Category: News

Film history is riddled with name actors who turned down key roles. Tom Selleck didn’t want to play Indiana Jones. Eddie Murphy didn’t want to play Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Halle Berry wasn’t feeling what became the Sandra Bullock part in Speed. John Travolta didn’t say yes to American Gigolo and Forrest Gump. Then there’s Matthew Modine, who’s kind of the Zelig of missed film roles. He recently talked about three (3) iconic parts to which he said no, though for at least one he had an excellent reason.

During a recent appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show, Modine was game when his host brought up some of the big roles he turned down. Perhaps the biggest one: He could have been Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun (and presumably its even more money-gobbling sequel). But he didn’t want to do a film that glamorized the nation’s war machine.

“I grew up with the war, watching the Vietnam War on television. And then my oldest brothers and my sister participated in the war,” Modine explained. “There’s nothing sexy or romantic about war. So the idea of making a movie like Top Gun, that would make it look fun and glamorize it? Yeah, I just didn’t want to participate in that kind of storytelling.”

If his excuse sounds familiar, that’s because it’s also the reason why the film’s ultimate star, Tom Cruise, was adamantly against doing a sequel — at least for three-and-a-half decades. (One could argue that the belated sequel is considerably less jingoistic, less about patriotism and more about the greatness of Tom Cruise.)

So Modine had a good excuse for turning down Top Gun. But what about Back to the Future? After the production fired original star Eric Stoltz, he was one of the actors they approached to replace him. Modine fumbled around to excuse why he turned that down, saying that “when you see Michael J. Fox, you see why I turned it down.” (Not even Ross was buying that one.) He also says he didn’t know who director Robert Zemeckis was, though he had just had a big hit with Romancing the Stone.

As for turning down the lead role in Big, Modine admits “that was really stupid.” That role, of course, went to another Tom, Tom Hanks, who scored his first Oscar nomination as a kid whose wish to become an adult is granted, with funny/heartwarming results. Still, Modine has had a good career. He even wound up doing another film about war, albeit a very different one from Top Gun: Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick’s grim depiction of the Vietnam War, and an instant classic of the genre.

(Via Digg)

Dua Lipa is often called a British pop star. And that’s correct. She was born in London, but the most accurate descriptor is British-Kosovar Albanian. Lipa’s parents, Anesa and Dukagjin, emigrated to the UK from Pristina in Kosovo. Lipa was named an Honorary Ambassador of Kosovo ahead of her annual Sunny Hill Festival in August, and today (November 27), she celebrated the ultimate step in honoring her Albanian heritage.

Lipa took to Instagram this morning to share footage of gaining Albanian citizenship. “Thank you President Bajram Begaj and Mayor @erionveliaj for this honor ~ got my Albanian citizenship!!” she captioned to carousel, adding a sentence in Albanian that translates to, “Thank you, I am feeling very proud.”

Rina Lipa, the 27-year-old’s sister, commented four heart emojis. DJ Snake and Major Lazer were among those showing Lipa love in the comments section.

“Everything was Albanian at home, and English was my school life,” Lipa told Vanity Fair as the publication’s July/August 2021 cover star. “I had so much family in Kosovo, but also because of the situation and not being able to go back, I had never really met my family.”

Lipa continued to explain that she wasn’t aware as a child of the ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and open conflict in the region that forced her parents to flee. “I guess my parents also didn’t want to upset me at such a young age,” she added. “After the war, my dad’s father passed away, and my dad couldn’t make it back in time, because obviously all the borders were closed, but it was just one of those things they didn’t tell me until a little bit later on.”

Earlier this year, this time on the cover of Vogue, Lipa further detailed her international childhood — moving from London to Kosovo at age 11.

According to Billboard, Lipa’s Albanian citizenship comes ahead of the country’s 110th “anniversary of independence from the Ottoman Empire,” and the ceremony recognized how Lipa has used her platform to uplift Albanian people. The three-time Grammy winner spearheads the Sunny Hill Foundation, “a charity organization set up in Prishtina-Kosovo under the patronage of” Lipa.

Dua Lipa is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This article originally appeared on 05.30.15

Men struggle to comprehend the pressures women feel. The same is true of women!

Gah! We’ll never get along.

This conversation between comedian Neal Brennan and Amy Poehler is a pretty good example of how hard it can be to figure life out sometimes.

Neal, the genius who co-created “Chappelle’s Show,” sat down with Amy for his show “The Approval Matrix.” The topic? WHAT are men supposed to be now? Cool? Adorkable? Both? Neither?

It’s maddening, dealing with constantly opposing messages about how to be and how to act.

And Amy, in all her hospitable magical greatness, is straight-up like, “Yeah, bro, welcome to the party! We’ve been here a looong time.”

GIFset via amypoehler.tumblr.com.

“This feeling that you’re having right now — which it’s like, ‘I have to be all things,’ — it’s a feeling that women have everyday in their whole lives. So you’re just starting to experience it now. … I’m glad you’re finally experiencing it as a white male.”

Yass, queen! A magical combo of speaking your truth and inviting your friends to the party. That sounds like Amy.

And she follows her own advice.

GIFset via DrunkKnope.

“If you can speak about what you care about to a person you disagree with, without denigrating them or insulting them, then you may actually be heard.”

GIF via DrunkKnope.

Living up to arbitrary and impossible standards is nothing new, but now that we’re all in the same boat … let’s rock the boat! Together!

Ladies and dudes, rocking the boat together. I like that.

Here’s the full video:

Though he only released his fifth studio album, More Love, Less Ego just over two weeks ago, Wizkid is already teasing a follow-up project. Yesterday (November 26), the Afrofusion superstar took to this Instagram story to reveal he is at work on a new album.

“New Album ‘SeiLess’,” he wrote, accompanied by a smirking emoji, a black heart emoji, and an eagle emoji.

Though he did not share a potential release date, or theme, or any other details about the album, it appears Wizkid is at the starting point of his creative process for the album. In an interview with GQ Hype (conducted in French), Wizkid revealed that when he starts on an album, he always comes up with the title first, then goes from there.

“When I know what I want to call the album and what I want to say, I start creating the music,” he said. “And most of the time, when I’m working on an album, there’s a moment where I give up on it. The most important thing is to be intentional. For Made in Lagos for example, I wanted people to know where I come from and who I am. With More Love, Less Ego , I want to share a message of love and make people vibrate. Love should be the greatest religion in the world. I believe that everyone can love each other, for real. My message is ‘love one another and take care of your neighbor.’”

Roddy Ricch released Feed Tha Streets III on November 18, and then subsequently helped feed grocery shoppers in Los Angeles. The multiplatinum rapper provided further proof that his bank account is well-fed over the weekend.

A clip has been circulating online from The Joe Budden Podcast in which Roddy asks the crew how much they’d offer him to perform. Budden clarified that his hypothesis applied to hypothetically booking Roddy for a festival and lobbed $125,000. “That’s crazy. I’d hang up on you,” Roddy responded, sharing that his festival rate is $500,000. He posted his receipt from Governors Ball as a since-expired Instagram Story that showed he was owed a $50,000 deposit one month before the festival and $450,000 within two days of his performance.

Unfortunately, Roddy never took the stage at this June’s Governors Ball in New York City because he was arrested on gun charges. TMZ reported at the time that Roddy and his team “were stopped at a security checkpoint … and according to law enforcement sources, officers say they found a loaded firearm inside the vehicle he was taking to the show,” plus nine rounds of ammunition and a large capacity magazine. Days later, the outlet additionally relayed that Roddy had been released from custody and was not facing any charges.

Roddy served as the opener on Post Malone’s Twelve Carat Toothache Tour from September 10 to November 15.

Roddy Ricch is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Saweetie‘s first-week projections for her latest EP aren’t looking so sweet. The “Don’t Say Nothin’” rapper’s EP, The Single Life is rumored to have moved only 2,000 unit equivalents in its first week of release.

Many are faulting Saweetie’s team for not marketing and promoting the release enough, however, some are faulting Saweetie herself for not doing much press ahead of the EP’s release.

DJ Vlad has since taken to Twitter, suggesting that her sales could’ve proven more fruitful had she agreed to do an interview with him when he reached out.

“If Saweetie did a VladTV interview she would have easily done 10x her first week sales, which was 2000 copies,” said Vlad. “We actually reached out through one of our people and were told ‘she won’t do Vlad.’ Her loss.”

Saweetie later responded, saying, “Actually, I been a big fan & have screen recorded my favorite episodes,” she said. “Here’s one of them. Dates on the top,” she said, revealing a screenshot of an episode featuring Snoop Dogg, “So if anyone ‘reached out’ it wasn’t to me or my team, Dj Vlad. Happy Thanksgiving.”

Saweetie also doesn’t appear to be fazed by the alleged low sales. As part of her “pretty b*tch” brand, the rapper reiterated that her music is meant for a specific audience.

“I make music for pretty b*tches!,” Saweetie said in a tweet. “if you can’t relate i understand.”

It didn’t take long for haters to chime in. One Twitter user, who is also a musician in their own right, replied to the tweet, saying, “Damn I didn’t know it was only 2,000 pretty bitches in the world?”

Saweetie then shared the tweet and included a screenshot of the user’s Spotify page, which revealed they only have one monthly listener.

“I hope all 2,000 support you babes,” she said.

Saweetie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When Wisconsin fired Paul Chryst and elevated defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard into the interim head coaching role, the expectation was that Leonhard, a highly regarded young coach, would have the interim title removed at the end of the year and become the full-time coach.

However, after closing the season 4-3 under Leonhard, the Badgers turned their attention to a much bigger and more established name in the college coaching ranks. On Sunday, word broke from ESPN’s Pete Thamel that the team was targeting Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell, making an overture to the former Ohio State assistant and the head coach of one of the most successful non-Power Five teams in the last decade-plus.

It wasn’t immediately clear how much interest Fickell would have in the Wisconsin job and whether he’d leave Cincinnati for Madison, but it quickly became a very real proposition after Adam Rittenberg found that the Wisconsin Board of Regents had scheduled a Sunday afternoon meeting to approve a new contract for a football coach, with Tom Oates reporting the expectation was that a deal would get done by the end of the day.

