Entertainment

The vampire action comedy Day Shift hits Netflix Friday, starring Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco as two very different kinds of vampire hunters. The pair talked to ABC Audio about why they think people are fascinated with the fanged blood suckers.

“I think it’s the immortality. I think…it’s a sexiness,” says Foxx. “Everybody that’s played vampires, you know, has had a sexiness to it. Right?”

“For whatever reason, they’re all sexy,” Franco agrees.

Foxx is the lead in the film, which Franco thinks is only right. He says there’s no one else you want as the number one guy on set.

“He comes in, he’s playing music every day, he’s getting everyone hyped up,” he explains. “He just makes you feel confident and comfortable and willing to take risks and willing to fall on your face. And that’s when the best stuff happens.”

Day Shift director J.J. Perry, agrees, adding that Foxx is also one of the most amazing physical specimens he’s every seen.

“I watched him do 42 pull ups. He’s my age,” notes Perry, a stunt man with 149 credits to his name for movies ranging from the Fast and Furious films to John Wick, Django Unchained, and more. “…The strongest young stunt guy got to 24.”

So it’s no surprise that Jamie did almost all of his own stunts, according to Perry, who drew the line at “smashing” the Spider-Man: No Way Home star.

“There’s a couple of times we smashed him through a wall. I used a stunt double just because I can’t have him limping around on set,” he shares. “But he wanted to do everything and he did 99.9% of his business.” 

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Ahead of hosting the 2022 Emmy Awards next month, nearly 20-year Saturday Night Live veteran Kenan Thompson was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Thursday.

His former SNL co-star Leslie Jones was on hand to help unveil the walk’s 2,728th star. They were also joined by comedian and actor JB Smoove, and Josh Server, who starred with a young Kenan on the Nickelodeon show All That.

“When we were kids, Kenan had this confidence,” Server said while at the podium with Kenan and his young daughters, Georgia and Gianna. “So many of us spend years trying to find who were are, and what makes us unique and special … Kenan just had that.”

“We are brothers,” Server said, “The world is a happier, funnier place because of those rare gifts you shared with us all.”

For his part, Kenan said, “From the bottom of my heart … It’s really been my pleasure. I do comedy. It’s fun, I don’t see it as work … I just wanna be a good partner in the world, a good human being.”

He also promised to high-five all the fans who lined up along the famous street.

Thompson’s star is located at 6627 Hollywood Blvd., “right next to the GOAT, Lorne Michaels,” he said of his SNL boss.

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While actress Anne Heche remains in a coma and in critical condition at the hospital following her fiery car crash last week, ABC News has learned a blood test turned up positive for narcotics.

Heche was severely burned when her blue Mini Cooper slammed into a Mar Vista, Los Angeles, home at a high rate of speed, setting both the car and the home ablaze.

She has not been able to communicate since the crash. Los Angeles Police Department investigators say narcotics were found in her system — but because she was tested after being admitted to the hospital, it needs to be determined if they were taken before the crash, given by the hospital, or some combination of the two.

The 53-year-old could face felony DUI charges for the wreck in the likely scenario LAPD investigators refer the case to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.

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Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella turns 25 years old this year, and for its milestone anniversary, members of the original, star-studded cast will come together to celebrate.

On August 23, Brandy, Whoopi Goldberg, Paolo Montalban, Victor Garber, Bernadette Peters, Jason Alexander and Veanne Cox will convene for Cinderella: The Reunion, A Special Edition of 20/20. The one-hour program “dives into the film’s positive impact on representation in Hollywood” and features exclusive interviews, as well as BTS moments with the late Whitney Houston.

“We’re delighted that the 25^th anniversary of this landmark incarnation of ‘Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella’ is being celebrated on its original network,” said Imogen Lloyd Webber, SVP at Concord Theatricals, on behalf of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization. “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s unforgettable score is truly timeless — still enchanting listeners 80 years after their partnership began and 65 years since their ‘Cinderella’ first charmed the largest audience in television history.”

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella premiered on November 2, 1997, and put a spin on the traditional story, as it introduced America’s first Black Cinderella (Brandy) and Fairy Godmother (Whitney Houston). The revolutionary musical garnered critical acclaim and seven Emmy nominations following its release. It has since gained a new set of fans after its debut on Disney+ in February 2021.

Cinderella: The Reunion, A Special Edition of 20/20 will premiere on ABC at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the original film, which hasn’t aired on broadcast television in more than two decades. The special will be available to stream on Hulu the following day.

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Servant star and Six Feet Under veteran Lauren Ambrose has been tapped for the second season of the Emmy-nominated Showtime series Yellowjackets.

The announcement was made via Twitter, with a Polaroid-looking video image of the actress, along with the words “Van lives.” — tipping their hand that the flame-haired actress will be playing the adult version of the time-jumping show’s resident redhead Liv Hewson.

The series centers on a titular high school soccer team forced to survive on their own after a plane crash, and also catches up with the survivors 25 years later. Its second season goes before cameras later this month in Vancouver.

The first season of Yellowjackets earned seven Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, and also respective Outstanding Lead Actress and Outstanding Supporting Actress noms for Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci.

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EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson has never played a superhero, but she says she’s hoping to create some with her eponymous new talk show.

In a new promo, the multitalent enthuses, “I hope my fans experience a good time.”

