Here’s some news that will cock your trigger: Iranian-American eyeful and former Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Sarah Shahi is set to make her big-screen nude debut in the upcoming action remake Bullet in the Head (2012). Now, Sarah’s gone nude on the boob tube before- you may remember her as gay Latina DJ Carmen on The L Word- but this will be your first opportunity to peep her peaks and valleys on a 30-foot movie screen. As Sarah tells the blog Fretts on Film : Bruce Fretts: What was it like making Bullet to the Head? Sarah Shahi: Oh, man, that was so fantastic. I play Sylvester Stallone’s daughter. I’m the only female lead in the whole thing. Bruce: What’s your character like? Sarah: I play a tattoo artist, so I learned how to give tattoos. I did an apprenticeship in New Orleans. And I was covered from my neck all the way down in tattoos. I had to do a nude scene. It was one of many firsts for me. Bullet in the Head hits theaters on April 13 , but you can catch up with the lesbianic best of Sarah Shahi right here at MrSkin.com!
Near the end of the final Harry Potter film, we see Daniel Radcliffe in makeup and prosthetics, signaling that the character has aged dramatically. In real life, however, the actor needs no such accompaniments to prove he’s not a kid anymore. Just consider what he recently told Heat Magazine. Asked about getting naked on stage in 2007 for Broadway’s Equus , Radcliffe said about the fuss regarding his ample pubic hair: “I was like, ‘Yeah, of course I do!’ I’m a Jewish man! We have hair down there.” The actor added that there’s “not a huge amount of maintenance going on” in his genital region, while also saying that’s how he prefers it on the opposite sex: “This is way too much information, but I don’t like girls with nothing down there either. It freaks me out. You have to have something, otherwise it’s f-cking creepy.” Is it weird to hear Harry Potter’s take on waxing? Yes. But there’s good news, too: this means he’ll never date Kim Kardashian . [Photo: WENN.com]
Actor who plays Ron Swanson tells MTV News that ‘the evil Tammy Two’ returns in the fall. By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Nick Offerman in “Parks and Recreation” Photo: NBC As the latest season of “Parks and Recreation” rolls along, fans of the quirky NBC comedy have been rooting for the show’s leading lady, Leslie Knope, as she tries to win the hearts of the folks in Pawnee, Indiana, by running for a spot on the city council. But Leslie isn’t having all the fun. Pawnee’s resident curmudgeon, Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman), is finding himself caught up in an unexpected friendship with the always-optimistic government star Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe). As always, Swanson is working to make sure government doesn’t run smoothly, and of course he faces the possibility that one of his ex-wives could show up and bring their own brand of trouble to his life. “If we can help it,” Offerman told MTV News at the Sundance Film Festival when asked if there would be a chance to bring back one of his character’s former wives, both named Tammy (one played by his real-life wife, Megan Mullally, and the other by Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson ). “I know that there’s one juicy story coming up in the fall for Tammy Two, the evil Tammy Two [Mullally].” But until then, Offerman, offscreen, will be wearing another hat. He recently wrote one of the show’s upcoming episodes, and in addition to some more Knope-related election excitement there will also be a shakeup in his character’s romantic life. “Oh gosh. It was so fun and exciting and crazy. The episode is called ‘Lucky.’ Leslie Knope gets this really lucky interview with sort of the Anderson Cooper of Indianapolis. But then the interview is canceled and it comes back on, and some hilarity ensues,” he explained. “Meanwhile, Ron Swanson and Chris Traeger are vying for the attentions of Andy Dwyer’s women’s studies college professor. It’s very funny.”
