It’s well known Viola Davis is a force to be reckoned with on the big screen — but she also proved she can handle the heat in the kitchen. Hot wing heat, that is.
Fans were surprised to learn the award-winning actress would appear on the popular YouTube series Hot Ones — the show where guests answers questions while eating hot wings of different spice levels — and when she did, it seemed the hot wings’ heat were no match for her.
Davis was questioned on an array of topics, such as her memoir, Finding Me, and her role as Nanisca, the general of an all-female warrior army in The Woman King.
“We trained five hours a day … and we did all the stunts ourselves,” she said of the film. “You have to toss 200-something-pound men over your shoulder. You’re sore, you’re trying not to get hurt.”
Making note of her current situation, hot wing in hand, she said, “The fact that I’m sitting up here eating hot wings and I’m still alive is a testament to the training of this movie.”
With each wing eaten came a new heat level, but still, she seemed unfazed. After biting into the wing with a Scoville level of 46,000, she said enthusiastically, “These are so good.”
It wasn’t until she grabbed a wing with sauce from a bottle that read “turmeric bomb” that she started to fold.
And when the Scoville level reached 103,000, Davis couldn’t keep a straight face. That’s also when she took a sip of her water.
After multiple chicken wings and many increasingly hot spices, Davis grabbed for her milk.
“Nobody’s ever whooped your a** after all these chicken wings?” she asked of the host.
Following the lounge-y, piano-led Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys are continuing to experiment with their sound on their upcoming album, The Car. However, at least one The Car song hearkens back to the vibes of the English group’s guitar-heavy 2013 record, AM.
Speaking to Dutch radio station NPO 3FM, Alex Turner shares that The Car track “Sculptures of Anything Goes” reminds him of the “desert-ier side of the AM record.”
“It feels like there’s still a bit of that dust in there,” Turner adds.
Still, Turner feels that “Sculptures” takes Arctic Monkeys into new directions.
“We haven’t really been to that place, I don’t think, before, sonically,” he says.
You’ll be able to hear for yourself when The Car drops October 21. The album also includes the previously released songs “Body Paint” and “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball.”
Here’s wishing a very happy 75th birthday to the Red Rocker himself, Sammy Hagar.
In celebration of the milestone, Hagar will be playing the third and final show of his annual Birthday Bash concert series on Thursday night at his Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Hagar first found rock stardom in the early ’70s as the lead singer of Montrose. After leaving the band in 1975, Sammy forged a successful solo career that saw him score such hits as 1982’s “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” and 1984’s “I Can’t Drive 55.”
Hagar found even greater success when he joined Van Halen in 1985, replacing founding frontman David Lee Roth. Sammy appeared on four chart-topping albums with the group before exiting Van Halen in 1996.
Since then, Hagar has toured and recorded with his longtime backing band The Wabos, the supergroup Chickenfoot — featuring ex-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani — and, most recently, The Circle, which also features Anthony, plus drummer Jason Bonham and Wabos guitarist Vic Johnson. If that wasn’t enough, Hagar is a business mogul whose interests have included Cabo Wabo Tequila and the Sammy’s Beach Bar & Grill franchise.
Hagar’s latest album, which was recorded with The Circle, is titled Crazy Timesand was released last month.
As previously reported, AXS TV is celebrating Sammy’s 75th birthday with a 24-hour programming block that kicked off Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. During the marathon, 41 episodes of Hagar’s AXS TV show Rock & Roll Road Trip will be shown.
In between episodes, AXS TV is airing special content that includes birthday wishes from some of Sammy’s friends, among them Sebastian Bach and Foreigner/Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson.
Netflix dropped the trailer to its upcoming Matilda the Musical, and Emma Thompson is turning heads as the production’s icy school headmistress, Miss Agatha Trunchbull.
It is hard to even recognize the Oscar winner, thanks to fearsome prosthetic makeup and a boxy, nearly Nazi-like uniform. “I like troublemakers,” she hisses at one point, as she’s seen swinging a student by her braids. “They make such a lovely sound when they snap.”
