Exclusive: Julianne Hough on her 'Footloose' screen test
Who might be kicking off their Sunday shoes soon? Julianne Hough, the talented ballroom dancer who has twice won ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, auditioned this week for the remake of Footloose, which will star Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford. Hough is one of country music’s fastest rising singers and we talked just about an hour ago because she is nominated for the USA WEEKEND Breakthrough Video Award to be given at the CMT Music Awards next month. (Look for that interview here next week.) The remake of Footloose, which starred Kevin Bacon back in 1984, this time features Crawford as the rebel stirring things up in a non-dancing town, and will be directed by Kenny Ortega (High School Musical). Hough says that she’s been reading scripts for acting roles for the last couple of years, but this is the first movie she’s auditioned for. “The experience in itself was incredible,” the 20-year-old performer says. “Chase is a really cool dude and we got along great. It was just fun. I don’t know what will happen, but just getting this far is really, really cool.” Hough’s audition consisted of a couple of songs from the original movie, but her favorite? “I don’t think that anybody can deny that Almost Paradise is one of the best songs out there.” Now, all she can do is wait for the phone to ring, Hough says. “Usually people are focused on one thing and then something will happen after, but with me, somehow everything always happens at the exact same time with the music, the dancing and the singing. It’s all right there and I’m like, ‘Aww, I want to do it all!’ ”
Photo by Ondrea Barbe
Hank Azaria talks about his summer movies
Hank Azaria, 45, has two fun roles this summer — first as the malevolent Kahmunrah (at right) in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (now playing) and then the Old Testament prophet Abraham in the Biblical comedy Year One (June 19). The man of many voices (he's been multiple characters on The Simpsons since it began) talked with Jon Tollestrup for my summer movies page. Click read more for the full interview below.
Photos courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox and Sony Pictures
Anthony Head on 'Invisibles,' 'Merlin' and a possible 'Buffy' movie
Ever since I became a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer some 10 years ago, I’ve wanted to talk to Anthony Head, who played the tweed-clad librarian Rupert Giles in the cult TV show. I finally got a chance to interview him this morning, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. This week, his English crime comedy The Invisibles debuted on DVD in the U.S., and the first season of the BBC series Merlin — a reimagining of the King Arthur legend in which Head plays, in Buffy terms, the “big bad” — premieres on NBC June 21. We talked about The Invisibles, Merlin and that possible Buffy movie that’s been creating an Internet uproar all week so click read more for his thoughts on those subjects, and check out a Merlin sneak preview below.
Photo courtesy of Acorn Media
Meet summer's supporting players in Who's News this week
This week's Who's News page is all about those other actors in summer movies — you know, the ones who don't always command star billing but are definitely interesting. Click the link above to read it because I want you to meet:
• Olivia Wilde, who sheds her weekly serious side as the terminally ill Thirteen on Fox’s House to play the princess of Sodom in the Biblical comedy Year One coming June 19. She loved having fun with Jack Black.
• Little Yara Shahidi, 9, who plays Eddie Murphy's precocious daughter in Imagine That, out June 12. She's like Eddie's female mini-me.
• Jane Lynch, no relation, who is often the hilarious second banana and was just seen in the pilot for Fox's Glee. She plays Meryl Streep's, er, I mean Julia Child's sister in Julie & Julia, coming in July.
• The lovable John Krasinski, who plays a very sweet role as a soon-to-be father in Away We Go. He gives credit where credit is due — to The Office.
• Kathy Bates, who capped the shoot for Cheri, out June 26, with a 60th birthday celebration in Paris.
• Hank Azaria, who is a scene-stealer in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian but also is in Year One with Olivia Wilde and gang.
You can read more about Hank in an upcoming post today, but look for interviews with Wilde, Lynch and Shahidi as their movies open in the next three months.
Photo by Suzanne Hanover
Celebrity Birthdays: Annette Bening, Carmelo Anthony
Annette Bening, the woman who tamed Warren Beatty, turns 51. The American Beauty Oscar nominee stars next in Mother and Child, opposite Naomi Watts. Denver Nuggets basketballer Carmelo Anthony is 25 today, and he'll be trying to stave off elimination from the NBA Playoffs by Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers tonight. Melissa Etheridge, musician and gay rights activist, turns 48. She recently won an Oscar for her track I Need to Wake Up, which was the theme song for Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Monk's Ted Levine, who creeped moviegoers out as serial killer Buffalo Bob in The Silence of the Lambs, turns 52. He'll have a part in Martin Scorsese's next project, this fall's Shutter Island. Rupert Everett, the English guy in romantic comedies such as My Best Friend’s Wedding, is 50; film composer and ex-Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman is 56; and former Spice Girl Melanie Brown turns 34 today.
Photo by Suzanne Tenner
May 28, 2009
Corey Reynolds is a superstar on ‘The Closer,’ maybe a superhero as well?
Over the next month or so, TNT will be rolling out new seasons of its signature shows, including the June 8 premiere of The Closer. It’s been one of cable television’s most popular series over the past four seasons, and for the upcoming fifth-season opener, I recently talked with star Corey Reynolds for an item on Lorrie’s Who’s News page. He says that last season's theme for the show — which revolves around a group of L.A. murder detectives led by Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick), their headstrong deputy chief — was “power,” but this year it’s all about change. “Without giving away too much, it may even involve some changes within the squad,” Reynolds teases. Click read more to see what else he had to say about The Closer, his Broadway background and the superhero he’s dying to play on the big screen. And be sure to check out a sneak peek of the June 8 season premiere below.
Photo by Karen Neal
'ER' star welcomes a new baby boy
Parminder Nagra, who we will be featuring on our upcoming June 12-14 Who’s News page, gave birth to a son, Kai David Singh Stenson, on May 19. It’s the 33-year-old ER star’s first child with husband James Stenson. Nagra spent six seasons on the NBC medical drama, which ended its 15-year-old run last month, and also starred alongside Keira Knightley in Bend It Like Beckham.
Photo by Spiros Poros
Star sightings in Beverly Hills
I travel to L.A. fairly regularly for my job so I'm not usually surprised when I catch a celebrity sighting in an unexpected place. Wednesday afternoon at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills I caught two celebs, in addition to the one I was there to meet, the very charming Dennis Quaid. While waiting for Quaid, I spied America's most famous doctor, Mehmet Oz — barely recognizable out of those doc scrubs he always wore on Oprah. And after my date with Dennis, who should appear in the patio area of the lounge but his one-time screen daughter Lindsay Lohan? Lindz is ultra-thin and traveled in a big group but looked to be having a good time.
Photo courtesy of Fox
Celebrity Birthdays: Kylie Minogue, Gladys Knight
It's a very musical day of birthdays today, starting with Kylie Minogue, the international pop star and breast cancer survivor who still looks amazing at 41. The pint-sized Aussie is going strong: She released her new album Boombox in January, kicks off her first-ever North American tour in September, and recently flew to India to star in Blue, a Bollywood film set for a summer release. Another songstress, Gladys Knight, Motown’s “Empress of Soul,” turns 65 today. Popular singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat is 25, and she's hoping to again have Bubbly success with her sophomore record Breakthrough, out Aug. 25. Country star Phil Vassar is 45 — his newest single Bobbi with an I was released last month and is the first song off his upcoming fifth studio album. Also, The View's Elizabeth Hasselbeck is 32 today, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani celebrates his 65th birthday.
Photo by Leanne Buckham
May 27, 2009
John Lithgow gets killer part on 'Dexter'
OK, here's some seriously good casting news. John Lithgow, formerly of Third Rock from the Sun, will play a serial killer in Showtime's Dexter, starting in the fall. Lithgow, who has won a Tony, several Emmys and was nominated for Oscars, will be in 12 episodes of Dexter's fourth season — so this is clearly a story arc with some legs. Michael C. Hall, as Dexter, gets involved in the investigation of the killer, a suburbanite who lives a dual life. Can't wait for Dexter to get back? Alas, we must wait until the end of September.
Photo by Robert Deutsch/USA Today
