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With Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Simu Liu went from an obscure working actor to a big enough star to host SNL. He even holds a major first: He’s the first Asian star of an MCU romp. And it may not have happened had Liu done something any ambitious careerist does to get ahead: embellish one’s qualifications to get a big job.

As caught by Entertainment Weekly, Liu participated in Variety’s “Actors on Actors” showcase, speaking with West Side Story break-out (and fellow SNL Season 47 host) Ariana DeBose. And he confessed that his martial arts skills may not have been as robust as he claimed at the time.

“When I got the part, they asked me about my martial arts background and experience, which of course I exaggerated because I wanted the job really badly,” Liu confessed. “I had done some work as an on-again, off-again stuntman, but if we’re honest, I think I was more of a dancer than I ever was a martial artist.”

When he got the job, Liu realized he had to do some catching up. “Pretty much from the moment I was cast, I started working with trainers and learning how to move. I had such awful flexibility,” he told DeBose. “A big part of that early process was just bending my body and trying to rip those legs apart.”

To make things worse, he was supposed to do martial arts opposite two biggies of the genre: Tony Leung (alum of John Woo movies and the Jet Li starrer Hero) and Michelle Yeoh (whose martial arts CV is legion). Luckily they were very understanding.

“Very different people, but an aura of warmth and friendliness,” Liu explained. He said Leung was “famously shy, and very, very soft spoken. You would never know his stature and his fame just by looking at him.” Yeoh, meanwhile, was a “goofball” on top of a “badass,” and she had a “wonderful way of telling me to relax and just settle in.”

So if you wind up exaggerating your way into a martial arts blockbuster with the stars of the 1993 wuxia classic Butterfly and Sword, they may have your back.

(Via Variety and EW)

With the trade deadline four days away, trade talks are heating up around the NBA and we are finally starting to see some movement and not just reported discussions.

The first big deal of the weekend arrived on Friday when the Clippers traded for Norman Powell and Robert Covington, as the Blazers looked to move out of the luxury tax and officially signaled they are moving towards this season being about the future. While the big dominos remain standing, that move seemed to pop the lid off the trade market a bit, as Sunday brought word of another fairly significant deal.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been wanting to add guard help for months, particularly with the injuries to Collin Sexton and Ricky Rubio, and have found that additional backcourt help for breakout star Darius Garland in Indiana, where the Pacers have been reportedly open for business for more than a month. On Sunday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Caris LeVert was headed to Cleveland for Rubio’s expiring salary, this year’s first round pick, and a pair of seconds.

The Cavs are firmly in the playoff hunt this year and needed to make a move to ensure they weren’t just a regular season darling, but had some additional floor balance for the postseason. LeVert can hopefully provide that, offering quality secondary scoring alongside Garland as the Cavs have loaded up with frontcourt talent but found themselves a bit thin at guard.

For the Pacers, it’s the beginning of the expected selling off to kickstart a rebuild, with Domantas Sabonis and/or Myles Turner both potentially on their way out this week as well. They get a first this year and a pair of seconds, along with some future cap flexibility to begin what they hope will be a relatively quick rebuild.

We’re just a week away from Super Bowl LVI, which means we’re a week from the game’s Halftime Show, which features an eclectic array of performers: Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Mary J. Blige. The artists are expected to perform classic songs from their catalogs, with a slim chance of them performing some new and/or unreleased tracks. Another thing viewers will catch during the halftime show is a performance from a pair of deaf rappers.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Eminem has invited Sean Forbes and Warren “WaWa” Snipe to take the stage during the show. Forbes and Warren will perform interpretations of the headliners’ songs in American Sign Language (ASL), which will. mark the first time that the NFL has ever incorporated ASL into their halftime show. It’s described as “an elevated accessibility experience” and the performance will be made available through the NBC Sports website and app.

“The doors to accessibility are busted wide open with something like this,” Forbes told the Detroit Free Press during an interview. While it will be Forbes’ first appearance at a Super Bowl, Snipe previously appeared at last year’s game, where he joined Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church to perform the national anthem.

When he’s not fleeing his constituents for Cancún or helping inspire violent Trump supporters to overturn democracy, Ted Cruz can be found annoying people on Twitter and then getting owned. No one likes him, not even the star of his favorite movie. On Saturday he was at it again, using social media to agitate an already agitated situation: the band of anti-vaxx truckers cruising around the nation, protesting mandates. And of course, it only ended up with Cruz getting owned.

On Friday, the mayor of Vancouver, Kennedy Stewart, released a statement made a simple request of the truckers, who were planning a protest in the city: “As the Mayor of a city with an over 95 per cent vaccination rate, my message to the convoy is this: Vancouver doesn’t want you here. Make your point and then go home.”

But Cruz wasn’t moved by the call for public health measures. Indeed, he seemed to want to make it worse. “Mayor says “Vancouver doesn’t want” truck drivers there,” he tweeted. “Folks might feel differently with empty shelves.”

Is it strange for an American politician, even one born in Canada, to joke about citizens in another country to go hungry? You betcha. His tweet did not go unnoticed by Stewart himself, who clapped back by pointing out his grim hope was impossible anyway.

“Can someone tell @tedcruz our store shelves are fine thanks to the 90% of Canadian truckers who are fully vaccinated. Too busy high-fiving all the awesome folks in #Vancouver that are helping push back against the #hateconvoy.”

It’s not the first time in the last few days that Cruz was humiliated on Twitter. Late last week he was dragged for daring to make a Cancún joke as his constituents once again found themselves without power during a winter storm.

(Via Raw Story)

Over the last few years, Schoolboy Q has grown to love the game of golf. It’s something he spoke about heavily during the release of his fifth album, Crash Talk. Back in 2020, he appeared in a trailer for the game PGA Tour 2K21 alongside WWE Superstar The Miz, PGA Tour cover athlete Justin Thomas, and Christopher McDonald (aka Shooter McGavin from the Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore). Fast forward to the present and Schoolboy Q has been enjoying his time as a participant in the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California. During his time there, the rapper was asked how golf has impacted him.

“Coming where I come from, the life that I had, I never thought about playing golf, and I got into it and it changed my mental,” he said. “It let me learn myself as a person, like this is why certain things in my life are going bad or why certain things are going good because of the attitude thing, you get what I’m saying? It fixed my attitude in life, it fixed a lot of things about me in life.”

Schoolboy added, “Life is a golf game — some good shots, some bad shots. But most importantly, keep going you never know. Don’t give up because you’re in the sand on your fourth shot, you might chip it in. It just taught me a lot about life.”

You can watch Schoolboy Q speak about his connection to golf in the video above.

The Brooklyn Nets are in freefall right now, having lost seven straight games to slide to 29-23, just a half-game above the No. 7 seeded Raptors. Their losing streak has come with Kevin Durant sidelined with a knee sprain, Kyrie Irving still in and out of the lineup as a part-time player only playing on the road, and James Harden battling a hamstring issue that has kept him out four of the last six games (including Sunday night’s upcoming game against Denver he’s been ruled out of).

On top of injury issues, there’s apparent discontent with the current situation in Brooklyn from Harden, who reportedly isn’t thrilled with Irving’s part-time status or the fact that he is once again finding himself having to carry the bulk of the creative load on a team he figured to share the spotlight on with two other stars. That has led to growing buzz about the potential for Harden to leave the Nets this summer when he’s able to become a free agent, and even some murmurs that he could be had at the trade deadline should the 76ers, known to covet the star, offer Brooklyn a sizable trade package with Ben Simmons as the focal point.

On Sunday, prior to their game against the Nuggets, Steve Nash offered a public rebuttal to those rumors, telling reporters in his pregame availability that Harden has confirmed to Nash that he wants to be in Brooklyn, and Nash offered as firm an on the record response to trade rumors as you can get.

Now, there isn’t a world in which Nash would stand before reporters and tell them they’re going to trade Harden at this point, but it’s notable that he says this four days before the deadline, pouring cold water on Philly’s dream of nabbing the star during the season. It still feels most likely that Harden’s situation gets interesting this summer and that he, at the very least, explores his options outside of the Nets in free agency, which maybe leads to a sign-and-trade situation.

While Harden may not be on the block, the Nets do figure to be active this week in trying to upgrade the roster, both in the immediate to try and keep things afloat until Durant comes back and even for when their stars are all at full strength, as there’s serious uncertainty about Joe Harris’ availability going forward this season.

Jackass Forever has made a lot of people happy, especially those who enjoy watching middle-aged men repeatedly destroy their genitals. But one group that’s not pleased is PETA, aka the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. As the stunt-filled fourquel dominates the box office, the animal rights group put out a statement condemning the film for its numerous stunts involving bulls, snakes, scorpions, and more.

As per Deadline, PETA singled out a number of scenes for condemnation. One involves Steve-O provoking honeybees into stinging his penis. Another finds a scorpion attacking new team member Rachel Wolfson. There were more:

Objections included scenes that include a spider being provoked into biting an actor’s chest, a turtle being harassed and goaded until the animal bites an actor’s testicles, a captive snake harangued and provoked into biting a person’s nose, a tarantula trapped in a tube between two participants’ faces, and a bull deliberately agitated into charging Knoxville, reportedly leaving him with a brain hemorrhage, among other injuries.

“If Steve-O and Johnny Knoxville want to make a career out of nasty little boy fantasies, they’re entitled to, as long as they don’t stress, harm, poke, prod, scare, or bother animals who are used as living props for their idiocy,” said PETA SVP Lisa Lange in a statement. They even accused the filmmakers of breaking state animal protection laws. “PETA is reminding city and county prosecutors that no one is above the law and that while the rest of the world wants to save bees and recognizes animals as sentient individuals, these jackasses exploit and abuse them for fun.”

Jackass Forever is now in theaters.

(Via Deadline)

For the past couple of days, Kanye West has been very vocal on social media about the issues he’s having with Kim Kardashian. The rapper criticized his ex-wife for letting their daughter North West, use TikTok against his wishes. He also claimed that she wouldn’t let him bring their kids to a basketball game in Chicago. Kim only responded to the former claim, saying that West’s constant attacks against her are more harmful to North than TikTok. After he received some support from far right pundit Candace Owens, Kanye returned to Instagram to get some more things off his chest.

West shared a pair of Instagram posts that expanded on his stance against TikTok and voiced his frustration with not being able to see his children. In one post, which featured a screenshot of a text from Kanye that reads, “Send me Kim’s number,” he claims that Kim accused him of “putting a hit out on her” among other things.

YESTERDAY KIM ACCUSED ME OF PUTTING A HIT OUT ON HER, SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. I BEG TO GO TO MY DAUGHTERS PARTY AND IM ACCUSED OF BEING ON DRUGS. THEN I GO PLAY WITH MY SON AND I TAKE MY AKIRA GRAPHIC NOVELS AND IM ACCUSED OF STEALING. NOW IM BEING ACCUSED OF PUTTING A HIT ON HER. THESE IDEAS CAN ACTUALLY GET SOMEONE LOCKED UP. THEY PLAY LIKE THAT WITH BLACK MENS LIVES [WHETHER] IT’S GETTING THEM FREE OR GETTING THEM LOCKED UP. IM NOT PLAYING ABOUT MY BLACK CHILDREN ANYMORE.

The second post that West shared displayed a pair of text message screenshots, allegedly between Kanye and one of Kim Kardashian’s cousins, who attempted to offer him advice since they’re a single parent as well. However, it doesn’t go over well with Kanye, as he reveals in the post’s caption.

