no Chanel mon. You know? So I did a lot of print work, though. I did like a lot of commercial work. I
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Bey and Jay New $200 Million Dollar Home
"For sugar and spice it's only a level, welcome to the new naughty wine family host of shooter and it is a fresh week. It's on Monday, which means I do a friend. Garrett Vogel joins us, hey, mister Vogel, are you there? Are you done chasing the royals or the would be? We can't use that word. Did you put them on a jet? Did you put them on a jet blue flight back to LA? We can't use the word chase and it triggers them. We have to be very, very careful with the royals. I've been doing a lot of talking about them. I've been on all the shows. It's fun to get to those TV shows. Do you know what's really fun? Being on TV is a lot of fun. What's really fun is getting there earlier and sitting in the green room and bumping into people, I like Chris Cuomo and bumping to like these foreign leaders and experts in the world because the green rooms particularly at news shows like the CNNs, the news nations, the MSNBC, in the green room. It's full of really smart people and they like to talk about the royals. Because they're there to talk about inflation or really important things. But even so, I mean, if you've listened to rob shooter and as you've taught many of us, including myself, is something like that is the equivalent of an elevator. You just listen and you people watch. Yes. And you absorb. And then you become an exclusive source for things personally. Oh, I get a source. I sign up in that green room. I've got to say they too. The producers told me afterwards that they all wanted to talk to me because they wanted to talk about the royals, so all the smarty pants, or they cared about a Brooklyn accent. No. No, no. No, no, no. And I kind of say the Barry Manilow card helps. If you don't know, my husband does write the songs that make the whole world seeing with Barry Manilow, that does help people love Barry, so thank you everybody for being so nice to me in these green rooms we've got a big royal story at the top of the show, but before we get into the show, I just want to say a little prayer for my friend Wendy Williams, I'm hearing really bad things her friends are really concerned. When this rep has denied that she was hospitalized last weekend, however, people I'm talking to are really, really, really worried about her. So when the news broke that she had been hospitalized, I called her, I have a number I called her. And this is what made me really scared. It went straight to voicemail. So normally when you call Wendy, it rings and rings and rings, and you can just imagine her like running around her apartment, trying to find it under. It's into both her leopard skin pillows or under a Gucci shoes or wonder a wig. And so it's really strange that it went straight to voicemail. And she normally answers and if she doesn't answer, it rings and rings and rings leave a message and she calls you back. She didn't call me back. So there's a couple of things here that makes me really concerned. What does it mean when your phone goes straight to voicemail? No rings. I mean, many of things you might not have service. Or your phone is dead. Per se or you just literally just turned it off. Do not distract. There's many of ways. And of course, just as normal human beings, we automatically jump the worst scenario. But I wanted to say, you were planning on meeting up with her. She had this gig that she was going to go and do out of town. She's getting paid to go and speak somewhere and she canceled that because she was sick and then there was a report that she had actually been hospitalized she's out of hospital now I'm told, but I love her and she's been so kind to me and we talk and I think we talk a lot more than people actually even think we do often when I'm going for my walk each day my phone will ring and there's Wednesday like is that why you hang up on me? Yeah, I've got to go. No, you're as much fun. You're as much fun, but we don't hear back from somebody and then you hear the news, you got to send a prayer. I reached out to fear of her friends and she doesn't have many friends. She's quite a lonely person if the truth be told. And I think that's one of the reasons that she calls me as much as she does. And so I do know a few other people she talks to and we all spoke this weekend and we're all really worried. You know, it's funny because once I knew you told me a Thursday or Friday that, hey, this is what I'm doing this weekend. And as soon as I saw the story, I was like, oh wow, were you with her? Possibly. And then I turned on CNN, but nope, there you are. That's how I take it from CNN talking, although I do know Wendy had you called if you're listening to Loma Loma lo I know she listens to the podcast. If you had called, I would have been there. I want her to know that she does have one friend out there unhappy to be your friend. Okay. Okay, let's jump into the show. What time is it, my Friends? It's tea time. This is a big story at the top of the show. So Harry and Meghan are being accused of being too cheap to pay for a hotel in New York City, and that's what led to all this trace drama,
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Mo Amer - 'Mo'
"Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 495th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today for an episode recorded via Zoom in front of students of mine from Chapman university is a Kuwait born, Palestinian stand up comedian, writer, producer, and actor. His semi autobiographical rookie comedy series mo, which was produced by a 24 and streamed by Netflix, which he co created with rami Yusuf, for which he wrote the pilot and on which he stars, is the first Palestinian American sitcom, and is currently generating Emmy buzz. Since the show dropped back on August 24th, 2022, it has accumulated rave reviews leading to a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, fans, including Steven Spielberg, and widespread recognition, including an AFI award for being one of the top ten TV shows of 2022, a Gotham award for best breakthrough series 40 minutes or less. A Spirit Award nomination for best lead performance in a new scripted series, and most recently, a Peabody Award with The New Yorker describing its depiction of an undocumented immigrant's life in Houston as quote delivered with a warmth confidence and localism that evokes Spike Lee's Brooklyn E 40s Bay Area or the Philadelphia that Sylvester Stallone memorialized in rocky. All a testament to the man behind the show, Moe emmer. the 41 year old and I discussed his and his family's real journey to America and after two decades to citizenship, how he discovered comedy and honed his comedic skills, accumulating mentors along the way, including Dave Chappelle, what it's been like developing with youssef and acting on both Hulu's rami and his own show, plus much more. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. Both of you so much for joining us on the podcast and on this podcast, we always begin truly at the beginning, which I know may seem weird because for people who have seen your work so much of it is drawing on your life story, but just in case we have any newbies to the Moammar story, can you tell us where you were born and raised in what your folks did for a living? Oh boy. Well, I was born in Kuwait. I left Kuwait when I was 9 years old during the first Gulf War. Ended up being Houston, Texas, y'all. And it's been home since then since 1990. And my father was a telecommunications engineer. In Kuwait for the queen of all company there. Learned a ton from him. Even though he passed when I was 14, he was just actually brilliant. I was wondering what he would think of today to seeing the tech and specifically the phones. I think that's what he envisioned when he first became intelligent communications engineer. He knew that he was heading in that direction. I just wish he would have told me because I want to invest it heavily when I was a teenager. But yeah, that's my father, my mom is a homemaker. And a really, really talented public secretly. She is an incredible woman their way. Perspective. Is really like my guiding light. And that's it. Well, so you're the youngest of how many? The youngest of 6, how do you think that? Shapes a person. Well, it's strange because although in the youngest, I had a completely different upbringing than at least my three older siblings. Because they had a more consistent life before the war broke out. He and my brother Ahmed at the completely different experience company Houston to be thrown into a culture and a society really know much about. So it was definitely a massive adjustment, but it definitely shaped a motorway in today. So I'm very grateful for that. And that challenge of having to assimilate the wall alone just really shaped right up today. And I'm very, very grateful. That I had to climb, it's really what has made me successful. When I was now, the fact though that Houston is central to your comedy, you obviously means a lot to you. Why did you guys land up in Houston of all places? And why is it so such a big part of who you are? Houston, I can't answer this but I was too young of why we moved here. I just kind of went where your parents want to go or where should it go? 9 years old, like, well, I would like to just be this choice. That's the best mother. You know, it's not what happened. I'm very blessed, ended up Houston to be honest with you. I absolutely love it here. It is the most diverse city of America according to Forbes, 90 languages spoken in my suburb alone. Did that happen right away, no, but gradually did become that over time. And I just absolutely love it here. It's the fourth largest city, probably the third population. However, it still maintains the phrase each tone.
Asian Enough
A highlight from Your Laws vs. Our Laws
"And when it comes to most romany divorce cases, the perspective of the Kris is pretty predictable. First thing we'll try to do is see if we can get them to go back together. So the crease will hear the arguments for a separation. The two sides will each present their case. We'll figure out what is your problem, somebody argued, somebody treated you bad. We'll start talking to them. A crease is usually made up of men who don't necessarily know the couple. Someone like Nick, might participate in a grease for a situation like paulinus. These days, it's usually held over a conference call. But back in the day, I heard men might come from another part of the country for a case, so they're not biased to the local community. Despite the differences in region or subgroup though, Nick says the men in the crease usually still agree. The couples should stay together. And most of the time I would say try it one more time. It happened to me. I left my wife one time. Years ago, Nick said, he and his wife had a bad argument, and he left. She was crying. I want my children back. So then the Romani elders got involved, and encouraged Nick and his wife to talk it out. So the one guy was very good. And he said, go outside and have a cup of coffee with your wife. The case helped Nick mend his marriage back together. We stayed together 30 some years. Okay, so they did eventually break up. But it was after their kids were already grown. And Nick says this timing was for the better. If Nick's marriage had ended while the kids were still young, the mother would have had to leave their three little girls. And Nick would have had sole custody. Because in our culture, the father gets kids. The man keeps the kids. Most of the time. At least, the oldest kid. The first child goes to the father, no matter what, especially if it's a son. And then if there's another child, those split them up one will go to the mom, then that gets always the dad gets to keep the first born. So you pretty much already know the outcome. The main objective is to keep the couple together, and if a couple breaks up, the Greece will give the kids to the dad, or split them up. Like Nick says, the answer is generally predetermined in Romani custody disputes. So if it's in our hands, we know the outcome. Not so, with the American courts. Once you put your hands under a judge, you don't know what could be the outcome. This is exactly why some Romney women are turning away from the Romani Chris. Because there, the results are so predictably the same. Stay and make it work, leave and give up the firstborn or leave and lose everything. But in the American court, theoretically, everyone gets a shot at custody. Much to Nick's dismay. These younger woman who are now becoming brides when they're not happy with their marriage instead of trying to let the people try to put them together right away they come home and they file court papers. Which makes it impossible to put them back together because now we've got to deal with your laws versus our laws and of course the American court doesn't understand what we're talking about. So it's like oil and water and that's why we were having an epidemic of divorces. I've heard this from other folks too that more and more romany women are turning to the American court system. But in paulina's mind, there was no epidemic of romany women turning to the courts. Growing up, paulina said she knew only two women who had gone to the American courts for custody, and she said they settled the case as quickly, because their families were afraid of blowback. But for Nick, even two is too many. It hurts my heart. Because I see our people are losing it. There's so many cases right now. It's a one almost every day of a girl who left her husband took the kids went to court, you do this for the next hundred years to buy romany. Goodbye. We once was a culture like the Mayans and the Incas. See? That's why it makes me upset. This is obviously the point of view of someone who is sat on the Greece, an elder in the community. But there are plenty of other people who feel the same as Nick, and they did not hesitate to tell paulina exactly what they thought. All the men were very firm on the fact that if I choose to leave Bobby, then I do not deserve my kids. As predicted, all the men told paulina, she should just let her kids go. Or make peace with keeping only one. They were basically saying, why don't you give him the oldest and you take the youngest or why don't you just give them to him and you can see them once a month or why don't you just sign over a soul custody because we don't want to get blackballed or we don't want to get in trouble. And the Romani community, getting blackballed is traditionally one of the worst things that can happen to you. It's a sign of disgrace. Professor Hancock says that if you're blackballed, if your name gets disgraced, then you're pretty much unacceptable. You can no longer attend any functions, and you know how important gatherings are in paulina's world. No weddings, no funerals, no birthdays. If you try to get into a party while your blackballed, you might be ushered out. People stop answering your calls. If you were blackballed, nobody would visit you. And if you went to somebody's house, they may not let you in at all. It's totally isolating. It's embarrassing. And in many cases, blackballing can last a long time. Years and years and years. So long, it can affect multiple generations, like if a parent is black bolt, their kids may have trouble finding someone to marry within the community. Because blackballing is community imposed and community regulated. It only works if and because everyone follows it. In the ramen world, there's really no room for an individual. You're part of a family, so if you do something bad, pretty much the whole family goes with you. Since Romani culture is so deeply rooted in family. Being turned off from family is like being turned off from everything. From all Friends,
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Brian d'Arcy James - 'Into the Woods' & 'Days of Wine and Roses'
"To the 494th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is a terrific stage and screen actor and singer. He's best known for his work on the stage over the last 30 years. He's appeared in 15 Broadway productions, garnering Tony nominations in three different decades, specifically best featured actor in a musical in 2002 for sweet smell of success, and best actor in a musical in 2009 for Shrek the musical in 2015 for something rotten. And this year, for a revival of into the Woods, for which he has already shared in a Grammy for best musical theater album. And he was also the original king George the third in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton when it was playing off Broadway at the public. He's been a part of major films and TV series as well. On a small screen, he starred on NBC smash from 2012 through 2013, and Netflix's 13 Reasons Why, from 2017 through 2018. On the big screen, meanwhile, he starred in two best picture Oscar nominated films. Tom McCarthy spotlight in 2015 and Steven Spielberg's west side story in 2021. The former of which won and also brought him a sag award as part of its ensemble. This year he was nominated for a best supporting performance Spirit Award for his work in Ricky Dan Bros, the cathedral, and is currently starring opposite Tony winner Kelly O'Hara in the off Broadway musical days of wine and roses. Brian, Darcy James. Over the course of our conversation, the 54 year olds and I discussed the number of the people who shaped his desire to pursue acting, some of the tough professional decisions that he's faced along the way, like leaving next to normal and Hamilton after originating roles in them off Broadway when they moved to Broadway in order to star in Shrek the musical and something rotten respectively, how he landed the part in spotlight and how it subsequently led to a whole different caliber of screen acting opportunities than he'd ever seen before. What it's been like over the past year coming out of the pandemic and returning to the stage on Broadway and into the Woods and off Broadway in days of wine and roses, plus much more. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. Brian, thank you so much for doing the podcast. Great thank you. It's really nice to be here. to the very beginning. Can you share with our listeners? Where were you born and raised? What did your folks do for a living? I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, which is right in the middle of the state. As any true michigander, since I wear a podcast, now I am showing you my hand and I'm showing you where sag and I is on my hand, which is right in the center. Was a GM town, right? It was. It was, yeah, it was we were the steering gear division was the kind of mainstay of the GM life there. And so yeah, the Saginaw gears was an ihl. Hockey team there. So there was a lot of an identity around that and a lot of work around that as well. So yeah, so in the 70s and the 80s, that was, you know, that was high times for GM. It's a different story now. Is that going to change quite a bit? But that's where I grew up. My father was a lawyer. He was a trial lawyer, and he would represent the likes of General Motors and he was a great guy. He died when I was 22, just coming out of college. Thanks, yeah. He was an amazing man. And super supportive and intrigued by what I was starting to do at that point in my life. My mother, Mary, my dad's name is Tom. My mom's name is Mary James, and she still lives in Saginaw. And she is an exceptional person as well. And she saw children's books for a long time, had her own company. She got a degree in library science, so she loves books and reading and has passed that down to all her grandchildren and she among many other things. She's an incredible person.
