The last year has been a bit of a whirlwind for Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins. Their journey was documented as part of Hulu’s Love & WWE: Bianca and Montez series, this time last year, where WWE teased the idea of splitting Ford on his own and the team appeared to be on the fringe of not getting a WrestleMania match.
Fast-forward a year, and plenty has changed for the Street Profits. Now aligned with Bobby Lashley, the trio has a chip on their shoulder and an aligned vision for reaching the top of the mountain in WWE.
Working with Lashley over the last year has given the Profits insight into the former world champion’s longevity, with nearly 20 years in professional wrestling to learn from under his belt.
“(We’re) just trying to figure out what fountain he drinks from because Bobby has been here almost three decades and he looks younger now than he did before,” Ford tells Uproxx Sports. “His training habits, his eating habits, I’ve just been watching it to a T because he’s someone that’s been doing this for, not just a long time, but he’s been doing this for a long time at a high level. And that’s the difference. You’re still this elite specimen. You’re built like a tank. I’ve been on his wing, I’ve just been studying everything. I’m even linked up now, and I have my own tailor. I want to know the secrets to how he got to this far and to this elite level, still performing at this elite level.”
Part of the changes that the Street Profits have enjoyed since their move over to working with Lashley is the change in attire. And for anyone who’s watched the Hulu series, they’ll quickly find out that this time last year, Dawkins was someone who enjoyed being comfortable and wasn’t necessarily interested in suits.
“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” Dawkins says about the near daily requirement to wear a suit now. “There’s times where I really want to be in hoodies and sweatpants and I’m in the suit, but hey, gotta look the part, you know what I’m saying? Gotta look professional. Gotta look good, feel good, play good — shout out to Prime.”
Ford, on the other hand, has a love for fashion that comes across on screen in just about everything he does. When he first started in NXT, he even considered wrestling in a suit. That happened once for the Street Profits relatively recently, during a dark match after Smackdown with Rey Mysterio and the LWO.
“When we first, first, first started with Rey, it actually wasn’t televised, but it was right after SmackDown went off the air. Went up there and called Rey Mysterio and the LWO out, we actually wrestled in suits,” Ford says. “It was amazing. We had a tailor that basically made us suits that we were able to actually wrestle with.”
Will we see that again on screen someday? “Maybe,” Dawkins says.
As for the build to WrestleMania, the Street Profits are living the gimmick. They’re focused and hungry in partnership with Lashley, and they want the gold.
“Win the tag team titles,” Dawkins says about their WrestleMania ambitions.
“Simple as that,” Ford continues. “No other mission. We haven’t been tag team champions in over three years. It’s time. We’ve seen a lot of people win those titles and do great things with them. But it’s time for Street Profits to get right back exactly where we deserve to be. And where we belong. That’s on the tip of the top of the doggone mountain, holding the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships.”
Stefani discussed the No Doubt reunion on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Wednesday, February 14. Kimmel asked how much time has passed since No Doubt performed together, leading to an estimation of nine or 10 years from Stefani, who then squealed, “Ah! That’s so weird!”
“It’s gonna be amazing,” Stefani continued. “And I think what is gonna be hilarious is I know what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna get on stage and look around and just start, like, cracking up because it’s just gonna be like riding a bike. We’re gonna be like, ‘What are we doing? We’re in the future right now. We’re at Coachella!’ It’s gonna be bizarre.”
Stefani also shared that No Doubt has not started rehearsing yet, even though she does not remember the No Doubt discography.
“I don’t remember them, no, not at all,” she said. “I think I’m gonna have to learn probably like eight or nine [songs]. One of the first songs I ever wrote was called ‘Different People,’ and we’re doing that.” Stefani, whether instinctively or performatively, reacted as if she was not supposed to reveal that as the crowd screamed, then rephrased, “We might do that one.”
Watch Stefani’s full interview with Kimmel above, and watch Stefani and Shelton’s “Purple Irises” performance below.
The facts here are not in dispute. The Nice Guys, Shane Black’s 2016 action-comedy about mismatched detectives set in 1970s Los Angeles, is very good. Most people who have seen it agree on this. It’s got a pre-Barbie Ryan Gosling being a bumbling goof and Russell Crowe trading on decades of tough guy roles to suck belly laughs out of viewers and it has a 91 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is admittedly not the definitive arbiter of taste but about as good as we’re gonna get for our purposes here. And I like it a lot, whatever that counts for in your ledger.
The problem is that, despite all of that in its favor, and despite the classic Shane Black wisecracks and almost unnecessary Christmas tie-ins that made movies like Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang so good, it bombed at the box office. Just deadly numbers. Like, under $40 million, which is… bad. And infuriating. It’s so good. I watch it and The Muppet Christmas Carol every year during the holidays, which is about as clear a distillation of my personality as you’ll ever see.
The extra infuriating thing here is that the ending set it up so well for a second movie, or even a little mini-franchise, which the box office numbers sank to the bottom of the ocean. But I still want another Nice Guys movie. And I think I figured out how to do it. And get it made in time for this holiday season, 10 months away. I know Shane Black is in. He said as much in an interview with Fandango a while back. Here, look.
“In a heartbeat, if someone would pay for it,” Black told Fandango when asked whether he wants to make a follow-up to The Nice Guys.
“We had all kinds of ideas. The problem is it didn’t do that well at the box office. I imagine it will break even, which is not a formula for reacquiring two very expensive movie stars and proceeding with a sequel.”
So there. It’s settled. Now we just need to figure out how. Allow me to present my simple, four-step plan for making this dream a reality.
STEP ONE: We all watch The Nice Guys a lot
This is the easy part. We just watch it a lot — it’s on Netflix right now! — and we tell everyone to watch it a lot, which serves two equally important purposes:
It gives us an excuse to watch The Nice Guys a lot, for a good reason, which we don’t even need but is nice to have anyway
It builds word of mouth and makes the film a phenomenon
That’s right. We give it the full Suits treatment. That’s officially a thing now. Suits, a show that ran on USA Network a decade ago and you maybe watched four episodes of while doing dishes, became a worldwide megahit when everyone decided out of nowhere to watch it last year, and now, again, 10 years later, this resurgence has resulted in the creation of the upcoming Suits universe. Here’s a blockquote for that, too
It transitioned to streaming and was available on Prime Video and Peacock for years until, in an unassuming, modestly priced ($200K-$400K an episode) second-cycle non-exclusive deal, Netflix this year took in the first eight seasons of the show, sharing them with Peacock.
What followed was nothing short of a lightning in the bottle. Possibly fueled by curiosity over Markle’s final role before becoming a British royal and helped by the series’ breezy, addictive storytelling and memorable characters as well as a launch in the summer when popcorn fare has always thrived, Suits has exploded in popularity and last week surpassed Ozark for the most No. 1 overall finishes in the Nielsen Streaming Top 10 ever.
So, yes, there is precedent here. The dam on these things has already been broken. We can force this into existence through sheer will. Which brings me to…
STEP TWO: We wait for someone at Netflix or wherever to realize they have a hot little package on their hands
What I wouldn’t give for Shane Black’s imagined 80s-set sequel to THE NICE GUYS. pic.twitter.com/OBeK8GmjeS
Gladiator 2 is in production and, even though Russell Crowe will not be in it, will probably result in a flood of people watching the original again, which will serve as a good reminder how much Russell rules
Angourie Rice, who plays Gosling’s wiseacre daughter in the movie, just starred in the new Mean Girls musical
I think a streaming service could get on board with that. And look at the video up below the heading here. Everyone looks like they’re having fun. I bet they would do it if we can figure out the logistics. This is where it gets tricky, especially if we want to turn this whole thing around by this coming Christmas. Which I do. Because I’ve already waited seven years and I’m not a patient person.
This brings me to…
STEP THREE: We kidnap Shane Black and lock him in a cabin and make him pound out a script
This is a bit of a drastic step. I’ll admit that. It is also a felony, which would put me at risk of going to prison, which does not seem like something I would enjoy. But I don’t see any way around it. It’s not that Shane Black seems unwilling to do it. We covered that already. It’s more that his dance card for this year is already full and he won’t have time unless we step in. He’s already committed to making a movie with Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield. Another blockquote:
An adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels, the feature stars Wahlberg as the hardened professional thief who is, naturally, double-crossed and left for dead. His hunt for revenge, however, brings with it a shot at the biggest heist of his career. But, per the studio, even with the help of his partner, an actor-slash-con artist named Grofield, he’ll still need to outsmart a South American dictator, the New York mob and the world’s richest man if he hopes to stay alive.
And three more bullet points:
I’m cranky about this because the last time there was a Parker movie it featured Jason Statham in a cowboy hat and I don’t see why Hollywood would deny us more of this in exchange for Mark Wahlberg
I mean, like, the mildest and most gentle kidnapping ever, one with no bodily harm or even property damage, more of a nudge toward the cabin if we can
I am aware that this step is basically the plot of the Stephen King horror classic Misery and I have decided that I am okay with it
Okay, so we’ve got everyone on board and a script and we are ready to go. But we still have to coordinate the schedules of a number of very busy people and pay them a lot of money and get this whole process shot and edited and all of it in a matter of months.
This brings me to…
STEP FOUR: We mobilize the federal government
WB
Hear me out:
If we can wage a trillion-dollar war on a few weeks’ notice I am very sure we can get a movie made for like $85 million, which is basically a rounding error for the Department of Defense
Please do not bring politics into this
That is not the point
I swear to God, don’t do it
Making a sequel to The Nice Guys is a bipartisan issue that will bring the country together
The Founding Fathers would have wanted this
(Probably?)
I don’t know what these clowns in Congress are up to that’s more important
I’m kidding here but still
I know these last two steps got a little outlandish. If you are squeamish about kidnapping and/or using nine figures of tax dollars to fund a silly detective movie getting made at warp speed, I suppose I can wait until 2025 for a new Nice Guys movie.
Jennifer Lopez has long balanced music, acting, and other pop culture interests, and has thrived at it all. Now, she’s shifting the focus back to music: Her new album, This Is Me… Now, comes out tomorrow, February 16. Lopez just preceded that release, though, with big news: Starting this summer, she’s heading out on This Is Me… Now The Tour.
The trek kicks off in Orlando on June 26 and will hit other major North American cities between then and late August, putting Lopez on the road for a busy couple months. This will be Lopez’s first concert tour since 2019.
As for tickets, the first ones will be made available with a JLo Fan Club presale starting Tuesday, February 20 at 9 a.m. local time. There are also presales exclusive to Citi cardmembers and Verizon customers, both starting on February 20 at 10 a.m. local time. Find more information on the Citi presale here and the Verizon presale here. Following all that, the general onsale will start February 23 at 10 a.m. local time via LiveNation.
Check out the list of Lopez’s upcoming tour dates below.
Jennifer Lopez’s 2024 Tour Dates: This Is Me… Now The Tour
06/26 — Orlando, FL @ Kia Center
06/28 — Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center
07/02 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
07/03 — Edinburg, TX @ Bert Ogden Arena
07/05 — San Antonio, TX @ Frost Bank Center
07/06 — Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
07/09 — Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
07/11 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
07/13 — Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
07/16 — San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
07/17 — Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
07/19 — Palm Springs, CA @ Acrisure Arena
07/20 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
07/22 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
07/24 — Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center
07/26 — Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena
07/27 — Indianapolis, IN @ Gainbridge Fieldhouse
07/30 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
07/31 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
08/02 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
08/05 — Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
08/07 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
08/09 — Belmont Park, NY @ UBS Arena
08/10 — Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
08/13 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
08/14 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
08/16 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
08/20 — Cleveland, OH @ Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
08/22 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
08/24 — Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
08/25 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
08/27 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
08/30 — New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
08/31 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
So much for that. Hot Ones host Sean Evans has reportedly broken up with adult film actress Melissa Stratton, a day after most people learned that they were even together. According to TMZ, Evans called Stratton on Valentine’s Day, of all days, and told her “he wanted to call it quits because of the media attention they were getting.”