She adds, “I hope they discover their superpower, and I hope they feel on top of the world by the time they leave The Jennifer Hudson Show.”

“Let’s go live life, baby!” she smiles.

Producers tease, “The series will feature celebrity interviews, topical stories, community heroes, viral sensations and music.”

They add that J Hud “will use her powerful voice in a new way, bringing fun, uplifting, and empowering conversations to the forefront, shining a light on extraordinary stories, talents and passions,” calling the talk show “a destination to laugh, learn and feel inspired.”

The syndicated chat show debuts September 12.

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Millie Bobby Brown is now a household name, thanks to the runaway success of Stranger Things, but as she tells the September issue of Allure, getting the role of Eleven nearly didn’t happen.

The actress’s dreams of stardom could have been dashed by what the magazine calls a “disastrous” audition for a powerful casting executive who said, at 10 years old, Mille was “too mature” to make it in Hollywood.

Millie explained why she was drawn to acting. “I enjoyed being different people because I always struggled with self-identity and knowing who I was. Even as a young person, I always felt like I didn’t quite belong in every room I was in.”

So, that critique from the casting director stung, she admits.

“I always knew that I was mature and I couldn’t really help that,” she tells the magazine, noting that as a child she felt “like no one was quite like me in school and no one was as mature as I was.”

“And then being told that it wasn’t, that I wouldn’t make it in this industry, it was so hurtful,” she says.

“[It] was really hard because I thought [maturity] was a good thing.”

Then, she recalled, “My parents told me, ‘Just do this one last audition on tape and then you can go outside and play with your friends again.’ So I said, ‘OK, yeah, I should do this one because it looks cool.'”

The audition was for the Duffer Brothers, who created Stranger Things, and the rest, as they say, is history.

After the show became a hit, Millie recalled thinking, “‘Gosh … I could really change the world with this.'”

To that end, she’s launched a production company and a skin care line for people her age.

The issue hits newsstands August 16.

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While Better Call Saul was met with strong ratings, critical acclaim and Emmy gold, show creator Vince Gilligan says when the spin-off ends on August 15, the Breaking Bad universe might just end with it.

“You can’t keep putting all your money on red 21,” he joked at AMC’s recent Television Critics gathering, according to Deadline.

“I feel like we probably pushed it doing a spin-off to Breaking Bad [but] I could not be more happy with the results. Then I did El Camino and I’m very proud of that, too,” he said of the two-hour 2019 Breaking Bad movie starring the show’s Emmy-winning Aaron Paul, which bookended that acclaimed series.

Gilligan admitted, “But I think I’m starting to sense you’ve got to know when to leave the party, you don’t want to be the guy with a lampshade on your head.”

Speaking alongside his Saul co-producer Peter Gould, Gilligan allowed, “I don’t have any plans right now to do anything more in this universe. I know I probably gave the same answer at the end of Breaking Bad. I gotta prove to myself that I got something else in me. I’m not a one-trick pony, that’s what I’m hoping.”

That said, the success of Better Call Saul has the show creator adopting a “never say never” approach regarding the Breaking Bad mother ship.

Gilligan, a veteran of The X-Files, says his next project will be a venture back into the paranormal, with shades of that phenomenon Fox show and The Twilight Zone.

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Just days after it was announced Ezra Miller had been charged with felony burglary comes news the embattled actor is apparently at the center of a case regarding missing people.

People reports Vermont State Police showed up to Miller’s home last weekend in search of a mother and three young children who were reportedly staying there against the wishes of the children’s father. The trio was nowhere to be found.

The cops were supposed to serve the actor with an emergency care order, following a Rolling Stone article that said the kids, aged 1, 4, and 5, were being kept in an environment where firearms and weed were present.

However, Miller reportedly told officers he hadn’t seen them in two months — but investigators say they suspect he was trying to “evade” the order, as what he said “contradicts information” they had regarding the whereabouts of the persons of interest.

Cops showed up Tuesday evening, as well, but apparently left empty-handed, People reports.

The situation is just the latest controversy for the star of the forthcoming The Flash, who, as reported, was arrested twice earlier this year after altercations at establishments in Hawaii.

In June, two South Dakota parents filed court documents that claimed Miller has been “physically and emotionally abusing” their 18-year-old daughter. Miller allegedly met the young woman when she was 12 and he was 23.

In 2020, the actor was caught on video choking a female fan to the ground outside a bar in Iceland.

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Only Murders in the Building star co-creator and star Steve Martin is hinting that the comedic whodunit may be his swan song.

“We were very happy just doing the live show,” the 76-year-old comedian tells The Hollywood Reporter, referencing his You Won’t Believe What They Look Like Today! tour with longtime friend and Only Murders co-star Martin Short. “There may be a natural end to that — somebody gets sick, somebody just wears out — but I wouldn’t do it without Marty. When this television show is done, I’m not going to seek others. I’m not going to seek other movies. I don’t want to do cameos. This is, weirdly, it.”

The Hulu series — also starring Selena Gomez — and his live show are just two of Martin’s current projects. He’s also working on his 12th book, as well as a documentary about his life and career.

Only Murders in the Building is up for three Emmys this year, including outstanding comedy series and lead actor nods for Martin and Short. The show, currently in its second season, was recently renewed for a season three.

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