Following the plot of the Tony and Olivier award-winning stage production, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical “tells the story of an extraordinary girl, with a vivid imagination, who dares to take a stand to change her story with miraculous results.”
A relative newcomer, Irish actress Alisha Weir plays Matilda in the streaming giant’s take on the classic, with Lashana Lynch, ofNo Time To Die andDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, playing Miss Honey, the kindly teacher who takes a liking to the gifted little girl.
Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical debuts in select theaters and on Netflix December 25.
The trailer has been released for the upcoming documentary Let There Be Drums!, which features what’s thought to be the last filmed interview with late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.
As its title suggests, Let There Be Drums! spotlights “the world’s greatest drummers” as they “reflect on the art of drumming and how it has shaped their lives.”
“The second I sat on the drums, it was like a bolt of lightning went through my body,” Hawkins says in the trailer, which is streaming now on YouTube. “I’ll never forget that day.”
Other drummers interviewed for the doc include The Beatles‘ Ringo Starr, Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Police‘s Stewart Copeland, Jane’s Addiction‘s Stephen Perkins, ex-Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum, and The Grateful Dead‘s Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart.
Bill’s son, Justin Kreutzmann, directed the film.
Let There Be Drums! is set to premiere in theaters, and via Amazon and Apple TV, on October 28.
Camila Cabello wants her fans to know she’s not a big believer in aliens — but a strange sighting in South America may have her reconsidering her stance.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallonshe was grilled about a video she captured while exploring a hiking trail with her parents. Camila noted the area was experiencing “a lot of spooky activity … Like, I’m talking UFO alien activity.”
“I don’t want to believe and then I see something that isn’t there,” she added before showing the odd video. “I’m not super into the extraterrestrial. I’m coming from a more skeptical mind.” She revealed her dad, who is a fan of UFO documentaries, flagged the odd sighting when he was reviewing their hiking photos.
Camila said she slowed down the footage and admits, “I think that we might have caught a UFO.” The video shows that, as her mom and dad turn around to smile at the camera, three circular objects shoot overhead and toward the mountains in the background.
“It’s not a bird. It’s not a phone thing,” she stressed. As for what she believes now, Camila revealed, “I think the aliens trusted me to capture a UFO moment.”
The singer joked that maybe the paranormal event happened to her because she wasn’t hoping to see one — as it wasn’t even on her radar — and that’s why she was chosen to experience the strange sight.
“They wanted to convince you,” Fallon ruled.
Camila isn’t the only singer who believes we aren’t alone in the universe. Post Malone, Kesha and Demi Lovato have all come forward with their own paranormal experiences.
Cuba Gooding Jr. pleaded guilty in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday to a count of second-degree harassment.
After reaching a prearranged deal with prosecutors, Thursday’s plea replaces Gooding’s original plea in April, when the actor pleaded guilty to forcible touching.
Gooding has been sentenced to time served. He declined to address the court.
The charges stem from Gooding’s sexual assault case in which prosecutors accused the actor of groping three women. Prior to April’s plea, Gooding had denied all charges.
Gooding, 54, was arrested in June 2019 after a 29-year-old woman said he squeezed her breast at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar & Lounge in Times Square.
(PARKLAND, Fla.) — Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz has been spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison by a Florida jury for carrying out the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that claimed 17 lives.
Cruz pleaded guilty last year to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder in connection to the Feb. 14, 2018, killing of 14 students and three staff members at his former school. Among the victims were 15-year-old Peter Wang, an Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet who died while helping classmates escape, and 35-year-old Scott Beigel, a geography teacher who was shot dead while shepherding students to safety in his classroom.
This penalty phase trial was to determine if Cruz would be sentenced to death or life in prison for the massacre he committed at age 19. The jury’s decision must be unanimous for the death penalty.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 13, 11:09 AM EDT
Judge reads verdict forms
Judge Elizabeth Scherer read the 17 documents, one for each slain victim, aloud to the court on Thursday morning as prosecutors, Nikolas Cruz and his attorneys, and the victims’ families looked on.
The jurors weighed aggravating factors and mitigating factors.
The murder of each victim needs to be found to be “cold, calculated and premeditated” to be eligible for the death penalty.
Oct 13, 9:54 AM EDT
Victims’ parents share emotional statements with jury
Victims’ parents took the stand during the trial to read emotional victim impact statements.
Fred Guttenberg, who lost 14-year-old daughter Jaime, said on the stand, “I couldn’t wait to teach her drive. … I couldn’t wait to see her graduate. I couldn’t wait to see her achieve her dream of getting into the University of Florida and rooming with her cousin and living her best life. I couldn’t wait to see her graduate and ultimately become a pediatric physical therapist, working her dream job.”
“Jaime imagined she’d be married by 25. I used to think every day about that moment and walking my daughter down the aisle. Becoming a grandparent to the two kids she already decided she was gonna have,” he said.
“What if Jaime wasn’t murdered? What would these moments end up being like?” Fred Guttenberg said. “Not a day goes by where the constant image of Jaime walking down the aisle is not still a part of my daily imagination. Along with that image of what should have been her future, our future together.”
Oct 13, 9:47 AM EDT
Defense says Cruz suffered lifelong developmental delays, prosecution says he planned ‘systematic massacre’
Cruz’s defense attorneys had urged the jury to sentence him to life in prison. The defense admitted Cruz was responsible for his actions and planned the school shooting, but argued Cruz suffered lifelong developmental delays that traced back to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
“Sentencing Nikolas to death will change absolutely nothing,” defense attorney Melisa McNeill said in closing arguments. “It will not bring back those 17 innocent victims that he viciously murdered.”
The prosecution, arguing for the death penalty, told jurors that Cruz researched previous mass shootings and planned a “systematic massacre.”
“Some of the remarks the defendant wrote on his YouTube were: ‘No mercy, no questions, double tap. I’m going to … murder children. … I’d love to see the families suffer,'” prosecutor Michael Satz said in closing arguments.
“He’s thinking ahead,” Satz said, by “not only looking to inflict pain” on the victims, but also “anticipating how that pain, fear and death … is gonna affect the families.”
Apple icon Steve Jobs never appeared on Joe Rogan‘s podcast, but thanks to a Dubai-based tech company, you might be convinced he did.
The company, Play.ht, used its audio AI wizardry to create a fake podcast interview between the pair as a way to flaunt its voice synthesis technology.
Play.ht cloned the men’s voices to make it sound as if they once had a friendly, more than 19-minute chat that ranged from technology to Eastern mysticism. Evidently, it’s the first in what will be a series of such synthetic sit-downs, called Podcast.ai.
The company says its tech can “instantly convert text into natural-sounding speech,” and the results are pretty convincing, some technical limitations aside. “Joe Rogan” pronounces Patrick Swayze‘s name as Patrick “SWAYS” at one point, and much of “Steve Jobs'” dialogue centers on Apple and the tech market — evidence the company’s artificial intelligence was fed a diet comprised mostly of speeches the tech wizard gave in order to create his side of the conversation.
Similar audio AI technology made headlines recently when it was revealed James Earl Jones had given permission for his voice to be synthesized from now on by a Ukrainian tech company that recreated his Darth Vader voice, as heard in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi. The audio wonks at Lucasfilm also used so-called machine learning to de-age Mark Hamill‘s voice as heard in other Star Wars shows.
(WASHINGTON) — The House Jan. 6 committee meets Thursday after a months-long hiatus to hold its ninth public hearing since June, and possibly its last in its investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack. The panel has focused on the role of former President Donald Trump before, alleging he was front and center of a plot to overturn the 2020 election.
Here’s how the story is developing:
Oct 13, 10:45 AM EDT
Trump’s ‘state of mind’ to be a key focus, aides say
Lawmakers will focus on Trump’s “state of mind” leading up to, during and after the insurrection during Thursday’s session, committee aides told reporters.
“What you’re going to see is a synthesis of some evidence we’ve already presented with that new, never-before-seen information to, let’s say, illustrate Donald Trump’s centrality from the time prior to the election,” an aide said.
While there won’t be any live witnesses in the hearing room, the panel’s expected to air new documentary evidence and video footage depicting efforts to respond as the violence broke out on Jan. 6, 2021.
