Latest news with #MacFarlane
Edmonton Journal
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Edmonton Journal
Pamela Anderson gushes over Liam Neeson in 'Naked Gun' reboot
Article content The update follows Frank Jr. as he and members of the Los Angeles Police Squad try to solve the murder of a computer programmer. His investigation brings him into conflict with an evil tech billionaire (Danny Huston) who is looking to wipe out most of humanity. Article content The cast also includes Kevin Durand, CCH Pounder, Eddie Yu, WWE star Cody Rhodes and Liza Koshy. Article content MacFarlane admitted on the red carpet that after he worked with Neeson on A Million Ways to Die in the West and Ted 2, he wanted to see the Oscar nominee try his hand at something really outrageous. Article content 'He's what every comedy writer wants in an actor. He trusts the material completely, plays it completely earnestly and he's incredibly selfless,' MacFarlane said. Article content When David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams (collectively known as ZAZ) created Drebin for the short-lived Police Squad! before the first Naked Gun movie in 1988, they looked to cast a serious actor, setting their sights on Nielsen. Article content Article content 'When the Zucker brothers made Airplane! and the original Naked Gun, you had Peter Graves, Robert Stack, Leslie Neilson; guys who were deadly serious actors who knew not to try and do the comedy,' MacFarlane said. 'I think Liam Neeson is the only actor alive in 2025 who has that vibe.' Article content Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, who co-wrote the reboot with Schaffer, said the film only got greenlit when Neeson said he was interested in doing it. Article content 'When Liam Neeson said he wanted to do the movie, that's when this all became real,' Gregor said. 'He's built up that level of seriousness over 40-plus years of work and a 100-something movies and by some miracle he let us spend some capital on this.' Article content 'He wanted to do it and he seemed to get it. He was a fan and he understood the assignment. He's effortlessly funny,' Mand added. Article content Article content Gregor and Mand also praised the chemistry between the two co-stars. Article content Article content 'Talk about hot,' Gregor joked. 'Immediately there was a rapport between them. It was movie magic … Their love for one another is genuine and real and hopefully it comes across on screen.' Article content When it opens in cinemas this weekend, the creative team behind the remake isn't just hoping to revive a nearly 30-year-old comedy franchise — they're also betting they can convince audiences to come out movie theatres again. Article content People 'need to giggle' Neeson said, with MacFarlane adding that he has been wanting to make a new Naked Gun for over a decade. Article content
Hamilton Spectator
2 days ago
- Climate
- Hamilton Spectator
Know the rules before fishing in P.E.I.
A day of fishing in P.E.I. may seem like a great way to relax, but conservationists and enforcement officers say anglers should bear some things in mind before casting off. Rosie MacFarlane, at P.E.I.'s forests, fish and wildlife division, says the temperature plays a factor. To make sure there continue to be species to fish for, anglers should take note of how the warm weather and other factors affect sustainability. 'Harm can be reduced by fishing in the early morning when temperatures are cooler, minimizing handling of fish, and using single-point, single-hook lures or flies,' MacFarlane said in a statement to The Guardian. In P.E.I., fishing licences are required for inland fishing and they can be purchased online, at one of the forest, fish and wildlife offices, or most fishing tackle stores. Anglers under 16 years of age do not require an angling licence. Rules are in effect to protect the long-term sustainability of each fish species, MacFarlane added, and it is up to the fisher to know what they are. P.E.I. anglers should familiarize themselves with the 2025 Angling Summary before leaving their homes, as there are some rivers with special conservation zones with different rules, she said. One area where people are not allowed to fish is in a fishway, also known as a fish ladder, she said. 'It is unlawful to angle or attempt to catch fish within a fishway or to fish within 23 metres downstream from the lower entrance of a fishway,' MacFarlane said. There are rules related to trout, smelt and perch on how many can be retained and what sizes can be retained, she added. 'Anglers can also fish for salmon; however, the fish must be released immediately with the least possible harm to the fish. The federal government also has rules related to saltwater and coastal fishing, such as bass, flounder, and mackerel,' said MacFarlane. Justice and Public Safety's conservation officers enforce legislation and rules related to angling, said MacFarlane. Some rules to keep in mind, according to the province, are that artificial flies cannot have more than two hooks, using an artificial light or flame of any kind of fishing inland is prohibited, as jigging, snaring or spearing fish. Fishers are also prohibited from operating a motorboat while intoxicated, littering, or keeping live sport fish. Poaching and other violations can be reported to a conservation officer online, MacFarlane said. 'Penalties and fines can vary based on applicable legislation,' she said. 'As an example, failing to comply or contravention of the Wildlife Conservation Act could lead to a fine of not less than $200 and not more than $2,000.' Yutaro Sasaki is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter, a position funded by the federal government. He can be reached at ysasaki@ and followed on X @PEyutarosasaki . Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Liam Neeson on Pamela Anderson: 'Beautiful, sexy and funny — she's all that and more'
When you think of Liam Neeson's body of work, notably the Taken action films of the past few years, comedy is not the first thing that comes to mind. The Northern Irish actor, 73, is known for playing a tough protagonist in crime thrillers, including in the three Taken movies as former CIA operative Bryan Mills, as well as Retribution and In The Land of Saints And Sinners, both released in 2023. But for American actor and producer Seth MacFarlane, 51, the creator of adult animated sitcom Family Guy and American Dad!, who also starred in, directed and wrote the Ted films featuring Mark Wahlberg, Neeson was the perfect choice for his latest venture: a fourth film in The Naked Gun comedy franchise. The pair had worked together previously on 2014's western comedy, A Million Ways To Die In the West, which saw Oscar-nominated Neeson playing a gunslinger and Neeson also had a small part in Ted 2. 'He was just so funny. Dead serious, with this ridiculous dialogue. I feel like that was the first time I thought there might be a version of a Leslie Nielsen-type comedy that Liam would be funny in,' recalls MacFarlane. Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr. Another feather in Neeson's comedy cap, which MacFarlane references, is a 2011 episode of Ricky Gervais's Life's Too Short which sees Neeson expressing his desire to be a comedy actor with a deadpan delivery. 'There he was, doing improv with Stephen Merchant, Ricky and Warwick Davis. That was an indicator that maybe this was a guy who could be mined for comedy at some point,' MacFarlane explains. Enter The Naked Gun film and Neeson's starring role as Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr, who is proud to follow in the footsteps of his father (the character previously played by Leslie Nielsen) and protect the good people of Los Angeles from the many faces of crime. The comedy, directed by Akiva Schaffer, follows on from the original films which starred Canadian actor Nielsen, who became a comedy giant with performances including his hapless doctor in Airplane! and the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun comedies. Nielsen died in 2010 at the age of 84, having starred in The Naked Gun alongside George Kennedy, OJ Simpson and Priscilla Presley and which was a huge success and led to sequels The Naked Gun 2 ½ (1991) and The Naked Gun 33⅓ (1994). Leslie Nielsen played the accident-prone detective Frank Drebin in the original Naked Gun comedies In the latest film, accompanied by partner Ed Hocken Jr (Paul Walter Hauser), Frank leaves chaos in his wake to the despair of his long-suffering boss, Chief Davis (CCH Pounder). When an employee of the electric car company owned by charismatic magnate Richard Cane (Danny Huston) is found dead inside one of the high-tech vehicles, Frank and Ed investigate. The deceased's sister, mysterious femme fatale Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), implores the cops to unearth the truth, and Frank meets bullets with buffoonery and incurs the wrath of Cane's trusted lieutenant, Sig Gustafson (Kevin Durand). 'Seth is an old pal, and he called me up a couple of years ago and dangled the idea of me doing this reboot of this character. I said I was interested. It's as simple as that,' says Neeson, who was nominated for a best actor Oscar for his role in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film, Schindler's List. He says of his Naked Gun character: 'He's a very committed police inspector, but he's bumbling. He's not stupid, but he has a naivete to him. He finds himself in some situations, and does the wrong thing – but with the right attitude. 'It lands him in a lot of precious situations that he has to, in a funny way, find a way out of.' Former Baywatch star Anderson, 58, was a fan of the original films, and explains her rationale for signing on to play Beth. 'I had just kind of restarted my career – I did Broadway, and then I did The Last Showgirl, and I thought it would be a nice juxtaposition to do a high comedy after doing drama. So, that was exciting to play with. 'Plus, I really respond to comedy. The fact that they even thought of me for this was so exciting,' she says. Pamela Anderson as Beth. Canadian-American actress Anderson was propelled to fame in her role as lifeguard CJ Parker in Baywatch in the nineties, and in 2022 made her Broadway debut playing Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago. Last year she starred in the film The Last Showgirl, which led to her being nominated for a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award. She and Neeson are equally flattering about working alongside each other. 'Beth is the femme fatale – very beautiful, sexy and funny. And Pamela is all that and more. Any scene I got to do with her was terrific, and I always looked forward to. She was terrific to work with – no big ego, no airs. And she became a new pal,' says Neeson. Anderson dubs her co-star 'acting royalty', adding: 'I was actually afraid to meet him. I was literally shaking, the first day I came to rehearse our first scene. 