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF KIM’S COUSIN AGREEING WITH ME ABOUT TIK TOK THEN PROCEEDING TO ASK ME FOR SOME YEEZYS AFTERWARDS. HER OTHER COUSIN KARA CALLED ME SAYING SHE AGREED WITH ME THEN SAID SHE WOULD SPEAK OUT PUBLICLY WHICH SHE NEVER DID THEN SHE SUGGESTED I TAKE MEDICATION. MY DAD DIDNT HAVE MONEY OR A [PUBLIC] VOICE WHEN MY MOM DESTROYED ME AND HIS RELATIONSHIP. I DO THIS IS FOR EVERY PARENT ON EITHER SIDE [WHOSE] KIDS FUTURES ARE BEING ONE SIDEDLY CONTROLLED. I DONT EVEN HAVE THE RIGHT TO GET ANGRY AS A FATHER WITHOUT BEING CALLED [ERRATIC]. I GAVE THAT FAMILY THE CULTURE, IF THEY AS A WHOLE UNIT KEEP PLAYING GAMES WITH ME I WILL TAKE THAT CULTURE BACK. A FATHER SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO BEG FOR THE LOCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN

You can view the posts from Kanye above.

A lot of Republicans — most recently Marco Rubio — are unwilling to put the blame for the Jan. 6 riot on Donald Trump. Chris Christie isn’t one of them. The former New Jersey governor (who has his own share of problems) turned on Trump back before it was cool (for Republicans, anyway). He torched him shortly after he lost re-election and he’s been torching him ever since, revealing things like the heartless way he treated him after they both caught COVID. And on Sunday, shortly after his party deemed the Capitol attack as “legitimate political discourse,” Christie didn’t mince words.

During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Christie was asked about Mike Pence daring to say Trump was “wrong” to think he could reject the 2020 election results on that fateful day. Christie said he didn’t “know why it took him so long” to publicly admit doing so wasn’t in his power anyway. He then turned his attention on the former president.

“Let’s face it. Let’s call it what it is. Jan. 6 was a riot that was incited by Donald Trump in an effort to intimidate Mike Pence and the Congress into doing exactly what he said in his own words last week: Overturn the election,” Christie responded.

Christie, who sometimes stood awkwardly by Trump’s side throughout his lone term in office, was referring to a recent glorified press release the 45th president sent last week, in which he straight-up admitted that he wanted Pence to “overturn the election.”

“He actually told the truth by accident,” Christie said. “He wanted the election to be overturned.”

Will others in the GOP follow suit? Given that the party responded to Trump’s confession by censuring the only two Republican lawmakers on the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 and again downplaying its severity, probably not.

(Via Yahoo! News)

Joe Rogan has not had a great couple weeks, and it’s all thanks to Neil Young. After the legendary rocker demanded Spotify delete his music from their coffers due to the COVID misinformation spread on Rogan’s podcast, others followed suit. He was even called an “asshole” by Sharon Stone. But Rogan received some support. Jon Stewart came to his defense. So did Dwayne Johnson, who called Rogan’s apology “perfectly articulated.” But now the wrestler-turned-actor is easing off on his defense.

On Friday, a video went viral showing multiple instances where Rogan used the N-word. It was enough to pile more controversy on the podcaster, who’s long said whatever he wanted, without fear of meaningful repercussion, even ignoring hundreds of scientists begging him (and Spotify) to stop. And when Johnson learned about the video, he was nonplussed.

“I hear you as well as everyone here 100%,” Johnson tweeted after author Don Winslow directed him to the inciting video. “I was not aware of his N word use prior to my comments, but now I’ve become educated to his complete narrative. Learning moment for me.”

It wasn’t an official, complete reversal, but it’s clear Johnson was backing off of his previous “perfectly articulated” comments.

Shortly after the supercut went viral, Rogan released his second apology video in a week. He said he didn’t mean it in a racist way; he was merely discussing the word and thought it was fine for him to not censor it. Meanwhile, Spotify has removed dozens of Joe Rogan Experience episodes, though they did not explain whether it was due to COVID misinformation, him dropping the N-word or both.

(Via Insider)