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Days after a BuzzFeed News article on rationing in LA, officials debuted new guidelines to protect medical personnel.
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In a wide-ranging interview covering his most memorable roles, actor Don Cheadle has revealed the unusual circumstances that led to him being cast as War Machine, starting with Marvel’s Iron Man 2.
As most MCU fans know, James “Rhodey” Rhodes was originally played by Terrence Howard in the first Iron Man film, but he was jettisoned from the franchise after reportedly being asked to take a pay cut, which left Marvel Studios scrambling to find a replacement for the sequel. What fans might not know is that Cheadle had narrowly lost the role to Howard, so it was definitely an interesting moment to have the studio call him up and ask him if he was still interested in the part. Although, according to The AV Club, Marvel didn’t exactly give Cheadle a whole lot of time to decide.
“I don’t think it was [Kevin] Feige. I don’t know who was on the phone. But they said, “Hey, this is the role. We want you to do this. It’s a six-picture deal.” I was like, “What?! Oh, uh, okay…” And I’m trying to do the math. I’m like, “That’s 11 or 12 years. I’m not sure.” And they’re like, “Well, we need to know, because if you’re not saying yes, then we’re gonna move on to the next person. So you’ve got an hour.”
An hour to decide 12 years, and a role and parts that I don’t even know, in movies that are coming down that I have no idea what they’ll be. I said, “I’m at my kid’s laser tag party right now.” They said, “Oh! Oh, take two hours.” So generous!”
While ducking laser tag bolts, Cheadle let his wife know about the offer and asked her what he should do because, again, this was a pretty big decision. Obviously, she was on board. Cheadle took the part, and his interpretation of the classic Iron Man character became a fan favorite for a solid decade, which means his math was pretty spot-on.
(Via The AV Club)
When COVID-19 has forced most of the pro wrestling industry to go on hiatus, WWE was somehow able to resume running live television shows multiple times a week, event after someone in the company had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. How exactly is the promotion able to do this, with the number of people needed to produce live television and the amount of physical contact involved in professional wrestling? According to Jerry Demings, the Mayor of Orange County, Florida, it’s because WWE has been deemed an “essential business.”
The Orange County government provided updates on the coronavirus situation in its area today and Demings was asked (about thirty minutes into the video of the press conference on Facebook) if WWE was deemed an essential business, or if they got a special permit to stay open. Demings replied that “They were not initially deemed an essential business. With some conversation with the governor’s office regarding the governor’s order, they were deemed an essential business, so, therefore, they were allowed to remain open.” The mayor did not explain why WWE’s classification was changed.
In regards to the coronavirus case on the roster, Demings said that “I don’t know any of the details of that, obviously, because of HIPAA laws,” but stated that he believed the billion-dollar, publicly-traded corporation would treat its roster like a family. “That’s like a little family,” he said of WWE and its independent contractors. “A small family of professional athletes that wrestle. And if one of my family members tested positive in my house, that would be concerning to me. We would have to make some provisions in my house to make sure that the rest of us not get infected, and so I would assume that, from a business perspective, the WWE is doing that type of analysis of its own family.”
Noted Red Sox fan and paper salesman John Krasinski isn’t having the best spring, as his baseball team isn’t playing and his movie, A Quiet Place Part II, is delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The early returns on the movie were quite good, so even if he’s not happy about the Sox trading Mookie Betts he’ll still have something to look forward to later this year.
He’s also doing his part to honor medical workers and their heroic efforts to help patients suffering COVID-19 battle the virus. Krasinski started Some Good News during the pandemic, a show that highlights good things happening despite all of the bad things happening. In the third episode of the show, which you can view above, Krasinski spoke to the COVID-19 unit at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He then virtually introduced them to someone who needs no introduction in Boston: David Ortiz.
Krasinski wanted to bring baseball to the staff, and he did it in a big way with the help of Big Papi. The retired Red Sox star, hilariously wearing a Red Sox jersey, spoke fondly of the staff and praised their work during a health crisis.
“I gotta tell you guys from the very bottom of my heart how much I love and respect you guys for what you are doing,” Ortiz said. He then announced that the staff at Beth Israel Deaconess would get four Red Sox tickets for life to games at Fenway Park, for the hospital to use as they see fit. Krasinski said he’s waited 16 years for season tickets and hasn’t heard back, so he’s admittedly a little jealous.
The episode also featured a special surprise for just the COVID-19 unit, which got a socially distant Duck Boat Tour of Boston and got a special look at Fenway Park. Krasinski called it “the most sanitized Duck Boat in America,” so it’s nice that they were keeping everyone safe. The video features some excellent Boston accents, as well as a bit of mask-wearing levity, which was nice. There was a nice moment of applause from Boston’s mayor, the governor of Massachusetts, and even a number of players on the Red Sox themselves. The workers even got to throw out the “first pitch” of the baseball season, which hasn’t officially started due to COVID-19.
Ortiz also has a special tie to the city, as he played most of his career with the Red Sox and also recovered at a Boston hospital — Mass General — following his gunshot wound suffered last year. And in a world without sports, it was a nice gesture by everyone involved to give some very important medical workers the star treatment amid a terrible situation.