Chappie’s Bad Chap

Hugh Jackman is going bad.

At last!

The Awesome Aussie really hasn’t done that on film yet (playing a d--- in the X-Men movies doesn’t count).

Jackman has his eye on a starring role in Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to Elysium, the Sharlto Copley-led Chappie, the story of a robot who is taken by two gangsters looking to use him for their own naughty doings.

In fact, the Prisoners star has more than his eye on the part: he has a firm grip on it. He will be reporting to set in South Africa early in 2014.

Photo: Boston.com.

Everything Will Change for Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift has been flirting with acting for a while – hello, Valentine’s Day...and TV’s New Girl, too, right?

Anyway, guess who she’s gonna share the screen with next and get the master class in acting of her life.

Meryl.

Yes, friggin’s Meryl Streep. La Swift has signed to co-star with the celebrated actress and Jeff Bridges in the Philip Noyce-directed adaptation of the dystopian-future fantasy The Giver.

Brenton Thwaites – to whom Swift was linked after they both attended the same Toronto International Film Festival party earlier this month – is also on board. Ditto Alexander Skarsgård.

Swift will play a girl mentored by the titular role that Bridges will play.

So you see...things are totally gonna change for this girl now.

Acting is so in the cards now.

Photo: TrendyMods.com.

Playing Another Godly Man

This news might make your special place burst into flames it’s all so hot.

Picture it: Gerard Butler and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, on screen together. Probably shirtless.

It could be happening now that the star of the abstastic 300 and Olympus Has Fallen is in talks to join the Game of Thrones player in Gods of Egypt.

Butler is circling the part of Set, the ancient-Egypt god of the desert, storms, and foreigners. Coster-Waldau is already on board the Alex Proyas-directed project, as Horus, the son of Osiris, whom Set, according to mythology, mutilated and killed.

So, y’ know...Horus will be seeking revenge on good ol’ Set.

Photo: ThePlace2.ru.

Daenerys Targaryen’s Next Get

Is it time for more Game of Thrones yet?

It’s certainly closer to the date of the HBO hit’s return (spring is coming), so it makes sense that we should get more casting news for Season 4 (you didn’t think the Red Viper was gonna be only addition, right?), so here we go.

British hunk Joel Fry has been cast as Hizdahr zo Loraq, the young scion of an ancient Meereenese family who comes across Emilia Clarke’s mighty Daenerys Targaryen.

Fans of the George R.R. Martin oeuvre upon which the show is based will know that Meereen is the largest of the three great Slaver Cities of Slaver’s Bay – and the final piece of the puzzle for La Targaryen? Girlfriend already acquired her slave army from one city (Astapor) and liberated another (Yunkai) on her way to Westeros.

Winter might be coming on the show. But then again, so is Daenerys.

Photo: Twitter.com/FryJoel.

As Dusty Springfield?

And for her third act, Adele just might...act.

Say what!

Well, that’s the word on the street, that the Grammy- and Oscar-winning singer could be stepping in front of the camera to play the legendary Dusty Springfield.

Now that...would a high-profile acting debut. An endeavor that would be full of scrutiny.

We could see her flawless armor get chinked. Or be blown away once again.

Photo: ThatGrapeJuice.net.

J. Law Gets Dumb

If you watch Fallon, then you know that Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence loves Dumb and Dumber.

So you can imagine how psyched she was to nab a part – a cameo, really – in the forthcoming sequel, Dumb and Dumber To.
Yes, J. Law is set to appear in the movie as the younger version of Kathleen Turner’s character.

Wait – Kathleen Turner was in Dumb and Dumber?

Gosh, I gotta brush up on that one.

Photo: Mockingjay.net.

Update: No, Kathleen Turner was not in Dumb and Dumber. She’s playing a new character.

Duh.

Taking on Wall Street...on TV

Guess Casting Central did come a-callin’.

Steven Pasquale, the star of the essentially unseen 2012-’13 season NBC offering Do Not Harm, has landed a consolation prize on the next season of White Collar.

