In an ABC News special celebrating 20 years of Love Actually, director Richard Curtis reveals that Rickman wasn’t particularly fond of his gift-wrapping scene with Rowan Atkinson.
LOVE ACTUALLY, Heike Makatsch and Alan Rickman, 2003.Courtesy of Universal/ Everett Collection.
Severus Snape would probably not be a huge fan of the comedic stylings of Mr. Bean, and apparently fact isn’t that far from fiction. In a new ABC News special, The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later,Diane Sawyer speaks to the director of the beloved holiday romantic comedy and reveals that the late Alan Rickman was driven “insane” by his scene with Rowan Atkinson.
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Love Actually director Richard Curtis revisits the iconic scene that finds Rickman’s Harry sneaking away from his wife, Karen (Emma Thompson), at the mall to purchase a gold necklace for Mia (Heike Makatsch), an attractive younger woman who works at his office. While at the register, he has to deal with Atkinson’s eccentric clerk, Rufus, who promises to have Harry’s gift wrapped “in the flashiest of flashes,” but takes a comically long time adding unnecessary flourishes like a gold ribbon, flower buds, lavender, a cinnamon stick, and a sprig of holly.
While the scene is a comedic showcase for Atkinson, Rickman apparently didn’t find it all that funny at the time. “Rowan was just taking his time,” Curtis tells Sawyer. “So he would do 11-minute takes.” The length of the takes and the improvisation were apparently grating to Rickman. “[Rowan would say], ‘Let’s go back and do that. Let’s start again.’ And poor Alan was there all the time going, ‘Grr, ugh.’” Luckily, Rickman’s frustration with the scene worked perfectly for his character, whose impatience with the situation is palpable. Sometimes Method acting really is the way to go.
Sunday’s episode of “The White Lotus” dropped jaws and brought in eyes.
Episode 5 of the anthology series’ second season was viewed by 2.3 million people in its first night — more than any previous episode of the series — according to Warner Bros. Discovery. This statistic is calculated based on a combination of linear viewing on the HBO cable channel measured by Nielsen and WBD’s own data regarding HBO Max streams.
This marks a 23% jump from the previous series high, which belonged to the Season 1 finale, which brought in 1.9 million viewers when it debuted last August. Additionally, the episode showed 28% growth when compared to Episode 4.
Viewership of Season 2 has increased with every episode since it 1.5 million viewers tuned in for Episode 1. WBD says that the season premiere’s audience has now reached 9.5 million, which outranks the Season 1 average of 9.3 viewers per episode over time.
It’s not surprising that Episode 5 got so much traction, as it instantly set social media ablaze thanks to a shocking sex scene in its final minutes. (For spoilers, and to read series creator Mike White’s ideas about the scene, read Variety‘s exclusive interview here.)
“The White Lotus” was originally intended as a limited series, but ended up being renewed for a second season after garnering solid acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Season 1 was set at a White Lotus resort in Maui, while Season 2 takes place in Sicily. HBO renewed the series for Season 3 earlier this month, though casting and location details are yet to come.
The actor, who plays Wednesday Addams in the “Addams Family” spinoff, spilled the beans about choreographing for the first time during a new video recently posted to “Still Watching Netflix,” one of the streaming service’s official YouTube channels.
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Ortega — whoplanned the movesjust a few days before director Tim Burton filmed the sequence — chatted with her co-stars about behind-the-scenes details from the series, including the viral scene in which her beloved character performs a mesmerizingly bizarre goth-inspired dance routine.
The nearly three-minute moment toward the end of Episode 4 showcases Wednesday dominating her school’s dance floor during the Rave’N dance with a slew of electric ’80s-inspired dance moves.
“I actually felt really insecure about this,” the 20-year-old actor revealed while watching the scene alongside co-stars Emma Myers, who stars as Enid Sinclair and Wednesday’s best friend at Nevermore Academy, and Hunter Doohan, who plays Tyler Galpin.
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“I choreographed that myself and I think it’s very obvious that I’m not a dancer or choreographer,” she said, laughing.
“No, it’s amazing!” Doohan exclaimed. Myers then followed up by sharing that the magnetic scene is one of her favorites of the series.
Fellow co-star Percy Hynes White, who portrays Xavier, chimed in with support, saying: “I can watch an entire show of just this.”
Much of Ortega’s choreography process for building the titular character’s routine involved her garnering inspiration from “archival footage of goths dancing in clubs.”
Last month, she took toTwitterto also thank “Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug, Lisa Loring, Lene Lovich, [and] Denis Lavant” for helping her out with the scene.
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Fans of the ’60s TV series “The Addams Family” will recognize Wednesday briefly replicating another famous dance routine performed by the first on-screen Wednesday, Lisa Loring, as spotted by aneagle-eyed fan.
The split-second dance moves originate from the episode,“Lurch’s Grand Romance,”which features Wednesday (Loring) teaching Lurch “The Drew.”
Joe Pesci is looking back at his time filming Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and recalled getting “serious burns” during one of the memorable scenes from the holiday movie.
“In addition to the expected bumps, bruises, and general pains that you would associate with that particular type of physical humor, I did sustain serious burns to the top of my head during the scene where Harry’s hat is set on fire,” Pesci told People. “I was fortunate enough to have professional stuntmen do the real heavy stunts.”
Fans may recall that Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister runs into criminals Pesci’s Harry and Daniel Stern’s Marv once again but this time in the Big Apple. To try to get away from them, Kevin pulls pranks and sets traps for the villains in the movie. In one particular scene, Kevin’s trap sets Harry’s hat on fire.
It’s been 30 years since the Home Alone sequel was released, with Pesci starring in the first two films. When asked if he would return for another installment of the franchise, he wasn’t so sure if the magic could be captured again.
“While you never say never, I think that it would be difficult to replicate not only the success but also the overall innocence of the originals,” he said. “It’s a different time now; attitudes and priorities have changed in 30 years.”
The last installment in the Home Alone series of movies was released in 2021 on Disney+ and titled Home Sweet Home Alone.
Relive the memorable Home Alone 2 scene in the video below.
I humbly sat down for most of my school’s prom. Sure there was the occasional shoulder shimmy here and there. That awkward two-step sway with my friends (you know the one). But like many debilitatingly anxious 16-year-olds, I would have rather died than be caught busting it down in front of my teachers.
But not Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega). Wednesday finds the dangerous pit of a high school dance floor and sees a window of opportunity. She spots the prying eyes of her teachers and sees audiences stuck in nosebleed seats begging for a look. She’s Halloween's it girl, but she’s a dancer first and a goth aficionado second.
If you've seen the fourth episode of Netflix’s Wednesday, you probably know the scene I'm referencing. The almost three-minute dance routine towards the episode's end, sees Wednesday absolutely dominating her school's dancefloor and turning it into a stage for her own one-woman show.
While her choreography is a magnetic, applause-worthy spectacle, it’s also a treasure chest of Easter eggs and '80s tributes. Thanks to Ortega's personal choreography process that relied on troves of 1980s dance footage and research to build Wednesday's routine.
The '80s were a prime for Halloween bops and goth goodness.
Credit: Screenshots, from left to right: Netflix / YouTube
While some remember the totally tubular decade for Cyndi Lauper and Tina Turner, others remember the '80s for its booming subculture scene where goths became trendsetters and misfits made music mayhem. A lot of Wednesday's routine involved Ortega pulling inspiration from archival footage of goths dancing in clubs and the makers behind the music to their Friday nights. Ortega's list of goth gods includes Siouxsie Sioux, Lene Lovich, and Denis Lavant, with Bob Fosse's "Rich Man's Frug" adding a sprinkle of swinging '60s to her routine.
The '80s were also an era where Halloween tracks made it into the club and Wednesday's dance number is arguably a giant homage to the latter. From “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell to “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr., to most famously, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, the '80s gave us what now constitutes the majority of Spotify’s Halloween playlist, and no decade since has been able to replicate its Halloween-becomes-pop zeitgeist.
Wednesday’s dance number is a rich tribute to an '80s club scene that was as synth as it was spooky.
Performed at the school's Rave'N, Wednesday’s dance number is a rich tribute to an '80s club scene that was as synth as it was spooky. Her routine devilishly bursts with flavored homages for the decade’s Halloween finest, marrying “Thriller” with Dracula, and serving all kinds of camp, goth realness. Like Jackson’s zombie groove, we see Wednesday doing a similar hands up, claws out side-to-side. A human-turned zombie neck tilt. A shoulder shimmy paired with swinging arms going up and down. And an overall seamless embodiment of everything staple to an '80s Halloween music video.
Ortega’s choreography is also a performance on multiple levels, as she simultaneously acts out the lyrics to the scene’s backtrack “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps. The song, another '80s hit about a teenager turning into a monster (fitting for the show's mystery plot), lets Wednesday embody the creature, being called to the dancefloor one synth beat at a time, dipping in and out of frame, and popping up where you least expect her. The '80s of it all is so good, that I’m convinced if you changed the scene’s song into any of the decade’s Halloween hits, it’d all flow perfectly well.
