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Viola Davis on Playing Brutal “Suicide Squad” Character Amanda Waller: “I’ve had enough aprons! I’ve held enough babies, so I think I’m good!”

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Viola Davis’s career is exploding. “Suicide Squad,” her first action-packed blockbuster, based on the Super-Villains in the DC Comics, opens Friday.

 

Davis plays Amanda Waller, a U.S. Intelligence Officer who recruits super-villains for secret missions to defeat enigmatic, entities threatening the universe. She’s more badass than any of the villains she recruited. Although Waller has no super-powers, she’s the puppet master to the weird baddies who do her bidding or face execution.

 

 

Later this year Davis co-stars with Denzel Washington in August Wilson’s masterpiece “Fences,” which Washington also directed. Both actors received Tony Awards in 2010 for these roles. The likelihood is that they’ll be up for Oscars.

 

Davis also has a number of projects in the pipeline, including movies about Harriet Tubman and Barbara Jordan that will be produced by JuVee Productions, the company she formed with her husband Julius Tennon.

 

Last year Davis won an Emmy for playing Annalise Keating in “How to Get Away With Murder.”

 

Although she’s been an acclaimed actress for some 25 years, she first got singled out for her Oscar nominated performances as a grieving mother in “Doubt” (2008) and a servant in “The Help” (2011).

 

Viola Davis was at the Tribeca Film Festival in April to promote her movie “Custody,” directed by James Levine and produced by her production Company. Davis said she was excited about “Suicide Squad.” She told Showbiz411 in the green roon, “You know, hey listen, I’ve had enough aprons! I’ve held enough babies, so I think I’m good!”

 

Sunday afternoon Viola Davis attended a press conference in midtown Manhattan to promote “Suicide Squad,” along with director David Ayer and fellow cast members Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Adam Beach and Karen Fukuhara also participated and seemed to be in party mode. (Kinnman said they had partied late together the night before and the group was still in party mode.)

 

 

During the press conference a journalist asked Viola Davis what she tapped into to connect with her character:

 

“I definitely want to know how you connected with that character,” Kinnaman cracked.

 

Kinnaman plays Rick Flagg, the no-nonsense officer who reports to Waller and tries to keep the Suicide Squad under control.

 

 

“Joel gave me a book called Confessions of a Sociopath and I read that book extensively,” Davis said. “It’s a confessions of a woman who’s a sociopath and one of the things I found out was that a lot of CEO’s of companies are sociopaths, people who have no guilt. If they cry they’re only crying because they feel like they’re losing control.”

 

Viola continued: “And also I tapped into Viola at eight years old, cause I can’t tap into Viola at fifty one. At eight, I could beat somebody’s ass.” (Everyone laughed.) “I could beat somebody’s ass. I was just always angry because people were always teasing me. I was bullied. And I remember that was the first story I told David when I met him. He was like, ‘Oh yeah, Viola, just tell about your childhood… I said, ‘Well David, I remember when I was eight years old I kicked a lot of ass…so there was a part of me that had to tap into that because with women, with me, I’m always apologizing. I’m shy. I’m always retreating. I never tap into my power and Amanda Waller is not that! She is unapologetically brutal!”

 

“Yeah!” Kinnaman said.

 

“Yeah, cause I had to call him pussy a couple of times,” Davis said, pointing to Kinnaman. “I had to tap into that because otherwise I would have retreated and with this movie I couldn’t retreat, so that’s what I did.”

 

“She did not retreat at all!” Kinnaman reiterated. “It was pretty much every day that me and Viola had together on set she would …she’d stand in front of the camera and just yell mean things at me… She’d be like, ‘Hey Joel, Joel! You little Bitch!’”

“And I’d go, ‘Okay, good morning, good morning,” Kinnaman sighed. “That was my experience.”

 

 

 

General Hospital Fans: “Luke” is Not Returning– Tony Geary’s Hollywood Hills Home for Sale, Contents Were Sold This Weekend

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GTY_anrthony_geary_jef_150727_16x9_992“General Hospital” fans who were hoping for the return of Luke Spencer– played by Tony Geary– are going to be disappointed.

A year ago, Geary left the show, retired, and moved to Amsterdam. It doesn’t look like he’s coming back to the show or the US.

Geary’s Hollywood Hills home at 7010 Pacific View Drive, is up for sale. It’s listed at $999,999. See the video below.

Over this weekend, there was a tag sale to get rid of whatever contents remained. A spy writes: “…whole house cleaned out. Very Boogie Nights 70s interior. A lot of Xmas CDs, Rosemary Clooney.. still getting over Liz [Taylor] and Bob Dylan…carpet awful…no light…”

ABC and the soap must know the score. Last week on the show one of the characters discovered what might be Luke’s desiccated body, along with positive ID of personal jewelry. No one ever dies on a soap, but this might have been their signal to the actor that they’re not amused he’s really gone.