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Kelly Clarkson Speaks About Her Show
"Asked a U will receive. You are like the great and powerful odds coming out from beyond the curtain going aha, you are wrong, I am here greetings Friends. Look at that I be here over here. I forgot to hit my camera. Ah, that's why we're a little bit late starting. You didn't see my face pop up. Well, yeah, I was sitting there going, you know, you're in the waiting room at the doctor's office and you're just flipping through magazines and go time goes by and it's like, well, maybe the doctor forgot about me. And then you're like, you know what? I'm just going to go up to the front desk and ask them if he's still excuse me, excuse me. Would it be much longer than you can sit back down? We know you're here. I know, I know, I know. Okay, let's jump into the show. I've got two so much gossip about, what are your favorite people in the whole wide world, Garrett? I know your favorite celebrity. My time is it my Friends. So this tea time. This story was kind of shocking, so over the weekend, a massive story blew up that Kelly Clarkson show, not Kelly Clarkson. Correct. But the show was an alleged toxic work environment, a toxic work, culture, Kelly's finally addressing this. She put out a statement on Instagram. She doesn't miss about when she sees there's a problem. A lot of celebrities, including Ellen when this happened to her, sort of disappeared for a little bit too long. Kelly was right out and she said, quote, to find out that anybody is feeling unheard, or disrespected on the show is unacceptable. I have always been and will continue to be committed to creating and maintaining a safe and healthy environment at the Kelly Clarkson show, just a little bit of background here, so Rolling Stone very reputable, but I report on Friday that 11 current and former employees of the show had been complaints about being overworked and underpaid and they went on to say that the work environment was toxic. They did add though, which I thought was so interesting and very unusual on these type of stories that Kelly was great. I had no complaints with her. It was all the other people on the show. Yes, her name is on the door of the show, but they didn't think she knew and if she was guilty of anything, it was in a little bubble where very few people on the show actually really got to talk to her and so she wasn't aware of how bad things actually are. All right. Yes, I will take the side of Kelly Clarkson no matter what she does in life, but yes, it does suck to hear that. Now here's me looking past page one of the headlines. The shoe is moving from LA to New York. And it just so happens that this story is coming out just as people are unfortunately losing their jobs. So it was either probably a hey, we're moving or jealous jealous ex, a jilted lover when you break up with someone and then all of a sudden they love you up until the moment you guys separate and then all of a sudden it was like, oh well you have bad press. And I've just, I've held that in for so long. And I just didn't have the heart to tell you. You've been working there for so long and then all of a sudden this expose comes out. You obviously go to Rolling Stone and say, hey, these are the conditions I'm working in, but yet you still stay there. Just as the show's moving and maybe you didn't get the opportunity or given the opportunity to get up and move across the country to New York. That's just me. I hear you, I'm in this business, so I'm in the gossip business. I know how these stories often happen, how they work, it takes a massive event, something like a show moving or somebody getting fired, often for people to talk. And so for instance, a lot of people have just been fired from the sherry shepherd show who have been with shari now over a year. Those people are happy to talk about their experience because they're not frightened of losing their jobs anymore. So it's quite complicated here. So I personally feel as if the momentous move moving to New York has freed some people up to reveal the truth. Their truth here. 11 people is a lot of people. If this was a few people who were angry or a few people that had lost their jobs. I mean, we've all lost our jobs. How often have we run to the press and made something? I know, I've never done that. It's the entertainment business, though. You know what I mean? And I think the other thing I've seen too, 'cause we've both been around celebrities and all it takes is one bad day or one whatever, given they didn't knock Kelly Clarkson, but maybe they didn't have they wanted to be closer to Kelly Clarkson and they didn't get that access because of their job title. You know what I mean? If you were a show runner, you're not hanging out with Kelly Clarkson in the executive producers. You're grabbing coffee. You know what I mean? If you are a producer, you're talking to the guest, you're not hanging out with Kelly Clarkson, specifically in her inner circle of producers. Yeah, I think you're onto something, but I do also believe that we've all worked at jobs. Right. Where there have been bad days, and then does that make that job toxic? Just because you have one or two or three or four bad days, say in the whole year, you have 20% bad days and 80% good days, is the show toxic is your work environment toxic. Like where's the lie in its very complicated? I try to make sure as somebody that runs my own business. I'm the boss. Right. And so I make sure that every day we're fair, we try to do our best. There are days where I'm not as happy as others, but I really think about this. If I give somebody just one day of attitude of making them feel bad about themselves, then in my opinion, that's a toxic work environment, and I shouldn't do it. As soon as we shut down this podcast, I am running to the next podcast. That would take me and just blowing this thing up. You're unusual because you've been at Z 100 pretty much your entire work life. It's been your only job. So you don't know the environment. I went from the lifeguard stand to the radio stand. Look at that. That's pretty great. I've had lots of different jobs, and I got to admit, several of them have been on TV or around TV, and I do find TV in general, quite a tough environment. Like I think it's much tougher than print, magazine work, newspaper work, radio work, TV is a really rough so I would argue here and I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm not justifying it, but I would argue here that most TV shows are toxic. Unfortunately, they really are high pressured. There's lots of drama. There's lots of personalities. We've seen the morning show. Every day there's drama. There's pressure to beat your competitor. There's lots of push Kelly's show. It's new. It might not have survived, a lot of new shows don't survive. I've been on this competition for guests, this competition for ratings, there's competition between the staff to try to outwork each other. And so I've been on TV shows where it's a lot of pressure, some
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Sydney Sweeney - 'Reality'
"Movie for the white lotus, she landed a spot on Time Magazine's 100 next list, and she is now garnering the best reviews of her career and once again Emmy buzz for her portrayal of reality winner, a former NSA contractor who leaked government secrets in Tina Saturn's HBO movie reality. She's a young woman described by el as the TikTok demographics favorite bombshell and the queen of Gen Z characters, Hollywood's newest it girl, Sydney Sweeney. Over the course of our conversation at the offices of The Hollywood Reporter, Sweeney reflected on how, as a child, she convinced her parents to let her pursue an acting career and the sacrifices her whole family made as a result, including living in a one room motel room for 9 months. How she landed the part of Cassie on euphoria and found that in much the same way Cassie is judged for being sexual. She has been judged for playing Cassie, how she has juggled newfound fame's cons, such as loss of privacy and panic attacks and pros, including the validation of receiving Emmy noms on the same day for her portrayal of two polar opposite characters, why she is so proud of reality the first film on which she was number one on the call sheet and which was made in just 16 days on a shoestring budget, plus much more. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. Certainly thank you so much for coming in to do this and great to have you on this podcast. We always begin truly at the beginning. Can you tell our listeners where you were born and raised and what your folks did for a living? Oh, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited that we're finally getting to talk to each other. I was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, which is a smaller city on the border of Washington and Idaho state. My mom did not work growing up, but she was a practice of law. And then my dad was a pharmaceutical rep. And if I have my info correct, it seems like maybe the reason acting first entered the picture is basically essentially the circus came to town. They were just making a movie in town. They were. I'd always told my parents that I wanted to be an actress, but they thought it was like a little girl wanting to be a princess. It was just something so out of left field. And something that no one had any clue what this world even was. And they just kept dismissing it. And then when the small little indie came to town, I found out about it. I put together a 5 year business plan presentation. How old were you? I was like 11. Okay. Of what could happen if they let me audition for this movie? And what was the what were some of the key points here? If I booked this, then I will meet a director, and I will meet producers, and I'll meet people who will be able to introduce me to other people if we go to Seattle. I can get an agent, that agent will then be able to connect me with commercials and TV shows and we can go to pilot season, I start researching what pilot season was. And I kind of just laid it all out of what we should do in the next 5 years. How did that go over? They were like, oh shit, she's very serious about this. And so you guys, was it relocating initially to Seattle or Portland or where was it? We would take a little drive to Seattle, my dad grew up in Seattle in edgewood, so I was like a little outside of Seattle. So we would drive and visit his parents, my nan and papa. And spend some time there and I would do short film auditions and commercial auditions. And I guess I should say. So they let you do that. They love me. They let me do the movie, and I booked it. And it was a small little zombie movie. I think I said two words, but it was amazing. It was such a cool, crazy thing. And once we started doing the Seattle stuff, everyone said you guys should go try pilot season. And so we would drive down to LA, my mom and I. How long schlep is that from? It's like an 1819 hour drive. And there was a point where if I had one audition, my parents were so incredible and my mom was so incredible that we would get done with school at 3 o'clock in the car. We would drive all night so I could get there in the morning, do the audition, and then stay there for the day and then drive back. So I only missed one day of school. Wow. And it seems like, I guess the actual move to LA, can you talk about what you had started to book a few things? Did it make it seem like that's a big step, right? That's a huge step. I think it was a combination of a bunch of things where my whole family kind of fell in love with this whole crazy process and how exciting and new and different it was every single day.
