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On Tuesday, GQ published a profile of Jeremy Strong ahead of the next season of Succession. It wasn’t as earth-shattering as the New Yorker one from 2021, in which some of the actor’s own castmates spoke their minds about his unusual acting approach (which is not quite Method acting). One of them was Brian Cox, who said he worries about the extremes to which Strong goes for his craft. Strong said he was fine with Cox’s comments, that he can “say whatever the f**k he wants.”

As it happens, on the same day, Town and Country published their profile of Cox, who doubled down on his comments. “Oh, it’s f*cking annoying,” Cox said of his methodology. “Don’t get me going on it.”

Mind you, Cox wasn’t trashing Strong. Far from it. “He’s a very good actor,” Cox said. “And the rest of the ensemble is all okay with this. But knowing a character and what the character does is only part of the skill set.”

He went on: “He’s still that guy, because he feels if he went somewhere else he’d lose it. But he won’t! Strong is talented. He’s f*cking gifted. When you’ve got the gift, celebrate the gift. Go back to your trailer and have a hit of marijuana, you know?”

In the GQ profile, Strong essentially said there were no hard feelings about what anyone said about his on-set tactics. “I feel a lot of love for my siblings and my father on the show,” he said. “And it is like a family in the sense that — and I’m sure they would say this, too — you don’t always like the people that you love. I do always respect them.”

Succession returns to HBO for a fourth season on Sunday, March 26, which is the same weekend a lot of other hotly anticipated stuff drops too.

(Via Town and Country)

Ozzy Osbourne has been getting in his time on the television screen. The former Black Sabbath frontman was in an ad from the enterprise software company Workday. “Who’s the new guy?” one worker asks. The other replies, “I don’t know, but he’s supposed to be some kind of rock star.”

Now, he’s in a commercial for the PlayStation VR2 virtual reality game. Ozzy and Sharon, his wife, are preparing to take a flight, but Ozzy is clad in his headset and gets caught up playing. “Hang on Sharon,” he calls out to her, “I want to plug in my PlayStation VR2.” He adds, not very convincingly, “I’m very technical these days.”

Of course, he swears often, so much so that Sharon checks in on him: “Ozzy, what’s wrong?”

The ad follows the announcement that Ozzy is retiring from touring. “This is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to share with my loyal fan,” he wrote in a statement. “As you may all know, four years ago, this month, I had a major accident, where I damaged my spine. My one and only purpose during this time has been to get back on stage. My singing voice is fine. However, after three operations, stem cell treatments, endless physical therapy sessions, and most recently groundbreaking Cybernics (HAL) Treatment, my body is still physically weak.”

Watch the commercial above.

Music Twitter is in a frenzy after The Weeknd teased what appeared to be a remix of his Starboy standout “Die For You” featuring the return of a long-absent pop diva.

The Toronto singer shared a TikTok video from none other than Ariana Grande, who apparently filmed herself recording vocals for the updated track. “Wrote and recorded a verse for my friend after a 14-hour day on set,” she wrote. “This certain exception had to be made…”

The exception, of course, was to record outside music while working on the film adaptation of Wicked, which is currently eating up the bulk of the 29-year-old singer’s schedule. However, she beat the “not a singer anymore” allegations with a glimmering “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” rendition for her TikTok followers.

Obviously, she’ll be doing a bit of singing in Wicked as Glinda (the “good witch”), but for now, she won’t be working on new music of her own until Wicked wraps and releases.

It’s very interesting that The Weeknd is choosing to remix a now-seven-year-old song, but it shows his awareness of trends; thanks to fans on TikTok, the song broke the Billboard Hot 100’s top ten in January, and has remained there ever since. It’s symbolic of the new era of music in which decades-old songs can crack the Hot 100 for the first time thanks to sci-fi shows and TikTok trends, and The Weeknd might just be showing his peers how best to capitalize on old tracks that become new hits.

We’ll see if the actual remix drops in the near future, but for now, this teaser offers just enough of a glimpse at what it could be to get fans excited.

Donald Trump is still the prospective Republican presidential candidate for 2024, but he seems to be losing one of his more powerful gifts: his propensity for childish nicknames. His first name for Ron DeSantis — Ron DeSanctimonious — has not been well-received. Even Joe Rogan trashed it. A recent report claimed he’d come up with some better ones (including the genuinely mean “Meatball Ron”), but he himself denied they were real. Now he’s come up with a new one — and it’s not getting great reviews either.

In a rambling, sketchily argued post on his rinky-dink Twitter clone, the former president tried to make the bizarre claim that Florida wasn’t doing great, at least when it comes to its economy, under Ron DeSantis — who now has a second childish nickname.

“Florida was doing GREAT long before Ron DeSanctus got there,” Trump posted. “People are fleeing from New York to Florida (and other places) because of high TAXES and out of control CRIME, not because of Governor (thank you President Trump!) DeSanctimonious. Rick Scott did great, and even Charlie Crist had very good numbers. SUNSHINE AND OCEAN, very alluring!!!”

Ignoring that Trump praised DeSantis’ former Democratic challenger, which horrified a number of fellow Republicans. It was the “Ron DeSanctus” bit that left a lot of people confused.

It was, some said, simply not up to Trump’s high/low standards.

Some even felt bad for him.

Others wondered why he doesn’t just use “Meatball Ron.”

Not even Republicans liked it.

Even a guy who’s made multiple pro-Trump documentaries and even been pardoned by him took umbrage with him attacking fellow Republicans.

Anyway, maybe third time’s the charm for coming up with a deeply immature name for a guy he used to like. If he ever does, DeSantis probably still won’t be ready for them.

(Via Mediaite)

Dwight Howard continuing his career in Taiwan has mostly just given Shaquille O’Neal a reason to revive his long-simmering feud with the former All-NBA center, but over the weekend, while the NBA’s best played in the All-Star Game in Salt Lake City, Howard found himself trying to cool down a wild brawl (and getting ejected for his efforts).

In the fourth quarter of a game between the Taoyuan Leopards and the TaiwanBeer HeroBears (which, as an aside, is an incredible team name), the two point guards got into it when #0 Chen Hsiao-jung swung an elbow at #14 Chiang Yu-an and the two went at it. Referees quickly separated the two as they threw punches, but then a coach from the Herobears came charging off the sideline and started swinging on #0, ending up back by the Leopards bench where all hell broke loose.

There were some serious punches thrown and the entire thing dragged out for some time before both teams were finally separated completely and sent to their respective benches. Howard can be seen coming off of the Leopards bench and seemed to be trying to play peacemaker, but like in the NBA, leaving the bench leads to an ejection so he was among the 12 (!!!) players tossed for their roles in the brawl.

Less than a year after announcing their engagement, Avril Lavigne and Mod Sun have apparently called it quits, according to TMZ. The news comes just after rumors surfaced speculating that Avril had been getting cozy with Compton rapper Tyga; this will undoubtedly add fuel to those rumors now that she’s apparently single.

Lavigne and Mod Sun, whose real name is Derek Ryan Smith, had apparently been dating for about a year before he proposed in Paris. At the time, Lavigne said, ““I knew we had a very strong unstoppable connection from the first week of writing and working together in the studio. Immediately. He made every day better. It was like I had known him forever. As time went on, things kept getting better, and it felt incredibly natural. […] I look forward to having fun, creating, working together, touring together, growing together. It feels good to have someone who can help celebrate the good times, hold you through the tough ones, and be there for all the moments in between.”

It looks like she has since changed her mind, although no reason was given for the breakup. According to TMZ’s sources, neither side cheated, they just couldn’t seem to get on the same page. Oddly, a rep for Mod Sun told TMZ, “They were together and engaged as of 3 days ago when he left for tour so if anything has changed that’s news to him.” They were together as recently as Grammys weekend, when they attended an event together.

Meanwhile, as far as those dating rumors with Tyga are concerned, TMZ says the two are good friends and have been for a long time, but are not romantic.

Steven Spielberg is a bit of long shot for the Best Director Oscar this year (hey, he already has two!), but he’s already making big plans. They just happen to be for the small screen. As per Deadline, the legendary filmmaker is returning to something he did two decades back: Make one of Stanley Kubrick’s unrealized dream projects a reality.

While speaking at the Berlin Film Festival, Spielberg revealed he’s teaming up with HBO to make a seven-episode limited series out of Napoleon, one of the massive projects Kubrick never got to make. The project still doesn’t have a series order, but Spielberg promises it will be a “large production,” fit for the destructive/diminutive French emperor, who threw Europe into chaos in the early 19th century.

The series will be based on Kubrick’s script, which he initially hoped to shoot after 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both Jack Nicholson and David Hemmings were considered for the lead, with Audrey Hepburn to play his wife Josephine. Alas, after the disastrous reception of the big-budget Waterloo in 1970, which featured the likes of Rod Steiger and Orson Welles, Kubrick abandoned it. He later scratched his itch to make a period epic with one of his finest films, 1975’s Barry Lyndon.

Spielberg and Kubrick were close, which surprised those who thought the former is a sentimentalist (he’s not) and the latter ice cold (ditto). After Kubrick died in 1999, not long before the release of Eyes Wide Shut, Spielberg was quick to turn one of his pet projects, A.I. Artificial Intelligence into a downer summer blockbuster, and one of his most underrated films. Given that Spielberg didn’t ruin A.I., it’s a safe bet that he won’t screw up Napoleon either.

(Via Deadline)

The Atlanta Hawks are using the All-Star break to shake things up on their coaching staff. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, Atlanta will part ways with head coach Nate McMillan amid a year where the team has found itself closer to falling out of the play-in race than fighting for a spot among the Eastern Conference’s elite.

McMillan went 99-80 in his tenure with the Hawks, which spanned parts of three seasons after he took over when Lloyd Pierce was fired early in the 2020-21 season. The high point of McMillan’s time as head coach was the Hawks stunning run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021, as he guided them past the Knicks and Sixers before losing to the eventual champion Bucks in six games. Since then, the Hawks have failed to build on that success, and after exhausting their future assets this offseason to land Dejounte Murray, the 29-30 record 59 games into the season was enough to get McMillan fired.

Wojnarowski reports that Joe Prunty is expected to take over as the interim head coach, and has his work cut out for him. There have been rumblings of discontent in Atlanta for some time — a report in December indicated that McMillan was considering resigning, and he reportedly bumped heads with Trae Young at one point this year. Still, there is talent on the roster when healthy and the expectations in Atlanta are clear, as they’ll hope another fired coach bump is on the way as it was in 2021.

Actors are basically freelancers, so when they score an insanely popular TV show no one wants to end, it must be a relief. After all, it’s a steady paycheck. No doubt David Harbour was thrilled when Stranger Things, in which he plays police chief Jim Hopper, turned into a phenomenon. But now, after almost a decade on the job, it sounds like he’s not sad that it’s finally coming to an end with its fifth season.

“What’s funny is when I started the show, I never ever wanted it to end. That’s why I love the show,” Harbour told Discussing Film (in a bit caught by IndieWire). “I think it’s a great show, even if I wasn’t in it. Now we’re almost nine years from filming the first season, and I think it is time for it to end. But it is, of course, very bittersweet. You know, there’s a sadness there.”

He added, “But also, we’ve all grown up. It is time for us to leave that nest and try other things and different projects. And to let the Duffer Brothers try different things as well. I mean, those guys are so talented. I want to see what they come up with next. So it is bittersweet, but it’s definitely time.”

The announcement to end Stranger Things came nearly a year ago. The reason for ending it was practical: The kid stars just keep getting older, as kids do, and while CGI de-aging has come into vogue over the last few years, the Duffer brothers still don’t want to have the leads still playing kids when they’re in their mid-30s.

That said, you won’t be saying bye to the Stranger Things-verse. There are already multiple spinoffs in the offing, including one for Millie Bobbie Brown’s Eleven. As for Harbour, he’ll be back in the MCU with this summer’s Thunderbolts, and this week Netflix will drop his new ghost movie We Have a Ghost.

(Via Discussing Film and IndieWire)

Last month, Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter over the 2021 death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust. Now, the Santa Fe District Attorney has downgraded the charges and lessened Baldwin’s potential prison sentence.

The involuntary manslaughter charge still remains against both Baldwin and the movie’s armorer Hanna Gutierrez-Reed, but The Santa Fe District Attorney has now removed a firearm enhancement from a second charge, meaning the maximum prison sentence for Baldwin will be 18 months.

Baldwin has still maintained his innocence over the last year and even attempted to clear his name by suing his former crew members. The actor claims that the crew members were negligent and did not provide property safety training, though reports have been piling up against him.

Heather Brewer, the spokesperson for the New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney, explained the reasoning for the charges in a statement: “In order to avoid further litigious distractions by Mr. Baldwin and his attorneys, the District Attorney and the special prosecutor have removed the firearm enhancement to the involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the Rust film set. The prosecution’s priority is securing justice, not securing billable hours for big-city attorneys.”

Surprisingly, the movie is still expected to resume shooting this spring with Baldwin still attached. His next project, the disaster film Supercell starring the late Anne Heche, is expected to be released on demand next month.

(Via Variety)