Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat 2 took the U.S. by storm at the right time in October. The whole project certainly surprised Rudy Giuliani, and one of the more pleasant side effects is that the world’s now getting to know Maria Bakalova, who played Borat’s daughter, Tutar, in the movie. Bakalova beat out more than 600 other candidates for the role, which she originally feared — due to the secrecy of a project — might be a human trafficking operation. It all turned out well, though. Bakalova got acting tips from Cohen that she’ll use for a lifetime. As for her mom? She may never recover.
Alright, that’s an exaggeration, but as Bakalova related to James Corden earlier this week, her mother barely knew anything about the project. And after she watched the movie at home, there was an intense emotional outpouring. She could not stop crying because she found Tutar to be so “sad.” And an animated Bakalova demonstrated how her mom kind-of melted down over Facetime.
“Her eyes were full of tears,” Bakalova related. “She was crying for maybe two hours. Because she’s kind of a masochist, obviously, she watched it twice, and she was even more sad.” The actress then mimicked her mother crying: “I never seen something like Tutar, it’s so sad.”
What was the saddest part to mom… the Rudy scene or the one where Tutar opens a bottle with her “small hole”? We may never know. Bakalova did, however, reveal that one of her audition videos that she sent to the production included her uttering the following doozy: “My daddy is the best daddy in the whole flat world because he gives me cigarettes, he allows me to drink, and everything is amazing.”
No wonder she got the role, and she’s getting Oscar buzz, too. Maria Bakalova’s emergence might be one of the best things to happen in 2020.
The New York Knicks selected Obi Toppin, a New York native from the University of Dayton, with the eighth overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft Wednesday night. Born in Brooklyn, Toppin is the first player born in one of New York’s five boroughs to be drafted by the Knicks in the Top-10 in the Modern Draft Era (since 1966), according to Elias Sports Bureau.
As the 22-year-old forward sat surrounded by family in his home, he told ESPN’s Malika Andrews how much it meant to him to be able to wear the Knicks colors.
“Me reppin’ my city, it’s amazing. … I’m not gonna take it for granted. I promise you that.”
“I’m from New York,” Toppin said. “That’s why it’s important. Me reppin’ my city, it’s amazing. A lot of people pray to be in this position and I’m not going to take it for granted — I promise you that.”
Toppin, who attended Melbourne Central Catholic High School and Ossining High School, did not receive any Division I college offers and opted to play a post-graduate year at Mt. Zion Prep. After committing to Dayton in 2017, he won the A-10 Freshman of the Year award after averaging 14.4 points and 5.6 rebounds while shooting 66% from the field and a strong 52% from beyond the arc.
After a superb sophomore year at Dayton, Toppin was named the 2020 Naismith Player of the Year. In his final year, he averaged 20 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game while shooting 63% from the field and 39% from three-point range. A dominant offensive player, Toppin’s highlight reel is filled with monster dunks and fiery energy on both sides of the court.
With 2019 rookies RJ Barrett and Ignas “Iggy” Brazdeikis along with Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson, Frank Ntilikina and now, Obi Toppin, who is older than all of the aforementioned players, the Knicks are continuing their rebuild. While his rebounding can still improve and it remains to be seen how his defensive abilities will shape up against the NBA’s talent, Toppin is a pure scorer and his high productivity rate will likely be a welcome sight in Madison Square Garden.
“As one of the highest ranked players on our draft board, Obi was someone we really coveted,” Rose said. “He’s an explosive athlete and one of the most dynamic players in college basketball.”
Portland Trailblazers guard C.J. McCollum tweeted his support for Toppin, remembering the time he watched the forward’s explosive play and looking ahead at his potentially bright future.
I really like Obi . Hope he does well. Seen him catch a lob from half court and windmill it 3 years ago and I had no idea who he was lol. I told him if you can make a corner trey with that bounce you will be a lottery pick and cash out.
As is typical among the franchise’s ardent supporters, Knick fans’ feelings ranged from pleased with the hometown hero pick to disappointed in the team adding yet another forward to a roster filled with them.
“Toppin is showtime, it’s box office in the open court watching him dunk — I get it,” said ESPN analyst and passionate Knicks fan, Stephen A. Smith in a video posted to Twitter. “But how many forwards can you have if you’re the New York Knicks? […] I needed a guard!”
The Knicks history in the draft hasn’t exactly earned them the benefit of the doubt with fans, so this reaction was to be expected, but there’s no doubt Toppin will bring, if nothing else, an added energy to the Knicks going forward as a native New Yorker who genuinely loves the franchise. Whether that passion is matched with success on the court will be the determining factor in how beloved a figure Toppin becomes among Knick fans, because if he helps lift the team, his love for the franchise will be reciprocated by its fans tenfold.
The end of a long-running TV show or movie franchise must feel bittersweet for actors. On one hand, they’ve usually negotiated quite the residual or kickback deal by the time the project ends, so they don’t really have to worry much about securing future successful projects. On the other, actors usually want to, you know, act. They want to prove that they’re not simply one-trick wonders who lucked into an enduring role at the right time and in the right place. Instead, they hope to prove their range and make daring choices. It’s a (fortunate) conundrum that we’ve seen many casts (Harry Potter, Twilight, Friends, and Seinfeld, among others) grapple with to varying degrees of success. Then there’s The Big Bang Theory, which ended in 2019 after twelve seasons.
Despite the Jim Parson-led show’s enduring nature (and someone must have loved the thing), this wasn’t a quality show by any stretch. The formulaic arcs and well-worn tropes stood in abundance, so much so that so-called “real” nerds, at best, strongly disliked the series. In the middle of it all stood Kaley Cuoco, who portrayed Penny, the stereotypical “dumb blonde” neighbor, to lucrative effect. And following the show’s end, Cuoco stood at a crossroads. Could she step away from the Penny box?
The odds were stacked against Cuoco. Her position when BBT ended was similar to that of Jennifer Aniston (who’s still best known as Rachel from Friends), or even Katherine Heigl (Grey’s Anatomy, which is obviously now in motion without her), both of whom succeeded in movie-romcom-land. Yet that route largely dried up years ago. If romcoms exist now, they’re streaming affairs. Aaand she also needed to overcome winning two Razzie awards (for Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Road Chip and The Wedding Ringer) that she “won” during her BBT tenure. It’s all good though; Kaley’s doing just fine without romcoms, and she’s not punching above her weight in an Oscar quest.
So far, she’s succeeded mightily as the voice of animated Harley Quinn, the DC-Universe-turned-HBO-Max animated series about the Joker’s ex-girlfriend striking out on her own and experiencing delicious personal growth. That show found new life after two seasons on DC Universe as an HBO Max Season 3 pickup, and she’s launching The Flight Attendant (which had a planned release date of November 26, but HBO Max went ahead and released the first episode for free on November 18). Both are highly entertaining series (we are very fond of Harley Quinn here at Uproxx, and we’ll review The Flight Attendant before more episodes release). Is it surprising, though, that Cuoco’s career appears to actually be reaching new heights, when it’s usually pretty tough to move on so quickly after a long-term role ends (and with two Razzies)?
Yes, it’s unexpected, especially with Kaley veering far away from Penny. She landed two high-profile projects that aren’t exactly for the “girl next door,” which is what she played for twelve seasons already. Instead, she went profane and nerdy and darkly comedic. Time will tell if The Flight Attendant fares well, after the rest of the season surfaces. What is fairly telling, though, is that I don’t really think that many people (not even the biggest comic book nerds out there) expected the Harley Quinn TV series to be, you know, better and more successful than Birds Of Prey, the Harley emancipation movie starring Oscar-nominated actress Margot Robbie that struck many of the wrong notes. Of course, there are a lot of reasons why that movie fared only decently at the box office and with critics, whereas Harley Quinn has been a resounding success on both ends.
It’s fair to say that Kaley’s Harley did not succeed through not sheer luck for the actress who voices her. She has, after all, executive produced the series since signing onto the project, so it’s safe to assume that she has a voice in where Harley goes. And Kaley’s Harley has shown a ton of character growth over two seasons while still maintaining her sweetly anarchic spirit. It’s kinda crazy how one role in an animated series has done a lot to distance Kaley from being stereotyped inside the BBT box for good.
What I appreciate most about the current state of Kaley Cuoco’s career is the chutzpah factor. She’s not punching above her weight, but instead, she’s damn savvy at picking roles that work with her strengths. These roles are punchy and profane, and she is seriously convincing at freaking out in The Flight Attendant. We’ll talk about that more soon, but it’s clear that Kaley’s doing a heck of a lot better after Big Bang Theory than people expected. I’m looking forward to seeing how audiences receive The Flight Attendant and what more will come for these daring career moves for an actress who probably never needed to act again at all. Kaley Cuoco’s doing something very simple and admirable with her new projects: she’s entertaining the hell out of people. Some “serious” actors forget do forget… that’s what showbiz is all about, so yep, keep your eyes on Kaley Cuoco. She’s (surprisingly) going places.
HBO Max’s ‘The Flight Attendant’ will drop future episodes on November 26.
Many people have celebrity crushes, or could at least come up with one without too much thought when asked. That’s true of celebrities, too, including Lorde. One of hers isn’t an obvious heartthrob pick, though, as she revealed that she “definitely” would have had sex with legendary artist Pablo Picasso.
Lorde and Cazzie David recently had a conversation for Interview, in which they discussed their friendship and various other topics. At one point, the chat drifted towards art and Picasso. David asked Lorde if she would have had sex with the artist, and Lorde responded, “Yeah, definitely.” David pressed her for more, and she continued, “He was tiny but had an epic potbelly. That’s my whole vibe. I’d be down. He was kind of freaky.”
Elsewhere during the conversation, Lorde showed her appreciation for the government of her native New Zealand, saying, “I feel like our government is more proactive about acknowledging that we are living in a rapidly changing climate and legislation has to reflect that. People care in New Zealand. You can’t not when you live there. It’s in every part of who we are and how we live. It’s the only thing that matters. There’s nothing less cool than not caring about the environment in New Zealand, which I love. […] We had a solid 100 days without COVID. It was a good run.”
The last time The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-stars Will Smith and Janet Hubert, who played the original Viv, spoke was 27 years ago. She was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid after season three of the NBC sitcom, with Smith claiming that “Janet Hubert wanted the show to be The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air Show because I know she is going to dog me in the press,” and Hubert responding, “He probably is responsible for my firing. He has a lot of clout. It’s too bad that it’s a Black-on-Black attack. I tried not to name names. I have more class than that.” It got ugly. But the pair finally settled their feud for the Fresh Prince‘s 30-year reunion special, now out on HBO Max.
“I just wanted to know one thing: Why?” Hubert asked Smith. “You guys went so far. I lost so much. How do we heal that?” The actress was going through a lot in her personal information that Smith didn’t know about, including the network wanting to cut her salary for season three and an “abusive” marriage. “During that third season when I got pregnant, there was a lot of things going on in my life and Will’s life as well,” she said. “Home life was not good at all. I was no longer laughing, smiling, joking because there were things going on that nobody knew about. Cast had no idea what was going on.”
Smith replied, “During that time of her pregnancy, I wasn’t sensitive, wasn’t perceptive. Now that I’ve had three kids, I’ve learned some things I did not know at the time. I would do things very differently. I can see where I made the set very difficult for Janet”:
“You took all that away from me with your words,” Hubert told Smith. “Words can kill. I lost everything. Reputation. Everything, everything. I understand you were able to move forward. You know those words — calling a Black woman ‘difficult’ in Hollywood is the kiss of death. It’s hard enough being a dark-skinned Black woman in this business. I felt it was necessary for us to finally move forward. And I’m sorry I have blasted you to pieces.”
The duo ended up apologizing and embracing. “You’re still my Aunt Viv,” Smith said.
Earlier this year, it was speculated that Post Malone was thinking about starting a beer pong league due to trademarks he had filed at the time. We already know watching Malone competitively throw ping pong balls into plastic cups is a good time for all, as he had a hoot doing it with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in the summer of 2019, so the prospect was certainly appealing. Now, it’s all coming together on Malone’s new show, Post Malone’s Celebrity World Pong League.
The ten-episode Facebook Watch series drops new episodes on Wednesdays and Fridays. Fans will be able to enjoy the show via the new Watch Together feature available on Instagram, Messenger, and Messenger Rooms, which lets friends watch programming like this together in real time over a video call.
He recently spoke about the show with Fallon remotely from Utah and called out Drake by insisting he’s “no good” at pong. Around the same time, Malone had an email exchange about Celebrity World Pong League with Uproxx and offered some more details about the show. He also chatted about his uncommon chart longevity, getting positive feedback on his Nirvana livestream concert from Dave Grohl, and his upcoming music, so check out the full conversation below.
Tell me about the Post Malone’s Celebrity World Pong League. It sounds like a dream opportunity for you.
