Latest news with #CrazyRichAsians
Time Out
5 days ago
- Business
- Time Out
Hong Kong is the third most expensive city in the world for ‘living well'
Listen, it's great to have money, but rich people have problems too, okay? This rings especially true for high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in Hong Kong, as our city has been ranked the world's third most expensive city to live luxuriously, according to the Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report 2025 by Swiss private banking group Julius Baer. Published annually, the report captures the 'cost of living extremely well' in 25 major global cities, showing the relative prices of the goods and services required to maintain a Crazy Rich Asians -like lifestyle. Amidst a shaky global economy, trade wars, and geopolitical tensions worldwide, Singapore has retained its place on the top of the chart, crowned as the world's most expensive city for luxury since 2023. Hong Kong was second place in 2024, but this year we were bumped down to third place by London. According to Julius Baer, even though we have slipped one spot in the rankings, Hong Kong remains a buoyant investment environment, continuing to attract family offices of HNWIs and families. But they had better keep on the straight and narrow, because the costliest item in Hong Kong within the Julius Baer Lifestyle Index is hiring lawyer services. In contrast, Champagne has become the cheapest index item, likely due to tax cuts on liquor and alcohol duties last year, so go ahead and pop more bottles! Zooming into the details, the price of watches and cars in Hong Kong have risen by 11.1 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, while the price of men's suits and bicycles have dropped. In hospitality and travel, business class flights rose 10 percent, while fine dining costs fell 5.9 percent and hotel suites decreased by 26.1 percent. Despite a 1.2-percent decline in our currency prices this year, we remain the second most expensive for real estate purchases on Julius Baer's index. Would you continue living and investing in Hong Kong as an affluent individual, or would you rather take your gold bullion and trust fund somewhere else lower on the list? See the full rankings below. The top 10 most expensive cities for living well: Visit the Julius Baer website for the full report. Recommended stories: Cool down with an igloo bar, ice-themed market, and frozen treats in Repulse Bay
Mint
5 days ago
- Business
- Mint
A family feud is rocking one of the world's richest hotel dynasties
The gala felt straight out of the movie 'Crazy Rich Asians." In this tropical-island nation famously dense with millionaires, 600 guests gathered in September 2023 to fete one of Singapore's most prominent success stories: the property empire that owns the global Millennium hotel chain and the Biltmore Los Angeles. The politicians, business leaders and foreign envoys in attendance heaped praise on the company's octogenarian executive chairman, Kwek Leng Beng, who built a family fortune estimated at $11.5 billion and made deals with the likes of Donald Trump. Guests at the black-tie dinner savored abalone, bird's nest soup and lobster, while dancers and musicians performed on a stage. At the head table, the tycoon, clad in a blue tuxedo, reigned with his wife, Cecilia. But there was another woman in the ballroom, wearing a red dress, whose presence wasn't welcome to some in the family. Catherine Wu, a Juilliard-trained pianist and former television host in her native Taiwan, was well-known to company executives for her close relationship with the chairman. Senior executives had long bristled at what they saw as her interference in the hotel business, according to people familiar with the matter. But until this moment, she had largely shunned the limelight and avoided public company events. The internal complaints about her outsize influence remained unknown to the public. Now Wu was thrusting herself into the spotlight, introducing herself to the dignitaries—including Singapore's prime minister-in-waiting—and posing for photos with them. Onlookers blanched. People sympathetic to Cecilia Kwek and concerned about Wu's influence at the company thought Wu, by attending the gala, had crossed a line. Earlier this year, the tensions that seethed at the event burst into the open. The chairman's elder son and chosen successor, Sherman Kwek, 49, and his allies moved to add new directors to the board, a maneuver he later said was meant to eliminate Wu's influence at the family business, called City Developments Ltd., or CDL for short. Kwek Leng Beng, shown here in April, oversees a family fortune that Forbes estimated last year to be worth $11.5 Kwek is the chief executive of City Developments Ltd. and his father's designated successor. 'She has been interfering in matters going well beyond her scope, and she wields and exercises enormous influence," Sherman Kwek said in a statement on behalf of the majority of the board, issued in February after the feud erupted into public view. 'Due to her long relationship with the chairman, efforts that were made to manage the situation were done sensitively, but to no avail." Kwek Leng Beng fought back by trying to dismiss his son as chief executive and suing him for allegedly trying to usurp power—something that Sherman denies. The elder Kwek later said Wu had contributed to the business's success and decried his son's 'unproven insinuations." Wu, in her first public comments on the matter, told The Wall Street Journal in an email this month that her relationship to the chairman was 'purely professional." She said the elder Kwek had 'asked for and considered my feedback on business ideas," adding that she had 'had no role in the decision-making process" at CDL. She said the dispute was between board members and 'has nothing to do with me, although some parties have used my name to stoke the flames." Catherine Wu has been a longtime adviser to the elder Kwek. Weeks after the clash, the sides agreed to a truce. The public warring had done no good for a company dealing with high debt and a lackluster share price. In March, the elder Kwek announced Wu's resignation as an adviser at CDL's hotel subsidiary and dropped his lawsuit. His son remains CEO, backed by additional allies on the board and a company resolution declaring that Wu has no power to influence or direct management and staff at CDL and its hotel business. But Wu is still in contact with one person at CDL: the 84-year-old chairman. People at the company say the elder Kwek and Wu, who turns 66 this month, have recently been seen meeting at CDL-owned properties. It means, the people say, that the saga is far from over. Just north of the equator, six million people swelter in a city-state about a quarter of Rhode Island's size. A disproportionate many are millionaires, and some of Singapore's richest residents are members of family businesses that predate the nation's 60 years of independence. As Singapore transformed from a colonial outpost into a hub of prosperity, the Kwek clan was there to help build it every step of the way. Kwek Leng Beng's father, Kwek Hong Png, started a construction-materials store in 1941, when Singapore was a British colony. Kwek Leng Beng joined the business in 1963 and was given stern training by his father, as he and Cecilia recounted in an authorized biography, 'Strictly Business." Singapore in the 1940s. The Kwek family has helped transformed the city over the past several decades. When the couple were dating, Kwek Leng Beng's father imposed a curfew. 'The old man wanted him to be in bed by 9 p.m.," Cecilia said in the biography. Kwek Leng Beng and Cecilia, both London-trained lawyers, wed in 1970. They spent much of the next few years in Singapore in the lobby of the company's first hotel, where she'd drink hot chocolate while he quizzed staff about occupancy rates and mingled with guests for feedback, the biography said. By the 1990s, Kwek was in charge of a flourishing family business that would eventually expand to more than 150 hotels worldwide, including Millennium hotels in New York and London. It controlled so much real estate in Singapore at one point that he was dubbed 'Kwek Land Bank." As part of a venture with a Saudi prince, CDL bought New York City's Plaza Hotel, the iconic establishment next to Central Park that's played host to royalty, presidents and the fictional Kevin McCallister in the 1992 movie 'Home Alone 2." They paid $325 million to buy it from Trump in 1995, and then sold it nine years later for $675 million. In the mid-2000s, Kwek advised Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson on building the Marina Bay Sands casino resort in Singapore. Today, it is a symbol of the island nation's skyline. Kwek Leng Beng, second from the left in this 2007 photo, advised Sheldon Adelson, far left, on the building of the Marina Bay Sands casino resort in Singapore. As the years went by, an adviser by Kwek's side became impossible for insiders to ignore. Catherine Wu, who holds a doctorate in music from New York University, was in her early 30s when she met Kwek in 1992 at a dinner party. She was well-known in Taiwan as a TV host and pianist, having released albums under the name Ingrid Wu with tracks such as 'His Lover" and 'I'll Decide Before Dawn Whether I Love You." At the dinner, Kwek quizzed Wu about politics, economics and music 'to see if my mind was flexible and if my answers were consistent," Wu told a Singaporean newspaper last year. 'Fortunately, I answered articulately." Catherine Wu released piano albums in Taiwan under the name Ingrid Wu. Wu decided to move to Singapore that same year, she told the newspaper, saying she wanted to escape attention by relocating to a place where she wasn't well-known, and that the city-state's East-meets-West vibes suited her. In her email to the Journal, Wu described music as her former career and said she had spent 30 years in business amassing professional achievements. Kwek invited her to hotel-management meetings and events. 'The chairman would scold me from time to time, but I wouldn't take it to heart," Wu said in the newspaper interview. 'If a successful person is willing to put in the thought and energy to scold you, it means you are teachable." Paid not by the company but by Kwek himself, Wu acted as the chairman's 'eyes and ears" and often accompanied him to visit properties around the world, according to a 2018 U.K. labor tribunal ruling. The tribunal was investigating a dispute involving a former employee who accused a CDL subsidiary of unfair dismissal and other wrongdoing, a case the tribunal dismissed. Some executives and employees—including people who later left the company—bristled at Wu's conduct, filing complaints against her both internally and to a Singapore government-backed agency, according to people familiar with the matter. These complaints included allegations that Wu berated staff, meddled in business matters beyond her remit and used the elder Kwek's name to rubber-stamp her decisions, the people said. Sometimes, executives believed that business decisions they thought had been approved by the chairman were later overruled by Wu. In one instance cited in the complaints, the people said, Wu got the company to halt planned renovations to a hotel in London near the Harrods luxury department store, even though management believed the project would boost revenue and had spent years preparing for it. Catherine Wu and Kwek Leng Beng at the GeekCon 2024 cybersecurity conference. Many employees came to believe that Wu was sometimes using one of the elder Kwek's corporate email accounts to send instructions in his name, people close to CDL said. They said these employees learned to recognize what they believed to be Wu's imprint on such emails—a more formal and detailed writing style, compared with the elder Kwek's curt approach, and the signature 'Sent from my iPad," which was notable because the chairman wasn't known to use an iPad. Kwek declined to comment, while Wu didn't respond to requests for comment about this matter. According to the people, some executives expressed unease when one of Wu's six brothers, a former journalist for a Taiwanese television network, became general manager of the Biltmore Los Angeles in 2018. He had little experience in the hospitality industry, apart from a short stint as a business-development executive in CDL's hotel subsidiary. During the brother's stint as general manager, he, the hotel and a company affiliated with CDL's hotel subsidiary faced lawsuits from former Biltmore employees over allegations that included discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination, according to court papers. These cases have generally been settled out of court, according to court documents and people close to CDL, and the company didn't make any public admission of wrongdoing. The brother has stepped aside as general manager and remains an owner's representative—a supervisory role that oversees the hotel's operations and liaises between its owner and management. The brother didn't respond to requests for comment. Senior executives tried for years to persuade Sherman Kwek, the designated successor to the elder Kwek, to directly address the tensions over Wu, say insiders. Sherman Kwek didn't see much of his father as a child, as he recounted in his dad's biography. After studying business at Boston University, he worked in venture capital and investment banking in New York before his father brought him to the family business. Sherman Kwek had his own issues to deal with. After becoming CDL's CEO, he had spearheaded a 2019 investment in a Chinese developer that went sour and led to a $1.4 billion write-down. 'I wanted to hide my face in the sand" and came close to resigning, he recounted in a speech last year. 'I went from hero to zero overnight." The younger Kwek retained his father's support then and went on to strike profitable deals divesting some commercial properties, but he still faced skepticism from investors. Sherman Kwek and his allies thought they had eased Wu out of the picture when she resigned as a director of CDL's hotel subsidiary in January 2024, people close to the company say. But in August that year, Wu rejoined the subsidiary as an unpaid board adviser and the Singaporean newspaper published its interview with a headline that called her the elder Kwek's 'grand chamberlain." Kwek Leng Beng and his son Sherman Kwek in 2019. Wu's return stunned some senior CDL figures and board members, who had to try again to remove her from the business, people close to the company say. They first appealed to the elder Kwek to act, and then—after seeing no results—initiated a move in late January to add new independent directors to the CDL board, the people say. These efforts eventually led to the public feuding, which drew breathless coverage from local media that documented the boardroom spat blow-by-blow. Following the truce earlier this year, after which Sherman Kwek continued as chief executive and his father as chairman, Wu now has no official title at the company. Sherman Kwek remains in the hot seat, facing market pressure to execute plans to pare back CDL's debt and lift its share price, which still languishes below prepandemic levels. Watching over him is his father, who remains a revered figure at CDL overseeing a family fortune that Forbes estimated last year to be worth $11.5 billion. The elder Kwek has maintained his contacts with Wu, whose protégés still hold positions in the hotel business, according to people close to CDL. One of these people says the company is looking into past complaints against Wu. This week, CDL said a longserving board member, who sided with the chairman during the feud, will retire from the board at the end of July. A CDL spokesman said Kwek Leng Beng, Sherman Kwek and the company declined to comment. Both father and son continue to go into CDL's headquarters at Republic Plaza, a soaring 66-story skyscraper in Singapore's business district. At a public space there, a holographic painting that Sherman Kwek presented to the elder Kwek at the 2023 gala—depicting either the grandfather Kwek, the father or the son depending on the viewing angle—remains on display. Next to it stands a piece of Chinese calligraphy penned by one of Wu's brothers, which says, 'Three generations of blood and sweat, six decades of honor and glory." Write to Chun Han Wong at and Stu Woo at
Wall Street Journal
6 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
A Family Feud Is Rocking One of the World's Richest Hotel Dynasties
SINGAPORE—The gala felt straight out of the movie 'Crazy Rich Asians.' In this tropical-island nation famously dense with millionaires, 600 guests gathered in September 2023 to fete one of Singapore's most prominent success stories: the property empire that owns the global Millennium hotel chain and the Biltmore Los Angeles. The politicians, business leaders and foreign envoys in attendance heaped praise on the company's octogenarian executive chairman, Kwek Leng Beng, who built a family fortune estimated at $11.5 billion and made deals with the likes of Donald Trump. Guests at the black-tie dinner savored abalone, bird's nest soup and lobster, while dancers and musicians performed on a stage.