All our Wednesdays are great dancers.
Credit: From left to right: Abc-Tv/Kobal/Shutterstock / Netflix / Melinda Sue Gordon/Orion/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock
Alongside its '80s tribute, Wednesday’s dance number beams with a fun, blink and you’ll miss it Easter egg. The split second dance move sees Wednesday replicating another famous dance routine given to us by our first onscreen Wednesday, Lisa Loring, from the '60s TV series The Addams Family Show. You may know it from the GIFs and memes, but way back when in a 1966 episode, Wednesday taught Lurch (Ted Cassidy) how to dance and the rest was Friday night GIF history.
The episode, “Lurch’s Grand Romance,” features Wednesday (Loring) teaching Lurch “The Drew.” A swinging '60s jive that's adorably endearing. “You don’t want her to think you’re square do ya?” Wednesday asks while shuffling around. Ortega brilliantly includes The Drew in a touching homage — rewatch the prom scene and see if you can catch her quick Easter egg, it’s all very worth it.
Another famous Wednesday, Christina Ricci (who returns to Netflix’s Wednesday in a brilliant role as herbology teacher Ms. Thornhill), was also an absolute dancing queen in the 1991 film, The Addams Family, where she dramatically waltzes with her cousin, Lumpy Addams, at Uncle Fester’s celebratory ball. Ricci hilariously keeps a straight face while whizzing around, despite being on the brink of catapulting into the air at any moment. And while Ortega may not have included a Wednesday waltz in her routine, the legacy of Ricci's lavish dancing lives on. With all our Wednesdays, past and present, being queens of the night and painting every dancefloor with their name.
The Addams are Latin and love to dance.
Credit: Netflix
Wednesday’s dance scene emboldens her with a certain joie de vivre, and smartly characterizes her as a kid who grew up watching parents as iconic as Gomez and Morticia Addams (Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones). Wednesday is the first to directly address the Addams’ Latin heritage and Wednesday’s routine subtly nods to her roots.
Amidst the '80s goodness, Wednesday briefly salsa dances, doing a recognizable salsa snap in a touching tribute to her culture and the many nights she probably spent watching her parents erupt into dance. If you’ve seen any previous Addams Family works, you’ll know that Gomez and Morticia never stray away from an opportunity to waltz, music or not, with Gomez’s “cara mia” lingering in the air. Wednesday's routine maintains that same fiery decadence, and infuses her dancing with a passion for performance that she got from her mama. She’s Gomez and Morticia’s kid through and through, proudly boasting her heritage and family’s love for both the macabre and a good dance.
While Wednesday is a cornucopia of so many hidden gems, the show’s take on a modern Wednesday Addams really shines through in her prom’s dance scene. In all past iterations of the Addams Family, Wednesday’s always been a kid with quick quips and monotonous one-liners, but Netflix’s Wednesday is the first time we get to see her as a teenager with her own passions and sense of self. Her electric dancing speaks to a new Wednesday that unravels intimate layers of characterization. We can now totally imagine Wednesday watching the “Thriller” music video alone in her room, or (begrudgingly) dancing to Anegla Aguilar “La Llorona” with her parents. I’ve always felt that an Addams house party goes hard, and Wednesday’s shameless dance routine has me begging to be on their guest list.
This article contains spoilers from the Nov. 27 episode of The White Lotus
Excuse us, we just need to pick our jaws up off the floor.
While we've come to expect the unexpected from The White Lotus, we were not prepared for what the Nov. 27 episode had in store.
After being woken up in the middle of the night, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) stumbled into a separate room only to find Quentin (Tom Hollander) having sex with his nephew Jack (Leo Woodall).
Moments earlier, Jack arrived to Quentin's Palermo home from a date with Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) and said, "I have to do something for my uncle."
"Tanya witnessing it, it's delicious and it makes you realize that he really has got a plan and the writer really is going somewhere," Hollander exclusively told E! News. "He hasn't lost his way with this story. It's very, very confident."
Keri Wing stands over Laser Cue, an old-school pinball game, in the darkened basement of Solid State Pinball Supply. She’s in her element, deftly navigating a silver ball around the inter-galactic playing field.
“It’s very satisfying,” she says. “And it has a fun rules set and a funky layout.”
Laser Cue is one of many titles crammed into this arcade at 30th and Troost, where Wing works as a pinball technician.
For pinball wizards both casual and serious, there’s no shortage of places to congregate in the metro: Pizza West in Shawnee, the 403 Club in Kansas City, Kansas, and Main Street Pinball in Grain Valley, among others.
Like so many social activities, the pinball scene lost its momentum during the pandemic. But finally, these consoles are coming back to life, and Wing says the community is stronger than before.
“I get to see the growth, you know, based in quarters,” Wing says. “And so people are putting more quarters into games. So that tells me it's healthy, it's alive and well.”
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Keri Wing, a pinball repair technician, won the Kansas City Pinball Championship earlier this month. She is now the the 46th-ranked player in the world, according to the International Flipper Pinball Association.
The perfect game for the moment
Wing grew up in Kansas City’s pinball scene: Her father, Kevin, was a pinball repairman himself. “We always had pinball machines in the house,” Wing explains.
Kevin died shortly before the 2019 pinball championships, and now Kansas City’s trophy bears his name; soon, it will have Keri’s too.
“It’s an attractive thing, when you walk into a bar or restaurant and there’s a shiny pinball machine with flashing lights,” she says. “It attracts a lot of people. And for people like me, it’s, you know, nostalgic.”
The city’s largest public collection of consoles can be found at Solid State. Inside the former Wonder Bread factory, players can find two floors of machines, from Rick and Morty to the Walking Dead to a vintage “Top Gun” knockoff called “Gold Wings.”
Owner Nick Greenup, 40, started collecting pinball machines about 15 years ago. He had always played casually, mostly in Westport bars, but one day he found a machine just sitting in the trash. He fixed it up and sold it.
“I went for the stuff that nobody else wanted,” he says. “I wanted the weird stuff.”
Greenup began repairing machines and selling parts.
“We take everything off the top of the playfield. Clean it, wax it, put everything back. Make sure it all works good,” he says. “Then underneath, there’s tons of wires and parts. We make sure all that’s rebuilt and clean and working well.”
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Nick Greenup is the owner of Solid State Pinball Supply where people can play on two floors of the former Wonder Bread factory and they can also buy parts and get their machines fixed.
With his collection, Greenup began hosting tournaments, drawing competitors from around the region. He decided to finally open a full-sized arcade in 2020 — right before the pandemic hit.
He wasn’t sure if the business would survive. But the opposite happened.
Greenup saw people emerge with a renewed appreciation for arcades, and the sense of togetherness they offered. And pinball, with all its ‘80s and ‘90s nostalgia, was the perfect game for the moment.
“It’s just something physical. It’s a really cool toy for all ages. You know, it hits all the key things,” he says. “It’s got the sound, the light shows. You got the physical buttons, and plungers, the moving balls.”
Lance Hinson is a co-owner at KingCade, which has one Mandalorian pinball game on the floor so far.
“A pinball machine is totally different in that it’s three dimensional,” he says. “The intricacy of it all. Making shots. The angles of the shot to make a shot. It can be very complex. And the rule sets on the new games are very deep.”
Hinson says pinball has adopted a lot of features from the video game industry, from Wi-Fi connectivity to high-definition screens.
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Lance Hinson, co-owner at KingCade in Oak Park Mall has one pinball machine in this arcade, but hopes to add more soon. He says the additions of high-definition screens, Wi-Fi capability and improved licensing with popular films and TV shows have increased the game's popularity.
Ultimately though, Hinson says pinball is a game of real-life variables.
“There’s tons of skill involved from controlling that ball,” he says. “You can’t master it like you can with Super Mario Bros.”
Recreating that nostalgic feeling
It’s not just the competitive scene that’s returned in Kansas City.
Greenup says the entire pinball economy is thriving — he can’t fix up machines fast enough to keep up with the demand.
Consoles get bought and sold online just minutes after being posted, he says.
“And if somebody posts a game that doesn’t know what it’s worth, it’s gone even faster,” Greenup says. “And before the first person gets there, they’ve gotten 20 calls saying, ‘I’ll give you more.’”
Some local collectors have over 100 machines in their houses.
“People getting a certain age that have the money to buy something like this for their home;. people looking for something to do; been sick,” Greenup says. “They’re building out their basements, game rooms at their house; just trying to recreate that going-out-to-the-bar feeling.”
One such machine — a 14-year-old Shrek-themed console — lives in the basement of an Overland Park house, where repairman Chris Moore paid a visit earlier this month.
The homeowner, Brad Warner, bought the console from Costco and keeps it tucked in a brightly-lit alcove, next to University of Kansas memorabilia and a tabletop Pac Man game.
Moore eases off the machine’s glass cover and lifts up the wooden playing field to reveal a hidden tangle of wires, tiny motors and other electronics. He dons a headlamp to peer into the mess.
“There’s never a common repair. Every machine is different,” Moore says. “Every machine will test your abilities.”
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Chris Moore solders a connection on the backside of a Shrek pinball playing field in a Overland Park basement Nov. 4, 2022.
Moore says he gets a lot of repair calls just before the holidays. Families remember their long-forgotten machines gathering dust in the basement, and want to fix them up to play with their kids — or their grandkids.
“People in their 40s grew up with arcade machines,” he says. “Our age group is kind of unique in that way, in that we grew up with all these machines. So people get nostalgic and they want a place to play them or they want one for their own home.”
Moore was a party DJ and a truck driver before starting his own business: Pinball Repair Service KC.
Decades after its heyday, Moore sees pinball still going strong. The few American manufacturers that exist are pumping out new machines, and incorporating tech features borrowed from video games.
“It’s definitely, my opinion, one of the last pieces of Americana is pinball, Moore says. “It’s still American made.”
Moore solders a small wire in the playing field of the Shrek machine, fires it up and settles his hands over the flippers, as the game blares “All Star” by Smash Mouth.
“I love pinball,” he says. “I’m actually not that great at it.”
Moore loses a ball between the flippers, and Shrek’s voice retorts: “Ah, don’t let that wee thing bother you.”
Doha’s restaurateurs say much has changed, but not their recipes
As city grew, Indian, Lebanese, Qatari eateries expanded too
New highways, relaxed social norms mark city’s transformation
DOHA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - A hummus recipe and cashier countertop are the only surviving elements of the original 'Beirut' restaurant, which opened its doors in Qatar in 1960 and has since tracked the capital Doha's metamorphosis from dusty outpost to hosting soccer's World Cup.
Jihad Shahin's uncle opened the Lebanese restaurant in the old commercial district of Msheireb but the building that housed it was razed under a development project that produced one of Doha's most modern areas, brimming with hip coffee shops and lunch spots serving high-powered executives.
The 'Beirut' eatery relocated to the more affordable Ben Mahmood neighbourhood in 2010, the year that the Gulf Arab gas producer was awarded rights to host soccer's biggest global event that kicked off on Sunday.
"Doha changed so much – more than 360 degrees. It was so small at first, like virgin territory. Now look at it," said Shahin, 55, as he happily watched soccer fans dining at the fast food restaurant he runs with his sons and nephews.
The only thing that's constant, he said, is the recipe for their popular hummus.
The eatery used to close at 8:30 pm (1730 GMT) after the last diners had polished off plates of creamy hummus or fava beans, but now, he said, they can only break for three hours a day.
Clients include breakfasting Qataris, construction and security guards off overnight shifts and, this week, tourists in soccer jerseys descending on the country, where foreigners, mostly migrant workers, form the bulk of the 3 million population.
"We're a piece of Doha's history," Shahin said.
'NICHE THING'
Doha's selection to host the World Cup kicked off a phase of accelerated development that brought new multi-lane highways, a sleek metro system and large enterprises ranging from university campuses to hotels and tech hubs - and their employees.
Around the corner from Beirut restaurant is northern Indian restaurant Gokul Gujarati, which moved from its original Msheireb location a few years later.
"They were building the underground train literally underneath the old restaurant and the Msheireb station right across the street, so we moved here," said Ajay Joshi, whose father opened the restaurant in 2012.
The staff, all from the same district in northern India, serve up traditional fare including rotis, thick and spicy vegetarian stews and an array of homemade sugar-free desserts.
Its first location had two tables but the new spot has 10, catering to the expanded base of migrant workers now in Doha.
Since it is located at a distance from any stadiums or accommodation housing tourists, the first week of the World Cup's group stage did not bring an influx of newcomers, said Joshi. "We're doing our own niche thing," he said.
Soccer fans were, however, flocking to the more centrally-located Shay al-Shamous – a traditional Qatari breakfast spot in Souq Waqif, where fishmongers and other traders sold their wares several centuries ago and which was rehabilitated in the early 2000s.
Soccer legend David Beckham is featured in a photograph on the restaurant's walls standing next to owner Shams al-Qassabi, hailed as Qatar's first-ever female restaurateur.
Qassabi, who never learned to read and does not know what year she was born, opened her restaurant in 2004 with six seats – and now serves more than 200 at a time.
"I wanted to show people what is Qatar, what is Qatar's culture, from the norms and traditions of Qatar to Qatari food – specifically home cooking, not restaurant food," she told Reuters.
While she loves tradition, Qassabi has also bucked it: she pushed against the prevailing conservative custom that only male-run businesses operated in Souq Waqif - establishing one of its most popular destinations.
That too, she said, was a sign Doha had changed.
"There are a lot more Qatari women who have restaurants now," she said proudly.
Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise
