Antonio Stallings | Showbiz Cheat Sheet Writer

Zoe Saldaña Was Afraid of Being Typecast in Sci-Fi Movies After ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 16:31:22 +0000

Films like Guardians of the Galaxy and James Cameron’s Avatar franchise gave actor Zoe Saldaña a reputation for doing sci-fi movies. And initially, it was a reputation she wasn’t sure would do well for her career.

Zoe Saldaña almost turned down ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ to avoid being typecast

Zoe Saldana | Mike Marsland/WireImage

By the time Saldaña was considered for Guardians of the Galaxy, she had quite the resume doing space features. She was coming off of films like Avatar and Star Trek, and she was concerned Guardians of the Galaxy would’ve been more of the same.

“I don’t know how to say no to these filmmakers. First I booked Avatar, and as I was shooting that, J.J. Abrams was getting ready to do Star Trek. And those collaborations got the attention of James Gunn,” Saldaña once said according to Female First. “I really didn’t want to say yes because this was the third sci-fi film I’d be doing, and I was afraid it might not be great for my career.”

However, she was quickly convinced to do Guardians of the Galaxy, as a gut feeling told her it was the right decision to make.

“But I got the sense that I would be missing out on something so incredibly special that I said yes,” she said.

It appears her instincts might’ve been correct. Her role in Guardians of the Galaxy led to deeper roles in its sequels, Avengers Infinity War and End Game. It also led to her starring in two multi-billion dollar franchises. Like Avatar, the Marvel movies were known for breaking box-office records. Having been in both Avatar and Endgame, she’s starred in the top two highest grossing films of all time.

Zoe Saldaña felt that sci-fi movies gave her the chance to play real characters

Although she was hesitant at first to be known for sci-fi movies, they soon became Saldaña favorite sub genre to star in. Which made sense since she was always a fan of the genre.

“I grew up in a sci-fi environment and am a huge sci-fi fanatic so Ripley [Alien] and Sarah Connor [Terminator] are some of my favorite characters of all time,” Saldaña once told Trek Movie. “I am driven toward women who are very strong and commanding and kick alien ass and all that stuff, and also kiss aliens. I would say Blade Runner, and The Hunger, which is one of Tony Scott’s first films. I saw it when I was very young, I think I saw it when I was nine or ten, I fell completely in love with the movie. It felt completely dark and hopeless because these people were eternally condemned and unable to love. And Blade Runner, I knew watching Blade Runner, and Dune, that I wasn’t old enough to understand the concept. But the fact that I was to grow older and be able to one day look at it and go ‘I get this now’ was so exciting to me at the age of five.”

Being in her own sci-fi films not only gave the Nina star the chance to do similar movies, but to play more fulfilling roles.

“If I wasn’t doing these sci-fi movies, I would be at the mercy of filmmakers that would just look my way if they need a girlfriend or sexy woman of color in their movie,” she once told CNET. “Space is different…but we can still do better. We can still give women more weight to carry in their roles.”

Zoe Saldaña admitted to feeling stuck after ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and ‘Avatar’

Saldaña’s last two sci-fi franchises required a lot of commitment. And although they offered hefty paydays, they did leave her feeing a bit stunted artistically.

“I’m very grateful for the opportunities that they provided, from collaborating with amazing directors and getting to meet cast members that I consider friends and getting to play a role that fans, especially children, love,” Saldaña once told WWD. “But it also meant that I felt artistically stuck in my craft of not being able to expand or grow or challenge myself by playing different sorts of genres and different roles. So this is something that I wanted to do for a very long time.”

Saldaña is still connected to the Avatar series. But her run in Guardians of the Galaxy seemed to conclude with Vol. 3. Perhaps this means the actor still has room left to pursue the types of roles that would be creatively fulfilling.

Tom Cruise Once Wanted 10 Kids With Katie Holmes

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 01:36:00 +0000

Tom Cruise envisioned having a large family with Katie Holmes. But did he realize his goal of having many kids with Holmes before their divorce?

How many kids did Tom Cruise have with Katie Holmes?

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes | Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Cruise currently has only one daughter with Katie Holmes. The two gave birth to their daughter Suri in 2006. But she isn’t Cruise’s only child, as he adopted two other children earlier during his relationship with Nicole Kidman. When Today once asked Cruise why he and Kidman adopted their kids, Cruise confided that they simply wanted to.

“I tell you, someone said to me — where was I ? — ‘When are you gonna have your own children? Do you think you will have your own?’ And I said, ‘I have my children. You don’t get it.’ There is no way. And I tell ya, when I held my daughter — we adopted Bella first — as much as I realized that level of reality and affinity and love that I had for my mother, there is nothing like when you hold your own child and you go, ‘Oh, my gosh! Wow,’” Cruise said.

But he didn’t feel the need to stop at just having three kids. At one point, Cruise pictured expanding his family with Holmes even further.

“So I’m hoping maybe I have 10 children,” Cruise once said according to Irish Examiner.

But it seems Cruise has been perfectly fine with just having three children. Since those comments, the Mission Impossible star hasn’t added any more members to his family.

Katie Holmes once described what a typical family life with Suri looked like while growing up

Lately, there have been rumors that Cruise and Suri had a bit of a falling out. But if Holmes is to be believed, this wasn’t always the case. Although Cruise has been very reluctant to talk about his daughter in interviews, Holmes has given insight into their family life from time to time.

“We’re all together. We like to be together, so we use the house for our [business] meetings,” Holmes once said in a 2008 interview with Glamour. “[We] play Yahtzee, board games, Scrabble. We grill; have pool parties. We play ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and Suri is the Big Bad Wolf. [Tom] reads storybooks to Suri, and we all laugh. When a good song comes on, he’ll break out in a dance. We’ll watch movies in bed—recently Madagascar and Cinderella, for Suri. We really have a good time. “

Holmes also revealed how she and her family handled Suri being in the spotlight. Cruise was much calmer about the celebrity gossip that surrounded their family than Holmes was.

“We were changing diapers. He said, ‘I don’t want you to get upset.’ And I said, Well, I am upset.’ So we approached it together,” Holmes said. “But I definitely felt like—as a woman, as the mother of Suri—I want to handle this! My mom is very strong, and if anyone ever said anything about any of us, she would be, ‘Excuse me? That’s my family!’”

Why there are rumors Tom Cruise has a very distant relationship with his and Katie Holmes’ daughter

There have been reports floating around for years that Cruise and Suri don’t really have the best relationship. The reason for their relationship issues is due to Suri and Holmes allegedly severing ties from Cruise’s Scientology religion. It seems, if the rumors are true, the family hasn’t mended their relationship since. So much so that a source recently told Daily Mail that Suri and Holmes are no longer concerned with Cruise.

“Suri will not have any contact with her father, despite being 18, and even if he called, she would not answer,” the insider said. “He does not exist to Katie or Suri, and his daughter does not want to rely on him for anything.”

Recent reports that Suri changed her last name have only fueled the ongoing speculation of her relationship with her father. Suri dropped the name Cruise, and now goes by Suri Noelle. The name is a homage to her mother’s middle name.

Jamie Foxx Turned Down ‘Dreamgirls’ Until He Found out Eddie Murphy Was Starring in the Film

Antonio Stallings — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 22:14:40 +0000

Eddie Murphy played a huge part in Jamie Foxx doing the 2006 picture Dreamgirls. Foxx initially wasn’t that committed until learning one of his idols would be a part of the picture.

How Jamie Foxx ended up in ‘Dreamgirls’

Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy | Mark Davis/WireImage

Foxx ended up adding even more star-power to the already star-studded Dreamgirls. The movie cast already huge names like Murphy, Beyoncé, and Jennifer Hudson for the project. But when the critically acclaimed feature was first brought to Foxx, he confided that he wasn’t too receptive to the role.

Foxx was asking for a particular salary to appear in Dreamgirls, but his asking price was so high that negotiations broke down. It wasn’t until Foxx found out who he’d be working with that he decided his salary wouldn’t matter.

“The first time, it was just me in the movie – no Eddie Murphy, no Beyoncé. Then I hear Eddie’s doing it, and I’m like: ‘Hey, pay me a dollar.’ I hear Beyoncé’s doing it: ‘Pay me a quarter.’ I just wanted to be part of that,” Foxx once said according to Irish Examiner. “At the end of the day, who cares, man? It’s Eddie Murphy. He’s my hero.”

Foxx also believed that the quality of the movie would’ve been worth more than any paycheck the film could’ve afforded him.

“If Dreamgirls works out as I think it will, it will be the greatest thing in the world, a real event. Maybe you won’t get $15m, maybe you get $3m , maybe $2m…you are getting more than a paycheck,” Foxx added.

Jamie Foxx felt he had to be mean to Eddie Murphy and Beyoncé in ‘Dreamgirls’

There was some concern that Foxx’s character might’ve been a bit too unlikable in Dreamgirls. The comedian played Curtis Taylor Jr. In the flick, Foxx’s character was the owner of a record label trying to push Beyoncé and Hudson to mainstream success. But Curtis could be a very cruel personality, which even the film’s director, Bill Condon, worried might hurt Foxx’s image.

“Bill Condon even asked me, do you think Curtis is too mean? Should we make him likeable? And I said, if you do that, now you’re going away from what the character really is, and I think Curtis is the sacrificed bunt for the rest of the characters. I’ll sacrifice the Jamie Foxx hottness for a minute, because if you don’t play characters like Curtis unforgiving, then the struggle of Jamie Foxx, and the struggle of Beyoncé and Eddie Murphy, you soften it,” Foxx once said according to Black Film.

Foxx even took his role a step further, and acted like Curtis behind the scenes to his castmates. Foxx believed this would’ve made their interaction come across more authentically to audiences.

“When I tell you, I was terrible! But I knew that if I came at [Beyonc] tough, that it would create this sort of thing that she would be able to- because it has to be real, and if you don’t feel that it’s real, then you won’t catch it. And even another thing too, you can’t deny that Beyoncé is larger than life, you can’t deny that Eddie Murphy is larger than life, so if Curtis slams Eddie Murphy and the character at the same time, that’s what makes it more effective, so that’s why I think it was important to play him that way,” Foxx said.

Jamie Foxx wants to work with Eddie Murphy again, but in comedy

Foxx and Murphy haven’t worked together since Dreamgirls. But Foxx would be interested in working alongside Murphy again in the world of comedy. It’s been decades since either of them have returned to their roots of pure stand-up. Both comedians have talked about returning to the stage, which Foxx wouldn’t mind sharing with Murphy if given the opportunity.

“I would go on tour with Eddie! I want Eddie,” Foxx once said on The Ellen Show. “I would love to go on tour with Eddie because I think, it’s our time. You haven’t heard from him in a minute and you haven’t heard from me. And I got it. I got some super-duper jokes and I’ve been working on my impersonations.”

Meagan Good Briefly Thought She Was Auditioning for a Shaquille O’Neal Movie Instead of ‘Shazam’

Antonio Stallings — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 21:44:22 +0000

Actor Meagan Good accomplished her goal of starring in a superhero project when she was cast in the DC movie Shazam. But she was initially kept in the dark about the project when she was auditioning for the movie. Which was why she briefly confused Shazam for a cult-classic 90s superhero film.

Meagan Good once shared how she was cast in ‘Shazam’

Meagan Good | Araya Doheny/WireImage

Good’s casting in the first Shazam film may have come as a bit of a surprise. Like the movie’s titular superhero, Good’s character was ten-year-old Darla Dudley, who would gain the ability to turn into a super-powered adult. The chance to star in the superhero movie was a big step for Good, who hoped to nab an action role years prior to her casting.

“For me, again, I really wanted to get into the action space. I decided four or five years ago to make a conscious decision to transform my body, to start working out. Thirty-five was popping up, and I was like, ‘Alright, it’s time to change everything,’” she once told Comic Book Resources. “A big reason why is I didn’t see a lot of Black women in that space. I definitely didn’t see a lot of women of color in the space of the Marvel or DC Universe. So, I said in my mind, ‘I want to be in this universe, so I am going to transform my body.’ My thought was, ‘I just want little brown-skinned girls to be able to see themselves and to say, ‘Oh, I can be that, too. I can do that, too.’”

Good’s training eventually paid off in a surprising way. Going into Shazam, she had no idea she was trying out for an actual DC superhero movie. When she was finally told the movie she was auditioning for, she confused it for an old Shaquille O’Neal film.

“When I ended up getting Darla Dudley, I had no idea what I was auditioning for — like zero. I went in and pretended to be a 10-year-old, which was totally up my alley because I am very weird,” she said. “When I found out, two weeks later, that I got it, I was like, ‘What is it?’ They were like, Shazam. I was like, ‘With Shaquille O’Neal?’ They were like, ‘No, that’s Kazaam. This is Shazam.'”

But Good soon realized Shazam was exactly the kind of role she’d been waiting for.

“So, I went and researched it, and when I realized I was actually playing a 10-year-old, I was like, ‘Now, little girls really can see themselves as a superhero and really can look and say, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’ It’s been a fun character to play, to get my goofy side out, and to work with Faithe Herman, who is little Darla. In this next installment, I think I am 12 or 13 now,” Good said.

What Meagan Good liked and didn’t like about playing her ‘Shazam’ character

Good managed to bring the kind of representation she wanted to see in superhero films with Shazam. But there were other surface-level aspects of playing Darla that she enjoyed. She actually seemed to like adopting her character’s 10-year-old personality as much as she enjoyed playing a superhero.

“I also love, because I definitely wanted to do the action and be kick-ass, but I love that I get to be a little girl. I love that I get to show the goofy side of myself because I don’t get to show that in most of the characters that I play, so it’s kind of like the best of two worlds,” Good once told Cinemablend.

As much as she enjoyed the stunts, however, there was one stunt that pushed the former Nickelodeon star to her mental and physical limit. And that was the flying.

“I will say, I don’t like being dropped. With that, I had to drop 90 feet or something. My heart was in my butt. It was terrifying, and it took 10 times. Once I got my body to stop shaking, I couldn’t get my face to stop doing the same. Eventually, we got it. That’s my only qualm, but I will do it every time,” she said.

Meagan Good Once Gave Her Co-Star Dennis Quaid a Safe Word in ‘The Intruder’

Antonio Stallings — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 20:59:47 +0000

Actor Dennis Quaid co-starred alongside Cousin Skeeter star Meagan Good in the 2019 horror thriller The Intruder. Given how intense and intimate the movie was, Good asserted that scenes could be a bit extreme between herself and her onscreen partner — so much so that she joked that she needed to establish a safe word.

What Meagan Good thought about working with Dennis Quaid in ‘The Intruder’

Meagan Good | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

The Intruder was a callback to older thrillers. Good starred in the 2019 feature alongside Michael Ealy as a young couple being stalked and harassed by their house’s previous homeowner. Good had already worked with Ealy before. But Intruder marked the first time the actor teamed up with Dennis Quaid, whom she was a huge fan of growing up.

“With Dennis, it’s something a little different because I grew up watching him, and he’s absolutely incredible,” Good once told Brief Take. “When I get into scenes with him, there’s something about movie stars from the ’80s, ’90s, there’s not a lot of movie stars, so the way that you approach a scene and you’d be willing to try anything, no matter how crazy it was, because that’s where the magic was – that was very inspiring to me. Also, he would say to me, ‘Yeah, let’s go find the magic. Let’s just go there and see what happens.'”

Quaid played the obsessive villain in the thriller, which required him and the Shazam star to go to some potentially dark places while filming. Although Quaid was cautious when collaborating with Good, she reassured Quaid that he could push her to her limits. And if he went too far, she’d let him know.

“There’s some pretty intense scenes, and I was like, ‘Just go for it. I’ll give you a safe word,'” Good said in a resurfaced interview with 5 On Your Side.

Dennis Quaid insisted that Meagan Good spit on him during one ‘Intruder’ scene

The Intruder filmmaker Deon Taylor wanted Good and Quaid to watch past thrillers that inspired the film. One frame of reference Taylor used was Fatal Attraction.

“Deon brought up early on that he wanted us to watch the scene from Fatal Attraction where Glenn Close and Michael Douglas had this love scene where she had her hand in the sink, and then she started wiping the water on their faces while they were making out,” Good once told The Young Folks.” Deon wanted us to have that creativity and freedom and see whatever happens because that’s when the magic happens.”

Quaid took Taylor’s advice to heart and insisted he and Good improvise this critical scene in the movie.

“So as Dennis and I are doing our scene, he whispers to me, ‘Spit on me.’ I was like, ‘I’m going to act like he didn’t say that,'” Good recalled. “So as we kept doing the scene, he said it again, with a little more voice. I’m just like, ‘Oh my God, what is happening?'”

But Good eventually acquiesced after Taylor agreed with Quaid’s idea.

“Now just imagine Deon in the room watching the camera yelling, ‘Spit on him!’ So I just end up doing something light, but Dennis is like, ‘No, get a good one!’ So I did it, and it was cool because that type of freedom allowed us to see what worked and how to make it as creepy as possible,” Good said.

Meagan Good once shared what made doing horror movies different from other genres

Good was always a fan of horror films and even starred in a few scary movies herself, like Venom and The Unborn. The Intruder also fell into this category; it just took a more grounded approach to the genre. What Good enjoyed about starring opposite Quaid was that she could tap into emotions she couldn’t in other film genres.

“People go, ‘Oh, horror movies are just … you know.’ And I’m like, ‘No. In every other movie, you go through experiencing whatever the character is going through,” she said in an interview with Roger Ebert. “But in this genre, you go through experiencing, ‘How do I survive? How do I live? At what point does this kick in? At what point do I feel like I’m not going to make it? At what point do I decide that it doesn’t matter if it’s life or death?'”

This allowed Good to truly put herself in the position of her character in horror flicks.

“To even be on set and to go there, it just reminds you that you’re living life,” she continued. “And it just makes you think whether you’re in that situation, and the you start asking yourself, ‘What would I do?'”

How ‘Castle’ Creator Wanted the Show to Be Different From ‘Law & Order’

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 20:09:00 +0000

The Law & Order series is one of the most successful franchises on television, so much so it even spawned a few successful spin-offs. Despite its success, however, the Castle creator was unimpressed with the series’ quality. And he set out to make a show that had everything he believed Law & Order didn’t.

‘Castle’ creator Andrew Marlowe felt ‘Law & Order’ was very dry

Nathan Fillion | Nicole Wilder/Getty Images

Castle creator Andrew Marlowe was already a successful screenwriter before creating his hit television series. He wrote films like Air Force One and End of Days. But it was his experience with writing films that made him want to tackle doing a television series instead.

“Well, I was primarily a feature writer, and I was stuck in my ten-by-ten room, and I thought, wouldn’t it be great to get out of the room and actually do some of the things I was writing about? Just translating that notion to Castle seemed relatively friendly,” Marlowe once told Assignment X. “What is it like to have a writer who has all this book information actually have to go out into the real world? There is also a part of me where I love the old murder mysteries.”

But Marlowe didn’t want Castle to be like the procedurals he saw on modern television. To him, these shows didn’t have enough focus on character, which he hoped to remedy with his own project.

“The recent procedurals like CSI and Law & Order are a little too dry for me, because it doesn’t really focus on the character, it focuses on the minutia of the law or the minutia of the evidence that I like to call ‘evidence porn,’ because they show it in beautiful light to the music montage,” Marlowe said. “What I was missing were the characters that I loved growing up on the shows like Rockford and Columbo, Moonlighting, all those great mysteries.”

“So between me wanting to get out in the world and do stuff and projecting that onto Castle and wanting to be part of a show that had great characters that felt like the shows that I loved growing up, I just came up with this idea,” he added.

Similarly, one of the reasons why Fillion was drawn to Castle was because of its humor. The Rookie star felt his show’s lighthearted nature was a stark contrast to more serious shows like Law & Order.

“If people are like me and watch a crime drama, and they say, oh that would have been a really good joke there if he only went for it,” Fillion once told My Take On TV. “There was a call back, all you have to do is say that would have been a good joke. On Castle, we go for it. The humor in life. On Castle, we try to find the life. We’re not all dark, driven, and haunted. It’s people doing their job, going out there. There’s comedy in life. On Castle, we find it.”

Andrew Marlowe felt Nathan Fillion’s ‘Firefly’ connection helped ‘Castle’

Although he crafted the character, Marlowe felt Fillion’s performance had a huge influence on the role. He credited Fillion for a lot of the show’s humor.

“Nathan’s brought Castle to life in such a unique and specific way that it all has to be filtered through that brand of humor, that irreverent attitude, and to be able to play it with charm, given that we’re dealing with dead bodies, so he doesn’t come across as being insensitive. And I think that Nathan’s really able to walk that fine line, and we’re able to write to it,” Marlowe said about Fillion.

But Marlowe also believed that Fillion’s Firefly roots played another part in Castle‘s overall success. Fillion might’ve cultivated such a devoted fanbase with the sci-fi series, that they followed the actor on his Castle journey.

“I think that they’ve been very helpful,” Marlowe said. “His Firefly fans are very devoted to him and we appreciate being able to share the same universe as them.”

It helped that Castle featured quite a few references to Firefly. There was one Halloween-themed Castle episode where Fillion even dressed up as his Firefly counterpart Malcolm Reynolds.

“It was actually the writer of the episode, Terry Miller, who brought the idea to us, because it was a Halloween episode and she felt it would be a natural way to honor Nathan’s fans,” Marlowe remembered. “And we took it and ran with it, and Nathan was very excited, I was very excited by it, but that came from one of our writers [saying], ‘You know what would be cool?'”

Jennifer Lopez Once Shared That She Keeps Ignoring Red Flags in Relationships

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 17:27:00 +0000

Jennifer Lopez hasn’t let previous break-ups hinder her search for true love. But she acknowledged that there were a few bad habits she could fall into when looking for a romantic partner.

Jennifer Lopez knows that she’s made some mistakes

Jennifer Lopez | Lionel Hahn/WireImage

Lopez has fallen in love more than a few times. Before reuniting with Ben Affleck, some of her most famous relationships were with Marc Anthony, Alex Rodriguez, and Casper Smart. But experiencing great love has often led to Lopez dealing with a lot of heartache afterwards. And it’s been a process that’s inspired Lopez to look inward.

“Everybody has seen that I make mistakes. I rush in, I get swept up and I ignore the signs. But so many of us are guilty of these things,” she once told Elle (via Her). “Each time it goes wrong, it’s hard. I get really hurt but I have to let myself go: ‘What did I do? What can I learn?’ And as hard and as hurtful as things get, I want to believe I will be able to go one step higher. I’ve got to hope that if I keep going I will eventually get it right.”

Lopez showed that she wasn’t jaded about her past experiences, and still held out hope that her right person was waiting for her.

“I still believe in love. The nirvana man, he’s out there somewhere. But you just have to work at it. You have to work at everything,” she said.

Jennifer Lopez liking a post about relationship red flags fanned rumors about her and Ben Affleck’s break-up

For a while it seemed that Lopez had found the partner she was looking for all along in Ben Affleck. The pair famously started dating in 2002 after meeting on the set of Gigli. They were on their way to marriage before their engagement ended in 2004. Affleck suggested that the intense scrutiny they experienced from the media played a part in ending their relationship.

“I would say [media attention] was about 50 percent [of what destroyed our relationship],” Affleck said not too long ago on The Howard Stern Show. “The idea that people hate you and they hate you together and that being together is poison and ugly and toxic and the thing none of us want to be part of.”

But in hindsight, it turned out their break-up was just a temporary but long break. The two shocked many after they reunited in 2021, only to pick up where they left off and marry a year later.

However, recent reports have suggested that Lopez and Affleck may be heading for another final break up this time. The speculation comes from the fact that Affleck and Lopez haven’t been seen together at certain events. It was alleged that The Accountant star moved out of his and Lopez’s home. And just recently, it was revealed that both Lopez and Affleck spent their 4^th of July holiday apart.

These reports have inspired curious fans to snoop around on Lopez’s social media. There, they found that the Atlas star liked a post on Instagram from a well-known relationship coach.

“You can’t build a relationship with someone who is disconnected from themselves. We can’t expect someone to see us when we can’t even see themselves. Getting in a relationship is the easy part. Nurturing & fostering it is a different story. After all, love is not a feeling, it’s action,” the liked post read according to E! News.

Many wondered if this was Lopez discreetly sharing her personal feelings towards her relationship with Affleck.

It remains to be seen if the celebrity couple is actually heading for a divorce. Only time will tell if both Lopez and Affleck have run into familiar red flags again.

Jennifer Lopez Knew Aspiring Actors Wouldn’t Be Successful if They Said These Words

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 01:31:00 +0000

Jennifer Lopez knew what it took to be successful in the entertainment industry. So when aspiring actors and singers asked her for this one piece of advice, she felt that it showed they weren’t ready for the spotlight.

Jennifer Lopez felt these types of aspiring actors weren’t going to make it

Jennifer Lopez | Marleen Moise/Getty Images

Lopez seemed to take no shortcuts as she pursued Hollywood success. She initially started her career as a dancer, ending up on Keenen Ivory Wayans’ In Living Color as a Fly Girl. The sketch comedy show helped launch several actors’ careers, including Lopez’s, who would pursue film roles after leaving In Living Color. Some of her earlier film roles were Mi Familia, Money Train, and Serena, which earned her critical acclaim and more opportunities.

She was also able to enjoy a successful music career, having released the record On the 6 in 1999. Her film success could only be matched by her musical accomplishments at one point, as On the 6 went on to sell eight million copies. Since then, she’s released nine studio albums, establishing herself her singing career.

Lopez has often cited her tireless work ethic as the source for her success. But she’s also conveyed an incredible amount of passion for all the work she’s done.

“I’ve never been motivated by money. I’ve always been motivated by – I wanna be a great actress; I wanna be a great singer, a great dancer. I wanna make movies; I wanna make music. And the money came along with that,” she once told GQ.

Lopez felt in order to make it in the entertainment industry, aspiring artists required a similar amount of passion and resilience. Which was why Lopez often wrote off artists who asked her this one question.

“When people ask me, ‘How do I do this? How do I get into this?’ I think to myself, ‘You’re not going to do this,’” Lopez said in a 2021 interview with Elle. “Because if you’re going to do this, there is a drive within you that will find a way and you don’t need anybody to tell you, ‘You should do this, or you should do that.’ That’s not how it goes. It’s just knocking on the wall and finding a way. When people ask that question, I go, ‘This person probably is looking for a shortcut.’ There is no one sure way to become an actor or start making music. People fall into it in different ways, in their own time.”

Jennifer Lopez loved being a mentor

Although Lopez would offer some tough love to her younger peers, she asserted that she really did enjoy being a mentor. She’s seen less experienced actors in the same position that she might’ve been in during her younger years, and didn’t hesitate to offer sage advice.

“I like sharing the experience that I have. When I work with younger actors and I see them banging their head up against the wall, really trying to make this moment work, it’s just like: The most important thing you can do right now is relax. Let’s just be, let’s just live,” Lopez said. “You start off and you have all of these ambitions: ‘I’m going to be the greatest actor of all time and I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that.’ You can and you will, but how you become that is to relax into it and understand that you know what you’re doing and that you’ve put in the work. The more relaxed, the more aware I can be, the better.”

What Jennifer Lopez would’ve done differently as an actor

On the surface, it seemed that Lopez had little to regret when it came to her career. But there were a few decisions she would’ve tweaked if she could go back in time. When she was starting out, Lopez would try to accept too many movie offers. This was because diverse roles for Latina roles were scarce. But when Lopez became a bigger actor, she still found herself not as particular with her film roles as she should’ve been.

“I didn’t get called in for everything someone who wasn’t Latina would get called in for. I got called in for very specific things,” she said. “As I started getting more leads here and there, I should have pulled back. I took that mindset with me instead of going, ‘I should only work with certain kinds of directors that I really want to work with. I should choose this material in a different way.’ I just wasn’t as particular as I could be, I think. And if I [could] start over, I think I would’ve done that. I would’ve known that the director is really the helm of the project when you’re acting. Just like in singing, the producers you work with are very important. I knew that with music, but I didn’t quite understand it as much when I was younger about directors.”

Tracey Edmonds Once Felt Her Ex Diddy Was Funnier Than Former Husband Eddie Murphy

Antonio Stallings — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:42:00 +0000

Eddie Murphy has been involved in a lot of relationships, including with business woman Tracey Edmonds. After the two broke up, Edmonds would later move on with controversial mogul Diddy. After being with both, Edmonds made an interesting comparison between the two.

Tracey Edmonds allegedly dated Diddy not too long after her divorce from Eddie Murphy

Tracey Edmonds and Eddie Murphy | Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Murphy and Edmonds might be more known for their intense and sudden break-up rather than their relationship. The two had been linked together since 2006, then married two years later in 2008. But their marriage spelled a quick end for the couple, who would divorce just after 14 days after exchanging their vows.

It wasn’t long before Murphy moved on, however. After Edmonds, Murphy started dating Paige Butcher in 2012. The two have been together ever since, with Murphy and Butcher eventually becoming engaged in 2018.

Edmonds reportedly also moved on fairly quickly as well with another celebrity. After Edmonds’ divorce from Murphy, she was linked to Bad Boys CEO Diddy. The Daily Mirror once claimed that Edmonds held Diddy in even higher regard than Murphy. Even when it came to humor.

“Diddy is the funniest man I’ve ever met. I’m so lucky to find someone so soon after Eddie,” Edmonds once allegedly said. “It’s early days – we’ve only been on three or four dates – but he’s whisked me off my feet. I don’t know about wedding bells but he’s definitely the man for me.”

But it’s worth noting that Diddy denied the claims at the time.

“There’s nothing between me and Tracey – and Eddie and I are old friends,” Diddy once said according to Irish Examiner.

Edmonds would later be officially linked to former football player Deion Sanders, who she started dating in 2012. The two engaged in 2019, but Edmonds called off their engagement in 2023.

Why Tracey Edmonds’ marriage with Eddie Murphy ended so quickly

There have been plenty of rumors floating around Edmonds’ and Murphy’s sudden divorce. Several sources stepped forward after their separation to add some context to the situation. One insider claimed that a quick change in Murphy’s behavior played a factor.

“That was kind of the last straw,” the source once said according to HuffPost. “She was happy to sign a prenup – she has her own money. She was very accommodating. But then it was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Eddie became very controlling and they got into a huge fight. He started screaming at her and grabbed her. She was scared. She was even willing to change her name to Tracey Murphy, and all the wedding invites and place cards had her labeled as such.”

According to People, their divorce was foreshadowed even as early as the wedding. Other sources claimed that the two were involved in an intense argument in the middle of their ceremony, which brought Edmonds to tears. What added even more layers to their divorce was the speculation that Murphy’s mother, Lillian, wasn’t a fan of Edmonds.

“[Lillian] basically said, ‘It’s me or her,’ to Eddie,” another insider claimed.

Both Murphy and Edmonds have been very private about the true reason behind their divorce. They simply released the kind of statement public figures typically used when announcing a break-up.

“After much consideration and discussion, we have jointly decided that we will forgo having a legal ceremony as it is not necessary to define our relationship further. While the recent symbolic union in Bora Bora was representative of our deep love, friendship and respect that we have for one another on a spiritual level, we have decided to remain friends,” they said.

Tracey Edmonds’ ex-husband knew that marrying Eddie Murphy was a bad idea

Before dating Murphy, Edmonds was dating and married to Kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds. Babyface was a singer who was married to Edmonds from 1992 to 2005. After the divorce, Babyface had a feeling that Edmonds’ new relationship with the Beverly Hills star wouldn’t last. But he chose not to voice his concerns.

“I didn’t think it was the best thing…I didn’t know Eddie…so, I said to Tracey, ‘It’s your decision..’ It wasn’t for me to step-in…but things happened the way they were supposed to happen,” Babyface once told Oprah (via Jasmine Brand).

Given what happened between Murphy and Edmonds, it seemed Babyface might’ve known his ex-wife quite well.

Idris Elba Questioned if He Was Really ‘Acting’ in Some of His Intense Roles

Antonio Stallings — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 03:33:00 +0000

Actor Idris Elba has played a wide variety of roles on his rise to movie stardom. But when portraying some of his more extreme characters, Elba wondered if what he was doing could really be considered acting.

Idris Elba | Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images

Elba has gone out of his way to play characters that are different from his previous roles. He gained momentum by portraying the iconic Stringer Bell in the hit television series The Wire. After leaving the show, it would’ve been easy for Elba to do similar characters. But he chose to branch out instead.

“Playing Stringer Bell put me on the map as an actor in America. I had worked in England and I had done decent work, but getting a role on The Wire expanded me into the US in a way that I couldn’t have hoped for,” he once said on The Talks. “And after that, I continued to get better, bigger roles; I got to work with some really good people.

“So The Wire really shifted my career massively. But I should be adapting and trying different things, and I think throughout my career, I’ve dodged the bullet of, ‘Oh, you were great as this role, we would love to see you play that role again.’ I have been offered roles that feel very similar to other work I’ve done, and I have definitely tried to avoid those. It can be difficult for my fan base, they are always surprised! And whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I’m not sure.”

Elba’s strategy paid off, allowing him to add even more diversity to his film career. Although he set out to play many different characters, he always looked for a few common traits in his roles.

“The roles I take tend to have that complexity, and I enjoy diving into them, because, yeah, this is therapy time. A lot of times I read something in a script and I think, ‘I’m secretly dealing with that,’” Elba once told The Guardian.

But Elba channeled so much of his real emotions doing these characters, that he wondered if he was cheating a little when performing them.

“If you’re only dealing with certain facets of your own personality, is that really acting? People sometimes tell me, ‘You were good in this or that role’, and I think, ‘You don’t realize. I was dealing with that s*** for real,’” he said.

Idris Elba once felt playing villains was therapeutic

Perhaps the roles that offered him the most catharsis were movie villains, which Elba had portrayed quite a few times in his career. The Wire, Beasts of No Nation, and The Suicide Squad saw Elba explore some morally questionable and downright despicable characters. But Elba felt these types of personalities offered a kind of release that other roles didn’t.

“These people get to say things that we only think in the deepest, darkest recesses of our brains,” Elba once told Wall Street Journal. “They say horrible things and scream horrible things and get to be completely socially unacceptable. As an actor, that’s sometimes a gift, sometimes a bit of therapy.”

But Elba also gave credit to the people who came up with these villainous characters to play in the first place.

“When you see a really interesting bad guy, you’re going to think about the actor, but think about the writer,” he said. “It’s the writer who’s dark. You’ve got to give him or her a hug.”

Idris Elba revealed he went to therapy because of his unhealthy work habits

As much therapy as acting might provide Elba, the Beast star recently confided that he sees an actual therapist for another reason. Speaking on the Changes With Annie MacManus podcast, Elba shared how he used therapy to combat being a workaholic.

“I’ve been in therapy the last… about a year now. It’s a lot right? In my therapy I’ve been thinking a lot about changing… like neuropaths being shifted,” Elba said. “It’s not because I don’t like myself or anything like that. It’s just because I have some unhealthy habits that have really formed. And I work in an industry that I’m rewarded for those unhealthy habits. I’m rewarded for them. I’m an absolute workaholic. And that isn’t great for life, generally.”