Definitely, everyone knows how much I love pong, so this whole experience was perfect for me. We teamed up with Messenger to bring fans a new 10-episode series called Post Malone’s Celebrity World Pong League. We’ve got Halsey, Diplo, Quavo, Machine Gun Kelly, YG, and a few more of my friends on the show. The best part is that you can watch the new show with your friends in real-time on Messenger, Messenger Rooms, and now on Instagram using their new feature called Watch Together. We really had a great time filming, so I hope y’all tune in to see me kick some ass and to see all the crazy stuff we had to do if we lost a game.
You have a lot of great guests on the show, and I’m sure everybody made for fun episodes, but who has the best actual pong skills, aside from yourself?
For sure, everybody that came on was super cool to play with and shoot the shit with. And listen, I’m definitely a seasoned vet when it comes to pong — but Smitty [Malone’s DJ] and I had some decent opponents throughout the show.
It was reported recently that you didn’t have a song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time since January 2017. Additionally, “Circles” broke the record earlier this year for the most time spent in the top 10 of the Hot 100. Both of those accomplishments are pretty incredible. Did you ever imagine yourself having this rare sort of sustained success?
I can’t believe this many people still want to hear my shitty songs. It’s crazy with all the talented artists and all the massive records out over the past year or so. For me to have a song on the charts that long is just unbelievable.
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The Nirvana livestream was a big moment for you this year. Dave Grohl said of the performance, “I watched a bunch of it. I was like, ‘That was really cool.’ I don’t get to see other people do Nirvana songs often, and he seemed perfectly comfortable with it, and it sounded great.” How does it feel to have a member of the band say that?
When I read that from Dave, it was crazy. It was basically all I needed to hear to know I didn’t mess it all up. It was so much fun doing those songs, and for it to be for a good cause during a bad time just made it all seem right.
If you were going to do another covers set of a different artist, who would it be?
An entire set? Probably Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash.
You announced this summer you’re part-owner of the Dallas Empire E-sports team. What has that experience been like? Have you been playing any of the big viral video games this year, like Fall Guys or Among Us?
They’ve always been family, but I just had became part owner a few weeks before they won the championship and holy shit, I heard I’m getting a ring. And I’ve really just been playing Call Of Duty, especially now with the new systems out.
Dre London said in March that you’re working on a “quarantine album.” How’s that been going?
Yeah, I’ve been making music since this all started. Just been going through the same process, even though it was made during quarantine. We just make a bunch of songs and really see what works and what sticks and just get a tracklist going, and before you know it, we’ve got a nice culmination of sounds.
New episodes of ‘Post Malone’s Celebrity World Pong League’ premiere on Wednesdays and Thursdays on Facebook Watch.
COVID-19 vaccines are on the way. As Dr. Fauci put things, “the cavalry is coming,” but in the meantime, major American cities are locking down ahead of the holidays in an attempt to slow the virus’ spread. Texas is not doing so hot, particularly in El Paso, and the rates are high across the board, including in Austin and Houston. That’s why it’s pretty surprising that the legendary Dave Chappelle — who engineered some socially-distanced Ohio comedy shows with pals earlier this year but cancelled September sets — is out there performing right now. By “there,” I mean the Lone Star State.
The Houston Chronicle reports that Chappelle (who recently fired off a scathing SNL monologue fit for 2020) has a three-night comedy engagement at The House of Blues Houston for this upcoming weekend. Social-distancing guidelines are being stressed (including that tickets can only be “purchased in groups of four”), with mandatory masks:
[M]asks will be required at all times while inside the venue. In addition to wearing masks, each ticket holder will receive a mandatory rapid COVID-19 test prior to entering the venue. Those with negative test results will be allowed to enter.
Customers who receive a positive test will be turned away, but refunds will be available.
This isn’t Chappelle’s first recent Texas rodeo, either. He popped into Austin for three shows earlier this week at an outdoor venue, Waller Creek Amphitheater at Stubb’s Bar-B-Q. Those shows were sold out, but there’s no word on what capacity will be at The House of Blues Houston, which is not an indoor venue. Houston is currently advising that people limit gathering numbers throughout the holiday season.
The latest victim of the show’s rules is contestant Alex Lisenko, who was leading headed into the show’s final puzzle of the night and appeared headed for the bonus round as a 16-letter, two-word puzzle came into focus. He guessed a “Y,” and even show host Pat Sajak seemed to know that Lisenko was ready to finish things off.
And then hubris, or perhaps just a moment of excitement he will forever regret, struck out of the blue.
“I’m declaring victory,” Lisenko said, raising his hands in time. Well, that’s nice, but like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy, saying it doesn’t mean it happened. Lisenko was wrong, the next contestant solved it and Lisenko missed out on a nice payday.
