Latest news with #GoneBabyGone
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ben Affleck Reveals His Personal Hip-Hop Mount Rushmore
Ben Affleck has given fans insight into his musical taste, as he recently revealed some of his favorite rappers of all-time. The award-winning actor recently sat down with Complex and was asked to weigh in on a classic Hip-Hop debate: who would make the cut on his personal rap Mount Rushmore? While Affleck confessed that narrowing down his list of all-time favorites was no easy feat, he delivered a surprising and eclectic lineup that reflects both his respect for rap history and his pulse on the current climate of the culture. Beginning with Lil Wayne, he included names he felt were significant at various points throughout his own life and the genre's history, rounding out his Mount Rushmore by adding Eazy-E, Slick Rick, and Kendrick Lamar alongside Weezy. Affleck's choices span generations and styles, from the gritty storytelling of Slick Rick and the pioneering West Coast swagger of Eazy-E, to the prolific lyricism of Lil Wayne and the Pulitzer Prize-winning artistry of Kendrick Lamar. Each selection represents a distinct era and regional influence, showcasing Affleck's broad appreciation for the genre's evolution. Though he may be best known for his film roles and directing chops, Affleck has long had a connection to Hip-Hop culture. A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Affleck is good friends with actor Mark Wahlberg, who rose to fame during the early '90s as part of the Boston-based group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He recently costarred alongside Ice Spice in a Dunkin Donuts Super Bowl ad and previously casted Boston rapper George 'Slaine' Carroll Jr. in his 2007 film Gone Baby Gone. Affleck is also the former husband of music star Jennifer Lopez, who has worked with numerous rappers, including Ja Rule, The Lox, and 50 Cent. See Ben Affleck reveal his Hip-Hop Mount Rushmore below. More from Ice Spice And NFL Boo, Ahmad "Sauce" Gardner Maybe Go Instagram-Official Ice Spice, Sauce Gardner Use Social Media To Gas Up Those Dating Rumors Ben Affleck Reveals What Led To Jennifer Lopez Divorce
The Independent
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Ben Affleck opens up about ‘excruciating experience' playing Batman in Justice League
Ben Affleck has opened up about the 'excruciating experience' of filming 2017's Justice League and why he has no interest in being in another superhero film. In a new cover story, the Gone Baby Gone actor looked back at his time playing Batman in Zack Snyder 's DC Universe and how his personal 'failings' carried over to his role. 'There are a number of reasons why that was a really excruciating experience. And they don't all have to do with the simple dynamic of, say, being in a superhero movie or whatever. I am not interested in going down that particular genre again, not because of that bad experience, but just: I've lost interest in what was of interest about it to me,' he told British GQ. 'But I certainly wouldn't want to replicate an experience like that. A lot of it was misalignment of agendas, understandings, expectations. And also by the way, I wasn't bringing anything particularly wonderful to that equation at the time, either. I had my own failings, significant failings, in that process and at that time.' Affleck was first seen as Bruce Wayne/Batman in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and reprised the role in Justice League and 2023's The Flash. The Oscar winner has called his time filming Justice League 'the nadir for me' in 2022, and chalked it up to a 'confluence of things' including his 'own life, my divorce [from Jennifer Garner ], being away too much, the competing agendas and then Zack's personal tragedy [Snyder's daughter Autumn died by suicide in 2017] and the reshooting'. In 2023, the actor called it the 'worst experience' in film, and said it almost made him quit Hollywood. 'It was either that or jump out the window,' he said, adding: 'And I just thought, 'This isn't the life I want. My kids aren't here. I'm miserable.'' Affleck said the disastrous production left a 'monstrous taste' in his mouth, and made him go: 'I'm out. I never want to do any of this again. I'm not suited.' Justice League was plagued with controversies, especially after Gal Gadot made damning claims about the on-set behaviour of Joss Whedon, who stepped in to direct after Snyder's exit. In the GQ interview, Affleck spoke about his negative feelings around Justice League more extensively, explaining how he allowed his personal life to affect the energy he brought to the set of Justice League, which also starred Henry Cavill as Superman, Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, and Ray Fisher as Cyborg. 'I mean, my failings as an actor, you can watch the various movies and judge,' he continued. 'But more of my failings of, in terms of why I had a bad experience, part of it is that what I was bringing to work every day was a lot of unhappiness. So I wasn't bringing a lot of positive energy to the equation. I didn't cause problems, but I came in and I did my job and I went home. But you've got to do a little bit better than that.' At the time, Affleck was set to direct and star in The Batman, which would have been his first time playing the character in a solo film. However, in early 2017, he stepped back as director and sought treatment for alcoholism, and then officially exited the project two years later. Affleck, who founded production company Artists Equity with filmmaker and longtime collaborator Matt Damon in 2022, said that part of why he started the company was 'actually a way of trying to avoid that situation'. 'I want to put together partnerships and filmmakers and cast and a studio apparatus that's aligned, where precisely that kind of misalignment doesn't happen and you have a much better work experience.' While it may sound like Affleck was miserable the entire time he played Batman, the actor said he enjoyed his time on the other films in the DC Universe, but the direction they took with his rendition of Batman didn't work for a large section of their audience. 'I loved Batman v Superman. And I liked my brief stints on The Flash that I did and when I got to work with Viola Davis on Suicide Squad for a day or two,' Affleck told GQ. 'In terms of creatively, I really think that I like the idea and the ambition that I had for it, which was of the sort of older, broken, damaged Bruce Wayne. And it was something we really went for in the first movie.' 'What happened was it started to skew too old for a big part of the audience,' Affleck continued. 'Like even my own son at the time was too scared to watch the movie. And so when I saw that I was like, 'Oh s***, we have a problem.' Then I think that's when you had a filmmaker that wanted to continue down that road and a studio that wanted to recapture all the younger audience at cross purposes. Then you have two entities, two people really wanting to do something different and that is a really bad recipe.' In the same interview, Affleck also revealed the tactic he and ex-wife Garner employed to help their children avoid tabloids and gossip. 'We used to have a thing, my ex-wife and I, when they would see something on a supermarket stand, we would say, well, 'You know this isn't always true because if it were, you would have 15 brothers or sisters or whatever the number of stories is where they said that your mom was pregnant.'' The 2017 DC comics team-up film was dud of rare proportions, a movie that whiffed so badly Warner Bros eventually commissioned a radical, expensive re-edit. If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@ or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988, or visit to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a you are in another country, you can go to to find a helpline near you.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Steven Yeun & Kerry Washington Cast in Ben Affleck's Netflix Thriller Movie Animals
Steven Yeun and Kerry Washington have joined the cast of . Animals is a new Netflix thriller movie directed by Ben Affleck. Affleck will also star in the movie alongside Gillian Anderson. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Yeun and Washington have also now joined the cast. Washington will play Affleck's character's wife, while Yeun will play a campaign manager. 'The crime thriller concerns a mayoral candidate and his wife whose son is kidnapped,' a description of the film reads. 'Surrounded by plenty of enemies, political and otherwise, the husband and wife have no choice but to get their hands dirty in order to save their son.' Animals is looking to begin production in Los Angeles this coming April. The script was written by Connor McIntyre, with revisions by Billy Ray. Affleck produces the movie alongside Matt Damon, Dani Bernfeld, Brad Weston, and Collin Creighton. Michael Joe, Kevin Halloran, and Lucy Damon serve as executive producers, with production company Fifth Season also produces and executive produces. Yeun will soon be seen in Bong Joon-ho's Mickey 17, which opens in the United States in March. He also recently starred in Love Me, which is now playing in theaters, and once again voices Mark Grayson in the new season of Amazon Prime Video's Invincible. Washington, meanwhile, played Charity Adams in Tyler Perry's The Six Triple Eight, which is now streaming on Netflix. She'll soon be seen in the third film in the Knives Out franchise, Wake Up Dead Man, which will be released at some point in 2025. Animals will be the sixth feature film directed by Affleck. He previously made 2007's Gone Baby Gone, 2010's The Town, 2012's Argo, 2016's Live By Night, and 2023's Air. He also starred in all of those movies apart from Gone Baby Gone. A release date for Animals has not yet been announced by Netflix. The post Steven Yeun & Kerry Washington Cast in Ben Affleck's Netflix Thriller Movie Animals appeared first on - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
Gulf Today
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Michelle Monaghan: ‘Of course I get Tom Cruise cake!'
I can rattle off on one hand the movies I've worked on with women,' Michelle Monaghan laughs. As if to prove her point, she begins to count the sausage fests she's been in and quickly runs out of fingers. Hollywood's most prolific wife, girlfriend and partner-in-peril, Monaghan has spent 25 years in film and television romantically involved with everyone from Tom Cruise and Adam Sandler to Woody Harrelson and Jake Gyllenhaal. These were all different kinds of wife and girlfriend, I should add — tortured and restless while caught between Harrelson and Matthew McConaughy in True Detective; tough and resourceful when kidnapped by Philip Seymour Hoffman and averting deadly missiles in the Mission: Impossible movies. It's not as if Monaghan has spent nearly three decades chopping vegetables in kitchen scenes and applying lotion to her hands before climbing into bed. But still. Even when you're counting Gone Baby Gone — where she solved a missing persons case with Casey Affleck — or her star-making turn as a struggling actor in Shane Black's frothy crime comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang... it's been a hell of a lot of dudes. 'I don't know if I even noticed it for a long time,' the 48-year-old says today, while dressed in a luxe power suit in a London hotel room, where she's promoting the third season of The White Lotus, that sensational semi-annual parade of the rich, white and loathsome. 'When I started acting, that was just what it was. If you were in a movie, you had a lot of male co-stars. If you were watching a movie, you were watching a lot of guys. It was the culture. It's what was served on a plate for us and what we ate up.' She also didn't notice it because it was never really an issue for her. Monaghan admits to being an eternal optimist, and says she's led a very charmed life in the industry — there's been no drama, no scandal, no attempts to undermine her voice on male-heavy sets. '(On Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Robert Downey Jr was like my mentor, and so good to me and generous,' she says. 'And then I went on to work with Tom Cruise, who I hold in such high esteem. Those experiences were the foundation of my career, you know? And only ever empowered me.' Later, when I blanch at yet another story of a divine male co-star (George Clooney, that time), she seems to clock my cynicism. 'I know how I sound, but I'm telling you — they've all been so lovely!' she boasts. 'I've had good fortune, what can I say?' Monaghan embodies an abstract kind of famous. 'She was in that thing,' she once joked. 'The romantic comedy we watched on the plane, maybe?' Her face is incredibly striking (she was, inevitably, a model before she began acting), but also chameleon-like — you could imagine her being the result of a lab experiment involving DNA pilfered from Jennifer Garner, Katie Holmes, Kate Beckinsale and Ruth Wilson. On screen, even in an underwritten role, she carries with her a strength and a grit, something likely fostered in her upbringing — she grew up in a tiny rural community in Iowa with a population of just 772 people, her father worked in a factory, her mother in a daycare centre. Little-seen indie films such as 2008's grimy yet hopeful Trucker fully lean into that mettle she has; a testosterone-heavy series like True Detective seemed to stumble upon it almost by accident. In everything, though, Monaghan inspires a whisper of comfortable familiarity rather than stone-cold recognition. Perhaps, that is, until this month. In the new season of The White Lotus, which arrives on 17 February, Monaghan gives what could be described as a star-reminding performance, at once radiant and completely unbearable. But then unbearable is a minimum requirement for The White Lotus. Mike White's perceptive satire — broadcast on HBO in the US and Sky in the UK — collects under-the-radar character actors like infinity stones, flies them to the fictional holiday resort franchise of the title and provides them with prickly creations to play.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The White Lotus's Michelle Monaghan: ‘Famous TV actress who lives in Malibu? That hit a little close to home'
I can rattle off on one hand the movies I've worked on with women,' Michelle Monaghan laughs. As if to prove her point, she begins to count the sausage fests she's been in and quickly runs out of fingers. Hollywood's most prolific wife, girlfriend and partner-in-peril, Monaghan has spent 25 years in film and television romantically involved with everyone from Tom Cruise and Adam Sandler to Woody Harrelson and Jake Gyllenhaal. These were all different kinds of wife and girlfriend, I should add – tortured and restless while caught between Harrelson and Matthew McConaughy in True Detective; tough and resourceful when kidnapped by Philip Seymour Hoffman and averting deadly missiles in the Mission: Impossible movies. It's not as if Monaghan has spent nearly three decades chopping vegetables in kitchen scenes and applying lotion to her hands before climbing into bed. But still. Even when you're counting Gone Baby Gone – where she solved a missing persons case with Casey Affleck – or her star-making turn as a struggling actor in Shane Black's frothy crime comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang… it's been a hell of a lot of dudes. 'I don't know if I even noticed it for a long time,' the 48-year-old says today, while dressed in a luxe power suit in a London hotel room, where she's promoting the third season of The White Lotus, that sensational semi-annual parade of the rich, white and loathsome. 'When I started acting, that was just what it was. If you were in a movie, you had a lot of male co-stars. If you were watching a movie, you were watching a lot of guys. It was the culture. It's what was served on a plate for us and what we ate up.' She also didn't notice it because it was never really an issue for her. Monaghan admits to being an eternal optimist, and says she's led a very charmed life in the industry – there's been no drama, no scandal, no attempts to undermine her voice on male-heavy sets. '[On Kiss Kiss Bang Bang], Robert Downey Jr was like my mentor, and so good to me and generous,' she says. 'And then I went on to work with Tom Cruise, who I hold in such high esteem. Those experiences were the foundation of my career, you know? And only ever empowered me.' Later, when I blanch at yet another story of a divine male co-star (George Clooney, that time), she seems to clock my cynicism. 'I know how I sound, but I'm telling you – they've all been so lovely!' she boasts. 'I've had good fortune, what can I say?' Monaghan embodies an abstract kind of famous. 'She was in that thing,' she once joked. 'The romantic comedy we watched on the plane, maybe?' Her face is incredibly striking (she was, inevitably, a model before she began acting), but also chameleon-like – you could imagine her being the result of a lab experiment involving DNA pilfered from Jennifer Garner, Katie Holmes, Kate Beckinsale and Ruth Wilson. On screen, even in an underwritten role, she carries with her a strength and a grit, something likely fostered in her upbringing – she grew up in a tiny rural community in Iowa with a population of just 772 people, her father worked in a factory, her mother in a daycare centre. Little-seen indie films such as 2008's grimy yet hopeful Trucker fully lean into that mettle she has; a testosterone-heavy series like True Detective seemed to stumble upon it almost by accident. In everything, though, Monaghan inspires a whisper of comfortable familiarity rather than stone-cold recognition. Perhaps, that is, until this month. In the new season of The White Lotus, which arrives on 17 February, Monaghan gives what could be described as a star-reminding performance, at once radiant and completely unbearable. But then unbearable is a minimum requirement for The White Lotus. Mike White's perceptive satire – broadcast on HBO in the US and Sky in the UK – collects under-the-radar character actors like infinity stones, flies them to the fictional holiday resort franchise of the title and provides them with prickly creations to play. This year, alongside an (almost) entirely new ensemble cast that includes Walton Goggins, Parker Posey, Jason Isaacs and Sex Education's Aimee Lou Wood, Monaghan stars as one of a trio of lifelong friends who visit the Thai branch of The White Lotus for a week of sun, spirituality and latent passive aggression. He said he had to cut me out of the movie and my response was literally, 'Do I have to give my salary back?' She, Carrie Coon and Leslie Bibb – yes, Monaghan has actual female co-stars here – play women who existed on an even playing field as teenagers but now have vastly different lives. Monaghan is a famous TV actor, Bibb has married rich, and Coon is a stressed single mum. All are irritable, exhausted and subtly mean, dressing up their cruelty about one another in faux concern. 'Mike had witnessed friendships in his life, and particularly female friendships, that just perpetuate comparisons, and the judgement that we put on ourselves compared to others,' she says. 'He's like, man, women have it rough out there!' She laughs. 'But I was really heartened by that – that he can write these women in a very fun, heightened kind of way, while also making them feel very real and relatable.' White wanted the friends to come off like 'a big, blonde blob', Monaghan remembers, with her audition consisting of lines of dialogue from each of the three characters, as if they were interchangeable. When she was hired, she was given all eight scripts for the season – a rarity in television – and read them front-to-back over the course of a flight from Los Angeles to Australia. How did she feel about being a successful actor playing a successful actor? She winces. 'I'm gonna be honest,' she says. 'It was a little bit awkward and confronting. Like, page one: famous TV actress who lives in Malibu? That hits a little close to home, I'm not gonna lie.' But as she read on, she saw the differences between them. Jaclyn, her character, being sort of awful, for one. 'She's her own unique person, absolutely,' she says, which is putting it rather nicely. 'And that was comforting.' Without giving too much away (journalists were given only the first two episodes of the season), one of the major tensions underpinning the dynamic between Jaclyn, Bibb's Kate and Coon's Laurie is that Jaclyn – who has become infinitely wealthy over the course of their friendship – paid for the Thailand trip out of her own pocket. And while she promises it's no big deal, you're not quite sure if you believe her. It's a gift. Maybe. It won't require anything in return. Sort of. It's a one-off. Ish. Inevitably, it becomes an issue. I'm curious if Monaghan, given her working-class background, has grappled with those kinds of scenarios herself. 'It would be naïve to say there isn't an awareness around where I came from and how I live now,' she says. 'But I think the things that sustain you as a person, and in the industry I'm in, are the things that remain with you all the time. Your values, your relationships, and those very basic things. For me, those things have stayed the same. Those have been fundamental to me.' If Monaghan's career has always seemed to trundle along at a steady simmer, it may be because it happened by accident. 'Becoming an actress wasn't something I dreamt of doing,' she says. 'It was just something I, honest to God, kind of fell into. I only thought of it as a way to pay off my college loans.' While studying journalism in Chicago, she modelled on the side to make ends meet, and slowly transitioned to acting on a whim. In those early days, she had the awkward distinction of winding up on the cutting room floor with eerie regularity. Her role as Richard Gere's co-worker in the erotic thriller Unfaithful was reduced to a single line, while significant supporting turns in the Keanu Reeves comic-book movie Constantine and George Clooney's Oscar-winning political thriller Syriana were completely excised – she had played Reeves's demonic ex in the former, and a beauty queen married off to a wealthy Arab in the latter. I tell Monaghan that I'd probably plunge into an existential crisis if I was new to acting and kept being cut from the movies I was cast in, but she admits she wasn't too bothered by it. 'I think what was helpful was that I had a very strong sense of self by then,' she says. 'I'd already travelled the world as a model, so I knew how to stick up for myself and advocate for myself. I'd developed such a thick skin by the time I started acting that I didn't have an ego about it.' She remembers being called up by Francis Lawrence, the director of Constantine, who was incredibly apologetic. 'He said he had to cut me out of the movie, just because of how long the movie was getting, and my response was literally, 'Do I have to give my salary back?'' She cringes. 'Like I was so green at that point that I genuinely thought you have to give back the money if you get cut from a movie, and I'd been paying off my loans with it already. So it was only super practical stuff that I was worried about.' Monaghan has an uncanny ability to always look on the bright side of things. She got a lovely hand-written note from Clooney apologising profusely for her Syriana vanishing. And the cut footage from Constantine eventually got into the hands of filmmaker JJ Abrams, who then invited Monaghan to audition for his Mission: Impossible III. 'Isn't that crazy?' she beams. 'I'm telling you – it's the universe looking out for me. I firmly believe everything happens for a reason. So often things that on paper look like setbacks have ended up being really great for me in the long run.' She remains a big fan of Cruise, who she's worked with on three of the Mission: Impossibles. I wonder, though, if she receives the infamous 'Tom Cruise cake' – the vaguely apocryphal coconut treat that Cruise reportedly sends to every one of his co-stars and collaborators on their birthdays and/or at Christmas. 'Of course I get the Tom Cruise cake,' Monaghan shoots back, as if I've asked the most ludicrous question in the world. 'I get it every year and I love it.' I've never met anyone who's received one, I tell her. 'Oh, it's annual and it's so serious!' Please, I insist, tell me absolutely everything about it. 'OK,' she begins. 'Well, it's coconut and it comes with a little ornament on it, because it's sent during the holidays. And it says, you know, 'warm greetings, Tom Cruise'.' She's not done. 'And it is so moist, so dense, and just the most unbelievably delicious cake you've ever eaten in your life.' I believe her. But I imagine that even if it did taste horrible, Monaghan – of all people – would be able to put a good spin on it. In fact, Monaghan is so enthusiastic and upbeat about this cake that I'm convinced she may have seen God in it. Or maybe she's just spent a bit too long at The White Lotus. 'The White Lotus' arrives on Sky Atlantic on Monday 17 February, and will be available to stream on Sky Go and Now