“Ghostbusters” Beats “Independence Day: Resurgence” In Race for $100 Mil by 9 Days

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“Ghostbusters” is some sort of perceived failure. But guess what? The Paul Feig movie crossed the $100 million line on Saturday. It took 16 days.

By contrast, another franchise film, “Independence Day: Resurgence” took 27 days to reach $100 million. And today, “IDR” is dead at $101 million. “Ghostbusters” is up to $106 million. And it still has legs.

Also at the box office: Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass came soaring back with “Jason Bourne” and $60 million for an opening weekend. They picked up $50 million in foreign territories. Not bad. That’s an easy $100 mil plus film with two sequels. That’s good news for Universal.

“Star Trek Beyond” crossed the $100 million mark this weekend, in 13 days. I kept hearing in advance this was a dud too. Far from it.

Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society” is now up to $3.9 million after three weeks. Woody’s last really big hit was “Blue Jasmine” in 2013 which went to $33 million. That may be a tough target, but we’ll see. “Magic in the Moonlight” did $10.3 million in 2014. Let’s get there first.

Conservative Icon William F. Buckley’s “Dead” 16 Year Old Grandson Trying to Get More than $2,500 in Monthly Child Support

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Conservative writer William F. Buckley died in 2008, leaving an estate estimated at $30 million. But before he expired he made sure his “illegitimate” grandson, Jonathan, then only 5 years old, would never get a penny of it.

William F. Buckley actually wrote in his last will and testament: “I intentionally make no provision herein for said Jonathan, who for all purposes . . . shall be deemed to have predeceased me,” according to a 2008 story in the Hartford Courant and an article in Vanity Fair.

But now  “Jonathan” (not his real name since he’s technically underage) Woelfe, born in 2000, is almost 17 and wants to go to college. Jonathan’s father, writer Christopher Buckley, author of best selling books including “Thank You for Smoking,” is said to be battling the boy’s mother in Stamford Connecticut court to lower his child support to $2,500 a month. (According to reports he’s been paying $3,000 a month.)

Spies spotted Buckley in Stamford family court on Thursday.

Buckley’s most recent novel, “The Relic Master.” was published in December by Simon & Schuster. “Thank You for Smoking,” directed by Ivan Reitman, was a huge hit in 2006. It only cost $7 million and took in $40 mil worldwide.

Jonathan is the product of married Chris’s long term affair in the early 90s with Irina Woelfe, a Random House publicist. Sources say that Chris has seen the boy once, and that was probably six or seven years ago. (Buckley has two older “legitimate” children with his wife.) Woelfe only receives child support, according to reports, but told the court that the boy suffers emotionally from having no relationship with his father. Buckley said he wanted nothing to do with Jonathan.

The Buckley family — which also included Chris’s famous mother, Pat, one of the “social X rays” lampooned in Tom Wolfe’s “Bonfire of the Vanities”– disowned the child. How famous were the Buckleys? According to Vanity Fair: “His memorial service was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, on Fifth Avenue. Hers was at the Temple of Dendur, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

I’m told Jonathan and his mother live outside of Miami, where she has a has a successful PR company.

I emailed Chris Buckley to get his take. He wrote: “Would really rather comment after the matter is settled. Hope you understand. After all, a child is involved.”

Maybe Jonathan could apply to the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale, a not-for profit that had $540,000 in revenue in 2014 according to its most recent Form 990 tax filing.

Chris Buckley and Irina Woelfe will return to court in Stamford at the end of September.

Exclusive: Michael Caine, 83, Has No Plans to Retire “As Long as Scripts Keep Coming”

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EXCLUSIVE I did have the pleasure Wednesday of running into the great and legendary Michael Caine. He was having lunch at Michael’s with his long time friend and agent Boaty Boatwright. What a pleasure to see Sir Michael, who shares a birthday with Quincy Jones. (Did you know that?) Some years they work it out to party together.

We got a chance for a quick catch up. Michael is in New York on his way to Savannah, Georgia to shoot “Coup de tat” with Katie Holmes. He’s already finished Zach Braff’s “Going in Style,” which for some reason, he says, has been moved to Easter 2017. “It’s either very good or really, really bad!” he laughed. Let’s hope it’s the former.

Michael Caine is the eternal star, isn’t he? Classy and accomplished, he has one Oscar for “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1987) and another Oscar for “Cider House Rules” in 2000 — plus several more nominations.

Will he ever retire? “Absolutely not. You know what they say– You don’t retire. They retire you. As long as they keep sending scripts, we’re good. And if there’s a bank job or something else like that with a bunch of older guys, who else are they going to call?”

 

Where in the World is Bill Rancic? Donald Trump’s First “Apprentice” Winner Stays Mum on Candidate

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We’ve heard from pretty much everyone connected to Donald Trump. For example: Tony Schwartz, who wrote Trump’s best seller, The Art of the Deal, can’t stand him and fears his presidency. Another employee, Meredith McIver, thought so much of him that she plagiarized a Michelle Obama speech for Melania Trump.

A couple of former players from “The Apprentice” came out defiantly against Trump last spring. One of them said Trump was “a danger to this country.”

But where in the world is Bill Rancic? The first winner of “The Apprentice” and the most high profile (thanks to marrying “E” Entertainment host Giuliana De Pandi), Rancic went to to work for Trump for two years after winning the competition. But after that Rancic went off on his own and has been a successful motivational speaker and entrepreneur.

TV star good looking, and accomplished, Rancic would be the perfect witness for Trump on the stump. But his name hasn’t been mentioned at all, and he was MIA during the Republican convention. He certainly would have been more effective than Scott Baio.

Rancic and his family left Hollywood this year and moved back to his hometown of Chicago. He seems to have an interest in a restaurant. Otherwise, the trail goes cold. I spoke to his sister last week– she functions as his publicist– and she told me to send her an email. I’ve done that twice. Rancic has not responded to any queries.

Trump’s education stance could be a problem for Rancic. His late father such a beloved educator that a building was named for him in his memory. Immigration could be an issue, too. The Rancics are Croatian. Giuliana is Italian, as in from Italy. Maybe they’re worried that a president Trump would deport them if they said the wrong thing.

Anyway, Bill Rancic, we’re all ears. Give us a shout at showbiz411@gmail.com. We’d love to hear your opinions about what’s happened so far.

Hillary Clinton Turns the Enemy with Magnificent Speech: Conservative Murdoch Lieutenant Endorses Her

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What a night, huh? Doesn’t it seem like we turned a corner back toward sanity? In a decisive knockout, Hillary Clinton stunned Donald Trump.

I was annoyed all evening that Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper kept calling this “the most important speech of Hillary Clinton’s life.” But they were right. And she rose to the occasion.

And in the midst of this, Louise Mensch– the former conservative British MP who saved the Murdochs in Parliament during the hacking investigations– endorsed Clinton.

Mensch now runs Murdoch’s website called Heat Street– www.heatst.com. But she was overcome by Clinton tonight. Murdoch, home taking Viagra and liver spot pills and asking Jerry Hall to stop playing “Start Me Up,” has not Tweeted a peep all night, and since March 4th. But I’d like to be a fly on the wall at 1211 Sixth Avenue tomorrow morning.

Here’s Louise:

and:

Rupert, ask Jerry to place you this Rolling Stones record: “It’s all over now.”

Fox News Didn’t Show This Video or Any of Tonight’s DNC Speakers Except Katy Perry

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Bogus Fox News refused to show any of the speakers tonight at the DNC. Their viewers were denied so many eloquent stories and wonderful people– I hope somehow it can be conveyed to the people still watching Fox how they were censored. I feel particularly that Chris Wallace’s dad, Mike Wallace, a real journalist, is turning in his grave.

The only celebrity on stage shown on Fox was Katy Perry because it was a free shot to get a pop star who would otherwise never appear on their network. How does Britt Hume sleep at night?

Fox also didn’t air the 12 minute film made by Shonda Rhimes and narrated by Morgan Freeman. It was beautifully done. Here it is.

Melania Trump PRODUCTS Not Just Website Removed From Web, And from QVC

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All of Melania Trump’s products are gone from the web.

Other outlets reported that www.melaniatrump.com was gone. The attributed that to Melania’s sketchy bio that claimed she had a university degree.

But the bio could have been altered or removed from the site and the products could have remained.

However, all of Melania’s products– jewelry and cosmetics– are gone from amazon.com and from QVC.com. This may have more to do with where the products were made (China) than the bio issue.

On QVC, where Melania was well known, a search for her tchotckes now redirects to Elizabeth Taylor merchandise.

(Watch) Ron Howard’s Trailers for “The Beatles– Eight Days a Week” Documentary

Ron Howard’s Beatles documentary about their short touring life, “Eight Days a Week.” is coming on September 15th. That’s the day the Beatles also release a revamped CD/DVD set of “The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl.”

Here’s the trailer for Howard’s doc: