Rider Strong on “You Had To Be There”

Patrick McMullan

If you know anything about me, you know that I have serious love for anything from the early 1990s:  TV, music, et. al.  (If you followed my now-defunct Xanga, you also know that I consider my life to have peaked in 1994, a declaration I made in 2003 that I still stand by.)

That’s why I was so excited to learn that Rider Strong is the guest in the newest episode of You Had To Be There, an excellent podcast by comedians Sara Schaefer and Nikki Glaser.  If you don’t have 53 minutes to listen to the whole thing, don’t worry.  I’ve done it for you!

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Attention whore Kristen Bell makes Ryan Lochte look (comparatively) awesome

I’m not going to lie.  I was really excited to watch Ryan Lochte’s Tonight Show appearance because I can’t get enough of his… cluelessness:

John Gallagher Jr.: Moritz Stiefel dated April Ludgate

HBO

I’ve been meaning to dedicate a weekend afternoon to HBO’s The Newsroom, which is taking up much space on my DVR.  I’ve never watched The West Wing (though Nicole keeps telling me to watch), but Aaron Sorkin is a talented guy (I grudgingly admit) and the cast includes John Gallagher Jr., one of my favorite actors.

Golfer Ivan Lendl seeks to improve his game

The New York Times

This Sunday’s New York Times Magazine has a great feature on former No. 1 Ivan Lendl, who is currently serving as Andy Murray’s coach.  With Wimbledon coming up, I suppose it’s unsurprising that there would be Murray-related features, especially since the media loves to remind everyone that the last British man to win there was Fred Perry in 1936.

Peter de Jonge, who followed around the duo — and of course Andy’s mother Judy — for the past few months, notes:  Murray’s deepest ambition… is not to be filthy rich but to win majors and earn a place in tennis history.

Unfortunately, I don’t exactly see the latter happening, considering that his coach, who retired nearly two decades ago, is the subject of substantial profiles in the Times Magazine and not Andy himself.

(And yes, that is Andy on the green mat doing his downward dog!)

Best revelations of Emma Stone profile in Vulture

Getty

To promote a little summer movie called The Amazing Spider-Man, Emma Stone speaks to Vulture.  Lessons learned:

• Emma frequents Cookshop on Tenth Avenue.  Is this a trendy place?  ‘Cause I’ve eaten here, and this makes me feel creepily closer to Emma.

• Emma, who lived with boyfriend Andrew Garfield while he was doing Death of a Salesman in her Chelsea apartment, cried after a paparazzo told her, “I’m going to be here [in front of your place] every day now.”  (Photographers actually say that to their subjects?)

• She’s just like us, y’all!  Emma admits that she uses Facebook, something that nearly every celebrity denies.

• Not only does Emma have the No. 1 celebrity feet on a site called Wikifeet… Wikifeet exists.  The fuck?

• She impressed Denis Leary with her improv skills on Spider-Man.

• She signed with Revlon to prove to girls that they don’t have to look like models.  Even though she does, I actually buy her sincerity.

I should hate her.  She has an amazing career, she’s dating Andrew Garfield, and she has Rachel McAdams syndrome (i.e. she looks fuckin’ amazing in ANY hair color).  But she is so darn charming!  Can’t wait to hand over my $14!

Julia Stiles is in a movie

VF.com just posted a new interview with Julia Stiles since she’s promoting It’s a Disaster, an end-of-the-world comedy (nope, not Seeking a Friend for the End of the World) directed by Todd Berger (coincidentally the name of the character that Andy Samberg plays in That’s My Boy, which opens today and looks abysmal).

Anyway.  What happened to Julia Stiles’s career?  She was supposed to be the Next Big Thing after 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) and Save the Last Dance (2001).  I mean, sure, she was on Dexter for awhile, but who isn’t on TV these days?

VF.com was nice enough to let the actress comment on her absence in The Bourne Legacy, a remake/reimagining/sequel/whateverthefuck of the wildly successful Bourne franchise that starred Matt Damon.  If you remember (and you probably don’t), Julia had a very minor role as Treadstone technician Nicky Parsons, whose role was slightly expanded with each installment in the trilogy but is absent in the upcoming Legacy, which stars Jeremy Renner:

I certainly think [Nicky’s storyline] could have been explored more, but I don’t really have any control or say in that… My character doesn’t really fit into the fourth of the series because she was so closely linked to Matt Damon’s version of Jason Bourne that it would have been forcing it a little too much to include her. I’m not exactly sure what happens in this one, but when you change the identity—I think she was just too closely tied to Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne.

Translation:  I would’ve died to be in this movie and delay my inevitable destiny in cable television, but my character got cut.

Frankly, I thought that her role as Nicky was pretty insignificant.  According to somebody who edited the Wikipedia entry for The Bourne Ultimatum, “It is implied that Parsons and Bourne had a deep, possibly romantic relationship before he lost his memory.”  Uh, that’s ridiculous because in the first film, she was like 18, and in the second, she confirmed to Joan Allen that her cover was an American student studying in Paris.

Anyway.  I’m still happy for this 10 Things alum to still be finding work.  Heath Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s career is thriving… I’m still waiting for Alex Mack’s career to reach the stratospheric levels that it deserves!

Keira Knightley on “Late Night”

Focus Features

Keira Knightley, one of my favorite actresses, appeared last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  I love her, but she doesn’t do too many interviews (or maybe I’m biased and she does…?).  She’s promoting Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, co-starring Steve Carell, which releases June 22.

Jimmy asks Keira, who was wearing a very sparkly dress, about England’s match against France in Euro 2012.  Keira admits that sometimes, you fall asleep watching England play, and even her parents think that Germany will take the whole thing.  Anyway, Jimmy pulls out a copy of Interview with Keira on the cover (it’s from April 2012 and no longer on stands, but it’s here online… note that whoever linked this spelled Keira’s name wrong!)  Jimmy asks Keira about her parents, and she tells a cute story (if known) story of her father agreeing to have a second child if her playwright mother sold another play:  “[The play] was a bit hit, and I’m the baby!”  So cute.

A few days ago, I had watched Last Night on my cousin Laura’s Netflix, and Laura wanted to watch it too.  Laura claims that I “ruin” celebrities for her, so she asked me warily if I thought Keira Knightley was a good actress.  “I don’t know,” I replied.  “It’s not about her being a good actress… she was in Bend It Like Beckham!”  Obviously, I’ll watch her in anything, even films that are simultaneously released in theaters and on Video on Demand.  I’m pretty excited for Seeking though:  I love Keira, I love Steve Carell, and the premise sounds cool.  I just hope they don’t wind up being love interests (although it seems like they team up to look for Steve’s ex-girlfriend).