Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

A Chat With Nicholas Hoult Of ‘The Great,’ Who’s Getting Really Good At Playing The Bad Guy

If you ask Nicholas Hoult, he’ll blame the wigs. They’re one of the reasons why he’s gotten into the habit of playing scene-stealing baroque dandies in wildly funny period dramas. They’ve given him a new avenue to explore in his decades-long career and introduced him to eccentric, extremely GIF-able villains you can’t help but laugh at. They’re what allowed him to shove Emma Stone in a ditch in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-nominated The Favourite, and they’ve helped him get into character again for Hulu’s upcoming 18th-century punk Russian soap opera, The Great.

Of course, Tony McNamara is the bigger reason why Hoult seems to gravitate towards this time period and these completely-obtuse, too-powerful historical figures. He penned The Favourite before helming Hulu’s stylishly modern retelling of Catherine The Great’s early years. Elle Fanning may play the show’s leading heroine — a young woman thrust into the freakish, almost campy court of Peter III — but it’s Hoult who seems to be having the most fun with McNamara’s quick-witted, satirical script (of course, he’s also the one who gets to toss a Pomeranian off a balcony so…). We chatted with Hoult about his career evolution, not getting bored, and why 18th-century life feels oddly relevant right now.

You’re unnaturally talented when it comes to playing these aristocratic, asshole types. Does putting on a wig just do that to you?

Yeah, there’s just something in my DNA, where I put on a wig and I just turn into these bizarre humans. I do weirdly find it quite fun, playing these offbeat, very disconnected people, who have no sense of the world around them. That, with Tony’s writing, I think it’s just so singular and unique and fun. They’re characters that, you can feel like you can do anything, at any moment with them. That’s something that’s really liberating and freeing. They’re wild and untamable, but you’ve also got a construct of a great script that you can stick to.

Playing these really terrible characters, does it ever cause you to self-reflect?

I don’t know. In many ways, you have to always understand the voice, or where this character’s coming from, I suppose. Peter, he’s been put into this position where he never quite knows who he can trust. Also, he’s been put in this position. He doesn’t really want it. He just wants to have fun. Now, he’s stuck with all these things that he has to do that he doesn’t enjoy. It is interesting playing this character, because you don’t want him to be completely unlikeable and so far removed from being an understandable person, that there’s no redemption for him. He’s following in the footsteps of his father. His mother obviously tortured him as a child and scarred him. He does want to better himself at times. He’s trying to improve, but he just lacks certain social skills, and understanding to be able to work on that. It’s a little bit of a balancing act, I suppose, trying to create a character that’s very much in that gray area of, not fully good but not fully bad and so horrible that you just detest him.

I think that comes down to the comedy in the script because this show is so darkly funny. How do you do justice to that humor?

It’s always that thing of not trying to play jokes. I think I got a good education working with Tony’s writing and doing The Favourite — how Yorgos approached that process. It’s very much letting the words do the work for you, which is actually a brilliant thing as an actor, because it takes all pressure off you performing, or trying to make things funny. There’s nothing worse than reading a script that’s clearly meant to be funny, but isn’t, and I have to try and make it funny. Whereas this, you can really just let the words do the business for you, in a way.

There are plenty of absurd moments in the show, normally involving your character. Were any of those challenging to film?

The most difficult thing I found, honestly, was trying to not giggle on set when someone else had a funny line, or I had a funny line. There’s a weird thing where, it can completely take you out of the moment, when it actually becomes funny to you while you’re doing it. My stern voice has to come out and I have to say, “Come on. People want to get home to their families. You don’t want them to go home and complain about how this actor sucks, and he can’t say his lines without giggling.” I have to give myself a talking to.

You could try going full method.

Yeah, but then I’d be acting like I was the emperor of Russia for six months, which I don’t think, for normal life, is too habitable.

It sounds fun though.

It could be really fun, but I think I’d come out the other end a little bit shocked at what happened in life, and how I’d ended up in this position.

There’s such variety in the projects you’ve chosen, throughout your career. How do you approach choosing what you’re going to work on next?

It’s definitely a thought process. I think I’d just get bored as an actor, and as a person, if I was rehashing the same type of character, or genre of show, film, whatever. I always want to be evolving and trying something new. That is a very much conscious decision, whenever I get sent a script. I enjoy trying to make bold characters, I guess. Obviously, it depends on which character you’re playing and what world they’re in, but it is fun when you get to play these slightly more obscene, larger than life characters, that you can fully commit to. That then is just a fun environment to be in, as long as if you’ve got good people around you that you trust. It’s wild. It’s a let loose kind of relief.

This is a show about incompetent leaders and how disconnected they are. It’s set in the 18th century, but it feels oddly relevant.

Yeah, definitely. It’s politics. Because of the year the show’s set, it’s very much on the microscopic level. Peter’s always having his ear bent, whether it be by the church, the aristocrats, Catherine, or all these people trying to get their way, keep their power and manage their interests. I think that’s very much what’s going on in the world. I’m a fan of Veep, and those sorts of shows, that do a similar thing, in a similar tone in some ways, where they take a look at what’s happening. Sometimes, the ridiculous elements of those things are actually, probably closer the truth than we’d like to admit.

I like that you referenced Veep because I feel like maybe this is just a historically based, period Veep with more wigs.

There you go.

Hulu’s ‘The Great’ premieres on May 15.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Here’s Everything New On Netflix This Week, Including ‘White Lines’ And ‘The Wrong Missy’

As global quarantine mode continues, Netflix continues to release content to make sheltering in place a little easier. There’s a sun-soaked murder-mystery series from the creators of The Crown and Money Heist, and the latest goofy movie from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions is on tap. Earlier this week, the streaming giant released a psychedelic documentary, Have A Good Trip, along with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s interactive special. In other words, there’s plenty of TV to keep us all busy.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of May 15.

White Lines: Season 1

This Spanish-British mystery thriller series revolves around the murder of a legendary Manchester DJ who disappears from Ibiza. His body surfaces decades later in Ibiza, which sends his sister deep into the heart of the Spanish island’s club scene. There, she unearths dark truths about the community that lives life on the edge, along with lies and cover-ups involving the fate of her brother. There’s some self-examination going on there as well in this story from the creators of The Crown and Money Heist.

The Wrong Missy

Well, no one ever accused Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions of making high art, but this movie is sure to be at least a little bit funny. This installment stars David Spade as an average white-collar dude who decides to woo his dream girl over text, only he’s texting the wrong lady (portrayed by Lauren Lapkus), who shows up to his island retreat invitation unaware that, well, she’s “The Wrong Missy.” In other words, it’s a blind date from hell, so expect plenty of farty shenanigans and a Rob Schneider appearance.

Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:

5/15
Chichipatos
District 9
I Love You, Stupid
Inhuman Resources
Magic for Humans
: Season 3
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Season 5
White Lines

5/16
La reina de Indias y el conquistador
Public Enemies
United 93

5/17
Soul Surfer

5/18
The Big Flower Fight

5/19
Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything
Sweet Magnolias
Trumbo

5/20
Ben Platt Live From Radio City Music Hall
The Flash
: Season 6
Rebelión de los Godinez

5/22
Control Z
History 101
Just Go With It
The Lovebirds
Selling Sunset
: Season 2
Trailer Park Boys: The Animated Series: Season 2

And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:

5/15
Limitless
The Place Beyond the Pines

5/17
Royal Pains: Season 1-8

5/18
Scandal: Season 1-7

5/19
Black Snake Moan
Carriers
Evolution
The First Wives Club
It Takes Two
Love, Rosie
She’s Out of My League
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Young Adult
Yours, Mine and Ours

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Katy Perry Launches A New Era With The Empowering Anthem ‘Daisies’

Katy Perry has kept busy over the past few years with a slew of singles, and now we know what it has all been building up to. This week, she revealed that her next album, the title of which has not yet been revealed, will be released on August 14. Now she has shared her first new song since making that announcement, “Daisies.”

The track is an empowering anthem about sticking to your guns when faced with adversity. The song is produced by The Monsters & Strangerz, who produced and co-wrote Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey’s hit “The Middle,” as well as more recent tunes by Dua Lipa, Halsey, and Selena Gomez.

Perry explained the meaning behind the single in an Instagram post, writing, “I wrote this song a couple months ago as a call to remain true to the course you’ve set for yourself, regardless of what others may think. Recently, it has taken a new meaning for me, in light of what the whole world is experiencing. Each of us is one in more than seven billion, with our own story of strength and resilience to tell. DAISIES is out now. I hope it will be the soundtrack to going for your dreams now… especially the ones we left behind.”

Watch the “Daisies” video above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Here’s Everything New Coming To Netflix This Week


View Entire Post ›

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

30 Things That’ll Basically Give You No Choice But To Stay Organized

Because your efforts to organize should basically be immortalized.


View Entire Post ›

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Sarah Paulson Had The Perfect Reaction To Fans Saying Adele Looks Like Her Now

👏👏👏.


View Entire Post ›

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

23 Celebrity Encounters That Are So Pure Because They Are So Ordinary

Could you imaging working out next to Barack Obama?


View Entire Post ›

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

Chris Evans Thinks It’s A ‘Shame’ That He Can’t Wear Sweaters Anymore

Knives Out didn’t win the Academy Award for Best Costume Design (Little Women did, rightfully so), but Chris Evans’ sweater in Rian Johnson’s modern-day whodunnit won our hearts. The white cable-knit sweater became A Thing on the internet, and it’s not hard to understand why: it’s Chris Evans… in a sweater… what don’t you understand?

Unfortunately for Captain America (and us), though, the sweater has been retired.

Appearing on Thursday’s The Tonight Show, Evans was asked by host Jimmy Fallon whether he’d ever break the sweater out of the Smithsonian, where I assume it’s being held, and wear it again. Think of all the thirsty Instagram likes! “I can’t wear the sweater. I mean, it’s a shame, I love cable knits,” Evans said. “But now I feel like when I wear them people are like, ‘Urgh.’ I don’t know if it works anymore.” It works. Trust me.

“I didn’t realize it was going to be a sweater game until we started putting them on him. I don’t remember the brands of them, because I was just grabbing so much from all over the place,” Knives Out costume designer Jenny Eagan told us about Evans’ look in the film. “The fact that it takes place on the East Coast really set a tone. I wanted him to feel very relaxed, as you can see he has a lot of attitude and is too cool for everyone. He spends a lot of money on his clothes but he could care less about taking care of any of them. That is why I thought this cable-knit sweater looked great with the hole.”

You can watch the rest of The Tonight Show interview below.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

TNT’s ‘Snowpiercer’ Series Is So Relentlessly Unlike Bong Joon Ho’s Film That It’s Almost Shocking

The Snowpiercer TV series knew that it would never be able to match up to Bong Joon Ho’s 2013 film, and to be fair, the show embraces this certainty. It’s almost the opposite of Watchmen in that way. Remember how a lot of comic book fans felt, at best, ambivalent about the HBO series (because Zack Snyder made such an underwhelming flick) before it landed as a successful reimagining? Whereas Snowpiercer is rebooting a masterpiece, and that’s also tough stuff. Comparisons are inevitable, but the notoriety of the movie (and the source material, Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette’s graphic novels) will bring viewers into the fold. Yet the show pushes hard to be something almost entirely different than the film, which pulled off a deeply dark parable with an absolutely frigid take on class warfare and social uprisings. Starring an unusually gritty Chris Evans and a deliciously bonkers Tilda Swinton, the film also threw down (as I wrote in our Best Films Of Last Decade list) a fiercely confident and savage mating dance between an action dream and an art-house hard-on, one that still chills to the bone.

Bong Joon Ho’s now gained even more respect with the multi-Oscar-winning Parasite, currently one of Hulu’s most-watched titles. If those viewers hadn’t watched yet Snowpiercer, they sure as hell have done so by now and are familiar with a story that’s so compelling that the “babies taste best” line couldn’t ruin the vibe. Expectations must be managed, though, for there’s only a superficial resemblance between and movie and TV show. Yes, TNT’s series is still set in the same place: a post-apocalyptic, globe-circling train, which can never stop and contains the last survivors of humanity. Almost everything else is tweaked, other than the same basic class structure (wealthy, ticketed passengers enjoy opulent luxury near the front, whereas “The Tail” occupants began as stowaways) and the talk of a mysterious benefactor, Mr. Wilford. Within his almost mythic feat of engineering, rules must be followed, lest one lose a limb or two.

Speaking of appendages, this show’s first season (it’s already renewed for a second one) never finds solid footing, although it’s plenty entertaining.

Look, reboots happen, but should one reboot a masterpiece? It’s a dilemma and a valid question on whether this series can justify its own existence after fighting to do so for many years. This Snowpiercer, while striving to be different, doesn’t seem to know what it’s trying to be. At first, the series adopts a Law and Order-esque, procedural framing that later evaporates into campiness that doesn’t quite reach the level of the movie’s schlocky thrills. It does tackle power structures and questions why humans choose what leaders to worship, but the show doesn’t go broadly philosophical like the movie. And things get kinda saucy when people fall into train-sex mode with former lovers and new ones. It’s kinky and strange! And soap-operatic. At least it’s not dull.

TNT

Running this version of Snowpiercer would be Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly, doing the ice-queen thing), chief of hospitality and messenger for Mr. Wilford. Melanie is carved from stone but capable of great cruelty and brutality. Her adherence to order is threatened by a murder mystery, and Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs of Hamilton) gets pulled out of The Tail because someone up in third class remembered that he used to be a homicide detective. Can he abandon his people and pledge allegiance to Wilford? It’s a question that’s posed oafishly when Andre gets to eat a grilled cheese sandwich for the first time since the apocalypse. The scene is overplayed, almost sensually, like so many others in this season, as a contrast to the very clinical feel of Melanie’s hopes for how this train should operate. It sounds f*cking weird for me to single out a grilled cheese sandwich scene, but that’s when I (first) sensed that this show was going to overdo things for the sake of overdoing them.

It’s almost so intentionally clumsy that I have to admire all of it. My gut feeling is that much of the show’s jam-packed feel (although in a literal sense, the TV series sets feel far less claustrophobic than the movie did) means to overcompensate for the absence of Tilda’s Mason character and her enormous, scenery-chewing chompers. Of course, Mason did not exist in the graphic novel, so I can accept that she doesn’t exist in the show’s take on the story (even though she should be on the train, since it takes place 7 years after the extinction event, as opposed to the movie’s 15 years), but the show feels like it’s tossing in wacky sh*t to make up for Mason’s omission. It can’t pretend to be hiding Mason somewhere in a corner, but the character’s spirit haunts the TV show in an incomplete way. Blame Bong Joon Ho for putting such an indelible stamp on this franchise, right? One can’t forget the genius of the movie after witnessing it.

Still, I do think it’s possible for the TV series to find a forgiving audience. As I said earlier, the show quickly dispenses with the procedural framing, and Diggs’ Andre later starts striving toward mutiny. That’s where we’d expect a Snowpiercer show to go, and hopefully to thrilling places in the process, but the show is too confused about its own identify and kind-of disorganized, even while attempting the opposite effect. Multiple framing devices exist, including how each episode begins with a different character monologuing about their life on the train, but the show still can’t wrap its arms around a bigger picture. Again, this reboot isn’t bad at all. It’s fine, but man, this train’s fighting an uphill battle for acceptance. It slip-slides all over the ice while simultaneously attempting to live up to and dodge expectations laid down by Bong Joon Ho’s work of art. That takes guts, so perhaps this less-artsy-train-that-could can grip the tracks and find a fanbase of its own.

TNT’s ‘Snowpiercer’ premieres on Sunday, May 17th at 9:00pm EST.

Categories
News Trending Viral Worldwide

The Four Legal Documents That Everyone Needs To Plan For Their Future


View Entire Post ›