So what went wrong here? Well, when you’re solving a puzzle you can’t add in any extra words that are not on the board. And so despite the fact that he had the “declaring victory” part perfect, putting anything before the puzzle phrase means he actually guessed it wrong. It was a brutal loss, and the camera work many at home did showed how hard the poor guy took it. Lisenko clearly knew the answer, and he was a strong player throughout the game. But a moment of excitement proved to be too much, and his declaration turned out to be extremely premature. He did end up winning the game and getting to the bonus round, but that wasn’t what got a lot of people talking on social media.
There’s a special cruelty to the moment in that the category was “What Are You Doing?” It almost seems like a setup in a way. And unfortunately for Alex, he fell for it. Hook, line, and loser.
Almost exactly a decade ago, Nicki Minaj launched her career with Pink Friday. Her debut album dropped on November 22, 2010, and it was a great look for the then-up-and-coming star: It topped the charts, spawned the hugely successful single “Super Bass,” and featured collaborations with Drake, Eminem, and Kanye West. Pink Friday is a work worth celebrating, and that’s just what Minaj is planning on doing soon.
Last night, she took to Twitter to tease some sort of “virtual celebration” for the album, writing, “Barbz, Friday is the 10 year anniversary of Pink Friday. get your outfits ready for the virtual celebration.” Some fans apparently couldn’t contain their excitement and started the party early, as Minaj added a few hours later, “Ummm barbz why yall starting the celebration already? It starts tmrw night. I’m not even dressed yet. Go to bed”
Barbz, Friday is the 10 year anniversary of Pink Friday. get your outfits ready for the virtual celebration.
Minaj has yet to offer any info beyond that, so it’s not clear if she has some sort of virtual livestream event planned or if she just wanted to see her followers don pink wigs and do their own thing. Whatever ends up happening, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Lil Nas X join in on the fun, especially since he just dressed up as Minaj for Halloween.
Almost everyone is familiar with at least some of the work of John Hughes, the writer behind a number of classics in the ’80s and ’90s, including Home Alone, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Uncle Buck, and so many more. Hughes, however, was a notoriously private man. He retired from public life in 1994 and very rarely granted interviews up until his death in 2009. It’s not like he went into hiding, however. John Hughes simply returned back to his Chicago-area home and lived out the rest of his life.
It was during that period that Vince Vaughn befriended Hughes. Vaughn is from Lake Forest, Illinois, which is from where John Hughes hailed — many of his films were also set in the Chicago suburbs in towns like Lake Forest. “John was so special, and I had the fortune to get to know him really well,” Vaughn told his Dodgeball co-star Justin Long on this week’s episode of the Life is Short podcast. “Later in life, once I had had some success, I reached out to him just as a fan, and he was so gracious to me.”
“John did so much for me,” Vaughn continued. “He did so much for people, be it financially, giving to causes, and giving to people, and also with his time. He never took public attention for it. Like, when he passed away, there were some pen pal letters that came out,” Vaugh added. “A girl sent into a magazine … these letters that she had as an exchange with John. What she didn’t realize is that she was one of very many” kids with whom John exchanged letters.
Hughes also told Vaughn that, at the time of his biggest success, he had a hard time getting a lot of the films he wrote with female leads made. The studios would say, “Yeah, we can’t have a girl as the lead because men make the purchase choices. The men decide what to go to, and John said to them, ‘What house do you live in? There’s a lot of decisions being made by the women.” Meanwhile, John — “who was just a great listener and a great writer, wrote these terrific [female] characters whether it was Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, or Pretty in Pink.”
John was “always kind and connected, and he never lost that sense of being a child,” Vaughn added. One of the many surprising things that Vaughn learned about Hughes was when he went to his funeral and “so many people came in and got up and spoke about how much he meant to them. There was a young Black man who … didn’t have a father figure. John took him under his wing, so much so that he took the kid to all the Blackhawks games with the family. John would take him to vacations in Europe. He became part of the fabric of the family.” Vaughn said that the kid, who is now an adult, spoke at length about how he has had a successful life and a family of his own because of the lessons he learned from Hughes.
“He did great things in his life because he was a beautiful person,” concluded Vaughn, who also stresses (correctly) that there hasn’t been a better teen movie made in the 35 years since The Breakfast Club.
Vaughn is currently promoting his body-swap horror flick, Freaky, currently in theaters.
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netw3rk (@netw3rk) 
get your outfits ready for the virtual celebration. 