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Special Rob and Garrett Royal Episode
"We are the host of the dear Chelsea podcast where we give advice to real-life people. Sometimes we have experts, sometimes we have celebs on helping us guests like Ross Matthews, Matthew McConaughey, Julianna Margulies, Gwyneth Paltrow, and so many more. We answer questions on anything from drugs, to relationships, we've even broken people up. Yes, I take a lot of credit for breaking people up. I am a relationship wrecker. And just motivation. Sometimes people just need to kick in the ass, and that's what I am. And we encourage people to live their lives truly, fully, and bravely. Listen to dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Scandal and vice for sugar and spice. It's funny, but I welcome to the not even I show. I'm your host rob schutter and it is Monday which means I do a friend Garrett Vogel joins us. You just look directly into your zoom camera and made me smile, Garrett, hello, Garrett, how are you? Rob shooter, this has to be like the day after the Super Bowl. The day after the Oscars, the day after everything big because the weekend long coronation is finally come to an end and I guess we are here. Well, you're here. I'm more here as just the pretty boy show. To recap, everything royal that happened in the UK. Am I correct? You are correct. You're wrong on one thing. What's that? It's not the day after Christmas. It's not the day after the Super Bowl. It's like the day after I first met you. That's my rob shooter, I mean, I am spoken for, but greatly appreciated. That's how it feels. Okay, let's jump into the whole episode. We're devoting to the royals we're throwing out a little bit of our structure we're not going to naughtiest than the nicest of the day because everybody is nice because it's my favorite day, my favorite weekend so we're going to jump in with all the royal gossip if you are obsessed with royals, you are in the right place. If you don't like the royals, this is going to be torture for the next 20 minutes. Let's jump in what time is it my Friends? It is tea time. Coronation tea time. Coronation sip up my friend, so big story at the top of the show. Harry has wasted no time to get back to the U.S. after the coronation, so he left less than an hour after his dad's coronation ended he rushed back to California to make it home in time for his son Archie's fourth birthday. He was spotted in the VIP Windsor suite aptly aptly named and he throw airport at 3 p.m. local time. So this means that Harry was in the UK for less than 24 hours he took a commercial flight not a fancy private flying man of the people, but he did make it home by about 7 p.m. local time, which means with traffic getting to his house. So he landed sorry at 7 p.m.. He made it home probably till not 9 ish, so he might have missed the birthday party, but I'm sure he was home in time to give his little boy a birthday kiss a good night kiss. What do you think? You know, and I told you this might take on this situation at least in this of being put between a rock and a hard place of your father's coronation or your son's fourth birthday. I mean, no matter what, if he missed any of them, he would have been the worst guy in the world. You know what I mean? But he did what any smart person does. You make the best of it and you attend both. You get on a plane and travel more than you're actually at a location just to say you were there. I think he did it credit to Harry. I mean, come on. Yeah, I'm with you on this one. Have you ever been in those positions? I've never been invited my dad's not never being ground king, but some nights I bite off more than I can chew. And I do drinks with too many different people, and I find myself spending more time in the taxi than actually enjoying people's company, but it has to be done. You have to juggle life is difficult, so I'm proud of Harry for making both. Some people are saying he was snubbed at the coronation. He was in the third row, so he was with his cousins, eugenie, and Beatrice in the third row. I don't think this was a snob. He said he didn't want to be a member of the working royal family anymore. So all the work in royals were in the first, and the second row, the third row were relatives, but not people that worked in the company. What do you think should have they found one extra seat for him in the front row or his third row vine? Technically, yes, but at the end of the day, it's the third row. You and I have been to many a Broadway shows, and we all know the front row you don't want to sit there. You think there's so much too close. Broadway. I mean, you want to sit in the third row with peace because you can see everything. You see everything. And you know what, a credit to the third row, because again, Harry, man of the people, sitting in the third row, probably haven't seen most of his aunts and uncles and cousins in quite a while. And he's like, oh, Harry's, I love you. And you know what? He one points over with all those quote unquote common family members by sitting in the third row, but yeah, at the end of the day, family is family. I think it looks poor on the newly crowned king to say, you know what? You are my blood and I want nothing to do with you sitting in the front row. Yeah. Maybe I don't stand on ceremonies like that when I go back to Britain to see my family. If I'm not on the front row, we don't really go anywhere, but if I got third row tickets to Taylor Swift, I'd be very happy. Let's put it like that. Third row is pretty great. I've sat right at the back. Let's take a like this. Is your sister married? You have a sister, right? Yes. I have racist as their all married. They're all married. All right, let's just take one of them. Let's just say they're getting married for the first time. Yes. You as part of the family, have your sister go, Bobby, does she call you Bobby? She calls me Robert. Robert Roberts. I'm going to put you in the third 5. Absolutely fine. Yes. No, I'm fine with it. My mom and dad are in the first row, her favorite sisters in the forest trail. I'm 5 with the third row, but what did make me laugh is sitting directly in front of him was princess Anne, that's Charles sister, and she's no nonsense. Ann had a huge feather, sticky God of her hat. So it looked as if they had buried Harry behind and 7. Now, if you remember the last time the two of them Meghan and Harry were in Britain for the queen's funeral, some people claim that they hid Meghan behind an enormous candle. So now people are saying they deliberately put him behind and had. If princess Anne was sitting in front of you and she had a big hat on with a big feather, would you ask her to
Asian Enough
A highlight from The Train Station
"There's this one freeway in Orange County, and when it ends in the middle of a big intersection, it sort of spits you right out in front of this old Spanish style house on the side of the freeway. It's got white stucco walls and a red tiled roof. In its framed with pretty bushes and greenery. I've passed by this place like, I don't even know how many times. And now I'm actually walking up to the place. It's kind of crazy. The most noticeable feature of this place is the big green sign out front. It shows a picture of a hand, and the words, psychic, palm, and card reader. No one has ever let me in, but I could see through the glass front door. The waiting room had a couple of beautiful couches, glass tables, and a couple of decadent old fashioned lamps. That's like one of the first things you see when you walk in and there's this beautiful waiting room. Paulina spent much of her childhood driving the 5 hours to get here. To this house by the side of the freeway. Because this house is the famous train station that was packed with people. Shuffling in and out all the time. The place where Bobby and his family had been living and hosting blowout parties for years. It was an old house, I remember the stained glass windows. Almost all of them were
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Shonda Rhimes - 'Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story'
"The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is one of the most talented prolific and trailblazing storytellers and hit makers in the history of television. Through her production company shondaland, she was at ABC the creator head writer and executive producer of Grey's Anatomy, which went on the air in 2005 and is still running, private practice, which ran from 2007 through 2013, and scandal, which ran from 2012 through 2018. They collectively made her the first female showrunner ever responsible for at least three shows with runs of at least 100 episodes. And she was also the executive producer of the networks, How to Get Away with Murder, which ran from 2014 through 2020. Varying combinations of those shows filled a three hour block of prime time TV on Thursday nights for 5 years, a truly remarkable achievement. Since moving herself and her company to Netflix in 2017 in a 9 figure deal that made her the highest paid showrunner in television, she has served as the executive producer of Bridgerton 2020 through the president. And the creator head writer and executive producer of inventing Anna from 2022, and most recently, Queen Charlotte, a Bridgerton story, which will drop on the service this Thursday. She was the first black woman to create and run her own scripted network TV series, the 2016 recipient of the producers guild of America's Norman Lear award for achievement and television, a 2017 inductee into the television Hall of Fame, making her only the third black woman ever inducted after Oprah Winfrey and Diane Carroll, and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, three times. Each in different decades. In 2007, 2013 and 2021. A woman described by Ted sarandos as one of the great storytellers in the history of television by Julie Andrews as one of the most powerful creative forces in film and television today, and by Oprah Winfrey as the most powerful showrunner in television period, Shonda Rhimes. Over the course of our conversation at the shondaland offices on the Raleigh studios lot in Hollywood, the 53 year old and I discussed her path to the business and a key mentor she met along the way, why she tends to write about fiercely independent career women who love their work. Why she doesn't like all of the focus that has been placed upon the trailblazing racial diversity of her shows. What factored into her decision to move from ABC to Netflix? Why she decided to tackle a show there centered on the Bridgerton character Queen Charlotte, plus much more. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. much for doing this. Great to have you on the podcast. And we always begin here just at the true beginning. Can you share for our listeners where were you born and raised in what is your folks do for a living? I was born and raised and I was born in Chicago. I was raised in the suburbs of Chicago. My mother was a homemaker, and then got her PhD when I was in college, and an educator. My father was a chief information officer for universities. I don't really know what that means. Now it seems like correct me if any of this is wrong, but youngest of 6 kids. Yeah, this was 6. I know that for some people that results in wanting attention, doing something for attention was that you or were you more of a shy no, I was never somebody who was looking for attention. But a big family and I think it actually was a very cocooning experience and I got to hide the fact that I was super shy. For a long time. It seems like storytelling from what I read prepping from this, you were in one way or another doing this from toddler time, right? I mean, how did that first begin to manifest itself? I mean, I think I was dictating stories into it like an old fashioned tape recorder and then trying to get my mother to type them up when I was about three or four. Oh my God, what were your stories about? I have no idea now. I have no idea. And then I would just dictate make sort of radio plays on the tape recorder as well. And try to get those to happen. So you go off to Dartmouth, and I wonder when you started there, what did you kind of imagine your future would look like? And did anything happen there that sort of redirected that?
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from On No, Tony Danza!
"Scandal advice for sugar and spice. It's hand no, no, no, no, no, no. Welcome to the naughty but nice show. I'm your host rob shooter and it's Monday, which means I had some friend Garrett Vogel joins us, hey Garrett, are you there? Rob shooter, why do you sound like you should be hosting in a show on NPR right now? Is it love energy today? Is it a little over the gate? I need you to put a little something in that cup of tea. I don't have a sip of my coffee, hanging out a minute. There, I'm ready to go. We started a little early this morning and I must admit. I'm yet to finish my first cup of coffee among about. Sip number 5 or 6 where are you on the coffee level? Oh, I'm bouncing off the walls, you know what I mean? You know what? I'm gonna have to start calling the king and call him out for this coronation because you know what it's doing, it's holding you back. It is just keeping you up at night. You're all over on the phones, emails going on. I can't have this. I need this coronation to wrap up, so I can get my shooter back to normal. I'll go to a bit. It's making me a lot of money, Gary. I'm on TV. Every 5 minutes. I know you'll be sick of my face by the end of this week. It's all exciting news. Hey, let's jump into the show, what time is it, my Friends? So Megan Markle's a strange father. Is pleading with the Duchess of Sussex, saying, how can I fix this? So now Megan's father wants to mend their strange relationship by saying, how can I fix this? Heath and negan, let me just give you a little bit of the history here in case you forgotten. They fell out after he reportedly staged some paparazzi photographs just ahead of the wedding. Now he's saying that the strange relationship with his daughter is something he desperately wants to heal. However, he did this in a new bombshell interview with 7 news inside his telling me he did get paid for this interview lots of photographs of Meghan. You'd think at this point all those childhood pictures of Meghan all that video of her as a young girl, we would have seen, but apparently no, the dad's holding on to a lot of it and releasing it, he's doing more interviews. Now let's remember that she fell out with him because he can't shut up. He can't stop talking to the press. So reach it out to your daughter through the press is probably not the best way to make peace. Well, is he ill too? He has been ill. He claims he suffered a heart attack. He's overweight. He's up there in age, his health is definitely something that we should should factor in. I mean, it's rough. At the end of the day, family is family and no matter how much we want to say that he is wrong, he's still her dad. It's a dot. I think once you shift through all the BS of it all, there is love there. It might be hard to see or feel right now, but there still is love. And we say, you know, we hear it from friends all the time where it's like, you know, be grateful for those that are around because one day you're gonna want that phone to ring and just hear someone you love on the other side and one day it's not going to be there. It's not going to be that. It's going to be too late. I love you. You could still say them, but that returned won't be there. So I don't know. I think it's wrong for what he did. I feel like I understand why she's upset, but at the end of the day, maybe you put it aside. But knowing they'll do a sit down, rob shooter, we all know this. They'll do a sit down and freaking dad will have a microphone hidden in his lapel jacket and next thing you know those show of them Piers Morgan forgot that we could only hope it's very complicated. I run it clear. What Meghan and Harry have accused her family of doing into the press is what the royal family is accusing Harry and Meghan of doing. So the royal family doesn't trust Meghan and Harry, they think every time they talk to them, they communicate it, ends up in a book or ends up on Oprah Winfrey, so it's sort of ironic here, isn't it? It's like a full circle. Everything she's accused her dad of doing, the royal family accused them of doing so. They can't have different rules. If they're allowed to talk about the royals, then seconds fathers allowed to talk about them, so if they were totally private, if they never did interviews if they disappeared and they wanted a private life, I'd totally understand them being livid with her dad. Just shut up, they don't want to do this but I think they do want the spotlight, but it seems it has to be on their terms. Of course, and you know what I'm thinking about it too is how all the BS rolls downhill. You're just saying how the royals are upset with Harry and Meghan because they're talking about a Marion Harry and I said Marion hegan Mary and Megan are a mad at Meghan's dad for talking about them. I think if Meghan's dad looked as if he was in the royals, we wouldn't be jumping down his throat. You know what I mean? He looks like the weaker of the links out of all of these. It's easier to be like, it's easy. You're in it for the money. Right. For the money at the end of the day. Right, right. Yeah, it's easier to pick home Meghan's dag than it is to pick on Harry and Meghan or King Charles. It's fascinating. I think the timing's really odd too. This is the week we're meant to be talking about King Charles and once again, it's Meghan and her family. I got to admit that you said something earlier on in the show that really struck with me. Family is family. Now my family don't leak stories about me. I'm not famous enough. Nobody would care, but I have had family members that have hurt me so much that I've had to step away from a little bit, like you have to protect yourself. So Harry and Meghan would argue that they're not being cruel to her dad, they're protecting themselves, they don't want all their business splashed across the cover of the New York Post or the daily news, I get that. So here's the other thing I was thinking about as well too. Obviously, they don't talk like we talk to our family, you know, in group text messages. Every morning, whatever the case may be. So how do they get these messages across? Literally, is it through assistance going, hey, someone would like to or do they have like a private zoom link? Where do they do this, sit down, where they tell each other how they're feeling. Right. Well, it starts with just a call and he does not have their numbers. He can not contact them, but she has his number. He has said many times his number has not changed. I actually have his phone number because he talks to the press, and I'm not revealing any source here, he does it on the record. So I've spoken to him. I have. I've interviewed him. I've spoken to him after events have happened. You can text him. Often the family does want money to talk, and so it is a complicated thing here, and I think they look at Harry and Meghan in their $14 million house and the daddy's struggling. And I think we've done that with in our own families. My brother, Douglas, is really rich. And when I go, I hope
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Sheryl Lee Ralph - 'Abbott Elementary'
"And my guest today is a widely admired veteran actress who's nearly half century in show business, has been highlighted by a best actress in a musical Tony nomination in 1982 for the original Broadway production of dreamgirls and a best supporting actress in a comedy series Emmy win in 2022. For ABC's ongoing, abbot elementary. The latter of which made her that awards first black winner in 35 years. Cheryl Lee Ralph. Over the course of our conversation at her Los Angeles home, the 66 year old and I discussed her fast path to a career as a professional actress and her bumpy journey to opportunities worthy of her talents, why in 2001 she walked away from the highest profile screen acting job she'd had up to that point, a major part on UPN's trailblazing comedy series, moesha, and how close she came following some very slow years after that, to walking away from acting altogether, the faithful series of events that led to her meeting Quinta Brunson and landing the part of Barbara Howard, a kindergarten teacher on Abbott elementary, and how she feels about the career renaissance that she has experiencing now as a result, plus much more, and so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. Mister out there, you so much for coming on the podcast, great to have you. And to be here. This podcast, we start right at the beginning. Would you please share with our listeners? Where were you born and raised and what did your folks do for a living? Oh my goodness. Born and raised. You know, it depends. Let's say, where should I be born and raised today? Oh, since it's overcast and I'm feeling like son, I'll choose born and raised in Jamaica, although that would only be halfway true since my dad was the American and my mother was the Jamaican immigrant. So then it could be Connecticut, which would make me a nutmegger and the point there would be that my dad wrote the state cantata for the state of Connecticut called the nutmeg and then in my imagination, wherever tinker bell was born. That's where I was born. And I was raised in a land of sparkle and glitter. There you go. There you go. My dad was an educator, musician, ended his career as a college professor, my mom, a great designer, woman of God and just the goddess to the God that was my dad and our family. They were just, they were wonderful people. And I was so happy that somehow the universe had me choose them as my parents. Fantastic. Now, I understand maybe because they had some very high expectations for their daughter that you were a very excellent student all the way through. Can you just explain? I mean, this is kind of crazy. 16, you're starting at Rutgers, graduating by 19 and just three years. I mean, what was it, where did that academic try? Was it from your folks? Oh, absolutely. You know, my dad told me I can do whatever it is I want with my life. After I graduate from college. So you know oh my God, you get it. I was absolutely in a rush to get on with my life, which kept me out of doing a lot of things that other people were trying or experimenting with or caught up in. I didn't have time for that because I had to graduate. And I'm an immigrant child, so there was no just graduating. You had to graduate well. Like top of your class, and if not top of your class, then very close to it. You know, there was nothing, it was not about being ordinary. It was not about just getting by. It was about making everybody proud of exactly who you were. So the idea then of getting into acting, which I think happened while you were at Rutgers, kind of, right? I mean, and at other campuses, apparently, but was that a tough one to break to the folks? That was a very tough one to break to my immigrant mother. Oh my God. I remember my mother when I was there at Rutgers and I realized I wasn't going to be a doctor. I was not going to be a lawyer, and I was on no track towards marrying one. So it was like, oh my God, I'm not going to be able to live her dream for me. And when I told her, she said, what? You are going to use our hard earned money to be one of those fake and phony people. What's wrong with you? You know, she was really very angry, but it was my dad who said to me, you came into this world with your mother, but you will probably leave this world alone and you better be happy with the choices that you have been you have made for yourself. Wow. Yeah. Now, this is may seem like a random question, but I think it will set up maybe a couple of events that we should cover.
Asian Enough
A highlight from Business Arrangements
"And they make you think that, sorry, I'm getting kind of emotional. They make you think that your property and paulina was in a pretty vulnerable headspace when we first met in 2019. That day in the cafe, she had recently left her community, and as she told me about her life, she said her family had arranged for her to be married. But she insisted that she had felt functionally auctioned off. They basically say like it's dowry, but it's not. They pay for you, and then once you're officially married, they always use it against you. They say we own you. We bought you over time, she'd tell me the whole complicated story of her marriage. And I'd come to find out, it didn't exactly unfold in the way I'd imagined a quote unquote arranged marriage would. In fact, as paulina remembers it, everything started one night, years ago. When she was over at a cousin's house, and their families were partying late. Or at least their fathers were. Her mothers were in the back, you know, room sleeping and they were like just serve and entertain on your father's. Paulina said it was up to the kids, her and her cousin Bobby, to keep the party going. So, we had to stay up all night and sing and dance and serve them beer. Bobby and paulina were the de facto DJs. We were downloading music on LimeWire. If you guys remember what that was.
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Real Housewives of NJ Reunion Drama
"Right. That's right. I had, I hope you're listening, that goes for all of us. Let's jump into the show a lot time to hit my Friends. Big story at the top of the show. This is a big story because we're all talking about the coronation and then suddenly it's sort of got hijacked because there were new reports out about these letters that have gone back and forth between Meghan Markle and Prince Charles. These letters are over two years old. However, with just finding out about them now, some people are suspicious about that in the letters in the correspondence. It is brought up. Arch is skin tone and who talked about this. Remember that begin to view with Oprah Winfrey. She sat down with Oprah with Harry. And they talked about this. They said that a member of the family had unconscious bias. They didn't think it was done to be particularly nasty, but somebody questioned what will be the tone, the color of little arches skin. Now, after that Oprah interviewer, against people's advice, Charles was so upset. Charles is a nice guy. He was so upset, he wrote a letter. She wrote back. They went back and forth, a nice thing to do now, Meghan's got these letters. We did not know about this, so we're really good reporters. I'm not the only reporter. There's hundreds of reporters that cover the royal family. Nobody knew about these letters until guess what? Two weeks before his big day, now we know about the letters. What do you think? Rob shooter, all right, first off, what are we still living in the 1800s of exchanging letters? I'm pretty sure you and I in the whole world, including the king of England, has a cell phone. And an easy text message will do. It's like there's nothing else going on in the day and then because they have to seal it too, right? They have to take this very formal and then send it off with the peasant who then hand delivers it by courier and probably horse I envision horseback being delivered. And then Megan going, hold on one second. And then going back to write one back and then the guy's like, my horse, it has to eat something. And then I got to get back to the palace. It just seemed so antiquated, but also it seemed so current day of with Meghan Markle hanging on to the receipts and just ironically enough they're coming out right before the day. Because she's at home with the baby that she was talking about. Right. Right. I got a bit. I have, I've sent many, many emails and lots of text in my life. I have sent very few letters. It takes time. I have. I had horrible falling out with somebody, and I didn't feel like an email was enough. And I got a cart. And I sent a card, and I wrote a note within the car. And we got back together. Sorry, I was. We got back together after that. It was very thoughtful. You went to CVS and got it. Sometimes a letter is really powerful. It means you know what it is. It shows that there's effort put in. You know what I mean? And text messages, as quick as it is, it also means that it's just like, okay, I got it done in two seconds. A letter, you sit down and you're right and you put thought into it because first off, you can't mess up because they probably also use a quill pen, and expensive paper. But it also shows that there was serious thought into both sides too into the game side into Megan's side of what they wanted to say. And it wasn't just haphazard of I'm going to write this just because it meant that they both were feeling a certain way. You're right. You're right, yeah. Sometimes text after text can just be a random thought, what I'm thinking in the moment. Even emails, but if I sat down and wrote a letter, I'd really think it through, so I like that a lot of thought has got into this. This story really comes in two parts. And the first part is lovely. I love that Charles reached out to her. Nobody else did in the family. After that explosive, Oprah interview where she talks about suicidal thoughts, and she talks about a member of the family questioning the color of her baby. That's big stuff, so I love the fact that he did reach out. He did it via letter. What I don't like, and this is the second part of the story, is that now they have these letters and these letters could be released and the irony of this is that Meghan sent her data letter and he leaked it to the press and then she soothed the press, so she knows what's this feels like to ride a letter and have a family member of father leak it. Is really bad. And so I hope she doesn't leak these. Oh, I don't think she will, but for some reason I have a feeling that Piers Morgan will get his grimy hands on them and all of a sudden we'll know about it as well. But remember what we were saying a few weeks ago, rob after this coronation and will they attend? Will they not attend then we got an answer? And it is very Kardashian like where it's how do you stay in the news cycle? And this is the next thing of there are letters and letters. What do these letters do? It makes everyone dig for another two weeks. And what does the weeks lead up to? The coronation and then after the correlation, what does it do? Oh, lip readers were talking about it. It's a soap opera. We needed daily, a weekly update, but the ball very much felt the storyline if this was The Real Housewives, it felt like this was Charles storyline, right? He's going to have a crown put on his head in a couple of weeks. It's a big storyline. But for mega. Do you get fitted for your crown? It takes a while. Yeah. Like if you and I go to party city or we just go to one of those places to rent one for a party, like a Halloween party. It's like a one size fit all. No, they fit this. They fit it. And then they fit it again for the next king or the next queen. And that's the other thing too. I remember the last person to wear this crown had a much smaller head. So they do fit it. But it's going to be interesting now to see what happens. Do you think? And I'm not saying Meghan did this, but I am saying she's the only one that had those letters. Charles did to actually, there's two people that had those letters. Do you think they let their friends, their relatives? Yes, they can. Read the letters. Read the letters, release. Harry read them. Harry read them. And we know how this works too. And you've probably seen it many of times being in the publicist world, rob shooter. It's not them because they can't have the proverbial blood on their hands. It's their people. It's their people, or their friends, and then they can play dumb, I had no idea. This was in my house. I just happened to have people over and who am I to think that my friends would go through my thing. Right. You know what I mean? Hey, don't look on the desk over there. I have a very important letter that no one's supposed to read. Well, the fact that we know that the letters exist but we don't know what's in them, tells me it's your friend or somebody that works for them. It might be a publicist. It might be a member of their staff that have dropped this. Do you think the day of the coronation literally when they dropped The Crown on his head will mega all a friend of beggar
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Taron Egerton - 'Black Bird' & 'Tetris'
"Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 490th episode of the Hollywood reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is one of the top young stars in Hollywood. He's a British born Welsh actor who burst onto the scene playing in East London, juvenile delinquent turned secret agents protege in the 2015 film kingsman, the Secret Service. He then shot onto the a list with his eerily spot on portrayal of Elgin John in the 2019 film rocket man, for which he won a best actor, musical or comedy Golden Globe Award, and was nominated for best actor sag and Bafta Awards, as well as a Grammy. In 2022, his performance in the Apple TV plus limited series blackbird as Jimmy Keane, a drug dealer sent to prison, who was offered a chance to be let out early if he can extract from a serial killer of the location of his victims, has already brought him Golden Globe and sag award nominations and will almost certainly bring him an Emmy nomination for best actor in a limited or anthology series or TV movie as well. A man described by The Guardian as one of Britain's best young actors, taron, edgerton. Over the course of our conversation at the Los Angeles offices of The Hollywood Reporter, the 33 year old and I discussed the importance to his career of Matthew Vaughn and Dexter Fletcher, who have repeatedly championed him for roles, the fortuitous running thread that Elton John has played throughout his life and career, and the grace challenges and rewards of ultimately playing him, why you relish the opportunity to do long form television for the first time with blackbird, even though the show's subject matter took him to some very dark places, plus much more, and so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. thanks so much for doing the podcast. Great to have you. And thank you. This podcast we kind of go through the major moments of each guest's life and career. And of course, the first would be where you were born and raised, and also what your folks did for a living can you share that? Yeah, sure. So I was born in the northwest of England but moved to Wales at a very young age. My mother and my father separated when I was about three and my mother actually moved to Wales to pursue a degree in psychology. And she did that whilst raising me, which is quite impressive. And she then went on, I mean, she did a number of different things, but she ultimately worked in social services for a while. So very, very different from acting. My father also did a number of different things, but you know, had a bit of a creative in that he was a musician, but my mother as well actually for a time design clothes. So I guess they both had sort of creative interest, but not anything to do with sort of acting or storytelling. Yeah. And then I was raised in Wales until I was 19 when I moved to London to go to drama school. And it sounds like acting, it's not like something you were necessarily itching to do, like some kids from an early age, it was more, I guess, acclimating to a new environment. Was that part of it? Yeah, I think I moved a lot when I was young. We always rented houses. We never owned for financial reasons. And I think part of that meant that I had to move around a lot and there was a big significant move that happened in my early teens. Which I struggled with, and to be honest, it was one of a number of extracurricular things I did in order to try and form a social. And acting was the one that really landed and when I started doing it, I just really felt a sense of arrival really. It just felt like the thing that I was supposed to do. Yeah, and that was probably around an 15 that I started doing that. I can not pronounce this word of where you were living or the art center where you were going, but it sounds like it really was a kind of game changing thing being there. What was maybe if you wouldn't mind? Yeah, yeah, that's right. But what was it about the arts center? It seems like it was a kind of formative place for you. Yeah, it wasn't. In fact, I still spend a lot of time there. My family still lived there. It's still my home. And it was. It was, you know, I was there for consistently between 12 and 19. And it was when I kind of formed my identity as an actor, and that art center facility that you mentioned was where that happened. And yeah, it will always be the genesis of my life as an actor. And also there were significant things like a united great English teacher in school who really taught me a love of who really made it all come alive, you know, the things we studied with him and that kind of definitely informed my appreciation of the written word and the storytelling if that doesn't sound too grand. No, no. So by the time you're schooling was done there, was it sort of understood among your teachers, your peers that this was what you were going to pursue acting or how did you wind up at that's not a small thing? No, you know, it was that classic.
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Russ Tamblyn - Film Legend
"Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 489th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is one of the last surviving stars of Hollywood's golden age. Much of which he spent under contract to the greatest studio of all MGM. He made his name as a child actor in films like 1950s, father of the bride, and 1950 ones father's little dividend. Displayed his dancing chops on screen for the first time at 19 in 1950 fours 7 brides for 7 brothers, but became an Oscar nominee at just 23 for his supporting turn in 1950 7s paid in place. Sang and danced as the leader of the jets in an eventual best picture Oscar winner, 1960 ones west side story. Gave a dramatic turn on both incarnations of David Lynch's TV classic Twin Peaks from 1990 to 1991, and then again in 2017, continued acting well into the 21st century opposite the likes of Ryan Gosling in 2011s drive. And under the direction of Quentin Tarantino in 2012s Django Unchained, and the list goes on. I'm talking, of course, about the great Russ, or as he was known at the start of his career, rusty, tamblyn. Over the course of our conversation at the wonderful TCM classic film festival in Hollywood, the 88 year old and I discussed how he broke into the business and held his own alongside the likes of Cecil B. DeMille and Spencer Tracy all before he cracked puberty, how a guy who had been a tumbler and a gymnast came to be an outstanding dancer, why as he entered his 30s having already achieved so much, he decided to drop out of the business and what later brought him back, plus much more. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. All right, mister Chandler, thank you so much for doing this. It's great to have you on The Hollywood Reporter's podcast. And on this one, we go through the major moments in each guest's life and career. So can we start with the first one, where were you born and raised in? What did your parents do for a living? I was born in Los Angeles, California. And at an early age. Yes, yes, yes. And my parents, my mother just was a housewife and my father worked in, of course, originally he was in show business and it was a Broadway performer, but now he worked in an aircraft, I think it was like North American or one of those plants that he was, he worked there. And I'm not sure what all he did, sure, sure. But I guess because of his experience, it sounded from what I read prepping for this that he was not interested in his kid getting into showbiz, right? Yes, that's a very true. He was not interested in mainly in dancing, I guess. My mother took me to see him well, he may have gone, but they showed one of his old movies in this theater in England. And so I went there and saw him on the big screen and I said, oh, I just want to be like that, you know? He was so big and it was so much fun. And he danced in it. And that's why I wanted to take dancing, but my mother didn't, but he didn't want me to take dancing. He didn't want me to follow us, but my mother started me and dancing anyway. And finally, totally when I did my first, I did a concert, you know, for kids the way we went around doing lots of concerts at the hospitals and clubs and things like that. went and saw me in one and then he was like a big supporter. Yeah. Well, so you were clearly from a very early age. I think I had read, I don't know, was it 8 or 9? You were dancing very well. Or at least tumbling. Maybe you can explain. That's not a term. Many people know. Tap dancing. I took tap dancing. Which is a lot different than modern dancing. So I started taking tap dancing lessons and did really well at it for a couple of years from this teacher named bob Cole had a studio in England in England. In England. And then I learned everything that he taught me so he said, listen, I can't teach you anymore, but he said, I want you to go work for this. I recommend that you go and take lessons from the teacher that I worked with for a long time, whose name was Willie Coleman, and Willie was in Los Angeles, and he was, and he actually had a tour, it was called the Covance and they had an act for a while, and it was, and he was great, and he was a great tap dancer, terrific. A black man in his old and he worked with a cane. You know, and it used to tap his foot and knew the cane and that's how I learned to tap. And he was different than most tap dancers sort of hop a lot, you know? And his stuff was all like down on the floor and it was more like heel and toe a work, you know, with lots of lots of stuff on the floor. And that's how I learned to tap dance. It was great. So can you connect the dots about how dance leads to acting? I had read that maybe Lloyd Bridges played a part in this. Yes, he played a big part.