'But once we got going, he's such a gentleman and such a sweetheart – and so giving and generous, complimentary and supportive, you can't help but fall in love with Liam.' For American writer and director, Schaffer, 47, whose previous films include Hot Rod, The Watch with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, and 2022's Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, doing a reboot of The Naked Gun was daunting. He explains: 'I immediately thought, 'No, because the first Naked Gun is a perfect movie'. 'It's kind of like a magic trick. It's miraculous how it all holds together. And the rule of making a new version or a remake of a movie is you want to find something that's kind of broken, that you think you can do better than. And, in this case, that was impossible.' But one thing contributed to changing his mind: finding out that Neeson had signed on. 'That kind of opened my mind to the possibilities of how it could be a new thing, how it could exist alongside the old Naked Gun and honour it – and take the spirit of Naked Gun, but maybe be a new movie,' he says. 'You can never do better than the first movie, you can only hope to do it different. And Leslie Nielsen is so singular and irreplaceable that if you tried to chase what he did specifically, and how he performed, it'll just seem like a pale impersonation.' The Naked Gun is in Irish cinemas from August 1. Read More Cork star Fiona Shaw joins Netflix's Pride and Prejudice remake
Buzz Feed
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Celebrities Who Survived Terrifying Brushes With Death
Seth MacFarlane narrowly avoided dying on 9/11 when he missed his scheduled flight — American Airlines Flight 11 — after arriving late to the airport due to a hangover. That same plane was later hijacked and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. In 2009, MacFarlane told Howard Stern that while it did rattle him for a few weeks after, he doesn't think of it much because he isn't "much of a fate guy." Like MacFarlane, Mark Wahlberg had also originally been booked on American Airlines Flight 11 (which was a Boston to Los Angeles flight). However, he changed his plans last minute, opting to fly to Toronto for a film festival instead. In 2012, he faced backlash for saying in an interview with Men's Journal that, "If I were on that plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did." Wahlberg later apologized for the statement. In 1961, Elizabeth Taylor came dangerously close to death after a severe bout of pneumonia. In the 2024 documentary, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, Taylor said that after being rushed to a London hospital, doctors performed an 18-hour emergency tracheotomy, but that during the procedure, she was declared dead, saying, "Actually four times I was called dead, and stopped breathing." Taylor, of course, pulled through and a month and a half later won her first Oscar for Best Actress. She attended the Academy Awards and proudly displayed her tracheotomy scar. Though she felt the win was because of sympathy, saying, "Butterfield 8 was my fourth nomination in a row, and I won the award for my tracheotomy." Isla Fisher had a terrifying near-death experience while filming Now You See Me when a stunt went wrong. While performing an underwater escape scene, she became trapped after her feet got caught, and she was unable to surface. The crew initially thought she was acting, as she was supposed to be struggling, unaware that she was genuinely struggling. She was freed after a stunt coordinator realized her feet were stuck, and he pulled the water quick-release switch from the tank. The moment that it happened is in the final cut of the movie. After giving birth in 2017, Serena Williams faced life-threatening complications that put her health in serious jeopardy. She developed a pulmonary embolism — a dangerous blood clot in her lung. The coughing from the embolism caused her C-section wound to pop open, which led her into surgery, where the doctors discovered she had a hematoma (a localized swelling of blood outside blood vessels) in her abdomen. Williams ended up having to stay six weeks in bed as part of her recovery. While filming Cast Away, Tom Hanks suffered a cut to his leg that led to a serious staph infection. In 2009, Hanks told the BBC that he didn't know he had an infection and just thought his leg was sore. He went to the doctor, who told him, "I have to put you in the hospital because we have to get this infection out of you before it poisons your blood and you die." He ended up staying three days in the hospital, while production shut down for three weeks to allow for his skin to heal. In 2021, Brooke Shields experienced a serious accident when she fell and broke her femur while exercising at the gym. The injury led her to have two surgeries (with rods and a metal plate inserted into her). During her recovery, she developed a very serious staph infection at the site of the injury. Her doctors feared that the infection was caused by a type of bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics, which could have put her at risk of sepsis, a life-threatening response to an infection that can cause organ failure. Luckily for Shields, it turned out not to be that type of bacteria. While riding his motorcycle to the set of his Hulu series Catch-22 in Sardinia, Italy, in 2018, George Clooney was involved in a serious accident that sent him flying through the air after colliding with a car. According to the local paper, La Nuova Sardegna, he was taken to the hospital with a "slight trauma to the pelvis and bruises to one leg and an arm." He later revealed that doctors told him it was a miracle he wasn't paralyzed or killed. In a 2021 interview with the Sunday Times, Clooney said he thought he was going to die, saying, "I was waiting for my switch to turn off." In 2020, Simon Cowell broke his back in multiple places after crashing an electric bike at his home in Malibu. Doctors said he narrowly avoided severing his spinal cord, which could have left him paralyzed. He underwent a six-hour surgery to repair the damage, during which metal rods were inserted into his back. Cowell said of the accident, "That it was worse than people thought," and that he was "Lucky to be alive." When she was 5 years old, Jennifer Aniston accidentally fell into the pool while riding her tricycle, which she didn't let go of, and sank her to the bottom of the pool. Her brother saw it happen and dove in to save her. The incident left her with a lifelong phobia of being submerged underwater. While filming her movie Cake, she was forced to confront it while filming a pool scene. During the filming of the 1981 movie Modern Problems, Chevy Chase was accidentally electrocuted on set when he was filming a dream sequence where he was wearing a suit made of lights. The shock caused him to lose consciousness temporarily, and reportedly, he has experienced lingering health issues as a result. In 2010, Pink narrowly avoided a catastrophic injury when a harness malfunctioned during an aerial stunt during a concert in Nuremberg, Germany. She was dragged violently off the stage and slammed into a stage barrier. Luckily, she wasn't seriously injured, and she later tweeted, "Nothing's broken, no fluid in the lungs, just seriously sore." And lastly, in 2008, Travis Barker survived a devastating plane crash that claimed the lives of four people. He suffered third-degree burns over much of his body and struggled with PTSD in the years that followed. Traumatized by the experience, he avoided flying for over a decade, only stepping onto a plane again in 2021 because of the support of his wife, Kourtney Kardashian Barker.
Sky News AU
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane says he got ‘PTSD' from Donald Trump assassination attempt because of crowd anger at media
CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane wildly claims he was 'diagnosed with PTSD' within 48 hours of President Trump's assassination attempt at a rally last summer — because he was convinced the crowd was going to murder him and other members of the media. 'For those of us there, it was such a horror, because you saw an emerging America,' the reporter said of the attendees at Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pa., who famously rushed to provide assistance to those injured in the shooting. 'I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave. Not because, I think, of the shooting, but because you could — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people,' MacFarlane whimpered on an episode of 'The Chuck ToddCast' podcast. 'They were coming for us. If he didn't jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us,' he said in a reference to the now-iconic photo of a bloodied Trump pushing past his Secret Service detail to immediately yell, 'Fight! Fight! Fight!' 'Many of us on press row — because we talked about this on our text chains for weeks after — were quite confident we'd be dead if he didn't get back up,' he said. 'When he jumped up triumphantly, it saved us.' MacFarlane further claimed 'dozens' of people in the audience that day instantly turned on members of the media, calling out 'You did this, this is your fault, you caused this, you killed him,' and speculating they were about to 'beat us with their hands.' Host Chuck Todd, who said he was on a flight to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee at the time of the assassination attempt, said the US has become 'a tinderbox' in recent years. 'Look, let's be honest, we've been fearing this for about a decade. That all of this heightened rhetoric, all of this crap online, what happened on Jan. 6 … we're a tinderbox. There's a fear that this moment is coming,' he said before appearing to lend some credence to MacFarlane's unhinged assertions. 'The fact that we dodged that, you're right, I don't know what would have happened had the outcome been different.' MacFarlane, hinting he hasn't quite fully shaken off the PTSD, added, 'I can't eliminate from my mind's eye the look in their faces,' he said, narrowing his gaze and affecting a grave tone. 'That's what America is right now. It's not rational. It's an irrational thought to think 'the media shot somebody from the top of the building.'' Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire as Trump addressed the rally crowd on July 13, 2024, wounding the president and two others and killing former fire chief Corey Comperatore, who died protecting his family from the assassin's bullets. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper moments later. Originally published as CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane says he got 'PTSD' from Donald Trump assassination attempt because of crowd anger at media
