In Utero, the 1993 Nirvana album that would end up being the band’s final one, is one of the most beloved records of the ’90s. It also has one of the best behind-the-scenes stories: Steve Albini, who produced the album, proposed a wager to the group, saying that if one of them could beat him in a game of pool, he would produce the album for free.
He told the story in a new Kerrang feature, adding that if he won the game, his fee of $100,000 would be doubled. Albini said, “I did that with every band I worked with, and no one ever took me up on the offer. It’s not like I’m a particularly good pool player, but I have an equal chance of winning in a fair game. Ultimately, it wasn’t going to make that much difference to my life if I got double the money for the session or worked for free. But I guess Nirvana were a little more risk-averse than I was.”
Grohl once addressed that proposed wager, saying, “We were paying him $100,000. Anyone who’s got the stones to gamble something that large must be amazing, so everyone said no. Plus he had his own stick. We didn’t want to f*ck around with that.”
Yearbook is a “collection of true stories that I desperately hope are just funny at worst, and life-changingly amazing at best,” Rogen wrote. He shares recollections of his “grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs, and Jewish summer camp, and tells way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like.” Speaking of his mom: Sandy Rogen, who is also very good at Twitter, wrote a statement in the press release for Yearbook. It’s charming as hell (sorry to swear, Mrs. Rogen).
“At first I was worried that Seth was writing a book, because I was like, ‘Oh no! What’s he gonna say?!’ I was actually scared to even read it. But I’m very happy I did. It’s not really a memoir, like I thought it might be. I guess it’s more of a bunch of funny stories? Does that make sense? He talks about doing stand-up when he was a kid (I drove him to all his shows!), his grandparents, high school, moving to L.A., meeting some famous people, things like that. If I’m being honest, I really wish there wasn’t so much drug talk. Why does he need all that? It’s like ‘We get it!’ And some of the stories? I mean, they’re entertaining, but I was just shocked they happened and he never told me! Overall, I think it’s more sweet and funny than anything, so I like it, and I’m glad he wrote it, but I’d be even more glad if he called me more.”
Mazel tov to the Rogens. I hope Seth does his own audiobook, complete with laughs.
I wrote a book called Yearbook. It’s true stories and essays and stuff that I hope you think are funny. It comes out in May, but if you like you can order it now. Yay! https://t.co/Cqwwi4qq3opic.twitter.com/nDxwBqnkp8
Chicago’s Lil Eazzyy’s “Onna Come Up” deftly describes his condition over the past month or so after releasing his debut EP Underrated. The EP’s breakout single, “Onna Come Up” was updated earlier this month with a remix featuring Eazzyy’s Windy City forebear G Herbo, and today, the song received a slickly polished video that depicts Eazzyy’s vision of his rags to riches transition.
Directed by AJ Spitz, the video transplants the two Second City natives to the West Coast, where Eazzyy performs his machine-gun verses under a flaming umbrella at a funeral and soaks up the sun on a beach surrounded by wine-sipping models. However, the air of menace he’s cultivated in his music is never far from hand; a secondary location finds Eazzyy sitting against a lowrider, rapping as a dice game goes on in the background.
Meanwhile, Herbo, who’s been going through the flames in his personal life lately, raps in front of a beach bonfire while visual effects transform his features into ghoulish caricature. Herbo recently turned himself in on federal identity fraud charges, pleading not guilty in their wake and releasing the song “Statement” to refute any implication that he’s not 100 percent authentic.
Watch Lil Eazzyy’s “Onna Come Up” remix video featuring G Herbo above.
The world fell in love with Olivia Rodrigo after she released her debut single and instant hit “Drivers License.” The singer received a co-sign from the likes of Taylor Swift and Cardi B and the single smashed a few streaming records upon its release. Now, Rodrigo offers fans an inside look at the video’s filming process with some behind-the-scenes footage.
Speaking to the camera about how they scored one of their filming locations, Rodrigo said the director walked up to a random stranger’s house and got permission to film there:
“I’m pinching myself, I cannot believe this is all happening. We did a bunch of cool scenes in the beautiful midcentury modern house. The director was just driving through the neighborhood and he’s like, ‘That’s a beautiful house.’ He literally just knocked on the door and the people were like, ‘Yeah, you can come film in our home.’ Which is so cool, I’m so grateful.”
Elsewhere in the video, Rodrigo talked about a scene that is very close to her heart. “This next scene is going to be all of the projections. And I actually filmed all these projections on an iPhone with one of my best friends,” she said. “I thought it would be cool to use projections as a way to signify the memories that keep running through this girl’s head as she’s going through this heartbreak.”
Watch the behind-the-scenes footage from Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
“Dammit, I forgot to ask him about playing Shipwreck in the GI Joe musical short!” This is what regret sounds like as I peruse Alan Tudyk’s ridiculously long and diverse IMDB page. From ample voice work to on-screen stabs at villainy, heroism, comedy, nice-guyism, and everything in between. Tudyk has a means of connecting with fans of every genre across TV and film. Chances are he’s probably popped up in one of your favorite things. From Firefly to Star Wars: Rogue One, Dodgeball, Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil, I, Robot, Doom Patrol, Rick And Morty, 42, I should stop.
In his latest two projects, both for Syfy, Tudyk voices the Devil in Devil May Care (which premieres February 6 as a part of their Adult Swim-esque TZGZ animated block) and an alien in Resident Evil, the network’s small-town dramedy wherein Tudyk plays a reclusive doctor forced to interact with townsfolk who he’s trying to exterminate… because he’s also an alien masquerading as a human. The show debuts tonight (January 27), and it’s why we had the chance to talk with Tudyk recently, reveling in his joy over playing someone who wants to destroyed the human race, similarities between portraying an alien and a robot, how he returned to the set of the show from the first COVID shutdown with a little more of him to love, and the truth behind his awful dance moves. And because his career is so diverse, there naturally had to be some talk about Steve The Pirate from Dodgeball, what he’d be doing now, and a pretty fantastic endorsement for rum-soaked pirate fairs. But first, as one does, we begin with Alan Tudyk telling us about committing that most human of mistakes — texting a video of himself to the wrong person.
Alan Tudyk: Chris’ [Sheridan, the Resident Alien showrunner] name starts with CH. My wife’s name is Charissa [Barton], CH. So I sent a dance, which is of my wife and I dancing. Her sister just turned 50, and her sister’s a choreographer and a dancer. My wife’s a choreographer too. Anyway, all these dancers from all over the world did dances to this song and it got put together into a video, so I accidentally sent Chris a dance of me with my shirt off. I’ve got sunglasses on. It’s not… There’s no song going, so it’s just me making sounds to the beat, so there’s nothing supporting the dance.
So if that gets out, then everyone will know what it would be like to have a Cameo message from you.
[Laughs] And they’ll want a refund. But also they’ll know what it’s like to want a refund from Cameo.
So how’s the world treating you on this fine day?
It’s lovely. I’m in Canada. My wife is Canadian. And when we were up here shooting… It’s where we shoot Resident Alien. And when we all broke for COVID and the bulk of the cast went back to the States, her and I stayed. And now we’ve just been living here this whole time for COVID and the new developments.
How was it getting back into production?
That was tricky, but this production has not followed a typical timeline of a series. We shot the pilot, and then we didn’t start shooting the series until over a year later. So, it was already drawn out. And then we shot everything, save two weeks’ worth of work. And then everything in Vancouver started shutting down that week. When we came back, we were given three weeks to shoot two weeks, which was great because there are all the COVID protocols, which took a lot of extra time. There were a lot of safety meetings. They really got it right.
I think my costumes went up in size by a couple of inches, though, which would be exciting because of the way it was shot… I think you’re going to see this in other productions as well. A character’s going to leave an interior scene, they’re going to walk out a door, and you’re going to pick them up in the exterior, and they’ll put on 10 pounds. And how did they put on 10 pounds? It’s the magic 10-pound doorway which just adds six month’s worth of being sedentary and eating your feelings, and then we just carried on.
You mentioned that your wife has a choreographer. There are some pretty terrible dance moves that you’re putting on in this. I’m hoping that was intentionally bad. What was her take on the dance moves there?
[Laughs] She embraces my bad dance moves, which are purposely bad! Although she did inform me yesterday that… “Your dance moves are funny until you think they’re funny, and then they stop being funny.”
It’s a real cone of truth that spouses have.
[Laughs] Isn’t it? I said, “Well, how do you know the ones that are funny are not the ones where I’m being serious?” But she realized that probably was the case. I’m not talking about it right now.
I understand. You need to heal.
Exactly. She’s the dancer of the couple, for sure.
Syfy
You’ve played androids and robots in a few different things and there’s a detachment from humanity that kind of runs through those roles and this one as an alien.
There are similarities. The robot I played in I, Robot, he was the Pinocchio robot, the wooden boy with emotions. He was the machine with emotions. But as far as the movement goes, the way we approached it was that he moved in an ergonomic way. I think that’s the word I’m looking for. That way that the skeleton is supposed to be used, the most efficient use of movement, is how a robot would move. And in a way, an alien who’s pretending to be human and navigating this new physical form, he’s operating it somewhat like a machine. Move this leg, move that leg, alternate arms swinging to the legs. So in that way, it’s similar. The trajectory for Harry, the alien, as far as emotions go, is that he begins, throughout the first season, to be infected by his new human form. He’s got a mission. He doesn’t feel the same way as a human, and it takes him a while to come around to it, and it catches him off guard. It’s fun playing a character that has to learn to walk and talk. And even though he is an advanced being in his knowledge of the universe, he is very remedial when it comes to humans. He doesn’t know the species he’s sent to eradicate. He wasn’t supposed to interact with them. So, he makes a lot of dumb mistakes. So he’s very smart, thinks very highly of himself, but then is constantly doing stupid things, And that’s really fun to play.
How he’s impacted by human emotions and obviously turned by human beings… not to strain to find some powerful message here, but right now, finding entertainment that reminds us that people aren’t all bad… That sure is okay.
Right.
Was the ability to kind of shine a light on why humans aren’t worth blowing up part of the appeal?
Yes. That. You said it so well. That was a huge draw, but it was coming at it from the place of someone who starts out wanting to kill everyone. That was also exciting to me. I love stories that have central characters that are bad, I guess.
I’ll ask a question I’m sure you’ve been asked a bunch: do you believe in aliens?
I absolutely do. I think whenever you see those telescope shots of the universe that they can see, and they’re like, “In this little dot is the Milky Way.” And I mean, there’s so much. We know so little, but then there’s also the… What’s that water bear, the tardigrade? Those little things. There are things that seem like aliens that are already here, but aren’t what we would think of as aliens crashing in Roswell. But those things can survive in space for a certain amount of time. You can’t kill them and they don’t seem to follow our rules of nature. They’re their own thing. But then there’s also Roswell and there are all of these sightings. There’s too much. They exist.
Are they among us? And you work in Hollywood, so it’s okay to acknowledge. If you want to name names, that’s fine. I’m here for that.
[Laughs] Oh my god! Yeah. I can’t name names. That’d be fun. I believe… I don’t know. Sure, they’re among us, I guess. We can see so little. Even our visual spectrum is very limited. Our awareness of the world around us is very limited. So I think they’re among us.
Red Hour
I got a lot of requests to ask a Dodgeball/Steve the Pirate question. I just want to know what you think he would be doing right now?
I would hope that he was still pirating, maybe making some jewelry.
Maybe he has an Etsy store? This could be a venture for you right now.
I know. I would hope that he would not be on Etsy. That he would, like the old school ways of doing it, going around to different trade shows. I’d love to see him at a trade show in his garb. But there are pirate fairs, much like Scarborough fairs. He would probably do the Scarborough circuit for a while. Until he injured someone.
I did not know that there were actually pirate fairs. I’ve been to a Renaissance fair. I’m guessing it’s the same thing.
Yes. It is very similar. I did it in preparation for the movie. I lucked out, the guy who made my gold tooth, the special effects guy, named Richard Snell… And while he was taking the impression, he’s like, “So what is this? Are you guys making fun of pirates or what?” I’m like, “No, no. He’s totally a pirate, man.” And he was like, “Well, cool, because I’m a pirate.” And he was part of the Rum Runners, and he invited me up to Ojai. They were going to have this pirate fair. And I went up there and they make their own rum. They basically get wasted and wrestle, and people make their own jewelry. That’s where I got that from. They make weapons. They shoot off black powder guns a lot. A lot of explosions going on. I saw people hooking up left and right.
That sounds like a good time, actually.
It was. They camp out for days. They don’t just come and then go, they’re there for days. They’re pirates. Every year they make a base rum, and then they each break off into little groups and they spice a rum and make their own. And they do a taste test, and they find the best one. They’re like, “That’s this year’s rum.” And then they make a huge, big batch of that rum, and that’s simple high octane. You would enjoy it.
‘Resident Alien’ premieres January 27 at 10 PM ET on Syfy. Check your local listings to find a pirate fair near you.
The Coda Collection is $4.99 per month and will feature titles such as Johnny Cash At San Quentin, Miranda Lambert: Revolution Live By Candlelight, and Music, Money, Madness…Jimi Hendrix In Maui at launch on February 18.
It will also be the streaming home for the premieres of Bob Dylan’s Trouble No More and Dave Grohl’s upcoming documentary, among other titles. The new channel was formed in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment, Concord Music, Mercury Studios, Rhino Entertainment, and more. All told, the channel will house 150 exclusive films and shows to start with new content circulating in regularly.
The channel will be accompanied by a blog led by former Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot providing context for the content in question via curated playlists, editorial pieces, original podcasts, and video interviews from prominent critics, writers, and other cultural figures.
You can check out The Coda Collection on Prime Video Channels 2/18 and vising www.codacollection.co for more information.
Jared Leto is making the rounds to promote The Little Things, a crime drama that will stream on HBO Max and which co-stars Denzel Washington. Part of his press tour has involved discussing Leto’s shock at emerging from a silent desert retreat to realize that a pandemic was happening, and that’s something that’s obviously still on his mind and will be for quite awhile. For Variety’s Actors on Actorsseries, though, Leto sat down with Denzel’s son, John David Washington (who’s co-starring with Zendaya in Malcolm & Marie), and Leto revealed what he likes (and mostly doesn’t like) about filmmaking.
Leto will appear later this year in Sony’s Morbius, a Spider-Man spinoff that will target the same moviegoers that made 2018’s Venom such a massive hit, but Leto — who portrayed a much maligned version of The Joker in David Ayer’s 2016 supervillain gathering, The Suicide Squad — revealed that he doesn’t sweat these roles too much. In fact, he doesn’t even rehearse, and he’s not exactly gung-ho on the camera rolling. He prefers the research-prep and finishing the work. From Variety:
– “I haven’t rehearsed in a movie in 10 years. I don’t have a rule against it, but usually I’m ready to go.”
– “Shooting the movie is the least enjoyable part for me. The two best parts of making movies is getting the job and finishing the job. I like the character build, the discovery. I actually like the time that I spend investigating. I think I just put too much pressure on myself.”
You almost have to respect how successful Leto’s been at scoring roles without enjoying the camera rolling, right? Mostly, this has paid off for him, especially while winning an Oscar for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. He did reveal, though, that he hasn’t watched that film (not even a scene or a play back while making the movie). “I had a lot less anxiety when I didn’t do it,” he explains. He also revealed that he’s generally stressed by making movies, but he’s been attempting “to practice not being so attached to the outcome of things and really just doing the best I can.” Hopefully, his next silent meditation retreat will be a lot more stress-relieving than his last one turned out to be.
Leto will next be reprising The Joker in Zack Snyder’s Justice League director’s cut, which will arrive on HBO Max in March.
Lupin came close to becoming Netflix’s most-watched original series within its first 28 days of release, with 70 million subscribers checking out the fancy French heist show. But it finished just behind current title-holder, The Witcher (76 million). That record has since been broken by another series, however: Netflix claims that 82 million households have watched Bridgerton since the Shonda Rhimes-produced streamy drama was released in December, well over the streaming service’s original estimate of 63 million. Geralt of Rivia will need to take a long, sad soak in the tub to get over this one.
[The Witcher] can still lay claim to having the highest percentage of Netflix households worldwide check it out. When The Witcher debuted in December 2019, Netflix had just over 169 million subscribers, per its quarterly earnings report. That means about 45 percent of its subscribers viewed the show. Netflix ended the fourth quarter of 2020 with 203.7 million subscribers, meaning about 40.3 percent of them checked out Bridgerton.
Also, Netflix defines anything watched for only two minutes as a “view” and the streamer is reporting its own numbers, so who knows how accurate they are. All that being said, Bridgerton, which was renewed for season two, is a massive hit by any metric. I don’t think Shonda Rhimes will be returning to network television any time soon.
Halsey is a singer, actor, painter, makeup mogul, and now, she’s a soon-to-be mom. Much to the pleasant surprise of her fans, Halsey announced she’s expecting her first child with screenwriter Alev Aydin.
Sharing the exciting news on Instagram, Halsey shared a handful of glowing photos of her baby bump. “Surprise,” she wrote with a few baby emojis. Halsey tagged Aydin in the photos, who wrote, “Heart so full, I love you, sweetness,” in the post’s comment section.
Halsey is getting ready to be a first-time mom after she previously suffered a miscarriage, which she penned her mournful Manic song “More” about. Speaking to Apple Music about the painful experience, Halsey said there was a time when she didn’t think getting pregnant was possible for her. “For a long time, I didn’t think that having a family was something I was going to be able to do, and it’s very, very important to me,” she said.
Just ahead of her pregnancy announcement, Halsey got was getting reflective about her tour life after canceling her Manic World Tour. Speaking to James Cordon on The Late Late Show, the singer recalled a 2016 show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden where her sound malfunctioned. “One time I was on stage, and everything stopped working — sound, lights, video, music, the whole thing, my brain,” she said.
“Everything malfunctioned, and I had to stand on the stage for two minutes talking to the crowd…. Two minutes in stage time is like a century.” Thankfully, things were able to get back up and running and Halsey decided to start her entire set over so that she could “do the whole thing with no mistakes.”
See Halsey’s glowing pregnancy announcement above.
A very funny story came out earlier this week when LeBron James claimed that he had a 21-point fourth quarter against the Cleveland Cavaliers because he was taunted by a member of the team’s front office after missing a shot to close the third. It was funny because you’d imagine if there was any one organization that would know you do not taunt LeBron James, it would be the Cavaliers, as they had front row seats to watching him do that to other franchises for years.
Instead, they decided to tug on Superman’s cape, which went approximately like this:
Twenty-one fourth quarter points later and James was the driving force behind a 115-108 win over the pesky Cavs. But still, it’s unclear exactly what happened that led to James sneering and scoring just under half of his 46 points in one 12-minute period. Fortunately the video ended up hitting the Twitterverse, and while we can’t get the audio, we can certainly see that James’ claim that he was prodded by someone who got real happy that he missed a jumper was, indeed, true.
Again, how a member of the front office of the team that LeBron James brought to four NBA Finals in a row doesn’t know better is a bit of a surprise, but hey, sometimes you have to learn things like this the hard way.