Asian Enough
A highlight from A Certain Kind of Education
"Episode two, a certain kind of education. So we are on Main Street in moral bay. And we're near pizza port and they usually have like rosemary growing on the sidewalks in front of there. And so my mom would make me like pick off some rosemary so she can cook with it. And I get so embarrassed because I was on the sidewalks. I'd pretend to tie my shoe and then take the most married. Paulina spent most of her childhood in morro bay, a sweet little fisherman's town on California's central coast, about halfway between San Francisco and LA. Moral bay is one of those names that people see on a freeway sign as they're driving by. The main attraction is moral rock, a big, beautiful volcanic peak in the middle of the water. There's a Marina, stacked with colorful kayaks, and lots of little tourist attractions, like gift shops and seafood restaurants. This place we used to come to all the time, the shell shop, and then we'd feed the seals over here. There are about 10,000 people who live in morrow bay. They have farmers markets twice a week. Around breakfast time, regulars crowd into the local coffee shop where everyone seems to know somebody. People in moral bay seem to just go about their lives like they're living in a postcard of some Americana seaside town. Paulina's family no longer lives in morro bay, but she still considers it her hometown. And so on a gray day in July, paulina showed me around. It's always fun. Driving under the cloud. But I mean, there's so many good memories here. Touring morrow bay with paulina, I was getting two different versions of who she was as a child. On one hand, she lived this easygoing childhood in this idyllic small town. But she was also living in her own world, one with different rules and expectations. A romany world, she had to carry around like a secret. I wanted to say like, I'm a gypsy. So I
Asian Enough
A highlight from The G-Word
"My name is faith pnu, and I'm a reporter at the Los Angeles Times. But back in October 2019, I was working at a small community newspaper in Orange County called the daily pilot. And that's where I first got a call from paulina Stevens. I don't have a recording of that first call. I wish I had known two record. I tried to keep track in a messy word Doc, but she was going a mile a minute. A torrent of words and accusations arranged marriages. Being trained to manipulate people, something about not being allowed to be American. But she emphasized over and over that that was all behind her now. Paulina told me that from the time she was a child, she was told she would be a fortune teller. And that she came from a whole family of fortune tellers. I'm not gonna lie. I had never been inside a fortune telling shop. So I did some Googling. And if you look for news about fortune tellers, a whole bunch of them goes something like this. A local woman is out $20,000 after falling for an elaborate psychic reading scam. The fortune tellers would tell them that they had curses and that was why these bad things were happening to them. Self proclaimed psychic Gina Marx busted at Miami international airport. She was arrested just minutes before she was sent to board to Europe. I thought maybe this was the kind of story paulina was trying to tip me off to. But something in the frantic Ness of her voice made me feel like there was something different going on here. And then paulina mentioned something that made my ears perk up. It was a warning about a psychic shop in Orange County. A psychic shop, she said she'd escaped. what that meant. So I suggested we meet up in person at a local cafe. I'm a little nervous. I'm sorry for like, that's okay. I don't know I'm kind of nervous, but I'm okay. Okay. Take your time, whatever. Whatever makes you comfortable. Paulina looked younger than I expected. Around my age. At the time, she was 24 and I was almost 23. Paulina had a round face and black bangs, and she was short like me, too. Around 5 feet tall. We ordered tea and sat down together. I put my phone on the table between us and hit record. And then, because I didn't really know how to kick things off, I basically just asked her a terrible first date question. So yeah, I think it's probably easiest to just start all the way back. So where did you grow up that far? Who's your family? Literally, like, it sounds like this is really entrenched, right? So, all right, so all the way back. I was born in Ellie. Listen, people call reporters all the time, with salacious tips. But when paulina started talking, I felt like I was drinking from a fire hose. My parents are also related just so, you know, paulina said it was common in her culture for cousins to marry. She said that she herself had been arranged to marry a distant cousin. 12, it's like you're supposed to know what you're getting married to, you know? That's like, you're going through puberty. I was getting too old. Paulina said that her parents shielded her from outsiders. They hate outsiders. So any kind of outsiders was a big one. And then she was pulled out of school entirely at 12 years old. I was actually lucky. I got to go to school up to 6th grade. That was like the main thrust of paulina's education from what I was gathering, was how to become a fortune teller. So basically the same time kids would read or write, they start learning how to read tarot cards and and besides reading cards, she had to learn how to be a wife and mother. If girls turn 18 and they're not married, it's like people look down on it. Like, oh, there's something wrong with her, like, keep in mind. I was a rookie journalist, and I was having a hard time keeping up. Yeah, what happens? What does it mean to be engaged with her team? Is there a proposal? Is it someone tells you you're engaged or what is the actual process? Yeah, so at the time, I was used to writing stories on city council meetings and town art shows. So paulina's story, it was totally out of my Wheelhouse. This seemed like a massive story, with like numerous claims to investigate. I couldn't quite tell how I'd begin to write about them. It seemed too big. Because ultimately, paulina kept blaming her culture, her culture, her culture. And what you disobey us, then you disobey your culture. This will be your father, you bring shame and you only marry with them the culture. You only socialize within the culture, and you certainly only trust people within the culture. And paulinus culture is Romani. I don't think I had ever even heard the word Romney before. And that's because Romani people are often known by another name. You know, a gypsy. You're not going to hear me throwing around the G word on this podcast, because for many in the community, it's a slur. Not for outsiders like need to use. But at the time, I had no idea. Because even a pop star like Shakira casually throws around the G word. It's set against this catchy, poppy backdrop, like something you'd instinctively hum along to. If you weren't paying attention, you never noticed the lyrics are actually overtly offensive. Are you coming with me? I might steal your clothes. I'm worth a mistake with me. Once I started noticing it, I couldn't stop seeing the G word everywhere. Almost like a conspiracy. And pop culture, paulina's people are usually seen as thieves. Like, in the 1960s sitcom, the Andy Griffith show. Sheriff Andy Taylor is a picture perfect example of morality and justice. And when his son has a question, can gypsy's doing magic at all? Yes, I can. They can take out a pair of worthless earrings, show them to your aunt bee and make $12 and a half disappear like nothing. The tone of Andy's voice is so reasonable. Even while casting an entire ethnic group as swindlers. And the G word is actually the root of the word gypped, like ripping someone off. And that pejorative is so mainstream that even Michelle Obama said it. But what I realized was that I got gypped on that front because when you are working it is so wild to me that the general population knows an entire ethnic group. By what is, for outsiders, a slur. I had seen it on clothing brands and restaurant menus, surfboards, and tea bags. It's become a shorthand for something nomadic, wild, deceitful, romantic. Something exotic, a style anyone could put on and wear like a costume. And there's one stereotype that always comes up. That romany people are fortune tellers. I am zoltar, the great gypsy, and I can see your fortune. I was walking along the Venice Beach boardwalk recently when I found a zoltar machine, which is basically an animatronic fortune teller in a box. And he's wearing a turban, it's kind of like all of the stereotypes you would expect to see all wrapped into one. He's even got, I think like a crystal ball that's going. And then there's just all kinds of tarot cards scattered around his table. But the thing was, paulina and her family were actually fortune tellers. Her mom ran a psychic shop and gave daily readings to locals and tourists. Paulina and her sisters helped too. And while paulina told me about her family and their history, she also seemed to be fitting into those very stereotypes. Like, the rule is no stealing only scamming. 'cause people give you stuff, so it's not considered stealing. Paulina seemed to be telling me, yes, everything you Googled was true. Fortune telling is a scam. I and I am a scam artist, you know, born and bred. So then I'm telling you I remember the exact moment she said that in the cafe, a scam artist born and bred paulina kept plowing ahead, talking away. Well, I just looked at her like, what? You know, you're sitting here with a reporter, are you turning yourself in? I didn't know what to think. And honestly, it didn't seem like paulina did either. Gypsies have a bad rep and if they should. I think, I don't know.
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Taylor Break Up?!?!
"When to Bermuda with the family and now we're back in, you know what? You and I deserve to go away together one day, rob. I think we'd have fun together. I'm a good traveler. I really am. I'm going to D.C. this week. Train automobile, how are you getting there? I'm going down by train. Georgetown university asked me to come and speak at the university. I know. Now, you wear many hats. So are you speaking on the entertainment world, the royal world, the inspirational world? I mean, where do we begin? Which rob shooter is? Just get it set up. I know. I say like Jekyll and Hyde. Quite know who I'm going to wake up that morning and be. What I'm going to talk to is their journalism and PR class. So they have a public relations a journalist class stand there and they've asked me to go down and talk to them, so I'll be talking mainly I think about PR, about being a reporter, but you know I love to bring an inspirational message. So I'll definitely have some of that too. So I'm going to go down to D.C.. I can't wait. Hey, if you're listening, Georgetown, allow a lavalier, let's jump in and talk about being in the pink shoe with the Paris Hilton in Miami. I should explain. So one of my least favorite moments in PR was when I attended a gay pride parade, which I normally love to go to, however, this one I was with Paris Hilton, who was like the mayor of the parade, the honoree, and so we were meant to drive together in a car down the parade. When I turned up the car was a pink shoe. It's hot. That's hot. Okay, let's jump in. What time is it, my Friends? It is two times. Okay, big story at the top of the show. There was discussions within the palace at the highest level to strip Meghan and Harry of their duke and their duchess title. So we've speculated this now there's a new book out by Robert jobson, who said absolutely this happened at the highest levels senior royal aides were talking about this, they also were joking that Harry was being held hostage by his American wife, so when all of this exploded, a lot of people, including those in the palace, blamed Megan, however they realized that no, this was not Meg and this was Harry, who was behind the big split. They even joked about Stockholm syndrome. If you don't know what that is, that's when you fall in love or you have these feelings towards the people who have basically kidnapped you and so they thought he might be suffering from that. They said in the end it was Prince Charles who said absolutely not. I will not strive my son or his wife after their title. So it's actually Charles here who stepped up and said no, but the institution, the people that work there, the aids, the courtiers, they all wanted them to be stripped of their titles. Well, the people that don't have the power. It's so interesting how the headlines get taken from that they're going to be stripped of the power. So says the person who cooks the meals, you know what I mean? The actual people, but you know what I was thinking about, even though the story wasn't as led on to believe that King Charles was going to strip everybody. King Charles, in a way, and so was the queen, much like Kris Jenner. You know what I mean? It's been quiet. Nothing's been going on. And what happens? We get a big story. The king is thinking about stripping his son of the title. You know what I mean? So after this official ushering in of Prince Charles, King Charles King Charles. What's next? What's the next story? Well, silence for a little bit, rob, sure. Yeah, I think and all of a sudden, boom. Boom. You are a master at this, being King Charles. I've never ever thought about comparing him to Christiana, but there's actually a really good connection that his head of the family and this family has to constantly create attention they want good attention so do the Kardashians, but they have to constantly be in the headlines to remain as relevant as they are so after the coronation, which is in a couple of weeks. I think I'm going to go. So I've been offered a TV gig in London. They'll fly me in. I know. The trooper is that if I stay in America I'm more special because I'll be all over American TV because I'll be here and I have a British accent. So if I go to London, that really kicks me off all the shows that I do here. So I'm trying to weigh up. In person, it is in person, but I'm trying to outside the panel. How great will it be? Well, what will I do if the podcast? I'll do it from London. You can do it from London as well. You could bounce from TV new zoom room to a TV new zoom room from left to right and be in London at the same time. I love love stuff. I love BDC. In the top hat or I should be wearing full morning dress. I dress the TV, you know, 50, 60, maybe I say 70 or 80% of TV is looking the part. It really is. It really. I think you and I can agree on that. Garrett's popular all over E. News. I love it. Are you enjoying it? Oh, it's a lot of fun, you know, getting to get close. As you know, if you're a fan of entertainment, to be able to sit across from people like Tom Hanks and Idris Elba and Nicolas Cage and just kind of just have a shower station as a fan. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. We love you doing it. Hey, this brings us to our poll question of the day. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were almost stripped of their royal titles, discussions took place at the very highest levels, a question is, should they have lost their titles? Do you think they should be the duke and the Duchess of Sussex? Or should they just be Harry and Meghan? Take over. On our Twitter page at the naughty nights rather Facebook pages, nordy Garcia Bernabeu had to check back tomorrow to your results. This is a big breaking news story you've got Garrett. Hit it off. We could break this down in the right after it. But over the weekend, nothing about the king, nothing about the possible stripping of titles, but here in the states. Taylor Swift and Joe alwyn, I believe, I can never get it as well. That's correct. They broke up after 6 years as being recorded. This happened a few weeks ago actually, but we're just getting light of it now because everyone's been noticing Taylor Swift's been on tour for those that were lucky enough to get tickets to the shows that she's already done. Notice someone was missing. Her friends were there, Selena Gomez was there. Over the last few shows, Gigi Hadid was there, but her boyfriend of 6 years, in order to be seen. Now, Joe has said in the past and friends have said, he would be there when he could, and support, but hasn't happened. So apparently this happened a few weeks ago, very ironically before the tour started. So I guess Taylor wanted a clear set of mind or whatever happened.