Business Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Business Times
How architect Moshe Safdie's new Marina Bay masterpiece will redefine Singapore's skyline
[SINGAPORE] Fifteen years ago, when the glitzy Marina Bay Sands (MBS) with its avant-garde architecture opened for business, its architect, Moshe Safdie, wondered if the integrated resort would become an icon in Singapore. Well, we know the answer to that one. Since then, the development's three sloping hotel towers – topped off with a surfboard-like SkyPark carrying its now-famous infinity pool – have been frequently featured in popular culture, from movies and TV shows to music videos, documentaries and even video games. 'I'm amused by the fact that if I want to explain what Marina Bay Sands is to somebody, I just ask, 'Did you see the movie Crazy Rich Asians?' and that takes care of it,' Safdie tells The Business Times in an exclusive interview. MBS is today not only an instantly recognisable symbol of Singapore, but also a glittering architectural marvel the world over. 'We had no clue whether it would be iconic,' says Safdie. 'It's a kind of magic you don't control.' A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up Perhaps, but it certainly helps when the architect is one as visionary as he is. At just 26, he established his own firm to realise the innovative Habitat 67 for the 1967 World Exposition in Montreal, Canada. The project was an adaptation of his thesis at McGill University for a revolutionary, three-dimensional modular urban housing system. MBS with the new, yet-unnamed US$8 billion development on its right. ILLUSTRATION: SAFDIE ARCHITECTS In town for the official groundbreaking ceremony for IR2 – as the new, yet-unnamed US$8 billion development next to MBS is currently called – Safdie has said MBS changed lives at his eponymous firm in terms of the work they received. Among other projects, he went on to design another Singapore landmark, Jewel Changi Airport – with the world's tallest indoor waterfall within, surrounded by a lush, multi-level garden – adding one more Instagram favourite that's synonymous with the city. One could say Singapore struck gold with Safdie, who has helmed such large-scale projects that cemented the city's image as modern, innovative, vibrant and yes – green. After all, who else could have dreamt up these things? Given the successes Safdie has had, expectations are naturally high that with him fronting IR2's architecture, Singapore can add yet another stunning landmark to its skyline. Get ready for this new waterfront composition with the addition of an ultra-luxury development to the right of MBS' three towers. ILLUSTRATION: SAFDIE ARCHITECTS He's excited too. 'People will get used to the new composition, and it'll become part of the so-called iconic view from across the water,' Safdie predicts. Of rooftops and stealing the thunder While MBS' design took just four months of conceptualisation ('we were under enormous pressure'), IR2 is running at eight years just to get to a schematic. This is due in part to the pandemic, but also because of technical constraints from the tight site (3 hectares versus MBS' 15.5 hectares), the logistical puzzle of how to move people in and out of the area, as well as the connecting networks under and overground that the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) wants. 'One thing you can say about designing in Singapore,' Safdie says wryly, 'the whole system insists that you think about the next step – growth and expansion – which is somewhat different from our experience in some other places.' The architectural challenge? MBS as a building that's already a beloved icon and the danger of compromising it with a new structure. 'So (IR2) has to be substantial in its own right and have an identity that complements and, in a sense, improves on the existing icon.' There's 'a gallery' of IR2 models in Safdie's office, and the team lived with the original plan of the new, 55-storey, 570-suite luxury hotel tower abutting MBS' Tower 1 'pretty comfortably for a couple of years'. The final schematic flipped the location of the arena with that of the new tower, so the latter is no longer right next to MBS' three towers. ILLUSTRATION: MARINA BAY SANDS Then, just as they were coming close to the decision to build, the team felt uneasy about the juxtaposition of the two developments being so close. They proposed flipping the location of the tower with that of the low-rise 15,000-seat arena to its current position, solving the problems of access that they thought were insurmountable. This, Safdie says, was 'very well-received by the URA, who also had concerns'. Now, the arena acts as a spacer between the three towers and the new one. Voila, all the stakeholders are happy. Funnily, once the new development was announced, the first question people asked him was whether IR2's roof will be connected to the SkyPark. 'I said 'no', we didn't think that would be appropriate. The roof of the new tower should be an experience in itself.' Because it isn't as long as the linear SkyPark, Safdie conceived a completely new design to 'make it almost as long'. The 76,000-square-foot (sq ft) Skyloop will be a multi-level rooftop experience made of two boomerang-shaped structures placed atop each other, one facing the city, and the other, the Singapore Straits, with another layer in between. Skyloop will be a multi-level rooftop experience made of two boomerang-shaped structures placed atop each other, but facing opposite directions. ILLUSTRATION: SAFDIE ARCHITECTS The Skyloop, almost three stories higher than the SkyPark, will be 'quite a sensational experience' and 'kind of science fiction', says Safdie. 'What you get are very dramatic views from the SkyPark to the Skyloop and vice versa.' The lower layer of the Skyloop will offer public access, including restaurants, an observatory and over 300 feet of a Skywalk. ILLUSTRATION: SAFDIE ARCHITECTS The lower layer of the Skyloop will offer public access, including restaurants, an observatory, over 300 feet of a Skywalk and a small section with 'the traditional glass floors to get a little vertigo', he jests. On the upper layer, there will be a cantilevered wellness terrace, private cabanas and infinity pools for hotel guests. The upper layer of the Skyloop will feature a cantilevered wellness terrace, private cabanas and infinity pools for hotel guests. ILLUSTRATION: SAFDIE ARCHITECTS 'In terms of building composition, you get the linear first phase of (MBS') towers three, two, one, and then you get an exclamation mark… boom!' When IR2, which includes 200,000 sq ft of meeting space, is completed in 2030, the SkyPark would be two decades old. But it won't just sit idly by while Skyloop steals its thunder. An overhaul is in the works, reveals Safdie, with plans to restructure elements such as the lounging areas, bars and plantings, while adding a new restaurant and rebuilding to 'accommodate a more ambitious programme'. Of garden cities and liveable buildings It was Safdie's birthday on the day of BT's interview. At 87, the great-grandfather may move less quickly than before, but his mind is clearly still as sharp. A citizen of Israel, Canada and the United States, Safdie is known for his humanistic approach to architecture and urban planning. His oeuvre includes projects ranging from cultural, educational and civic institutions to neighborhoods, public parks, housing, mixed-use urban centres and airports around the world. Having first visited Singapore in 1975, and coming and going since, Safdie feels he's been a part of the nation's 60-year history. Safdie turned 87 on July 14. PHOTO: YEN MENG JIIN, BT 'I think it's one of the most impressive stories of a city developing and growing; an urbanistic story,' he says. 'The combination of all the planning and attention to landscape which started from (modern Singapore's founding father) Lee Kuan Yew, has produced an extraordinary outcome. I think the emphasis on planting the city, making it green, is one of the most inspiring decisions made right at the beginning of the state.' That said, architecture in the last decades has leapt in terms of the emergence of 'many sculptural, visually very exciting buildings that are not that livable'. 'At the same time, we're dealing with density in a way that we never had and an environment that's in great danger, with global warming being one. All of that needs to be achieved within a very livable, humanistic environment.' So the challenge Singapore now faces lies in dealing with density and towers as the dominant building type in the city, while keeping it humane. 'This is the next phase as the building codes already encourage the creation of public spaces, gardens and parks at different levels to make the city more livable and achieve a better balance between greenery and construction,' Safdie notes. 'There are many new areas opening up for development here and I hope there'll be a lot of the architectural innovations that we see, some of them downtown, towards that objective.' Of big projects and an unfulfilled architectural dream Home for Safdie is Cambridge, Massachusetts, although he still sticks to a punishing schedule that sees him travelling almost every week. Some of the projects his firm is currently working on include a large addition to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, a museum for the Cherokee people in Oklahoma, the Canadian embassy in Senegal and two medical schools in Israel. In a storied career spanning over six decades, which are the projects most significant to him personally? 'Certainly, Habitat 67, my firstborn, is the most radical thing I've ever done,' he says. 'I'd say my first museum, the National Gallery of Canada, which is now 37 years old, was a very important milestone. The Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem, was maybe the most emotionally challenging. 