The Color Purple is one of the most anticipated movies of the year. A cast featuring Danielle Brooks, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, and Fantasia is already promising on its own, but according to Oprah Winfrey, who produced the movie musical and starred in the original 1985 movie, the cast almost looked different.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Oprah revealed that Rihanna and Beyoncé were once considered for the cast, but she felt it more appropriate to give other actors an opportunity to shine.
“To be completely honest about it, if you were doing this film for $30 or $40 million, the interest in the cast would be very different,” Winfrey said. “Once the film moved to $90 to $100 million, then everybody wants us to bring Beyoncé. ‘Can you get Beyoncé or can you get Rihanna?’ So we’re sitting in a room saying, ‘Listen, we love Beyoncé. We love Rihanna, but there are other actors who can do this job.’”
Both Bey and Rihanna have had their hands full this year — Beyoncé with her Renaissance World Tour and film, and Rihanna with her fashion and make-up brands, and the birth of her newborn son. According to Oprah, their stacked schedules were taken into consideration.
“I do remember conversations about, ‘Y’all, Beyoncé is going to be busy this year.’ It wasn’t even a negotiation, because you’re not getting Beyoncé,” said Oprah
The Color Purple is one of the most anticipated movies of the year. A cast featuring Danielle Brooks, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, and Fantasia is already promising on its own, but according to Oprah Winfrey, who produced the movie musical and starred in the original 1985 movie, the cast almost looked different.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Oprah revealed that Rihanna and Beyoncé were once considered for the cast, but she felt it more appropriate to give other actors an opportunity to shine.
“To be completely honest about it, if you were doing this film for $30 or $40 million, the interest in the cast would be very different,” Winfrey said. “Once the film moved to $90 to $100 million, then everybody wants us to bring Beyoncé. ‘Can you get Beyoncé or can you get Rihanna?’ So we’re sitting in a room saying, ‘Listen, we love Beyoncé. We love Rihanna, but there are other actors who can do this job.’”
Both Bey and Rihanna have had their hands full this year — Beyoncé with her Renaissance World Tour and film, and Rihanna with her fashion and make-up brands, and the birth of her newborn son. According to Oprah, their stacked schedules were taken into consideration.
“I do remember conversations about, ‘Y’all, Beyoncé is going to be busy this year.’ It wasn’t even a negotiation, because you’re not getting Beyoncé,” said Oprah
The Color Purple is one of the most anticipated movies of the year. A cast featuring Danielle Brooks, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, and Fantasia is already promising on its own, but according to Oprah Winfrey, who produced the movie musical and starred in the original 1985 movie, the cast almost looked different.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Oprah revealed that Rihanna and Beyoncé were once considered for the cast, but she felt it more appropriate to give other actors an opportunity to shine.
“To be completely honest about it, if you were doing this film for $30 or $40 million, the interest in the cast would be very different,” Winfrey said. “Once the film moved to $90 to $100 million, then everybody wants us to bring Beyoncé. ‘Can you get Beyoncé or can you get Rihanna?’ So we’re sitting in a room saying, ‘Listen, we love Beyoncé. We love Rihanna, but there are other actors who can do this job.’”
Both Bey and Rihanna have had their hands full this year — Beyoncé with her Renaissance World Tour and film, and Rihanna with her fashion and make-up brands, and the birth of her newborn son. According to Oprah, their stacked schedules were taken into consideration.
“I do remember conversations about, ‘Y’all, Beyoncé is going to be busy this year.’ It wasn’t even a negotiation, because you’re not getting Beyoncé,” said Oprah
The rest of the world has moved on from NFTs, but not Donald Trump. The former president announced on Tuesday that he’s selling “TRUMP DIGITAL TRADING CARDS,” which come with a piece of his suit that he wore when he had his mugshot taken. “Some people call these cards pop art or modern art,” Trump said in a video to promote the cards. “I wish I looked as good as I do on those cards, that I can tell you. They give me muscles where, believe me, I don’t have them.”
Jimmy Kimmel will not be first in line to hand money over to Trump, who he dubbed the “most shameless person in the history of the world.”
“Wow,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live host said while laughing. “The cards cost $99 each, so if you buy them all, all 47 of them, for the low, low price of $4,653 plus tax, you will get a postage stamp-sized piece of the suit he wore on the day he was arrested for the fourth time. And he’s calling it the ‘most historically significant artifact in United States history.’ Isn’t that something?” Kimmel laughed again. “There are only 13 original copies of the Constitution, and who knows how many fabric swatches from a XXXL fat guy suit.”
You can watch the Jimmy Kimmel Live monologue above.
The rest of the world has moved on from NFTs, but not Donald Trump. The former president announced on Tuesday that he’s selling “TRUMP DIGITAL TRADING CARDS,” which come with a piece of his suit that he wore when he had his mugshot taken. “Some people call these cards pop art or modern art,” Trump said in a video to promote the cards. “I wish I looked as good as I do on those cards, that I can tell you. They give me muscles where, believe me, I don’t have them.”
Jimmy Kimmel will not be first in line to hand money over to Trump, who he dubbed the “most shameless person in the history of the world.”
“Wow,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live host said while laughing. “The cards cost $99 each, so if you buy them all, all 47 of them, for the low, low price of $4,653 plus tax, you will get a postage stamp-sized piece of the suit he wore on the day he was arrested for the fourth time. And he’s calling it the ‘most historically significant artifact in United States history.’ Isn’t that something?” Kimmel laughed again. “There are only 13 original copies of the Constitution, and who knows how many fabric swatches from a XXXL fat guy suit.”
You can watch the Jimmy Kimmel Live monologue above.
The rest of the world has moved on from NFTs, but not Donald Trump. The former president announced on Tuesday that he’s selling “TRUMP DIGITAL TRADING CARDS,” which come with a piece of his suit that he wore when he had his mugshot taken. “Some people call these cards pop art or modern art,” Trump said in a video to promote the cards. “I wish I looked as good as I do on those cards, that I can tell you. They give me muscles where, believe me, I don’t have them.”
Jimmy Kimmel will not be first in line to hand money over to Trump, who he dubbed the “most shameless person in the history of the world.”
“Wow,” the Jimmy Kimmel Live host said while laughing. “The cards cost $99 each, so if you buy them all, all 47 of them, for the low, low price of $4,653 plus tax, you will get a postage stamp-sized piece of the suit he wore on the day he was arrested for the fourth time. And he’s calling it the ‘most historically significant artifact in United States history.’ Isn’t that something?” Kimmel laughed again. “There are only 13 original copies of the Constitution, and who knows how many fabric swatches from a XXXL fat guy suit.”
You can watch the Jimmy Kimmel Live monologue above.
Alex Garland, the writer of 28 Days Later and director of Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men, is back with a new (and timely) movie. A24 has released the trailer for Civil War, which stars Kirsten Dunst as a war-time photographer covering a country at odds with itself. “A race to the White House in a near-future America balanced on the razor’s edge,” the plot synopsis reads.
You can watch the trailer (with President Nick Offerman) above.
“Well, in the same way that you could say Ex Machina is sci fi, Devs is a tech thriller, and Men is a horror film, Civil War is a war movie – a contemporary war movie,” Garland told Screen Daily. “It was a staggeringly difficult film to shoot. I wrapped five weeks ago, and I’ve been in the edit for the last five weeks. We’re trying to get the film in a rough cut state where everything is broadly what one is intending. But, as well as that, there’s a lot of visual effects in the movie so we’re having to decide which shots were turning over as VFX shots. It’s a very technical, non-stop process at the moment. There’s a lot going on.”
Civil War, which also stars Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jesse Plemons, and Sonoya Mizuno, opens on April 26, 2024.
Alex Garland, the writer of 28 Days Later and director of Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men, is back with a new (and timely) movie. A24 has released the trailer for Civil War, which stars Kirsten Dunst as a war-time photographer covering a country at odds with itself. “A race to the White House in a near-future America balanced on the razor’s edge,” the plot synopsis reads.
You can watch the trailer (with President Nick Offerman) above.
“Well, in the same way that you could say Ex Machina is sci fi, Devs is a tech thriller, and Men is a horror film, Civil War is a war movie – a contemporary war movie,” Garland told Screen Daily. “It was a staggeringly difficult film to shoot. I wrapped five weeks ago, and I’ve been in the edit for the last five weeks. We’re trying to get the film in a rough cut state where everything is broadly what one is intending. But, as well as that, there’s a lot of visual effects in the movie so we’re having to decide which shots were turning over as VFX shots. It’s a very technical, non-stop process at the moment. There’s a lot going on.”
Civil War, which also stars Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jesse Plemons, and Sonoya Mizuno, opens on April 26, 2024.
Years prior to this interview, I had a memorable interaction with George Clooney. Also, “interaction,” might be a strong word. It involved a conga line and fate interceding by stopping the music where a conga-dancing George Clooney happened to be stopped right next to where I was standing. Then he looked at me and offered a “put ‘er there,” handshake, then conga’d off into the night. It’s the kind of story that sounds both fake and, well, why would you want any other interaction than that one? How could it be better? (You might not be surprised to learn that, during an interview, Clooney is an extremely charming individual.)