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Natasha Lyonne - 'Poker Face'
"To the 487th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is a self described oddball who has been in the business for more than 30 years. Experiencing many personal and professional ups and downs along the way, but emerging, a respected actress, writer, director, and producer with four Emmy nominations to her name. GQ once said of her, quote, no one on television looks or sounds like her, with her raspy 1940s, barts under voice, big curls, and New York specific sense of cool. So distinct as her presence that it inevitably bleeds into her work on screen. Work that in recent years has included three notable comedy series. Netflix's orange is the new black on which she appeared as Nikki and addict incarcerated in a women's prison from 2013 for 2019. Netflix's Russian doll, which she co created with Amy Poehler and Leslie hedlund, and on which she played Nadia, a woman caught in a time warp in 2019 and 2022, and most recently, peacock's poker face, the first season of which rolled out from January through March with her starring as Charlie, a Vegas cocktail waitress who has the ability to tell when someone is lying. A part that Peter travelers, among others, has called the role of her career. Natasha, Lyon. Over the course of our conversation, the 44 year old and I discussed her strange childhood and experience as a child actor, her rebellious spirit and addictive nature that resulted in drug use that sidelined her career for a number of years, the events of the past decade during which she has made a remarkable comeback as an actress and also has increasingly ventured into writing, directing, and through animal pictures, companies she founded in 2018 with Maya Rudolph, producing, plus much more. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. Natasha, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast great to have you. And on this one, we always begin truly at the beginning if you could just share for our listeners where were you born and raised and what did your folks do for a living? Oh, Jesus Christ. This is like my nightmare from back in high school. This is like junior high. This is why I decided to become a self made person. Because I wanted to avoid parents asking me questions like this about my crazy parents at dinner tables and then just being ashamed when I had no reasonable answer. Hi, I'm Natasha Leone. Still, you have to have all these years. In my God, it's been a long run. Thanks for catching up. And where am I from? I'm from New York. I'm a real New Yorker. A lot of people think it's subtle. Often but as I had to turn down a lot of parts on The Crown, which is something that I didn't want to talk about today, but here we are. Thank you for being so honest. No problem. And my parents, yeah, they were professional head cases, which gives you a lot of material to work with. You'll become an accidental expert on the human condition as it were scat. I guess they were writing and acting coaches and boy the cinematic scenes that they could paint. Listen to their crazy 60s music. Walking around the house like lunatics, bottles of vodka. I mean, they would paint pictures and Tina Turner would be playing in the background full volume. They really gave me some images. Well, okay, so this people should catch away. You're going to joke a lot here. But one thing that is totally true, correct me, I'm from everything I've read. I would not have guessed in advance of prepping for this that you grew up partially in Israel. You were orthodox, you went to your show. All right? Can you go in? Willy nilly every day, all right? He's in his house. Or listen, let me explain something to you. Yeah. First of all, I'm a nothing by choice, okay? I'm not even utterly convinced that I owe you exist in the first place. Is that right? At best surrealist at worst of satanists. Maybe vice versa. Next thing you know, these two nut jobs. So anyway, we were living in New York, and yes, they come from on my mother's side. They're Holocaust survivors. My mother was born in Paris. My father's side, they're like 5th generation, Brooklyn American, and but like my grandfather served in World War II. And the American side. There are American people. On my dad's side, Brooklyn. My parents are sort of the black sheep of these pretty traditional Jewish families. And by the time it gets to me, so I'm like in New York City, I'm already doing things like peewee's playhouse.
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Shohreh Aghdashloo - Film Legend [LIVE]
"Hi everyone and thank you for joining us for the 486th episode of the Hollywood reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg, and for those of you tuning in, we are recording this episode in front of an audience at the ray kurtzman theater at CAA. The Hollywood talent agency that has long represented my guest, following the screening of Muhammad Reza Aslan's 1976 film chess of the wind, in which this actress made her big screen debut. The recent rediscovery and restoration of this long lost film, which the criterion collection describes as a jewel of Iranian cinema and one of the most astonishing works of the country's pre revolutionary new wave has provided us all with a perfect reason to pause and celebrate a true trailblazer who has been doing great work on the stage and screens big and small for a half century. Stunning people of all backgrounds with her incomparable voice, beauty, and above all, talent. To cite just the few of her accomplishments, she was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in 2003s House of sand and fog, making her the first Iranian or Middle Eastern actress ever to be up for that honor. She reached millions of TV viewers with her unforgettable turn on the fourth season of the hit Fox drama series 24 in 2005, and she won an Emmy for her work on the 2008 limited series House of Saddam. For those reasons and many others, she is widely regarded as the greatest Iranian actress of all time and one of the greatest actresses of all time, period. And at the age of 70, she is going as strong as ever. I first met interviewed and was enchanted by her 15 years ago at the Toronto International Film Festival, and I'm so thrilled that we recently reconnected and are able to do this tonight. Would you please join me in welcoming miss chau ray, agdash Luke. Great to see you. I'd love to see you too. How long 15 years? And to see you on the big screen at that stage of your development, your first film will get into all of that. But just to be consistent with every episode of this, I don't think there are too many people in the room who don't know the answer to this, but where were you born and raised and what did your folks do for a living? Born in Tehran, my father was a deputy at the health ministry, my mother was a teacher, but after she gave birth to my brother, she decided that she's going to stay home and take care of us. And it was you, and then three boys. At three, absolutely. I have three brothers. So your first exposure to acting. Do you remember what it was and what particularly appealed to you about it? Absolutely. I always wanted to become an actress ever since I watched the gun with the wind in the Caspian Sea with my mother and my cousins. That day I was 16 years old and I told my mother right in the interval. I said, all the kids were asking for a sodas and popcorn and chocolate and decent dad. And I just turned to my mother and I said, I am going to become an actress. And I'm going to act better than a scholar or her. And my mother looked at me and said, no, not under our roof. Right. And so that was addressed by getting married at 18, I believe. 18, 19, then you could go off and do what you wanted? Yes, the suitor was wearing to let me act. I remember we went to this cafe restaurant called Chattanooga. And he looks at me and he said, which is really me, and I said, I can't lie to you. I can't start this Marriott with a lie. I want to become an actress, if you don't mind. And I never forget that he surgeons are going like, oh, I don't see anything wrong with that. So I married him as soon as I could. There you go. Now just to come back for just to come back for a second to gone with the wind, your daughter, what is her name? Tara, Jane, Tuesday, tear for guns are doing. Time for a gun with the wind and Jane for Jane Austen. Awesome. Well, so as you now with your husband's blessing, we're able to begin this acting career. Can you describe what was out there for you at that time? I know there were a lot of initially primarily theater and maybe you can talk about what the drama workshop was and all of that. Absolutely. And this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to start with the stage. My father took us to see many place when we were young when we were kids. And I wish every time we passed the city theater, I looked at the city here, I think, one day I am going to perform on your stage, no matter what. And I was married, we were about to go to our honeymoon, and a friend of his came to our House and said, by the way, I heard shorter would like to act, if that's right, city theater is casting for a play called the narrow road to the deep north by Edward. If you would like to go find an addition, she can. They're going to have a session for the whole day tomorrow. And I just looked at my husband newly married, and he looked at me and he said, why don't you go try it out? I said, by all means, early morning I went. I had to wait. Almost two
Asian Enough
A highlight from Introducing: Foretold
"Where I live in Southern California, psychic shops are practically as plentiful as coffee shops. They're a part of the landscape. The neon sign outlining the palm of a hand, promising to tell your fortune. I know people who have regular appointments with their psychic. It's the kind of thing you can drop in casual conversation, and no one bats an eye. And I can understand why. People want security. They want to know what the future will hold. And whether through tarot cards or a crystal ball, the fortune teller will hint at how your story will play out. Let me say up front that I don't know how this tale will play out. Or how this will end. Because in this story, the fortune teller came to me. We were told that outsiders will never understand us and to a certain extent faith like I do believe that. My name is faith P knew, and I'm a reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Back in October 2019, I got a call from paulina Stevens. She had a tip about a psychic shop in the city I covered. A psychic shop, she said she'd escaped. I think around the time that I met you, I just kind of woke up and I was like, wow, I was being manipulated my whole entire life. Paulina told me she was a fortune teller, and that she came from a whole family of fortune tellers. I kind of accepted my fate like at 12. At 12 years old, paulina was pulled from school to prepare for her fortune telling career. By 17 in arranged marriage. And by 20, she had two daughters destined for a life of fortune telling just like hers. I had this resentment towards sports telling and towards my family and towards my culture. And paulina's culture is often known by a slur. You know, a gypsy. When people hear about us, they think like, oh, we're a fairytale, you know, it's a leprechaun. Oh, it's a gypsy where real people with a real culture and language. Over the next three and a half years, I learned there's an estimated 1 million Romani people in the U.S. with one of the largest populations where I live in Southern California. But unless you were one of them, you'd never know. There are closed community, a society with its own laws and customs, intentionally hidden from outsiders. You have to be exclusionist in order to preserve identity and prevent infiltration from outside. This was paulina's world until one night, she decided to blow it all up. Paulina snuck out of her psychic shop with her two daughters, leaving behind everything she once knew, and turning to the outside world. To the media. To me, so what would the future hold for paulina, her girls, and their culture? So everybody was after her. And it was all in the name of the culture. Our culture is changing now. In the ramen world, there's
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Making Out in Tokyo
"It's not hello. Welcome to the naughty benite show. I'm your host rob shooter and it's Monday, which means our dear friend Garrett Vogel joins us. Hey, Garrett, are you there? Hello, Bobby. It's been a moment, my friend. I've missed you. How are you? I know. We're like two passing ships. There's always missing port at the same time. My Doc and you take off and you Doc and I vice versa, you know what I mean? But here we are. Today we are reunited. People really miss you when you're not on the show. I love it. I get DMs. People worried that you've left that we've had a fight, but no, often it's technical issues or just schedule in, but it's so good to have you here, Garrett, we jump into the show what time is it, my Friends. It is tea time. I can hear you, so big story at the top of the show, Reese Witherspoon and her husband of almost 12 years. Have called off their marriage and sources are saying that they have zero real man. So that's really sad. So sources are saying that the marriage became platonic. There's no big scandal, there's no big drama, just two people who essentially became co parents and didn't really have romantic feelings towards each other anymore. They announced this on Friday, so they put an announcement out on social media. It's so interesting in the old days, one of the magazines, a website, would have broke this story's PR people would have given it to People magazine or Us Weekly or radar.
Awards Chatter
A highlight from F. Murray Abraham - 'The White Lotus' & 'Moon Knight'
"And for those of you tuning in, we are recording this episode in front of an audience at the boulder theater in beautiful boulder, Colorado, as part of the 19th annual boulder International Film Festival. Today, for the second year in a row, I have the honor and privilege of sitting down with the recipient of biff's highest honor, the outstanding performer of the year award, prior to its presentation. And this year, that person holds a particularly special place in my heart because I had the opportunity to speak with him once before. 19 years ago, when I was still in high school and he was kind enough to grant me a telephone interview about his life and career. I'm sure he doesn't remember it, but I certainly do. Once described by Pauline Kael as a wizard at eager manic full of life roles and by David denby as a real actor, he is one of just 36 people alive today who have won the best actor Academy Award. His coming 38 years ago for his unforgettable portrayal of the composer Antonio salieri in
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Oscar Recap
"A leftovers or. The DMV. Or. Housecleaning. Or chamber casino always brings the fun. Play over a hundred different games online for free from anywhere. You could redeem some serious prizes. Dot com live the chumba life. See what's over details. In the mid 2000s, I was part of an underground party scene of mostly LatinX teens all across LA. Now, I'm looking back at that time. And then unsolved murder that got blamed on the scene. I'm Janice mocha, host of a new podcast about what happens when your safe space isn't always safe. All episodes of party crews, the untold story. That's CRE, WS, are available now. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Prey dot com's meditative prayers podcast is the best way to bring God's perfect piece into your night. Each meditative prayer helps you focus on God, fight anxiety, sleep better, and more. As you close your eyes, ask God to come and have fellowship with you. Open yourself to the Holy Spirit and ask him to minister to you. Listen to meditative prayers on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For sugar and spice it's not hello. Welcome to the naughty but nice show. I'm rob shooter. It's mandates Monday after the Oscars so if I'm a little whores is because I've been up all night screaming and shouting and doing interviews about what I thought about the Oscars but don't worry I saved all the good bits for our own podcast joining us back. We missed him is our dear friend Garrett Vogel. Let's jump in what time is it my Friends? It is tea time. So let's talk about the Oscars from last night. Jimmy Kimmel, he addressed the slap of the slappy hat to do it, Garrett. So early on in the show, factor right at the top, he did make fun of the slap and in the process he also I thought in quite a clever way made fun of Hollywood, he said he wants everyone to be safe and if anyone in the theater commits an act of violence, they will be awarded best actor and be given permission to talk for 19 minutes, making fun, but after Will Smith hit somebody, hit Chris Rock last year, we really did nothing right away, so making fun of that. I thought it was quite effective. What do you think? Oh, nice. I think it did what it was supposed to do. Everybody was tuning in. What's going to happen? Will Smith be there? Will Chris Rock be there? What's Jimmy Kimmel gonna say? I give the first 20, 30 minutes of the Oscars, a round of applause, then after that, we got back to the same boring Oscars after. I agree with you. It did start well and that sort of like a thankless job being the host of it because you always get blamed for it being too long and too boring, but once the show starts, it's all mapped out so there's very little Jimmy can actually do to move it along, but I did think that was a really funny I liked too that they cut to shots of Spider-Man. So if anyone gets in trouble, we have Spider-Man there, Michael B. Jordan. He's a tough guy in rocky and creed. And then they cut to the fabled men's, which was Steven Spielberg very, very funny. Maybe Steven's the toughest of all three. Well, yes, I know that you, Steven Spielberg, but that's where you gotta go for the joke. I mean, you put Meryl Streep on skirt. And that's where the world was just. They would have lost it. Oh, that's very, very clever. You should write it next year. And I also thought it was very clever. To never say the name Will Smith. He talked about getting jiggy, he talked about hitch, one of will's movies, but never actually mentioned the name of really the villain of the night. What do you think? Yeah, and did you notice that at one point, Jimmy kind of changed his jacket to like a white jacket? Very, very similar to what Chris Rock was wearing last year. Around the same time, kind of like a almost a nod. I took it as. That's very clever. I think I'd fell asleep by then. God, it did go on, didn't it? But why so long? You know what I mean? That's what makes people go. You know what? You are so chauvinistic and you think this much of yourself. Right, the ego of it. It's hard because if you cut out the small categories, the stuff we'd probably don't care about, we're not going to talk about today and I'm not putting down anyone that wouldn't ask for any category congratulations. I'm just saying do we need the costumes? I'm not sure. Let's do some of the big awards and say, what do you think? So we all knew that Kwan was going to win for best supporting actor for everything everywhere, all at once. What a comeback story, what an emotional speech, he had not really worked very much in 2030 years, he exploded on the scene in Indiana Jones. We all remember him as the little kid, and now to see him come back, I love these type of stories. Oh, I love a great comeback story. And as they say, everybody loves a comeback story. But do you think he's sitting there? And the hype is there, oh, you're going to win, you're going to win. Then he sees Harrison Ford. The man that he started his career with almost 40 years ago, up there presenting. How messed up would have been for him Harrison Ford to be up there and not give him the award. It was almost too obvious. Like if you read the room, you know who was winning that one. You get it. I've beat it this awards show a couple of times. I'm lucky enough to have worked backstage and also been there as a guest. I don't know how I pulled that off. And I got to tell you, the room's nervous and even if everyone's telling you you're going to win, you don't quite believe that you always think something could go wrong. Well, I get that. But when you bring the man that you've a good side, it's a good sign. The nerves calm down and everybody else was just like, oh, well I'm not winning this one. If Harrison's here, he's got it. So somebody that really was in a toss up category and this could have gone either way, Garrett is Jamie Lee Curtis and Angela Bassett. Now Jamie Lee Curtis won and she did have an amazing reaction. You could see her scream shut up and then she really went through her resume, which was sort of quite funny. It's all slasher movies and horror movies and activia. She can have fun of herself. And I thought it was a really beautiful gesture. For her to shout out the hundreds of people who had put her in that position, including her really famous dad Tony Curtis and her mom, Janet Leigh, you know her from the shower in psycho. She said, quote, my mom and my father were both nominated for Oscars in different categories, and I just won an Oscar. So this is part of Hollywood royalty. She really is something really famous parents, but she never quite lived up to their reputation until last night. You know, it is cool to see. And you talk about the fact that, you know, if your parents are still around, you tell them you love them, you say all the things, but to see how many people are actually thinking their parents and saying, hey mom, look, you know, I did it. That kind of hit me, hit me in the heart. It does, doesn't it? Because we've all got families. Yeah, it does feel real. You forget that they are real people. They're so famous and gorgeous and rich and movie stars, but they are real people. Hey, did you see talk about real real reaction? Angela Bassett's face when Jamie Lee Curtis what it's a beam today it's Gary Goran. She didn't stand either. She was in the front row
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Austin Butler - 'Elvis' [LIVE]
"And thank you for joining us for the 482nd episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And for those of you tuning in, we are recording this episode in front of an audience of students at Chapman university in Orange County, where I'm a trustee professor at the Dodge college of film and media arts. My guest today is one of the most talented and exciting young actors in Hollywood. As we'll discuss in greater detail in a moment, he started out in the business as a pre teen on TV series aimed at kids and young adults, then had a big breakthrough on Broadway in 2018, and then began getting cast in films by some of the world's top filmmakers. Among them, Jim jarmusch, who directed him in the dead don't die, and Quentin Tarantino, who directed him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Both of which were released in 2019 just before the pandemic. And then, of course, he starred in the film that we've just screened here. Baz luhrmann's Elvis, which was one of the most popular releases of 2022. For his performance as Elvis Presley between the ages of 19 and 42, this 31 year old received the sorts of reviews that actors dream of. And between those and the reactions of the public, it quickly became clear that we have a major new star on our hands. That impression has only grown over the last few months during which he won best actor BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for best actor critics choice and sag awards. And on March 12th, he will be up for the best actor Academy Award as well. Poised to become its 5th youngest winner ever. Whatever happens 11 nights from now, we will be seeing a lot more of him for a long time to come. And for that, we should all consider ourselves very lucky. Would you please join me in welcoming to Chapman university, mister Austin butler. Are you getting used to that now? Is that good old hat Austin? That's incredible. You guys are amazing. Thank you all for being here. I heard some people were here since 5 in the morning or something. That's exactly. Well, thank you so much for making the trek up here. I'm so happy to be here. Austin, we always begin on this podcast and at these masterclasses by asking our guest if they would share where they were born and raised in what their folks did for a living, I think you are going to have a different answer than a closer to home answer than anyone we've had yet. Where are you from? Anaheim, California. We were very close to here. Spent your first 12 years here, and then I moved to LA. Yeah. And what did your folks do? My dad was a commercial real estate appraiser. And my mom, she, when I was born, she was a dental hygienist and then, and then she ended up becoming a day care out of the house because she wanted to be a stay at home mom. So I grew up with all these little kids in the house, and there were most of the kids that there was a elementary school close by. And so is the teacher's kids that she watched while they were at work, you know? So I always had little kids in the house. I know that your mother was a huge influence on your life. And we are going to, in a moment, talk more specifically about how that helped usher you towards acting. But first, we have a little surprise. Steve of telly, a chairman alum who works for the Orange County archives, reached out to me this week because he said that he had stumbled upon something in their archives from 1995, which has never been seen before. You were four years old. getting nervous. Let's turn to the big screen. Oh jeez. The readout atop the bank building was a clue. 99° in Santa Ana before noon Tuesday. And if that wasn't convincing enough, how about the headline, record heat, scorches county. What really was a lot cooler here? Wow, that's my mom. I think we all have earns. But probably the best thing about heading to the beach is it's a lot cooler here. Newport Beach was about 20° cooler than Santa Anna. Four year old Austin has been closely watching the temperature in Anaheim. 60°. With 60° at home. Now short foot pretty cool, huh? I'm genuinely gobsmacked, right now. I have no idea I did that interview. Well, you
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Brendan Fraser - 'The Whale'
"And thank you for joining us for the 481st episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And for those of you tuning in, we are recording this episode in front of an audience of students at Chapman university where I'm a trustee professor at the Dodge college of film and media arts. My guest today is a widely admired and much beloved actor whose big screen work now spends 30 plus years. The Los Angeles Times once asserted, quote, he exudes a masculine and earnest accessibility. The throwback charm that harkens to an earlier Hollywood era and brings to mind names like Flynn and Gable. While GQ opined, quote, he exudes a kind of solid decency and equanimity that makes the implausible plausible. His presence in a scene makes you believe it. All of this made him into what The Guardian described in 2008 as quote one of the most bankable and audience friendly stars in the industry. Shortly thereafter, though, he began to fade from the public eye. But never from the hearts and minds of filmgoers and filmmakers, many of whom grew up with him and were vocal about how much they missed him and yearned for his return. That, of course, has finally happened in a major way. Via Darren Aronofsky's the whale, for which this actor is now at the age of 54, a critics choice and sag award winner and a Gotham and Bafta Award nominee and is also, for the first time in his career, up for an Academy Award. In short, welcome to the renaissance. Would you please join me in welcoming to Chapman university, mister Brendan, Fraser. How's everybody doing? Welcome, you so much for coming, Brendan. It's honor to have you here. And we're all thrilled you came up. And to begin with, we always just start at the very beginning. Can you share where you were born and raised in what your folks did for a living? I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. The year of our lord 1960, my father works for tourism, Canada, peewee, keep it together. Watching you. You work for me. It's my dog. We'll meet later. Anyway, dad worked for tourism, Canada. So our family traveled. But every three, four years, we were going somewhere new. I realized later in life, I think that probably had something to do with why I wanted to be an actor or became one because of the feeling of constantly reinventing yourself or getting a new group. When you come back for a new year, you're making a new social group, and you become like a tribe for a while. You split up and you move on. It transitional, but that's kind of the life of an actor too. So it was a good one. And next question. Yeah, no, no. In addition to that though, I believe you were, yes, you're moving around the states, but also for a time in Europe where is that where you sort of first were exposed to a really great acting? We lived in Europe, yes. In the stone ages of the 70s. Our families would take holidays to London, where I first started to see plays. And my eyes were open and I fell for smitten with what was happening in the world's biggest toy box that I could imagine and I wanted. I didn't know what it was that they were doing, but I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to I wanted to get up on that stage. The play that I saw that opened my eyes was Oliver. The musical all over twist.
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Malala Yousafzai - 'Stranger at the Gate'
"In to a very special 480th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is one of the most remarkable young women in the world. At the age of 12, she began speaking out against the Taliban's crackdown on girls ability to get an education in her native Pakistan, and soon began commanding considerable attention. On October 9th, 2012, when she was just 15, she was coming home from school when a member of the Taliban boarded the bus she was on, asked for her by name, and then shot her in the face at point blank range. She and her family were then rushed to England, where she made a miraculous recovery. And over the decade plus since, she has courageously continued her fight and made a real difference. Indeed, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013, 2014 and 2015. And on October 10th, 2014, nearly two years to the day after she was shot, she was chosen to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, making her at 17 the youngest ever recipient of a Nobel in any field, and also that prize's first ever Pakistani and pashtun winner. I'm talking, of course, about Malala Yousafzai. Malala and I sat down last week in Santa Monica, where she was staying while lending her support as an executive producer to a 29 minute documentary called stranger at the gate, which has been nominated for the best documentary short Oscar. The film tells the remarkable story of a PTSD afflicted islamophobic veteran of the U.S. Marines, who had planned to bomb a mosque in Indiana, only to be won over while visiting the mosque by its congregants. Over the course of our conversation, the now 25 year old Malala and I discussed her early years and what inspired her to take up the fight for girls to receive a proper education in the first place, what her life has been like since she was shot and the degree to which progress has been made in the years since, why she is increasingly devoting her attention to Hollywood, where, in 2021, she established the production company extracurricular, which is overseen by former berlanti productions executive Erica koner and has a deal with Apple TV plus, and why she believes that every person should see stranger at the gate, more. We'll get to that conversation in a moment, but first, I spoke with Joshua sefton, the veteran documentary filmmaker who directed stranger at the gate about his path to that project and working with Malala. Joshua, thank you so much for doing this. And congratulations on the nomination and the film. And I want to begin by asking you about the fact that since 2015, you have been focused on a thematic project, I think it's fair to say this where the common theme is islamophobia. And this is, I guess, broadly called secret life of Muslims of which this project stranger at the gate is an installment, but this goes back years and 25 installments. How did you get started on this in the first place? Yeah, it's been a while. The way it started really is it came out of my childhood, actually. So I was born in Schenectady, New York, and when I was a boy growing up there, I faced anti semitism, and kids called me names. Juke, Jewish Josh, they threw pennies at me in the hall. I can still remember the sound of the pennies hitting the floor. And you know, because they thought, oh, maybe he'll pick it up. It'll show that Jews are cheap. And someone threw a rock the size of a brick through the front window of our home. Oh my God. So those things stayed with me. And when I'd be after I became a filmmaker and then 9 11 happened, I saw my Muslim Friends facing hatred and islamophobia and all the things that felt really familiar to me. And at that point, I felt like, well, maybe I can, in some small way, help as a filmmaker to tell stories that would counter that narrative. And that's how this project started. And when you embarked upon it, was it one thing that has since just grown into this massive undertaking or was it always planned to be an ongoing thing? We knew that we wanted to do one set of films and so we did that and those were released actually right before Trump was elected. And so the timing was interesting. And then we got a grant to do more of them. During the Trump administration and this time around,
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Ke Huy Quan - 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' [LIVE]
"Hi everyone and thank you for joining us for the 479th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And for those of you tuning in, we are recording this episode in front of an audience of students at Chapman university, where I'm a trustee professor. My guest today is a fantastic actor whose journey from 1980s child stardom in films like 1980 fours Indiana Jones and the temple of doom and 1980 5s The Goonies to an Oscar nomination this year for everything everywhere all at once is nothing short of incredible. A 51 year old Vietnamese born man, he was, as The Associated Press put it, one of the most incredible faces and voices of the 1980s, and as GQ noted, he was also at the time one of the only visible Asian faces in any western media, much less two of the biggest blockbusters on the planet. And then, for more than two decades, he disappeared from the public eye. But not from the business he loved. The story of his return to acting, which has resulted in Gotham Golden Globe critics choice New York Film Critics Circle Los Angeles Film Critics Association and national society of film critics awards, as well as a BAFTA nomination and pending spirit sag and Academy Award nominations could be a movie itself. Indeed, he is now poised to become the first Asian male to ever win an individual sag award for acting in film and only the second Asian performer to ever take home the best supporting actor Oscar. The first, since Hangzhou for the killing fields, 38 years ago. To quote a recent piece in the Los Angeles Times, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said there are no second acts in American lives, but he'd never met kihei Kwan. Would you please join me in welcoming to Chapman university, mister Kwan. That's for you. Wow, this is incredible. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you, wow. Thank you so much for coming. Oh, you know what? I was gonna, I don't know, man. I'm trying not to cry tonight, okay? But I think this is a bad start for me. So let's start at the very beginning. Where were you born? And what did your folks do for a living? Oh, I was born in Vietnam in Saigon. It used to be called Saigon. It's called hold you mean city now, two Chinese parents. And my dad is a businessman. He owned a factory that manufacturers trash bags. And my mom, at that time, only clothing store, but then when they gave up everything they had to get our entire family here to the United States, it was a tough for them. So to me, to this day, they are the heroes of my life. To the yeah. To whatever extent you're comfortable talking about this. I mean, your story of ending up in LA in 1979 is almost as crazy as this story. Odds defying as the story of your comeback in film. I would say these are the two unbelievable journeys you've taken. And I just wonder, I think it helps people to understand how far you've come if you would be willing to tell a little bit about what brought you to LA. You know, first of all, first, thank you so much for that amazing introduction as you would just saying all these things. It made me think that it could have ended very badly. And it's true. Yeah, my parents decided to, you know, they wanted a better life for us. And of course, this is a very different time. Vietnam now is a wonderful country where it's visited by many people every year. But this was like right after the Vietnam War, everything has changed. And my parents felt that they have saved up enough money. And they didn't see a future for us in Vietnam. And they wanted it to do something for us. And it was literally, you know, we would get on a boat in the middle of the night, paid for with not local currency, but go sheets. And we made two attempts. The first attempt we failed, we got caught. We were jailed, and then we would release and my parents would lose everything they had. And then they would work really hard again to save up enough money. And the second attempt, they decided that we would do it different this time. The first time all 9 of us plus my parents 11 escaped together. The second time, they go, well, we have to do it separately. So just in case one of us get caught together, one would be able to go to America and get the rest of the family out. So my mom took three of my siblings, went to Malaysia, and my father took me
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Cate Blanchett - 'Tr' [LIVE]
"Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to the four 178th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is one of the most remarkable actresses of our time or for that matter any other. You may have previously heard her on this podcast in 2020 during the thick of COVID lockdown, which forced us to record our conversation via Zoom. I was therefore extra thrilled to have the opportunity last week to sit down with her in person in front of a sold out crowd of more than 2000 people at Santa Barbara's historic Arlington theater as part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival celebration of her as its outstanding performer of the year. I'm talking, of course, about the greatest thing to come out of Australia since Kuala bears, Kate Blanchett. Let's go now to audio of my introduction of and conversation with her there. I'm especially thrilled and honored to be here tonight because we get to celebrate one of the most remarkable actresses of our or any time. She is a woman who is being fed tonight with the outstanding performer of the year award for 2022 for her performance in tar, having already won best actress accolades for this performance from the New York LA and London film critics, national society of film critics, and critics choice association, making her the only person who has ever won all 5 of those, and she's done it twice. But as will be reminded tonight, she could have received this performer of the year award in virtually any of the 26 years in which she's been on the big screen and has garnered along the way aid acting Oscar nominations, two of which have resulted in Oscars and a third of which might next month. Now having interviewed Kate a few times over the years, I know that she tends to minimize individual accomplishments like those that I've just cited. So I'm going to cite a statistic that shows just how much of a team player she is as well. With the best picture Oscar nomination that was bestowed last month upon tart, the all time record for any actress already held by Kate for most films starred in that have been nominated for the best picture Oscar, increased from 9 to ten. No woman ever has had more. And again, I think it's not a coincidence that she's been at the center of that many standout films. She clearly and visibly makes everyone around her and the film she's in better. And I know Todd field is in agreement about that. But don't take my word for any of this, I'm going to read a few other quotes here that I think are relevant. The New York Times, once asserted about Kate, quote, like Meryl Streep, the actress she most resembles, she is a natural chameleon close quote. Meryl Streep herself described Kate as, quote, an actress that is not only gifted and talented, but is above all a brave actress. I really admire her enormously, close quote. Russell Crowe called her the most spectacular creature that ever walked the planet. We've all been called her the best actor of her generation. Donald Sutherland went with the best actor in the world. Brad Pitt called her mesmerizing exquisite and otherworldly George Clooney emphasized that she is the best actor working today, not actress, actor, and the late Time Magazine critic Richard Corliss once wrote, quote, years from now when cinephiles are asked to name the movie is golden age, they'll say it was when Cate Blanchett was in them close quote. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please join me in welcoming back to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival,
Elvis Duran Presents: Celebrity Buzz
A highlight from Super Bowl Behind The Scenes
"Let me know when I know welcome TD naughty but Nigel. I'm your host rub shooter at every Monday, one of our favorite people in the home wise world joins us. Mister Garrett, Vogel. Hey Gary, how do you bear? All rob shooter, yes I am. Happy post super bowl Monday. If you're listening to this, you're probably maybe in bed, possibly calling out from work, and don't say a word. We should do it ourselves. No, we love doing this show too much blood might go to bed after we finish recording. Just somebody who knows nothing about football, we all know that. I couldn't really totally definitely tell you who played last night, but I did enjoy the red tea rather than the green. So that is the Kansas City Chiefs. I like them. The Super Bowl. Versus the Philadelphia Eagles who were in your I did not like those as much for some reason. Do you know what the reason was? The red team had a really cute young guy who was always on camera throwing the ball a lot. I don't know his name. Yes, yes, he heard his foot, but he was also the one that said, I'm going to Disneyland, which you know what? You know what I'm learning to is normally it's been Disney World, but I guess because of the change the tickets. To see Rihanna, who we can now report is pregnant, so we were having that conversation be honest, Garrett, you and I were texting each other. We were not the only two delay in a misti was texting me. All our Friends were texting and we can't never ask a woman if she's pregnant. Even if she is a superstar, you have to wait to be told. However, luckily, famous people do have reps. So I fired off an a text of immediately to her rep. And I was like, this is so implied, and you should never ask this, but is she pregnant? And exclusive went to People magazine, but it has been confirmed that she's pregnant. If people had not exclusively confirmed that fact today Garrett, it'd be a tricky subject for us to talk about as to guys we can't talk about if a girl's pregnant or not. Of course, no, the speculation would be there and the Internet would be talking and is it true? Is it not? I mean, the memes alone that are coming out from it because if you saw her backup dancers, they were all dressed in like these white body suits, and they were saying, oh, look, they're putting in his work right there. As we like to call it, Irish twins pretty much. Babies that are back to back within like a 92nd baby. We don't know the name yet of her first baby. Do you think she had to tell the Super Bowl people like, oh, by the way, I'm pregnant. I think she did. And you know what credit to her, given that some might say that her stylist was doing her wrong at the press conference, but because her stylist style she did so well. No one even knew she was, she was hiding. She hates. My friends who work over their producers, I ask them, come on, you had to. So if you're standing next to somebody, they said they didn't have a clue. I thought I'd performance was fantastic now. She's quite a low energy type performer. She's not a J.Lo. She's not a Shakira. She's not a Lady Gaga. She's not a Beyoncé. She's got a laid back sort of chilled seat. Her music's loud, though. Yeah, she's quiet for music. The music sort of speaks for itself. I'd forgot how many hits she had. Hit after hit after Hitler and a lot of those hits were with other artists, Drake, Jay-Z, we have surprised that she didn't have them come up. You know what? I think a credit to credit to someone like Jay-Z, who was there, obviously, with Blue Ivy at the game. And it automatically respected me up in the air. And run this town and I think Jay-Z being the businessman slash dad that he is now. This is her moment, just like when Beyoncé announced their child at the grassroots. It was a similar moment. You know what that would have done. That would have taken away from Brianna's moment. I think Jay-Z said, you know what? Let her shine. I'm good. I'll have, you know, maybe get a hot dog or something. He did good too. I thought she was great. And I think her shining moment was shy like a diamond at the end when she was floating all by herself, cigarette lighters, that's probably out of date, but it's all phones, but they just looked amazing. She looked like a diamond. But think about it too, like normally when you see things like that. Now knowing that she's pregnant, she didn't have, it didn't look like any type of harness. You know what I mean? Like Friends of a dancer and there was a strap. It was on the floor and it's really clever and they all had to wear it to everybody that floated had to have safety procedure. It was so interesting. They were sort of tied from their waist to the floor and when Rihanna put on the big red coat, you couldn't see it at all, but when she started the show, there was a little red sort of like thread. Thicker than a thread, but I'm thankfully she was safe. I say fantastic Rihanna. Oh gosh, this is interesting too, so I hit the phones and spoke to a friend of Rihanna's. And I asked why there were no guests performers, and she said which I thought was so interesting is after J.Lo was made to share the stage with Shakira, remember that controversy that they both wanted to do solos. She said, no, I'm going to prove that a woman by herself can do the Super Bowl and my goodness. She proved it, hey let's jump into the show. What time is it, my Friends? It is tea time. This is a big story at the top of the show. Harry and Meghan have a brand new strategy and the strategy is no more dishing dirt on the royal families. And recording only if that was step one. I mean, they've been now, you know? At the coronation. But this is actually going to get back in. I don't even know if they're capable of doing this, and I say that not as a dig, but as a couple who really, really have a big story. I guess that there's still telling, but they've decided that they're going to distance themselves now from the firm from the royal family and focus on their own brand, which is arch well, and that is podcast. It might be more books, it might be more TV stuff, but they don't want their whole identity to be just bashing the royal family. This is interesting because I fell out with people and it's become almost an obsession to trash them. It's become my full-time job just to talk about people I don't like. And I've stopped doing that. And I think actually not only is it really healthy for me, it's the ultimate punishment. If you really want to hurt somebody, ignore them. I don't fight back. If my little doggy Derby upsets me. If I scream at him, he likes the attention and so, but if I want to upset him, or if I want to like really let him know that he's upset me, I give him the cold treatment, where are you on this? You know, just like you, it felt good to just screw them. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think over the last, maybe a couple months. I really came to terms with, what is that doing for me? You know what I mean? It's that instant gratification, almost like a drug, but what do drugs do eventually over the field good for the first couple of times, maybe? The first 6 months or even years, but ultimately drugs
Awards Chatter
A highlight from Angela Bassett - 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'
"Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 477th episode of The Hollywood Reporter's awards chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott feinberg. And my guest today is one of the greatest actresses of her generation. She was nominated 29 years ago for the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Tina Turner in what's love got to do with it, making her the only black person nominated for the best actress Oscar in the 1990s. And she is nominated this year for the best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Queen ramonda in Black Panther Wakanda forever, making her only the fourth black actress who has received more than one acting Oscar nomination. She has also won two Golden Globe Awards for the aforementioned two films and has been nominated for 7 Primetime Emmy Awards for a variety of programs. Time film critic, Richard Corliss, wrote in 1998, quote some folks have it, some don't. She does. She animates an elevator roles with fire precision and suave. The film historian Donald bogle said in 2002, quote she very much reminds me of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, women who commanded your attention in a film, even when their mouths were closed. And the Emmy winning writer, actress Lena Waithe opined in 2017, quote she is a freaking legend without her, there is no Viola Davis, without her, there is no Halle Berry. She's the one who came in and did things Meryl Streep was doing as a black actress. I'm talking, of course, about Angela Bassett. Over the course of our conversation at the Belmont in conto hotel in Santa Barbara, ahead of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival's presentation to her of its montecito award, the 64 year old and I discussed her path from St. Petersburg, Florida to the Yale school of drama to Broadway to Hollywood. The early roles that established her as one of the top talents in the business in John singleton's Boyz in the hood in 1991, Spike Lee's Malcolm X in 1992 and Brian Gibson's aforementioned what's love got to do with it in 1993. To the ups and downs that followed over the next three decades leading up to today, when it seems, after years of great work in films like Forest Whitaker is waiting to exhale in 1995, Kevin Rodney Sullivan's, how Stella got her groove back in 1998 and Doug atchison's akilah and the B in 2006, she's finally getting her due and may finally take home an Oscar for her portrayal in a blockbuster as appropriately enough, a queen. And so without further ado, let's go to that conversation. Thank you so much for doing this. It's great to have you on the podcast and on this one we kind of go through the big moments and our guests life and career. And so to go back to the very beginning, could you share with our listeners, where were you born and raised and what did your folks do for a living? I was actually born in New York, New York. Okay. Yeah, women's hospital. And I think my mother was, she was like, nurses aid, you know? And father, I always say, I say of him that he was a Jack of all trades, Master of None. In other words, I really don't know. Ultimately, what he did. I know he was good at a lot of things and very, very smart, had knowledge about any subject you could bring up that sort of what I recall about him. But I left New York when I was ten months. So I've been told. And I went to live in Winston Winston Salem, North Carolina, just say that correctly? Yes, with my father's sister. My aunt golden. And she was to raise me. I think she said once that she was to adopt me, but it didn't go through. And then at four, when my parents looked at the separated, my mother came through, Winston picked me up along she had my sister in tow, my younger sister, and hit it home to St. Petersburg, Florida. And that's where most of the rest of the childhood was. Now did I read that your mother might have had a little bit of a performer in her if life had gone a different way? Oh yeah, she had a little flair for the dramatic. She kind of was a singing or just anything. Acting most circular, you know, be very embarrassed with her, you know, her high, high, high, sea soprano. While in church, don't let a song come on that she loves his eyes on the sparrows. Like, oh, you know kids, like, oh mother. Could you bring it down? A few octaves or, you know. Well, now most of us do not have an exact moment that we can point to where it seems like our lives took a different turn, but from what I was able to gather, it seems like you did. You're 15 years old and there's a field trip that really just changed everything? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was 15. I was involved in this program. At eckert college, you know, who college in saint Pete. And they had a program upward bound that was there on the campus. And I loved being a part of that program, you know? We just got to be on a college campus, interact with different professors and teachers and ideas, and, you know, stay on campus during the summer for 6 weeks. And away from parents and their watchful eyes. Just a little independence, you know, safe, independence. And we were one I was chosen as one of the students. I think of all the students they chose one. And I was chosen to take part of this program called presidential classroom for young Americans. And it happened in D.C.. So I guess it was more government or political centric, which was which was not my thing. But traveling, having experiences outside of this little small sleepy, sleepy, retirement community, town that I grew up in was wonderful. I met students from Caribbean from Euro from across America. So from just seem like from the moon. Everywhere. I loved it. You know, they put you in a room, have given you three roommates from various backgrounds and cultures, and that was exciting. And all day, we would sit and sit in seminars or hear all this talk about government and the workings of which just went completely over my head. But in the evening, we do cultural things. We would go to see the monuments during the day or in this one particular evening. I chose to go to the theater to the Kennedy Center. Which I've been to since then for the Kennedy Center Honors since then. So it is fabulous.