We’re told Sean expressed to Melissa he wanted to keep his love life more under wraps. Our sources say Melissa found Sean’s reasoning odd for a few reasons… he knew what she did for a living when they started seeing each other and he invited her to multiple public events in Las Vegas leading up to the Super Bowl, and took photos with her.
That’s a likely story for what really happened: Evans got tired of Stratton saying “man, it’s a hot one” every time he asked about the weather.
Not a ton is known about Evans’ personal life; he’s the one asking the questions on Hot Ones, not answering them. But in 2019, he talked to the Hollywood Reporter about his idols growing up. “At that time I was obsessed with David Letterman and Howard Stern, so there was always this part of me that was interested in the ‘lights, camera, action’ of it all and a part that thought I could do it,” he said. “I went to the University of Illinois to be a broadcast journalism major — and wrote about Letterman and Stern to get in — so I feel like I was always interested in this.”
We don’t tend to assign comfort to NBA basketball or its ecosystem. Pressure, strain, dominance, yes; those are qualities we not only anticipate, but consider a player, team, or season to be faulty — even erroneous — without. But when we consider the basic qualities of the game, requirements like skill, conditioning, recovery, communication, team chemistry, comfort is as fundamental as footwork (also fundamental to footwork), essential to the action as a mechanic as to the desired culmination: winning.
Comfort’s been essential to the Milwaukee Bucks this season, though on the surface it may not seem that way. The team adjusted to the biggest offseason move of the summer in adding Damian Lillard to its roster, and has shifted between three head coaches in the past eight months. These moves speak to the competitive bent of the team, now one more season removed from an NBA title the franchise is keen to repeat, and to the mindset of the main person the front office trusts to get them back there. A person who understands, deeply, the value of comfort.
“I don’t know if you watched, a couple days ago we played in Portland and the way that they received [Lillard], how people love him there because he did so many things for that organization, literally. We use the phrase, that’s his house, or he built that house, so when he went back, everybody was ecstatic to see him,” Giannis Antetokounmpo recounts to Dime on a call from the road in early February.
Lillard’s come up because he’s been something of a barometer for the Bucks perceived success this season, and because his acclimatization in Milwaukee has been a crucial concern for Antetokounmpo. The way the Bucks competitive merit has been debated this season, without context, suggests a losing team opponents are bulldozing over night after night. The reality, an offensive juggernaut with a top five offensive rating replete with a top three effective field goal percentage, has kept the Bucks snugly in top tier contention in the East for half of the season. That in itself is a comfortable position, and is in no small part due to Lillard.
Before this season started, Antetokounmpo and Lillard sat down for an interview with Chris Haynes. In it, Antetokounmpo talked about the hard-edged qualities like sacrifice we’re most familiar with in analysis around winning, but he also made the quieter point that in order to be successful, they had to feel very comfortable. Asked whether he thinks comfort is just as important as pressure in competition, and Antetokounmpo is adamant.
“I believe…I cannot imagine putting myself in Dame’s shoes and going to a different team after 11 years. I’ve been in Milwaukee for 11 years. I know how the game’s going to look, I know how practice is going to look, I know my route to my house, my route to the arena. I have seen pretty much most of the fans, have interacted with them,” Antetokounmpo says, underscoring the familiarity of his routine as much as the parallels Lillard had, and lost. “I know every single room and area in the Fiserv Forum, all the people that work there. It’s a level of comfort.
“Obviously when the game starts, it’s unpredictable. You’re uncomfortable for those 48 minutes but you take the 23 hours, 12 minutes left, you try to make it as comfortable as possible.”
It’s worth noting the parallels between Antetokounmpo and Lillard, at least as Antetokounmpo clearly sees them when he mentions and repeats several times their shared tenure of 11 seasons (Lillard has gone through 11, while Antetokounmpo is entering his). Antetokounmpo’s ease in turning the Bucks over to Lillard is part wanting to accelerate the comfort necessary to win, and because it appears that after a decade with one team, winning a title and acquiring a star-level running mate, he not only has the material to look back on, but the necessary distance to do it. From this retrospection we’ve gotten Giannis, in multitude.
In the short span of 2024, Antetokounmpo has released UGO: A Homecoming Story with WhatsApp; launched own media production company, Improbable, that will subsequently release his documentary Giannis: The Marvelous Journey to debut on Prime following All-Star Weekend; and now, has teamed up with Starry as one of the brand’s newest ambassadors.
Starry
For a person who started his professional career as a shy, lanky kid nervous to make a misstep, Antetokounmpo’s growth into a candid, accountable, funny (there’s no one better at or more fond of dad jokes in the entire NBA, maybe present or historic) public persona has been exciting to watch. It’s also a reality of his life that he’s had to grow comfortable with.
“I started playing basketball because I love the game of basketball, and there’s a lot of things that come with playing basketball which is getting attention, having a platform,” Antetokounmpo says. “Hopefully, while I’m doing what I’m doing I can inspire people, impact other’s lives. I didn’t start playing because I wanted to be a role model in any way, but I understand that’s a responsibility that I have now.”
Where his desire to share has changed the most over time has come from being a parent. He credits it for some of his lightness as well as the partnerships he chooses, leaning into his playful side with Starry. Having kids of his own has also made him as “careful as possible” with that he shares.
“There’s kids in Greece, kids in Africa, kids in Milwaukee, there’s kids all around the world that follow every little thing that I do and they repeat everything I say. I think I understand it more with having kids now, every single day you gotta walk on tippy-toes around them because they repeat and copy every little thing you do,” he chuckles. “But I think as I grow older I’ve become more mature and more aware of the platform I have. People get inspired by my journey, and at the end of the day people will not remember my accolades, and things on the court, they will remember how I made them feel, and if I motivated them to do something great in their life.”
It takes confidence, a profound sense of comfort in oneself, to play the kind of basketball Antetokounmpo does night after night — thundering, physical, flowing — as it does to act out a pretend presser with a cartoon lemon and lime, as in his new Starry commercial. The key, for him, is to shed all expectations but his own.
“If you see my acting skills, I’ve been taking a lot of advice from Denzel Washington, and Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ryan Reynolds, so I felt comfortable. I felt in my zone,” he jokes about his succinct lines and excellent body work in the spot, pointing out how easy it was to work with the Starry team because their humor aligned with his.
“I’ll be very honest with you,” he tone switches to a notch more serious. “I set my own expectations through my whole career, through my whole life. I don’t think anybody has higher expectations than me. Nobody lives my life. There can be expectations from the media, from the organization, from your teammates, from your circle, but at the end of the day I set my goals and I always try to set realistic expectations that I believe I can achieve.”
Some of that comfort comes in the bone-deep understanding that he’s outpaced any of the expectations that were placed or projected onto him.
“Going back through my whole journey, with all the people that I’ve worked with, I feel I’ve exceeded all the expectations that anybody set for me,” he notes, almost with the verbal equivalent of an amiable shrug. “So I just keep on setting my expectations, because if I listened to their expectations, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I don’t think anybody ever thought a skinny kid from Greece would be one of the best — not to sound arrogant, but I’m trying to speak facts — players to play this game today.”
Antetokounmpo’s singular drive to succeed for himself and his family has been well documented, and we’re lucky to watch it alchemized into small, game-sized bites. What’s been less noted is where his personal and professional extension beyond the floor, ramping up in the last few years, comes from. Antetokounmpo has a palpable curiosity for the wider world, and a burgeoning intrepid bent. His recent and larger ventures reflect it — travelling back to Nigeria and Greece for his documentary projects — but if you consider the risks and uncertainty he faced and figured out in his formative years, it was a fearlessness shaped from desire; for life and the world.
“I’m just trying to live life hard and be in every single moment, hard. From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep, I try to live every single moment as hard as possible,” he says. “I’m trying to embrace all of those moments, learn from them, and live them hard. I only live those moments once — that’s pretty much it.”
The quote, in a way helpfully tidy for this story, exemplifies the duality Antetokounmpo exhibits in most of his public ventures. He can deliver a scorching game, a bluntly honest reflection of himself or his team, or a compelling ethos for living that makes you want to immediately run outside just to feel the sun on your face, and then cap it with a joke or gently effacing punctuation. It’s a handy way of drawing a parallel between him and his audience, who in some ways (such as on the floor) will never be able to relate, but in others (like in the fundamentals of life), will. It goes back, once again, to comfort.
Antetokounmpo confirmed as much at a recent presser when, asked if he was happy to stack two team wins together, told a room of reporters he didn’t mind if they stacked two or ten in a row. What’s important, he said, was the team competing, heading in the right direction. As the Bucks look to solidify their identity in the second half of the season under Doc Rivers, their determination to dig into this comfort and put outside perception aside will be key in cutthroat conference.
A big hint of whether they’ve arrived came in Antetokounmpo finishing his thoughts about accommodating Lillard: he switched from past to present tense.
“We had to make him feel as comfortable as possible on the basketball court, but also off the court. It’s hard. We knew it would be hard for him. I think everybody, the team, did a good job,” Antetokounmpo says matter-of-factly. “We supported him, and now he feels comfortable. So, our goal stays the same: to be the last team standing.”
Ben Mendelsohn is unpredictable in the best of ways. One minute, he’s carefully considering a question concerning his latest on-screen gig — playing iconic French fashion designer Christian Dior in a historical drama for Apple TV+ set during the Second World War. The next, he’s belting out lyrics to a Beyonce banger. He cares deeply about his craft, and not at all for pretentious discussions on method and process. To him, too much critical praise equates a death sentence, but disappointing his audience keeps him up at night.
He’s all about the work. Not in the pompous, hollow way that sparks some deserved eye-rolling from the non-Hollywood crowd. No, Ben Mendelsohn really doesn’t give a f*ck – at least, not about things that seem unimportant. Like, for instance, too-brief junket interviews designed to fluff up his ego.
So, when we sit down over Zoom to talk about The New Look – a gorgeously shot attempt at covering Europe’s post-war fashion renaissance that sings when it lets stars, Mendelsohn, Juliette Binoche, John Malkovich, and Maisie Williams play against one another – I do my best to refrain from embarrassing us both by raving over his past works. Ben Mendelsohn is good at what he does, he doesn’t need me to tell him.
In his new series, he subverts expectations, playing a tortured artist instead of a calculating villain, anchoring a fascinating (although clumsily-paced) POV of what it was like to live under Nazi rule. Below, UPROXX chats with him about the show, acting myths, and the importance of making art accessible.
I was watching a video where you break down your most famous roles, and the comments section was full of compliments saying you’re underrated, you don’t get your due, you deserve more praise. Do you agree with all of that? Do you feel underrated at this point in your career?
No, no, no, no. I’m as fancy pants as all getup. The actors like me fine, [so] I’m good. You know what I mean? And as to the wider world … that’s the pain in the arse about this whole thing. You want to know what the guaranteed death sentence of an actor is? To be considered the greatest screen actor of their time.
You’ve worked with [showrunner] Todd Kessler before. How did he pitch this project?
He said he was reading [about] Dior, and then he spoke about Dior’s deep, uncomfortable revulsion at his private self versus his public self. And I said, ‘When do we do it?’ I’ve been wanting to work with him again on whatever was viable. I waited five years through this and that and the other. I was waiting for this one for a long time.
Just standing outside his house, waiting for him to toss you a script?
No, he was at my place making pizza. That’s how it happened. I’m not waiting outside his door. Boy, you’ve got a really funny idea of me. [Begins singing Beyonce’s 2006 hit, “Irreplaceable”] You must not know about me …
What was it that appealed to you about playing someone like Christian Dior?
It’s that thing of feeling uncomfortable about who you are and that suggests a very universal idea. When I watched him, he was a sensitive person, he was a person with a lot of anxiety and who sought certainty through tarot, through divination. He was also very Catholic. He was very set in his preferences in how he loved and lived.
It’s a story about, how you take yourself through the world — with all your crappy bits that you don’t much like or you can’t deal with — and do something? The world seems against you and hostile. How do you do it? That to me is what the story is. And then the fact that it’s about these mega [designers]. All around the world, everywhere you go, Chanel, Dior … and there’s an inaccessibility about all that hoo-ha right?
You’ve made him relatable.
I think it’s very reassuring. I think we have a lot of funny ideas about what it takes and the way it gets sold to us. Like yeah, if you remain positive and you have a certain alpha [quality] — and don’t forget, no negative thoughts, don’t get angry, that’ll tear you down, and don’t doubt yourself. It’s all, it’s a crock. It’s very antagonistic towards a person being able to be settled and go, ‘Well, you know what? Yeah, there’s a bunch of things I’ve got wrong. There’s a bunch of things I can’t do, but I just [need to put] one foot in front of the other and [try]’.
It’s just decent intention, plodding along, trying to do the best you can, and being able to put something beautiful into the world in response to a horrible situation. From little things, big things grow.
That’s all internal. Did you reckon with how living in a time of war might make him feel, about himself and his work?
No, you don’t know how people would be feeling. You offer up an idea. You offer a proposition. As soon as you think you know something, you’re jerking off. You never know. You postulate.
How do you measure your performance then? Whether you’re doing a good job?
You don’t, but it’s not important. What’s important is the audience. So the thing is, when you guys talk to us, you talk to us like it’s all about us. But any one of us that’s on the money, is not worried about what [we’re] doing. We’re worried about you guys and getting something to you that is alive and effective, you know?
How we go about doing that or building that is essentially just a bunch of myth. It’s not really the way it happens. It’s got not much to do with that at all. What it is, is a camera, an actor, another actor, a few lines, and then seeing if you can find a way to communicate that in a way that feels alive and has a feeling with it. That all gets stitched together and then you guys get it. It’s not for us. We don’t matter in that respect. It’s not important what we do or how we do it. It’s only ever the audience. And that’s why I can kick a goal sometimes because I’m not worried about how we do it or why we do it or any of that stuff. I take it on faith that we pick this up, but when it goes to you, it comes together and it means something.
Does that mean, when you’re working, you’re not in your head as much?
I’m in my head a lot. But I’m in my head about, ‘Is there a way we can make it better? Is it better if I do that here or there?’ I’m into the minutiae, right? I’m not into all the macro, all of the certainties. That stuff is dead. That doesn’t live. We’re not trying to make a historical documentary, we’re trying to take the real-life situation and go, well, here it is and can you feel it?
Personally, I enjoyed the show and its perspective, not just of Dior, but of this time period – if that was a worry.
Trust me, that is all I worry about. It’s the world to me. I love the audience. I don’t get above them. I stay below them. That’s why we bow. Because we are beneath you. We come for you not the other way around.
Sexyy Red gave birth recently, and she, Drake, and SZA decided to make that the foundation for their new “Rich Baby Daddy” video that dropped last night (February 14).
The Drake-directed clip starts with himself behind the camcorder, showing off his suburban neighborhood before heading inside to his pregnant wife, Red. The music kicks in at around 45 seconds and shows Drake, Sexyy, and SZA enjoying a holiday celebration in their humble home. The music cuts back out at 2:17 into the video, when Red shouts at Drake from across the house, letting him know that her water broke.
The music returns as the three head to the hospital, where the video shifts away from its VHS style and starts looking more modern, as Sexyy gives birth and friends and family celebrate the new arrival. Before the video ends, we see footage from after Red’s actual, real-life childbirth, as she holds her baby and on-screen text reads, “Congratulations Red!!! We Love You.”
Speaking of hospitals, at a recent St. Louis concert, Drake offered to pay for a fan’s upcoming operation, saying from the stage, “You got a sign out that says, ‘Please help me with my surgery.’ I don’t know what kind of surgery you need, sir. I really don’t, but I’ma let you know: From me to you, St. Louis love, we gonna take care of whatever the surgery is.”
Megan Fox was spotted with Taylor Swift during Super Bowl weekend following the Kansas City Chiefs thrilling victory over the San Francisco 49ers. Makes sense. A lot of people wanted to hang out with Swift (and her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce), but only the Jennifer’s Body actress made an odd “sex doll” joke about her photo with the singer.
Following criticisms about her appearance, Fox (who was there with her fiancé, Machine Gun Kelly) wrote on Instagram, “oh my god guys look how different i… dont look at all. turns out it was just a shadowy cell phone pic of me looking like a ukrainian blowup doll. when in REALITY i look like one of those super expensive silicone real sex dolls you can only get in japan.”
You can see the post below.
The snaps were taken at Resorts World Las Vegas’ Zouk nightclub following the Kansas City Chiefs’ victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. They were first shared on Tuesday by Chiefs fan Joe Oravec. After the pictures surfaced, some trolls honed in on Fox’s facial features, accusing the movie star of having plastic surgery done.
Swift and Fox don’t have much of a history (other than Swift calling Paramore’s Hayley Williams “the jennifer’s body version of yourself,” whatever that means), but Kelce and MGK do. A Redditor pointed out, “Travis and MGK actually grew up near each other. They went to rival high schools and knew each other since then. There’s an episode of New Heights where MGK calls in and they talk about growing up in Cleveland.” Maybe Machine Gun Kelly can help launch Kelce’s music career? Or, on second thought, maybe not.
On Instagram last night (February 14), West shared a screenshot of a tweet from a Swiftie, which encouraged other fans to stream and buy Beyoncé’s new single “Texas Hold ‘Em,” in an effort to prevent one of West and Ty Dolla Sign’s new Vultures I songs from debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
West started the post’s lengthy, all-caps caption, “When I said that I’m the new Jesus b*tch I wasn’t even thinking about Taylor Swift. That was a whole line before but I appreciate the free promo. Lil Wayne actually mentions Travis Kelsey on Vultures 2. This album is actually super positive and fun it’s all about triumphant.”
He later relayed his thoughts on the impact he’s had on Swift and shared a message for Swifties:
“Remember I was on Taylor’s side when Scooter bought her masters behind her back. She and Beyoncé are big inspirations to all musicians we always say how both sell out tours and movies. also, I’m sure I’ve been far more helpful to Taylor Swift’s career than harmful. To all Taylor Swift fans I am not your enemy uuum Im not your friend either though lol. Also i didn’t get kicked out of the Super Bowl we left our seats to go to YG’s box and see different friends. my wife had never been to a Super Bowl so I wanted to walk around and have a nice time we had such a fun day.”
Find West’s post below.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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