'The United States Institute of Peace headquarters, which President (Donald) Trump just shut down – I hope the building survives – was very important in terms of a symbol of peace.' Habitat 67 in Montreal, Canada. PHOTO: UNSPLASH But if there is one project he would love to work on, that would be to realise the original Habitat 67, which was digitised into virtual reality by Epic Games in 2023. His vision was to create 1,200 prefabricated dwellings arranged in Lego-like stacks, rather than the scaled-down 158 units that were eventually built. The modular units and their sculptural placement allow natural light and enhanced views and are connected to gardens, suspended terraces and pedestrian walkways. Seeing it in its original form is important to Safdie because it embodies the urban idea of a three-dimensional city in which different activities are reorganised to make dense, high-rise housing more livable – a concept which is yet to be realised or understood, he says. 'I'd say if we could build that today, it would look as fresh and meaningful and significant as it did 60 years ago.'
Buzz Feed
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
27 Cool Movies Facts
In It: Chapter Two, a record 5,000 gallons of fake blood (the most for any movie ever) were used to shoot that iconic bathroom scene. To get the shot just right, Jessica Chastain basically had to bathe in a kiddie pool of fake blood, which she said was freezing. Megan Mullally was fired from her role in Finding Nemo for refusing to do her high-pitched Karen Walker voice from Will & Grace. According to Mullally, the studio originally agreed that she could do whatever voice she wanted for the undisclosed character, but as time went on they kept requesting the one she used for Will & Grace. She refused, so they fired her. In Singin' in the Rain, Gene Kelly insulted Debbie Reynolds' dancing so much that she once hid from everyone under a piano, crying. Reynolds only had a few months to learn what Gene Kelly had been doing his whole life, yet he "came to rehearsals and criticized everything I did and never gave me a word of encouragement." She also worked so hard that her feet literally started bleeding. One day she had enough and hid under a piano on the studio lot, crying, and Fred Astaire found her. He started working with her on the dance routines: "I watched in awe as Fred worked on his routines to the point of frustration and anger. I realized that if it was hard for Fred Astaire, dancing was hard for everyone." In Home Alone, the prop department originally created a fake tarantula to put on Daniel Stern's face, but the director made them use a real one. Also, the tarantula's name was Barry. While prepping for the scene, the animal trainer on set said, "Just don't make any sudden, threatening moves, and you'll be fine.' Daniel responded, "But I'm going to be screaming in Barry's face. Do you think he'll feel threatened by that?!' The animal trainer simply said, "Barry doesn't have ears. He can't hear. Relax." In Crazy Rich Asians, Henry Golding almost turned down the main role because he thought it called for a "legitimate actor," and that just wasn't him. Golding was a travel host for seven years. Crazy Rich Asians was going to be his first movie ever, so when they offered him the chance to audition he thought he "wasn't good enough," saying, "Oh my god. I've heard of this, but it's for someone else who's a legitimate actor that the studio is going to gamble on." In A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper spent six months with a dialect coach trying to imitate Sam Elliott's he even knew Sam was going to be cast as his on-screen brother. Bradley Cooper worked on his character's voice for four hours a day. When Sam Elliott agreed to be in the film, Cooper responded, "Thank god he said yes, because I would have had to rewrite the whole thing. Six months of work on my voice would have gone down the drain." In Miracle on 34th Street, actor John Payne, who played Fred Gailey, loved the movie so much that he actually wrote a sequel to it when he was older. In Maureen O'Hara's autobiography, she said, "We talked about it for years, and he eventually even wrote a screenplay sequel. He was going to send it to me but tragically died before he could get around to it. I never saw it and have often wondered what happened to it." In The Incredibles 2, Frozone's wife (Honey) was set to finally make an appearance, but they unfortunately cut her scene for two key reasons. According to writer-director Brad Bird, the scene with Honey (which would have occurred in the opening fight sequence) was removed because: "1. We felt like we stayed away from the big action scene too long and that we were killing the momentum we were gaining by having the big action scene, and 2. We decided the off-camera-ness of it is part of the joke, and then Honey can kinda be anyone you imagine her to be." In Hostel, writer-director Eli Roth came up with the premise for the film after discovering a Thai website where people can pay to torture and kill another human. Roth was talking to a friend about the worst, sickest things they'd ever seen on the internet. "He told me about this website, in Thailand, where for $10,000 you could shoot someone in the head... I thought it would be a great subject to do a documentary on, but I thought, 'do I want these people knowing where I live?' If it's real, they've got my address, and if it's fake, they've probably run off with my credit card!" In Batman Returns, Michelle Pfeiffer literally had to be vacuum-sealed into her Catwoman costume, which made it very difficult to move and breathe. She described the process as one of the most uncomfortable things she's ever done: "They had to powder me down, help me inside, and then vacuum-pack the suit. They'd paint it with a silicon-based finish to give it its trademark shine. I had those claws, and I was always catching them in things. The face mask was smashing my face and choking me." In Mammia Mia! Here We Go Again, Cher was basically forced to be in the sequel by the head of Universal Pictures. Cher recalled the events, saying, "I've never planned a single thing in my entire life. It's like this Abba album. I did the film. I didn't ask to do it. My friend Ronnie Meyer called and said, 'You're doing Mamma Mia' and hung up. In Hocus Pocus, the main role of Max almost went to Leonardo DiCaprio, but he backed out to film two other movies. The role ultimately went to Omri Katz. Director Kenny Ortega talked about Leo's audition, saying, "He's just the most sincere and most centered and a wild child at the same time. He was feeling awkward and was like, 'I just feel really bad being here because I'm up for two other movies and I really want them both and I don't want to lead you on.'" DiCaprio ended up booking both of those films (This Boy's Life and What's Eating Gilbert Grape), resulting in his first Oscar nomination. Flynn Rider's appearance for Tangled was designed during a "Hot Guy Meeting" where women from the studio picked out their favorite physical attributes from pictures of Hollywood's leading men. Directors Nathan Greno and Bryon Howard described the whole process, saying, "When we were designing the character, we were trying to get the look down, so one of the things we did was bring a lot of the females in from the building. We wanted this guy to be really, really handsome, so we put up photos all over the walls of the most handsome men in all of Hollywood history and sort of picked out which features sort of worked best. We just listened and let the women have at it. In the end, we put all this stuff together, so he's this very handsome fellow." Chris Farley was originally cast as Shrek, and he even recorded most of his lines for the movie before his death. Chris Farley recorded about 85% of his lines before dying in December of 1997. There was talk about having someone impersonate Farley for the remaining 15%, but they ultimately brought in Mike Myers to do his own version: "We spent a year banging our heads against the wall until Mike Myers came on board. Chris's Shrek and Mike's Shrek are really two completely different characters, as much as Chris and Mike are two completely different people. Myers asked that the script be completely rewritten so that he wouldn't be starring in the Chris Farley version of the film.' Jackie Cooper couldn't make himself cry while filming a particular scene in Skippy, so the director threatened to have Cooper's dog killed if he couldn't produce tears. The film's director, Norman Taurog, was also Cooper's uncle. Cooper wrote in his autobiography that the whole exchange was traumatizing for him: "I could visualize my dog, bloody from that one awful shot. I began sobbing so hysterically that it was almost too much for the scene. [Taurog] had to quiet me down by saying perhaps my dog had survived the shot, that if I hurried and calmed down a little and did the scene the way he wanted, we would go see if my dog was still alive.' Cooper earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in 1931. He was 9 years old. To this day, he's still the youngest nominee for Best Actor in the history of the Academy Awards. In Candyman, Tony Todd had to fill his mouth with real bees during that trademark scene, and he got stung 27 times because of it. Todd wore a mouth guard to keep the bees from crawling down the back of his throat. He also was sprayed with the pheromone of a queen bee to try to keep all the honeybees on set happy. Cleopatra was one of the most expensive movies to ever be made. It had an original budget of $5 million, but after two years the film still wasn't finished, and more money kept being put into it, totaling over $370 million by today's standards. The movie almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox. Filming began in September of 1960, but "two years later the film was not yet finished, and Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck said the cost was $35 million, though Variety later estimated that the true figure was closer to $44 million." Lon Chaney, who played the title characters in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera, did his own makeup for the roles. Chaney acted in more than 150 films and was also recognized as one of the best makeup artists in the business. He even wrote the entry for 'make-up' in the 1929 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In Home Alone, that picture of Buzz's girlfriend was actually a picture of the art director's son wearing a wig. Devin Ratray, the actor who played Buzz, admitted that the girl in the picture was actually the son of the movie's art director: "[They] decided it would be unkind to put a girl in that role of just being funny-looking. The art director had a son who was more than willing to volunteer for the part. I think if he had known it would become the highest-grossing family comedy of all time, he might have had second thoughts about it." For Moonlight, Naomie Harris had only three days to shoot all of her scenes because of visa issues. Still, her performance was so good that she was nominated for an Academy Award. In an interview, Harris revealed that she "couldn't get a visa to come and film [in America], so that was a problem." It was ultimately resolved at the last minute, and she claimed this actually helped her performance: "I didn't have any time to kind of get in my head. I was just doing it. I wasn't, like, waiting around in my trailer, thinking, 'Oh my god, I've got an emotional scene to do today.' I just had to get on and do it and work." In The Muppet Christmas Carol, Michael Caine insisted that the only way he'd play Scrooge was if he pretended like the Muppets were real people and that he was acting in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Before shooting, director Brian Henson (Jim Henson's son) met with Michael Caine to talk about how he might portray Scrooge in the film. Caine said, "I'm going to play this movie like I'm working with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I will never wink. I will never do anything Muppet-y. I am going to play Scrooge as if it is an utterly dramatic role and there are no puppets around me." Tiffany Haddish turned down Jordan Peele's offer to audition for Get Out because she refuses to be in scary movies. Tiffany Haddish had worked with the writer-director before, so he sent her the script and asked her to audition for the movie. Her response was pretty simple: "I don't do scary movies, dog. I don't do that. You know, that's demonized kind of stuff. I don't let that in my house." In Die Hard, Bruce Willis's role was actually offered to 73-year-old Frank Sinatra first. Sinatra was contractually obligated to get first dibs because he starred in the film's prequel in 1968. In 1968, Frank Sinatra starred in a movie called The Detective, which was based on a book. Over a decade later, a sequel to that book was published. That new book was the inspiration for the 1988 movie Die Hard, which technically made it a sequel to Sinatra's movie. Because Sinatra starred in that first movie, he was contractually obligated to get first dibs on the sequel. He was 73 at the time, so he graciously turned down the role. Angela Lansbury recorded the song "Beauty and the Beast" in a single take, even after staying up all night on a flight. Paige O'Hara, who voiced Belle, revealed what happened in an interview, saying: 'I remember the day we were in the recording studio with the amazing Broadway singers in the background chorus and the amazing orchestra. And then Ms. Lansbury – who I have admired my whole life – came in after being up all was a trooper. We were all worried she would be too exhausted, and then she comes out and sings 'Beauty and the Beast' in one take.' While filming Move Over Darling, James Garner picked up Doris Day from the ground and accidentally broke two of her ribs. Doris Day said that James Garner was so big and strong that he "picked me up under his arm a little too enthusiastically and cracked a couple of my ribs. I made that movie mummified with adhesive tape, which made it difficult to breathe and painful to laugh." The two remained friends for years, and she even joked about the incident with him later on, saying, "Jim, if we don't speak for a while, I forgive you for breaking my ribs. Both of them. Don't give it another thought." Steven Spielberg refused to collect a paycheck for Schindler's List, saying it would have been "blood money" and that all profits should be returned to the Jewish community. Spielberg said that he always planned on giving away the money he made from Schindler's List to help support the Jewish community: "I'm committed to Holocaust education. But I wanted to strengthen the Jewish community as it is today, to engage Jewish youth, to support the arts, to promote tolerance, and to strengthen the commitment to social justice." And finally, but most importantly, The Princess Diaries was actually produced by Whitney Houston. And the movie's sequel, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, was even co-written by Shonda Rhimes. Iconic, tbh!