Wolves, like most animals, know a lot of things that humans don’t. When bad white men move onto their turf to do bad white-man stuff – like drilling for oil – they instinctively know something’s amiss in the balance of nature, and damned if they’re going to just sit back in their dens and fuhgeddaboutit. In The Grey, wolves unleash their fury at mankind in a bloody yet tasteful flurry of stamping paws and gnashing teeth; mankind fights back as best he can, which in this particular case, is not very well. What’s not surprising about the picture, considering it was directed by the guy behind movies like Smokin’ Aces and The A-Team, Joe Carnahan, is how absurdly macho some of the dialogue is. (My favorite line, uttered by a character after he’s witnessed one too many wolf-inflicted deaths: “This is fuck city, population 5 and dwindling.”) What is surprising is how poetic the movie is, partly thanks to its high-lonesome sound design and the desolate beauty of its visuals, but mostly because of its star, Liam Neeson. He knows what the wolves know, only he’s not telling. Neeson plays Ottway, a sharpshooter stationed at an Alaskan oil refinery, where hard men work even harder shifts, toiling for five weeks straight before being freed for two weeks of vacation. It’s Ottway’s job to pick off the bears and other assorted critters who might prey on the men as they work. He’s good with a gun for sure, but he also takes the killing part of his job seriously: In the movie’s early moments, he approaches a wolf he’s just shot — it lies in the snow, bloodied but hardly drained of its dignity — and places his hand on the animal’s flank as it draws its last breath. Ottway may be good at his job, but he doesn’t derive any pleasure from it. And we learn early on that something is deeply amiss in his personal life as well: We see him scratching out a desperate letter to a loved one — with a fountain pen, no less — even though he knows it can’t possibly bring her back. We also see him draw back from the brink of taking his own life: Ottway is one unhappy guy, but what happens shortly thereafter galvanizes him. He and a bunch of the oil workers board a plane bound for civilization. The craft goes down somewhere in sub-Arctic territory. A handful survive the crash — they’re played largely by a cache of actors you’ve vaguely heard of, people like Dallas Roberts, James Badge Dale and Frank Grillo; Dermot Mulroney, mildly disguised by thick glasses and unruly hair, is the one immediately familiar face. But it’s only after the group has managed to pull themselves from the wreckage and patch themselves up that they face the real threat: A group of wolves who stalk them with an almost mystical zeal, not for food but seemingly for sport. Or revenge. Ottway, being the guy who knows all about wolves, urges the men — whose numbers, predictably, dwindle as the story tramps through the snow to its half-rousing, half-bittersweet ending — to fight back, using home-made weapons like improvised bang sticks fashioned from sharpened sticks and bullet casings. (If you’re like me, you probably have no idea what a bang stick is; but if you watch The Grey, you will.) Carnahan has fashioned a movie that’s largely an endurance test. Some pretty awful things happen to some characters we come to care about, and the picture carries you along on a wave of vaguely sickening feelings: You keep watching, wondering what bad thing is going to happen next. But The Grey also offers plenty of moments of grace and beauty, moments that are less pure hokum than pure movie. Just before that plane goes down, as the sleepy travelers doze, we sense that the cabin has suddenly become very cold: The men’s breath hangs in the air, taking wispy forms that just might be — wolf ghosts? Later, after the men have trekked across a broad swath of blank, snowy terrain toward a stand of trees, they peer into the darkness of the forest only to see multiple sets of glowing pin-dot eyes staring back at them. The Grey is all about man vs. nature, and how. There’s also some man vs. man and a lot of man vs. himself mixed in there too. You can bet that the most obnoxious crash survivor — the one every other character not-so-secretly despises, and the one you really wish had died early on, played with cranky effectiveness by Grillo — will redeem himself spectacularly by the end. There are many instances, perhaps too many, of men speaking sentimentally of their families, or of their lack of family. But the picture — which was written by Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, from a short story by Jeffers — keeps working, almost in spite of itself, partly because of its despairing, gorgeous visuals. The picture was shot on location in damn-cold British Columbia. (The cinematographer is Masanobu Takayanagi, whose credits include the recent underground stealth hit Warrior. ) And the very quietness of the movie is a big selling point. There’s gore here, but it’s the artful sort, consisting of things like tableaus of half-glimpsed bloody carcasses nestled in sparkly-white snow. And Carnahan is smart enough to know what not to show. When those largely unseen wolves start hooting and moaning, the sound goes right through you: It’s a howl of existential pain from nature’s peanut gallery. No wonder Ottway feels that pain so keenly. And yet Neeson keeps him from becoming a caricature. Even though the role demands a significant amount of action and physical derring-do, most of Ottway’s struggle is happening inside, and Neeson reveals his character’s suffering gradually, in small bursts of light and shadow. I can’t imagine what it’s like for an actor who has only recently lost his wife to play a man who feels kinship, anger and exquisite loneliness in the company of wolves. Whatever Neeson’s private thoughts and feelings are, you can’t escape the suspicion that he’s channeling them here, placing them before us in muted, unspoken form. It doesn’t hurt that Neeson looks more handsome and noble than ever, particularly with that defiantly regal nose: The Romans, supposedly, never took up residence in Ireland. So how, then, did Neeson’s profile find its way onto their coins? You can take or leave most of the dialogue The Grey requires Neeson to utter, perfunctory stuff along the lines of “They weren’t eating him –- they were killing him” and “We’re a threat –- we don’t belong here.” But it’s hard to ignore the shifts of dusky feeling that play across his face. It’s as if those vaporous wolf ghosts have taken up residence there, in a place where macho posturing is only a small part of what the movies are about. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
On the JoBro’s latest episode of ‘Hot in Cleveland,’ premiering Wednesday night on TV Land, his and Hewitt’s characters get engaged. By Kara Warner Joe Jonas Photo: MTV News Jet-setting actor/musician Joe Jonas has once again made time in his busy schedule for a little stop through Cleveland — “Hot in Cleveland,” that is, the popular show on TV Land starring Valerie Bertinelli, Betty White, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves. Jonas has a guest-starring role on the sitcom as the wayward son of Bertinelli’s character. MTV News was lucky enough to visit the set of “Cleveland” on the day Jonas filmed his second guest spot, which premieres Wednesday night (January 25) at 10 p.m. ET. When we caught up with him for a few minutes between scenes, he shared some details about his return to the show. “Being back on the show, [my character Will is] engaged, and I have to be engaged to Jennifer Love Hewitt, which is really nice,” he said. “We’re both sons and daughters of characters on the show, and we show up and surprise everybody. They don’t expect us to be engaged.” Jonas said that while it was fun to work with Hewitt, their characters’ engagement doesn’t exactly last for long. “Both of our characters are really different. I think I’m a little bit blinded by the fact that she may not be the perfect person for me. I think we last probably less than Kim Kardashian in this,” he joked. Long engagements or no, Jonas said he loves his time on the show and would be happy to come back any time. “I would love to be able to return again. The first episode when I left, people were like, ‘Are you going to be back soon?’ and I said, ‘I think so.’ I don’t think my character passed away, so I think we’re good. I don’t die in this episode either,” he added. “So I’m still around, so I could definitely come back if they’d like me to. I have a fun time being on the set and I love the cast; it’s kind of like a family.” Are you excited to see Joe in “Cleveland” again? Let us know in the comments! Related Artists Joe Jonas
Kate Beckinsale and cast newbies talk about flick’s ‘nonstop’ action. By Kara Warner Kate Beckinsale Photo: MTV News After the international success of the three previous “Underworld” films, it makes sense that everyone involved would be back for a fourth installment — all those whose characters weren’t killed off, that is. This week brings us a bright and shiny new chapter in the ongoing war between the vampires and lycans: “Underworld: Awakening.” The film essentially picks up after the events in “Underworld: Evolution” and has added several new elements and characters. “The Underworld is now not so much ‘under’ anymore,” star Kate Beckinsale told MTV News during the recent press day. “Humans are aware of vampires and werewolves. I wake up to find that I’ve been in some kind of coma for 12 years, and everything is different. As I’m discovering what’s different about the world, the audience is on the same page with me, and then it turns out I had a daughter who’s now 12, and that’s pretty insane for my character.” Newcomer Theo James, an up-and-coming English actor who plays a young and rebellious vampire named David, explained, “We’re pushing the boundaries a bit. You have a lot more characters, and it’s bigger. It’s 90 minutes that doesn’t really stop.” India Eisley, a new castmember who plays Selene’s newly discovered daughter, agreed: “It’s nonstop, back-to-back-to-back action.” Michael Ealy revealed, “What’s new and different is that the movie is shot in 3-D, and for the first time, there is a human component,” not-so-subtly pointing to himself, indicating that he was referring to his character. “I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s the first human component in the franchise’s history,” he said with a smile. Ealy went on to say that if there is a fifth “Underworld” film, and he ends up in it, he hopes his human character doesn’t stay that way for long. “I want to get bit!” he said. Check out everything we’ve got on “Underworld: Awakening.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
Playing Marilyn Monroe has given Michelle Williams plenty of opportunities to think about sex symbols- playing one, becoming one, and whether she might already be one (we certainly think so!). As she tells GQ in this month’s cover story: “I think because my character on Dawson’s Creek was sexy…sexualized…sexual…I saw all the negative attention and connotations that can come along with that ,” she says on initially rejecting her sex symbol status. “And that those things can keep people from seeing you clearly.” But now that Michelle is a little older and a lot more secure, she’s eager to have all eyes on her once more: ” It’s funny spending your twenties running away from it, and then you hit your thirties…wait a second! Come back! I want that time back when I didn’t appreciate what I had!, ” she admits. ” That kind of ripe sexuality, when you hit your thirties you feel more in possession of it, you feel it’s not something that can be sort of taken away from you and reassembled. ” Considering you’ve been taking our jaws and dropping them to the floor from If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000) right up through Take this Waltz (2011), Michelle, we think you’ve got nothing to worry about. Take a look at Nudity Hall-of-Famer Michelle Williams’ skinpressive body of work right here at MrSkin.com!
Charlie Sheen is on his way back into our living room: his FX sitcom premieres in June. What made that network take a chance on the troubled actor? President and general manager John Landgraf was asked this question by reporters yesterday at the Television Critics Association press tour and said he was “as skeptical as you might imagine” when he first walked in to a pitch meeting with Sheen. But then… “I saw [a very different Charlie Sheen] in the room, and what I heard was a really good pitch for a comedy series – funny, complicated, and I think the character that Charlie ought to be playing at this point.” Sheen claims he’s no longer a crazy person , and Landgraf is banking on the public being as forgiving of the star’s crazy actions as he’s trying to be. “I believe in redemption,” the executive said. “If the project that came in was one that took no notice or made no reference to or had no consciousness of everything that went before it, and Charlie seemed to have no consciousness of it, that would have been a different matter from my standpoint, because that would have been supporting the perpetuation of something. But, in my view, that’s precisely not what Charlie and [executive producer] Bruce Helford want to do, and I’m all for giving them the opportunity to turn things around.” [Photo: Pacific Coast News]
We’re keeping an eye on Teresa’s three upcoming projects: ‘Wish You Were Here,’ ‘AWOL’ and ‘Warm Bodies.’ By Kara Warner Teresa Palmer in “Wish You Were Here” Photo: Hopscotch Films Amazingly enough, our week of Ones to Watch in 2012 profiles is coming to an end. Over the past few days, we’ve highlighted a few of the stars who we feel will make the biggest impact in Hollywood this year. They are the rising stars of action, drama and blockbusters, who have the potential to be future award winners. The latest One to Watch is Aussie-born beauty Teresa Palmer, who fits into all of those categories and has not one, but three movies in which audiences can see her this year: the Australian indie and official Sundance Film Festival selection “Wish You Were Here” opposite Joel Edgerton, ’60s-set war drama “AWOL” with fellow Aussie and One to Watch Liam Hemsworth and “Warm Bodies,” a zombie romance based on Isaac Marion’s acclaimed novel. MTV News was lucky enough to catch up with Palmer recently to talk about her expectations for the year and what she loves most about her upcoming films, as well as the status on Six and that “I Am Number Four” sequel. MTV News : With the new year just getting started, do you have any specific goals or expectations for yourself? Teresa Palmer : Every year, I write a very elaborate journal, which I find to be very therapeutic and such a nice tool to have. This year, my New Year’s resolutions and goals, I had eight pages worth of stuff. Mainly it was goals that I’ve set for myself, and I know it’s going to be a busy year. I’m sure it’s going to be full of peaks and valleys, but I tend to do that every year and stick to what those goals are. MTV : We’ve seen you in plenty of films before this year, but how is 2012 different from other years? Palmer : This is the first time I’ve had three films come out in a year. I’m really excited because I’ve balanced between doing a big studio film, which I’ve been doing a lot in the last few years, with a cool independent. I have a cool independent film coming out called “Wish You Were Here” with Joel Edgerton and it’s Australian, which is super exciting for me because I haven’t been back to Australia to work in a few years. And then of course I have “Warm Bodies” coming out in August and then I have a period piece which is a much smaller movie again, set in the 1960s around the Vietnam war, called “AWOL,” and that’s with Liam Hemsworth. They’re just very different characters. I couldn’t really draw any similarities between the three girls that I play, and that’s certainly a draw card for me when I select the project. It’s just exciting, the diversity in the roles this year. It’s great. MTV : We’ve been following “Warm Bodies” for a while now. It’s a very different film from what people think. How do you describe it? Palmer : “Warm Bodies” is a truly unique zombie film. Yes, it has those elements of a zombie movie, and for those who embrace that genre, they’re not going to be disappointed because we have a lot of those typical action sequences in zombie films, but really, at the heart of the story is this relationship between R and Julie, and it’s unlike anything I think you’ve seen on film before. It’s so sweet, and there’s a lot humor. It really is, believe it or not, grounded in a reality. I think people can absolutely relate to R, who plays our lovable zombie. He’s an outsider, and it’s very much an “Edward Scissorhands”-type story and it’s really beautiful how this romance blossoms. It was such a strong script and truly very special, and that’s what drew me to the project in the first place. It’s just exceeded my expectations throughout filming, and the little of what I’ve seen I’m really excited about, I think more so than any other film I’ve been in, which is a great step for me. And I get to see a lot more when we start doing in a few weeks. MTV : How would you describe the look of the film? Palmer : It’s a dark, bleak world. There are 400 humans left in society, so it’s very much that postapocalyptic world. Empty streets, a huge deserted airport, which always makes for an interesting backdrop. There’s a lot of beauty, though, and it surrounds. I think another character in the film really is the music; it’s celebrated in our movie. It’s just a very eclectic film in the way that we have eccentric pieces and really interesting graffiti that maybe not everyone will notice, but so much effort was put into the look of the film, the backdrops and sets and just the feel of it, that I think it’s going to be really interesting on film. We have the production designer who did “Super 8,” among a bunch of other films, and it is really epic. MTV : Is there room for a sequel, or do you feel it’s a standalone film? Palmer : I would love, love to go back and play Julie. I certainly already miss R, and I said to [director] Jonathan Levine just recently “I miss them both so much.” I miss R’s sweetness and how beautiful he is to Julie and how much he takes care of her. He’s struggling so much with being bottled up in a zombie, he doesn’t like his existence in that way, and we sort of help each other to grow. I love that. I would be so excited to do another film. At the moment, it lends itself to the one film, but we all sat around drawing up possible ideas in the air, and Isaac Marion was on set with us, and he said he has a couple of ideas. If anything, there might be a prequel, but right now, it’s a standalone film. I guess it just depends. MTV : Have you had any more discussion on the character of Six and a sequel to “I Am Number Four”? Palmer : I have been poking around asking about that a little bit. I think of all the films I’ve done so far, that’s the character who is most celebrated to me. I meet people who come up to me on the street and say all my lines from “I Am Number Four” and they really loved Six, which is exciting. I’ve been asked that question a lot recently; I really don’t know. I think at the moment, there are no plans to make a sequel, which is a bummer, but you never know. It really depends on how all those sales go, the DVDs and those numbers. It’s a money game, I guess, so we will see, but I would love to play her again. What are you waiting for? Your must-see movie needs your support. It’s time to show character, poise and heart. Vote for your picks now at MTV Movie Brawl 2012 ! For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos 2012 Ones To Watch
Actress excited to reunite with ‘Starter for 10′ co-star Cumberbatch, who was recently cast as sequel’s villain. By Kara Warner Alice Eve Photo: Getty Images We have a long wait ahead of us before J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” sequel hits theaters, but in recent weeks, the agony of the film’s 2013 release has been made less so with the news that Benedict Cumberbatch has joined the film as its chief villain. Although Cumberbatch is relatively new to audiences, via “Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy” and “War Horse” this year, he’s a well-known actor in the U.K. and already has legions of fans. One of those fans is “Trek” co-star Alice Eve, who worked with Cumberbatch a few years back in the well-received British comedy “Starter for 10.” MTV News recently caught up with Eve, one of our Ones to Watch in 2012 , and asked her thoughts on reuniting with Cumberbatch for “Trek 2.” “I’m very excited to work with him again. He’s so very funny, Ben,” she said. “I don’t know if you remember his character in ‘Starter for 10,’ but he was so funny. Like King of the Geeks, but he did it so well, and I found a lot of that hard to get through because he was so funny. I like him very much.” Eve went on to say that she’s very much looking forward to getting to work on “Trek 2,” particularly because of the camaraderie among the cast. “It’s similar to ‘Starter for 10,’ from my point of view, in that there is a group of young actors who have a team spirit, which is always so revivifying to be a part of,” she said. “When there’s a group of people who you can spend time with and work with and get to know, a real good experience, it’s kind of like going back to university or something, when everyone has got the same objective. There’s a lot of energy, and it’s a nice thing to be a part of that group. That’s the thing that excites me most about it. Obviously, there is a huge legacy there with ‘Star Trek’ and the fanatics, so hopefully they’ll be satisfied.” The “Raven” and “Men in Black 3” star didn’t reveal any details about her character, only agreeing with us when we mentioned the fact that director J.J. Abrams likes to feature strong women in his films. Eve said she feels fortunate to be a part of the film. “I feel incredibly lucky. I would say it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s not once-in-a-lifetime, but it is rare. It’s one of life’s great pleasures to enjoy the group you work with, because we all know what it’s like when you don’t.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Star Trek 2.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos Talk Nerdy To Me
