As we were fanning ourselves while watching Nicholas Hoult play a weirdly hot zombie in Warm Bodies, we had to come to terms with the fact that this strapping young actor was the adorable young-un who helped Hugh Grant get the girl in About a Boy 10 years ago. Wow, we thought, what a pleasant surprise to see these cute child stars make good … and yummy. But really, we shouldn’t be that surprised. As we started combing back through the boy stars of the early 2000s, we discovered a nice number of them had made this transition quite nicely. From big movie names like Daniel Radcliffe and Bow Wow to TV stars like Shia LaBeouf and Zac Efron, these kids are making good — and are now totally legal and not at all creepy to stare at. Enjoy 15 of them in the gallery below:
Bradley Cooper must be feeling the pressure to perform these days. It’s been months since he handed over his Sexiest Man in the World crown to Channing Tatum, and basically traded it in for an Oscar nomination. But once you have an “-iest” title, it’s really hard to go to just being a nominee (and face it, though WE love his performance in Silver Linings Playbook best of all, he’s up against Daniel Day Lewis). Meanwhile, he’s watching his much younger co-star Jennifer Lawrence grab all sorts of “sexiest” labels while also becoming a favorite to take home her own Oscar. So we think we understand why Bradley is stepping things up a bit in the PR department. And no, he’s not doing more interviews in French or talking about his uneven boobs on late-night shows. He’s getting all serious about his Silver Linings role as being very important for sufferers of mental illness.
On last night’s Hardball, he told Chris Matthews that people with bipolar disorder have told him, “I actually feel like this film sees who I am,” he said. “Because it’s heavily stigmatized. It’s not a very treatable disease. It’s a condition, that’s sort of, if we liken it to cancer, diagnosed at stage four. Well, that’s way too late. So hopefully, a movie like this will help it become, you know, [diagnosed] in the onset.”
Right after making that appearance, Cooper went to speak to 50 military vets after a screening of his film at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. And then this morning he was scheduled to speak about mental health at the Center for American Progress.
Radar Online this morning has a story about how Jennifer Lawrence’s friends are concerned that the Silver Linings Playbook star is putting her work ahead of her health. Which, yeah, that’s kind of legit, considering the fact that she’s admitted to having walking pneumonia at both the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. But if she weren’t sick, her stories (and acceptance speeches) would be so much less entertaining, wouldn’t they? Case in point: Her best tales on last night’sJimmy Kimmel Live were health-related. There were other gems too, as there have been basically every time she sits on a late-night couch. Here are seven more reasons we love JLaw, based on her latest sit-down:
She had a couple of shots of tequila (the producer’s idea) and a beer (her idea) before getting onstage.
Her main concern upon seeing a recent chest x-ray was not her pneumonia but the appearance that her breasts are different sizes. “It felt like an elephant in the room,” she said of bringing it up with her doctor. “I hope no one ever sees my breasts in an x-ray.” (Better cut that radiology scene you were planning, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay screenwriters!)
She had a 103-degree fever at the Golden Globes and still managed to give that great speech with the First Wives Club joke and a jab at her brothers.
She made this face to her dad upon seeing Adele at the next table over. The same face we would make!
One of the most pleasant surprises of last year was the fact that Magic Mike wasn’t just the frothy male stripper movie we’d been anticipating for months — it was actually a thoughtful Steven Soderbergh film with serious characters struggling to make it in Central Florida’s crappy economy. Matthew McConaughey’s turn as sleazy, self-serving and super charming club owner Dallas earned him plenty of kudos, too, including an award from the New York Critics Circle and an Independent Spirit nod. So we’re relieved to hear, straight from McConaughey’s mouth, that as plans for Magic Mike 2 are “legitimately brewing,” he would never take Dallas in any kind of cheesy, sell-out direction.
“In the right way [I would come back],” he told MTV News at Sundance last week. “It would be so much fun, but I would only be able to do to revisit Dallas if I really go, ‘OK, that’s what he would be doing.’ And Dallas can’t become like all of a sudden obviously comedic. I’d have to keep him the same tone. He’s committed.” Read more…
People who know about sports — and all of the news articles — tell us that it’s a big deal to see brothers Jim and John Harbaugh face off against each other in Sunday’s Super Bowl as head coaches of the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, respectively. That got us thinking about all the other bros who channeled their sibling rivalry into world-famous careers. (Strange, most siblings I know, myself and my sis included, almost deliberately chose radically different paths in life.) Of course, we’ve had the Baldwins, the Weinsteins, the Coens, the Hansons and the Jonases for a while. But who are the most influential brothers in entertainment right now?
Well, there are still the Wayans brothers, who haven’t made a movie together for a couple of years but whose influence is now being felt in the form of their nephews, via Happy Endings and Second Generation Wayans. James Franco has been sharing his knack for balancing mainstream flicks with weird indie projects with li’l bro Dave (who can be seen in this weekend’s Warm Bodies). Then there are the Hemsworths, whose adorable Australian mugs and breathtaking bodies have landed them the hottest movie franchises around. Donnie Wahlberg is dividing his time between the small screen (Blue Bloods) and the stage (with the NKOTB summer tour), while his younger brother Mark does double duty as a movie star and a hugely successful TV and movie producer (especially now that Entourage is heading to theaters). But for our money, the biggest bro team around at the moment is Ben and Casey Affleck. Sure, that’s mostly due to Ben’s amazing, award-winning run as the director and star of Oscar favorite Argo, but all that buzz is helping Casey’s career too. Casey’s turn in the outlaw flick Ain’t Them Bodies Saints just got plenty of good buzz at Sundance last week, and we bet you didn’t know he’s got a movie in the running at the Oscars too: He voiced the character of Mitch in last year’s Paranorman.
Who’s your favorite set of bros in the biz? Browse through our gallery and then tweet us your thoughts!
If you aren’t tuning into Happy Endings or haven’t yet caught the web series Burning Love(now headed to E!), then you’re missing the magic of Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael (pictured above with Paul Scheer and director Chris Nelson). The longtime writing/acting team is well known on the comedy circuit, and they just hit up Sundance with their lady buddy flick, Ass Backwards. The stars used a successful Kickstarter campaign to pay for the last five days of shooting, and now we’re able to bask in the glory of their finished project.
EW has an exclusive clip from the film, in which the women take a road trip back to their hometown to battle their childhood enemy (played by Alicia Silverstone, hurray!) in a beauty pageant. In it, they sing along with their CD copy of “Take On Me,” skips and all. The scene is based on their own real life road trip together. “The CDs that Casey brought with her were all scratched,” Raphael told EW. “Les Mis was fortunately or unfortunately the least scratched one so it got the most air time.”
We’re sure Anne Hathaway would approve — and sing along.
When we first looked at the photos from last night’s premiere of Warm Bodies, we were like, “Look at all the pretty young people! And also John Malkovich!” Then we looked a little closer. Joining the zombie love story’s stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Malkovich, Dave Franco, Rob Corddry, Analeigh Tipton and Cory Hardrict was a collection of what you might say are supernaturally beautiful stars. There was a vampire (Jackson Rathbone) and some werewolves (Kiowa Gordon and Booboo Stewart) from Twilight. Secret Circle witch-turned-Vampire Diaries werewolf Phoebe Tonkin repped her kind. And some Teen Wolf ladies graced the carpet too.
There weren’t any fairies or angels in sight, as far as we could tell, unfortunately. We also sorely missed the presence of a certain dystopian heroine … but Hoult was very gracious when E! asked him if he’s proud of his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lawrence, who’s looking like a favorite for an Oscar next month. “Yeah, very proud,” he said. Sniiiffff!
As we await the rest of the cast of Divergent to be announced and mark off the months until Catching Fire’s release (about a million years from now, right?), there’s plenty to keep our minds full of paranoid visions of a dark future that can only be saved by a couple of brilliant teenagers. Take, for instance, Marie Lu’s Legend trilogy, whose second book, Prodigy, hit shelves today. If you haven’t picked up the first, let us assure you that it’s not to be lumped brainlessly with all the other dystopian young adult novels out now — largely because of its unique characters, who take turns narrating their story. There’s 15-year-old Day, the Republic’s most-wanted criminal, whose ability to run from authorities and basically leap buildings in a single bound (parkour-style) helps him complete all sorts of Robin Hood pranks, stealing from the government to feed the poor. And then there’s 15-year-old June, the Republic’s star prodigy, who’s about to graduate early from military academy when her older brother (and only family member, since her parents’ death) is brutally murdered, she thinks, by Day. Their interaction is as tense and emotionally complex as the Jean Valjean/Javert conflict in Les Miserables, which Lu says was a partial inspiration for the story.
We caught up with Lu at San Diego Comic-Con last July, shortly after the screenplay for the Legend movie, which is being produced by Wyck Godfrey among others, was handed in to CBS Films. And it wasn’t hard for us to imagine a big showing for the film at one of the Con’s giant halls sometime in the future. “That would be amaaaazing. My fingers are crossed!” Lu said.
While she’s been in the loop on the screenplay, she doesn’t know what will be done as far as casting the movie, especially since it doesn’t yet have a director. (Warm Bodies‘ Jonathan Levine was once attached, but MTV reports that he’s since dropped out.) “I know you can’t find someone that’s exactly the way that I picture them in my head. I think they’ll do a pretty good job casting them in general. There’s only one character that I wrote with an actor in my head, and that was Metias, June’s brother. I always pictured Ben Barnes. I just love Ben Barnes. I’m going to cast him in anything that I write. I’ll squeeze him in there.” Read more…
Well, this is embarrassing. No, we’re not referring to our scrapbook of wedding plans for our fantasy Bradley Cooper wedding. You know we spent a lot of time and effort on that. We’re referring to producer/director J.J. Abram‘s awkward casting rumor gaffe. It all began when the Star Trek director claimed Bradley Cooper was psyched to potentially play Lance Armstrong in the film based on the upcoming book Cycle of Lies: The Fall Of Lance Armstrong. “[Cooper] sent me an email and we’ve been talking,” Abrams told Entertainment Tonight. Seemed reasonable enough (both Lance and Bradley have a similar intensity and devastating cheekbones), until we found out that J.J. hadn’t…actually…mentioned to Bradley that he was supposed to be interested. Man, this is just like when we sent out the invites to our wedding to Bradley Cooper with out technically meeting him first. We feel you, J.J.!
Considering how quickly the movie rumor mill churns, it’s kind of surprising stuff like this doesn’t happen more often. Seeing as how Abrams directed Cooper in Alias in the earlier ’00s, J.J. was probably just getting everyone psyched for Bradley’s potential role in the film and he forgot to play one important call. “Oh my god, that’s so nuts!” the Silver Linings Playbook star clarified to Access Hollywoodabout the rumors of his involvement. “I was in Manchester, doing the BBC morning show… I had no idea what [the interviewer] was talking about. I didn’t even know that J.J. has the rights, I had no idea. I don’t know anything about it.” Oh, maybe J.J. got one of those Google bot emails from Bradley’s account and just assumed he was in to play Lance? That seems like a reasonable assumption, right?
From Emma Stone and Carey Mulligan to Jennifer Lawrence, Kristen Stewart and Rooney Mara, there’s an ever-expanding group of women on the cusp of adulthood who have already landed firmly on the big screen’s A-list. And while we’re all about girl power, we’ve been wondering: Where the heck are their male contemporaries? Surely the next generation of Ben Afflecks and Bradley Coopers are out there, just waiting to be mentioned on a list like this! Look no further, friends — we’ve got our eye on 13 future big-screen big deals, and have rounded them up for your analysis below. Some, like Robert Sheehan, Nick Hoult and Max Irons are part of the YA book-to-movie phenomenon. Others, like Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller, are recent Sundance darlings. While their roles may be vastly different, they’re bonded by incredible talent (and, you know, their good looks don’t hurt anything either).
Check out their deets below so you can say you knew them when.