The actor is gonna play a rogue stock broker who sees an opportunity to see who is hotter between him and Matt Bomer, the star of the USA Network hit exploit the world of high-frequency trading on Wall Street.

Shirtless? (Pretty please!)

Photo: WilsonCountyNews.com.

Gwyneth the Theater (Threatre?) Producer

What’s next? Gwyneth the theme park?

My girl Gwyneth Paltrow is on a fix to rule the world – how very her old BFF Madonna.

The girl has a hand in publishing, in lifestyle websites.... There’s, of course, her film career. Her ventures into TV and music, which so far have been Emmy-winning and intriguing, respectively. Oh, and there’s her interest in fitness (promotion).

And now, there’s her blossoming career as a theater producer. (Make that, theatre...since, you know...she probably would).

Yes, G.P. is gunning for Broadway.

The multi-hyphenate is producing a show based on the music of the GoGo’s, alongside Donovan Leitch.

I guess her ambition is not sealed.

Bad puns aside, La Paltrow and Leitch have brought on board Avenue Q’s Jeff Whitty to write the book for the show, which – Twist Alert! – will be set in the 1600s and also based on a surprising source material to be revealed come showtime.

Photo: ICYDK.com.

Witch of the Woods

Heeere’s Meryl!

Meryl Streep, that is. Duh. In character as the Witch from the forthcoming Into the Woods.

You know Rihanna’s somewhere going like, “Beeyotch, I made that hair color happen #first.”

Ha!

Click here to see pics of co-stars Chris Pine and Anna Kendrick on the set of the Rob Marshall-directed Christmas 2014 musical. And here for a look at Emily Blunt with Billy Magnussen.

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

The Lively Way

Everything Gwyneth can do Blake can do better?

We’ll see about that.

No, really – we will.

Blake Lively is said to be poised to launch the opening salvo on a new lifestyle brand, which the Green Lantern actress says is all about “storytelling and living a very one-of-a-kind, curated life

“There’s nothing like it out there – it’s without a genre,” Lively told British Vogue.

Uh oh. Those are fighting words, girl. And an open invitation for people to turn on you and mock you like they do G.P.

Thread carefully in your Loubs (and book yourself a meaty follow-up to Savages double-pronto, please). The Internets are about to get beyond-Gossip Girl real on ya (and you already were skating on thin ice, being married to that hunk Ryan Reynolds and all).

Photo: People.com.

Zac’s Fine and Loving Life

Fans of Zac Efron’s recently got the rug pulled from under them when it was revealed that the actor had secretly entered and completed rehab last spring.

The news broke while Efron actually was like, a hop and skip and a short plane ride away from me in Peru. The actor had been silent on the issue – he reportedly sought counseling to help him with his alcohol and cocaine use – until yesterday.

“Hey guys!” Efron wrote on his Instagram when he shared this pic of himself up on Machu Picchu (Imma go and guess he did the Inca Trail). “Just returned from an incredible trip with my dad and wanted to thank you all for your support these past few weeks...means the world to me.”

Glad you’re doing well, kid. And that you enjoyed my homeland.

Keep at it!

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

When Christopher and Mariska Reunited

It’s the reunion Law & Order: SVU fans had been waiting for.

Well...ish.

Mariska Hargitay and her former co-star, the studlicious Christopher Meloni, stepped out in public in L.A. earlier today, to help launch the No More domestic violence and sexual assault PSA campaign, which is co-sponsored by the actress’ Joyful Heart Foundation.

I hope the Emmy winner talked Meloni about putting on a guest appearance on the show some time soon.

That would get me watching again.

Photo: People.com.

To Be Crossed Again

In case you missed it, The Bridge will be back.

Thanks, FX – I really enjoyed the show. Even though I missed the last couple of eps like big ol’ doof.

Dying to find out if they caught what’s his name. And what ended happening with the tunnel.

Sshhh, do not tell me.

See you next summer, Diane Kruger and Demián Bichir!

Photo: Deadline.com.