Clooney is promoting his new directorial effort, The Boys in the Boat, based on the 2013 novel and real-life story of the University of Washington rowing crew that represented the United States at the 1936 Olympics in Germany and … well, no spoilers intended, but if the Nazis had won it’s safe to assume this movie would not exist. Callum Turner (who joins Clooney ahead) plays Joe, a blue-collar student who tries out for the rowing junior varsity team as a way to just having enough food to eat, not realizing he was a natural and would soon be on the biggest stage against literally the worst people.
Ahead, Clooney and Turner take us through their new film, including a moment where Clooney received a studio note emphasizing that the audience really needs to understand Hitler is “bad.” Also, because of my obsession with Oceans 12, I asked Clooney if since Tess knows she looks like Julia Roberts, if Danny Ocean knows he looks like George Clooney. (I have a habit of asking Oceans 12 cast members this question.) Clooney had a great answer, but, more importantly, he also said his days of playing Danny Ocean might not be over. There’s a script for another movie and he’s really happy with it.
George Clooney: How are you, brother?
I’m good. How are you?
George Clooney: You know, can’t complain.
Callum Turner: I like those posters on your wall.
Oh yeah, that one here is pure ego. I got quoted on it, so I put it up.
George Clooney: Niiiiice.
Though the one next to it is a lost movie from the ’20s…
There are clips you can watch, but the film is lost. The poster is great though…
Callum Turner: Yeah, it’s great.
So, we’ve actually met once before. It was at The Monuments Men premiere party. You were in a conga line…
George Clooney: [Laughing] Yeah…
The music stops right where I’m just minding my own business. You look at me, you give me a nod, then give this roundabout, put ‘er there handshake. Then the music starts again, and you conga it off into the night.
George Clooney: And it was Bill Murray leading that conga line, too!
That part I don’t remember.
George Clooney: Yeah, it was Bill. By the way, in general, every conga line is led by Bill Murray. A good rule of thumb in general.
So, Callum, when you two first met, was he in a conga line? I’m guessing no but I don’t know for sure.
Callum Turner: He was. And he had a GoPro on his head and that’s how we did the meeting over Zoom.
George Clooney: I don’t go anywhere without a GoPro on my head.
Well right now you don’t.
George Clooney: It’s hidden in my wig.
I didn’t know really anything about rowing before I saw this. Did you?
Callum Turner: Not much. No.
George Clooney: No. In fact, I’ve only been to a couple before it and I’d never found it all that exciting either. This was the most watched sport in America in the ’30s, more than football. They’d have 100,000 people there. And it’s a funny thing, but we don’t have any great references in film. There’s a really good montage in The Social Network.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking of.
George Clooney: It’s one of the best shot montages ever. But if you watch it, it’s not great rowing. It’s all done in slow motion and it has kept frames out and stuff. It’s not great rowing. And so, for us, it was about how do you make rowing exciting and how does it look authentic? And man, it was hard. That was a trick. You had to find a math equation to make those… that last race in particular, we have like 500 cuts in that last race.
The scene I really like that kind of explains it is every rower on the boat works as a machine and have different jobs. And that an individual might be better or worse depending on the team around him and that some teams just click even with maybe lesser talent.
George Clooney: Well, that was it. And it’s kind of like The Beatles. It’s one of those weird things where they all need each other. They were hungry and they needed to succeed to stay in school and to eat, number one. But then there’s this weird thing that happens, which doesn’t happen normally, which is that they ended up being the perfect team. When George Harrison is your third-best songwriter in your group, it’s a kind of empirical. And it’s the same thing here where you just go, these guys, they happened to be this insanely gifted group of men.
You know who Callum reminds me of in this movie? And this is always dangerous if he’s like, “Well, I hate that actor. Thanks a lot, man.” Because of the kind of gruff American accent you were doing, you reminded me of Scott Glenn.
George Clooney: Oh, that’s funny! I love Scott Glenn.
I do, too. And I was thinking Urban Cowboy-era Scott Glenn. This badass dude.
George Clooney: And also, yeah, even Scott Glenn in The Right Stuff, that kind of gruff. But it’s funny, I only met Callum doing an American accent with blond hair, basically.
Callum Turner: Until like a week ago.
George Clooney: And now it’s like, I don’t even know him anymore. I thought he was American.
Callum Turner: He didn’t even recognize me! Walked straight past me! But for me, my inspiration is with people like Gary Cooper. In High Noon, and I love that movie so much. And that stoicism and the ability to transmit how he’s feeling by doing very little was important to us in this film. And George and I worked on that and just really brought the boundaries in and closed them off. So we just knew the space to operate within.
George Clooney: There’s also a thing about sports films in general, which is kind of like war films in a way. The ones that are most effective are when you don’t talk about your emotions – particularly period-type pieces where it’s a bunch of guys going, “Okay, we got this. Okay, let’s go do it.” And there’s a vibe to that. And when Callum and I were talking about it – and Joel Edgerton, when he was playing Coach Ulbrickson – said, “We tried desperately not to have people talk about their feelings.” And it’s tricky because modern-day storytelling is, you have to say, “How does that make you feel?” And you talk about it a lot. And we sort of just said, “Well, let’s stick to our guns and see if it works.” And that was our plan all along.
Callum Turner: And it makes it more profound when someone does actually say something. Like when Ulbrickson says, “I’m proud of…”
George Clooney: “…you boys.”
Callum Turner: Yeah. It’s just a really beautiful moment.
Another thing I kept thinking about, you have built into this movie the worst human being on Earth as the villain…
George Clooney: Yeah, yeah, Hitler.
That seems like a tough balance. Like, do you keep showing him? Can you show him too much before people are like, yeah, we get it?
George Clooney: There was an interesting thing, we got some notes once from the studio where they were like, “We have to make sure that they understand how bad Hitler is.” And we’re like, “Well, I think that’s already done.”
Callum Turner: Wait, that was a note?
George Clooney: Yeah. But the trick was: because, in the script, and in the way we did it, we don’t have our guys going, “Screw this guy, screw this fucking…” Because it’s 1936. And people didn’t know yet. Some people did, people who conformed, but a lot of people didn’t know how bad it was – and certainly could never have imagined how horrible. It’d be like some terrible autocrat now as opposed to being the all-time worst dictator in the history of the world. So we had to balance that. What we’re doing going, “You can’t know that much.”
That’s a really good point. In 1936 people didn’t know quite how bad he was yet.
George Clooney: He cleaned Berlin up and made it look really friendly when everybody got there. Now the truth is, and we do it in the film, our guys didn’t salute Hitler when everyone else did. So there was some understanding, but we wanted to make sure it wasn’t like, “Let’s kill this bad guy,” because you didn’t know it yet.
I’ve been wanting to ask you this for almost 20 years now, and I’ve asked Soderbergh this question because I’m obsessed with Oceans 12. In the movie, Tess realizes she looks like Julia Roberts. Does Danny Ocean know he looks like George Clooney?
George Clooney: Honestly, that’s a very good question. Danny Ocean thought he looked like Brad Pitt in the Ocean universe.
Oh, I see.
George Clooney: And that was really disappointing when someone told him he looked like me. As you can imagine, pretty Brad Pitt, you know.
I asked Matt Damon once and he said he didn’t exist in the universe. And I asked Casey Affleck and he asked me who played Virgil Malloy.
George Clooney: [Laughs] Wait, he didn’t remember?
He didn’t remember his character name.
George Clooney: We have a really good script for another Oceans now, so we may end up doing another one. It’s actually a great script.
Wait, really? Like, Oceans 14?
George Clooney: Well … I don’t want to call it that… I mean, the idea is kind of like Going In Style.
Oh really? The George Burns movie?
George Clooney: Yeah. George Burns and…
Art Carney I think? Is he in that?
George Clooney: Carney, yeah. We’re not quite that old.
No, you are not George Burns’s age in Going In Style.
Last week, it was reported that Britney Spears’ father Jamie recently had one of his legs amputated. Those reports were unconfirmed, but now we know for certain thanks to new photos of Jamie that have surfaced.
As TMZ reports, Jamie was seen getting out of a car at a warehouse and being helped into a wheelchair. The photos show that a significant portion of his right leg is missing; TMZ notes the photos were taken seven weeks after the amputation, and that the leg was amputated 4 inches above the knee.
As was previously reported, Jamie apparently had a significant infection in his leg following a knee replacement surgery, and he was in the hospital for weeks. Jamie reportedly underwent five surgeries attempting to contain the infection, and after those were unsuccessful, doctors decided to amputate.
The good news is that Jamie might be able to reconcile with Britney, as TMZ previously reported, “Our sources say Britney has softened toward her dad recently. There have been times when she’s said she misses her dad, and once even talked about sending him money to help him out. As for Jamie, our sources say there’s nothing he’d rather have than a reconciliation with his daughter, and harbors no ill will.”
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