It’s a big-time hire from Wisconsin, and a departure from how they’ve often kept things in the Badger family of sorts. Fickell doesn’t have a direct tie to Wisconsin but has had a tremendous amount of success in the midwest, has recruited well to Cincinnati, and proved he can build a terrific program with what he’s done with the Bearcats, where he has gone 57-18 and became the first Group of Five team to make the College Football Playoff a year ago.

What makes the Fickell hire so interesting is it was long assumed he would hold out for the Ohio State or Notre Dame job to come open, but now he heads to a Big Ten job that’s not in Columbus while the Buckeye faithful are currently melting down over whether Ryan Day is “the guy” following a second-straight loss to Michigan, this time in a blowout at home that allowed the Wolverines to literally plant their flag at midfield in the Horseshoe.

Georgians are another week-and-change from the state’s runoff election, which will decide whether incumbent Raphael Warnock keeps his Senate seat or surrenders it to GOP challenger Herschel Walker. It’s a close race, which isn’t great: Many find former footballer Walker unqualified, to put it mildly. He’s not just a gaffe machine; in his speeches and TV appearances, he makes not a lick of sense. To stress his gift for incoherence, a new Warnock ad forces everyday Georgians to react to his appearances in real time.

The ad draws upon some of Walker’s greatest hits: his rambling about vampires and werewolves and the movie Fright Night; talking about “bad air” in China; something about a bull. (Not included, sadly: His instant classic “this erection is about the people” slip.) The ad unfolds in split-screen, toggling between multiple voters expressing horror at the guy’s broken brain.

There are lots of variations on “What in the hell is he talking about?” One participant concludes that there’s “no substance, no nothin’.” Another says, “It makes me want to laugh, then it makes me think we’re in trouble.”

Another postulates that the GOP members who’ve propped him up, including deep-in-doodoo former president Donald Trump, “just care about getting a Yes Man, somebody that’ll just punch the button.”

One puts it well: “Not only does it make no sense, I don’t even understand what he thinks he’s saying.” Yet another put it even more succinctly: “This sh*t is embarrassing as hell.”

You can watch the ad in the embedded tweet above. The Georgia runoff takes place on December 6.

The Chicago Bears and New York Jets will meet on Sunday at MetLife Stadium with both teams making changes at quarterback this week. After a horrific performance in a 10-3 loss to the Patriots a week ago, the Jets benched former No. 2 overall pick Zach Wilson in favor of Mike White, which raises plenty of questions about the Jets’ commitment to Wilson as the franchise’s quarterback going forward.

In Chicago, they know who their franchise quarterback is, as Justin Fields has been on a tear of late, but the second-year star suffered a shoulder injury a week ago in a loss to the Falcons, apparently playing the end of the game with a dislocated shoulder. After confirming on Sunday morning Fields would not be able to go, Trevor Siemian was set to enter the starting lineup, only to suffer an oblique injury in pregame warmups less than an hour before kickoff, thrusting third stringer Nathan Peterman into the starting role.

For those who may need a refresher on Peterman, he is the former starter for the Buffalo Bills who is best known for throwing five interceptions in one half against the Chargers, which has been preserved for eternity on the NFL’s official YouTube page in a compilation of every throw he made in that half of football.

We can only hope for such a thrilling performance on Sunday in New Jersey.

Takeoff was shot and killed in the early hours of November 1. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner and Sgt. Michael Arrington urged the public to help them identity a suspect in the beloved 28-year-old Migos rapper’s senseless murder. More recently, Kashara Marshall, Quavo’s sister and Takeoff’s aunt, took to Instagram to beg for the arrest of Takeoff’s killer.

As of today (November 27), Houston Police have still not publicly identified a suspect. However, according to HotNewHipHop and RapTV, 22-year-old Cameron Joshua (known as Lil Cam 5th) has been arrested by Houston’s Harris County Sheriff’s Office and handed a felony charge for “unlawful carrying weapons.” There is heavy speculation that this arrest is in connection to Takeoff’s investigation because Lil Cam 5th is alleged to have unlawfully had a handgun in his possession on the night of Takeoff’s death in Houston, though that connection has not been explicitly nor officially drawn.

Takeoff died at 810 Billiards & Bowling in Houston. He was attending a private event with Quavo. Houston Police confirmed that an altercation during a dice game outside of the venue led to shots being fired, fatally striking Takeoff. His celebration of life took place at State Farm Arena in his hometown Atlanta on November 11.

Earlier this week, Chief Finner provided a vague update on the ongoing investigation to KPRC 2 (as noted by iHeart), noting he felt “confident” that a suspect will be brought to justice and dispelling any notion that his department’s manhunt was running dry.

“I feel good where we’re progressing,” he said. “You remember on that day, I met with his mother. I talked with that lady personally, made a promise and there’s a lot being said. We want all investigations on murders when people are being killed to move. But the main thing is we get it right. I do not want to send family members on a rollercoaster ride, and then we have to come back and say, ‘Whoa, that wasn’t the person.’ I want everyone to be patient and just understand there will be some justice here in Houston, Texas.”