Streetcar Stud

Well this also explains Joe Manganiello’s summer cut: he needed it not only to spice up things on HBO’s True Blood but also for the stage.

The actor is using his hiatus from the show to work on his craft as part of the cast of the Yale Repertory Theatre production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire that opened the 2013 season last night!

Manganiello is playing Stanley Kowalski.

Care to see the guy on stage? Then GTS!

Photo: Towleroad.com.

Franny Man

Oh, it is on!

The era of Theo James, that is.

From Downton Abbey eye-catcher to Divergent stud, James is happening, so buckle up, for it is so gonna be one heckuva hot ride.

And a smartly led, too.

The Brit has signed on to spice his new blockbuster career with a turn in the Richard Gere-fronted indie Franny, the story of a couple (Dakota Fanning will play James’ better half) that catches the interest of the Pretty Woman star’s character.

I am going to guess there will be a little bit of shiftlessness in this one.

Thank the heavens.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

The Bane of the Vine Man’s Existence

The Swedish-flavored Tarzan that Alexander Skarsgård – pause to think about the possibility from seeing his Skars-cock swingin’ around...and we’re back – is set to play for director David Yates just may have found himself a German-flavored nemesis.

With quite a pedigree, no less.

Two-time Academy Award winner and Tarantino fave Christoph Waltz is circling the new adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s story about that famed man of the apes.

The actor reportedly would play a military figure who comes across the King of the Jungle.

Oh, and btw...Emma Stone is one of the named being about to portray Tarzan’s main girl, Jane.

Photo: GQ.com.

The New Independent

Fruitvale Station star Michael B. Jordan is well on his way.

The young actor – already a beloved small-screen figure following his stints on HBO’s The Wire and Friday Night Lights and Parenthood over on NBC – is being courted for a reportedly major part in ID Forever Part 1, the first of the two proposed forthcoming sequels to the 1996 Will Smith blockbuster Independence Day.

No word on what role Jordan would be playing, but this much is known about the project: Smith is still not (officially?) on board. Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman are, though. And the first movie is set for a July 3, 2015, release.

Do it, Michael – make that jack!

Photo: Zimbio.com.

Get Your Fitness On with G.P. on AOL On

Coming soon, to an AOL On near you...it’s Gwyneth Paltrow and celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson!

OK, G.P. really should simma on her quest toward diversification. Even I have to recognize that she is taking on too much and making it way too easy for people to hate on her.

But La Paltrow will do what La Paltrow wants to do (and way more fabulously than the rest of us). So whaddya gonna do, right?

Anyway, the point is the BBPF (that is, best business partners forever – duh) will be launching a new series on AOL On for our enjoyment and edification.

“We focus on women who have overcome their bodies; women who have gone through really tragic situations with self-medication (over-eating, over-drinking, etc.),” Anderson recently revealed, and one cannot help but infer that the series will lean toward saving helping people. “Some weren’t supposed to survive [their trials and tribulations], but they all learned to connect with their bodies.

“When you do that, all these things happen.”

I presume Anderson’s referring to positive changes in one’s life....

Guess we shall find out soon enough. Stay tuned.

Photo: LuckyMag.com.

Tank Man

Clever dude.

Scott Eastwood must know he became a simply irresistible sensation earlier this month when the hot shirtlessness he put out there – for a Town & Country spread – ’cause like, why else play into it.

See, Eastwood is working in Fury, David Ayer’s World War II-set follow-up to End of Watch, opposite Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf. And since there are some long breaks in the moviemaking business, he decided to Instagram a silly pic of himself “[t]rying to out flex the tank,” which, much to his amused chagrin, did not work.

Thanks for trying anyway, guy – and, hey...is that Brad up on that tank?

Double-win!

Photo: People.com. 

Eden and Rites J. Law

Jennifer Lawrence really enjoyed meeting and working and getting to know her Hunger Games director Gary Ross.

I remember reading somewhere that, for a while there, the actress had a photo of herself with Ross as the screensaver on her cell phone.

So I guess they tight, and it should come as no surprise the two want to team up again. Or that they will.

Oscar-winning J. Law is going to star in Ross’ adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic families-in-rivalry novel East of Eden.

Futher, Lawrence and the director are also looking to work on another adaptation, that of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites, the Iceland-set story of a woman who, charged with a brutal murder, is sent away to an isolated farm to await execution.

So maybe J. Law still has Ross on her phone? Seems the man does have a plum spot in her heart....

Anyway, I love actor-director partnerships like this one. They get me excited about the possibilities.

Photo: TheMagazine.ca.

Hot Chess Man

That DILF-y star of Showtime’s Ray Donovan, Liev Schreiber, is about to get brainy.

The Tony-winning actor is circling the Tobey Maguire-starring now-Ed Zwick-directed biopic of the chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer Pawn Sacrifice.

Schreiber would play the Russian chess champ Boris Spassky, with whom Fischer once went mano a mano.

Peter Sarsgaard is also in talks to join the project, as a priest who counsels Fischer through a crisis.

Photo: MonstersAndCritics.com.

Gossip Girl Will Be Back – If...

If you hold hope to ever visit with S and B again, that is, on the big screen, then you better pray Blake Lively is into doing a Gossip Girl movie some day in the future.

Ditto Leighton Meester, for that matter. She did play the essential bitch with a heart of gold Blair, after all.

That’s what Kelly Rutherford thinks, anyway.

“Blake was so amazing [on The CW hit show],” the erstwhile Lily van der Woodsen said of the actress who played her stylish-and-drama-prone TV daughter Serena. “It’d be hard [to do a movie without her]. So much was based around her and her experience, so I don’t know if it would work without her.”

Well, word.

And good for you for acknowledging so.

Photo: TVFanatic.com.

Simply Irresistible, Pt. 90

Lindsay Lohan’s back – and now so is her face and her invites to A-List events.

We are getting there, Linds! ’Cause we’re livin’ la vida #nomorefillersandbadstuff.

And it suits ya.

I mean, as you can see, La Lohan was aglow as she attended last night’s New York City premiere of Madonna and H-O-T photograher Steven Klein’s (pictured here with L2) #secretprojectrevolution.

Good goin’, girl!

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

Madonna’s Revolution of Love Has Begun

The world has met Madonna’s latest controversy: Her #secretprojectrevolution with photographer Steven Klein has finally been unveiled.

The much-anticipated project/event turned out to be an ambitiously premiered 17-minute film that is – if memory serves, from an interview the Queen of Pop did for VICE that I saw at the crack of dawn today – a commentary on the prisons (i.e., boxes?) people like to put other people in and the shackles from which, in this case, she felt she had to break out in order to make her art and have it be true to herself, not to mention be of service and effect change in this world.

Madonna and her frequent collaborator Klein evidently shot the film in Argentina at the end of her massively successful 2012 “MDNA Tour,” in response to a the series of...situations she encountered on the road – ranging from the conflict in the Middle East (M kicked off her tour in Israel) to a lawsuit she was hit with in Russia in her response to her so-called promotion of LGBT rights (like equality is a bad thing?) and, I think, her candid views on the Pussy Riot persecution to the unrest she perceived in Colombia – and to a cancelled shoot for her proposed Truth or Dare line of lingerie. Her backers, she told VICE, found the designs to be too risqué, so they censored them/her pulled the plug on the project.

What is an M to do when she feels she has something to say (a so-called Revolution of Love to kick off), not to mention some nice, provocative, unused wardrobe with which to do something, as well as a crew, and a troupe of willing dancers?

The literal and metaphor-rich answer is here. Check it:



If #secretprojectrevolution makes you wanna join the revolution, then the time is right now: Go and visit ARTFORFREEDOM.com to start your own.

M will be watching.

P.S.: Check out the beautiful performance of Elliott Smith’s “Between the Bars” Madonna put on for the film’s New York City premiere last night.