Black Widow star O-T Fagbenle admits he took a bit of a crash course in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to channel his character of Rick Mason, an ally from Natasha Romanoff’s/Black Widow’s S.H.I.E.L.D. past.
“I didn’t know anything about the dude,” Fagbenle reveals to ABC Audio, before sharing he also had a hand in cultivating his character.
“My Bible for [Rick Mason] was Eric [Pearson]’s script and figuring it out between me, Cate [Shortland], our director, and Scarlett [Johansson] — what our backstory was,” he says. “That’s really what brought Rick Mason to the screen.”
Fagbenle, who calls Mason “Black Widow’s Q [from 007 lore], or like what Batman is to Alfred,” says his character’s connection to Romanoff is bigger than the “covert operations specialist” figure from the comics.
“[He’s] the person who like hooks up with all the gadgets and stuff — you need a ship, you need a plane, whatever,” Fagbenle says. “But what was interesting to me… is that he’s got a relationship with Natasha Romanoff which isn’t just platonic — isn’t just a work relationship.”
“There’s a deeper dynamic going on there,” he continues. “And I think that’s one of the things that’s interesting about the movie, is you get to see the 3D view of Black Widow.”
While bringing Rick Mason to life could be described as somewhat challenging, Fagbenle says keeping mum on his MCU character for three years, was actually pretty easy.
“It wasn’t that hard for me,” Fagbenle laughs. “Like on Tuesday, I’m spending time with my mom. And then in the evening, I’m talking to my niece and nephew and I’m doing work… I’m doing other stuff. So when people ask me, I’m like, ‘Oh, I can’t talk about that.’ And then I’m getting on with the rest of my day.”
Maren Morris didn’t take kindly to a so-called fan saying she deserves to be sexualized because of the clothing she wears.
In a fiery exchange on Twitter Wednesday, the “My Church” singer responded directly to a follower who took offense to the silver wrap-around crop top Maren wore for her promotional tour photo.
“When you dress like that, you’re definitely inviting people to look at you in a sexual way,” the critic allegedly wrote, according to screen shots that have since been set to private. “Don’t complain about being sexualized when you sexualize yourself.”
The user also called Morris’ outfit “disgusting” and remarked, “Imagine if Luke Bryan tried to use sex appeal to win awards by posing with his shirt half off.”
Maren referenced the negative comments when she tweeted her tongue-in-cheek response, which reads, “Daniel’s really gonna hate it when he finds out I did Playboy.” Morris, 31, even included snaps from her 2019 Playboy photoshoot, which depicted her posing for tastefully done half-naked portraits. She also linked to the poster’s account, which as of Thursday morning had apparently been deleted.
The country singer later spoke out about the exchange when another user, who also deleted their tweets, appeared to defend her critic.
“He publicly put this sexist garbage online and [directly tagged] me,” Morris remarked in response. “Also, ‘not liking someone’s clothing’ is one thing. Saying I deserve to be sexualized for a *pretty tame* outfit is just a hop, skip to ‘don’t dress like a slut and you won’t get creeped on.'”
“The Bones” singer later retweeted one of her old posts that supported women being able to wear “whatever… they want.”
Slayer’s Kerry King & Metallica’s Kirk Hammett; Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
Being the site of Mordor and Mount Doom apparently isn’t the only extremely metal thing about New Zealand.
A Kiwi mother has named her children Metallica, Pantera and Slayer.
That news comes from New Zealand journalist and director David Farrier, who wrote a story on the metal mom for a piece in his newsletter.
“It’s not easy raising three of the heaviest bands,” she told him.
Upon learning that little Metallica also has the phrase “…And Justice for All” in their name — the title of the band’s 1988 album — Farrier thought the whole thing might be a joke, so he reached out to the New Zealand Registrar-General regarding policies on baby names, particular if that name is Metallica and Justice for All.
“There are no restrictions on naming babies after bands or albums as long as the word used is not generally considered to be offensive and does not resemble an official rank or title,” the response read. “This particular baby was registered in 2009 by the previous Registrar-General. A similar application made today is likely to also be approved.”
Farrier shares he’s also seen the birth certificates for each child.
“Clearly this metal mother (and her kids) deserve free metal gigs for life,” he says.
Samir Hussein/Getty Images for September Management
Adele may be a global superstar, but she’s also just a girl from London. And she, along with her fellow Brits all over the world, lost her mind when England’s soccer team defeated Denmark on Wednesday to advance to the Euro finals.
Adele posted a video of herself screaming and jumping for joy after England’s captain Harry Kane, scored the winning goal. She captioned the video, “ITS BLOODY COMING HOME” — a reference to the line “It’s coming home/football’s coming home” from the unofficial soccer anthem of England, “Three Lions.”
As Billboard notes, Adele was probably especially thrilled because Kane is a member of her favorite team, Tottenham [TOT-en-em] Hotspur. England will now take on Italy at Wembley Stadium, the site of England’s last major football victory, the 1966 World Cup. Wembley Stadium was also the site of the last two concerts Adele has played to date, in June of 2017.
Ed Sheeran is equally thrilled about England’s football chances. Even before they made the finals, he posted a video of himself saying, “Guys, I don’t know if you heard the news but…it’s coming home.” He’s also said that he’ll be happy if “Three Lions,” which is currently advancing up the British charts, knocks his hit “Bad Habits” out of the number-one spot.
(TOKYO) — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshide Suga confirmed Thursday that Olympics events in Tokyo will have no spectatators at any of the Games’ venues.
The prime minister went on television and announced to the nation that a state of emergency with new COVID-19 restrictions will go into effect on July 12 and will remain in place through the Olympics.
After being delayed for a year, the Summer Olympics are scheduled to run from July 23 to Aug. 8.
Hashimoto Seiko, president of Tokyo 2020 said: “As for Tokyo 2020, a very heavy judgement was made” and that officials had “no choice” but to hold the games in a “limited way.”
“There are many people who were looking forward to the Games. Those people who purchased tickets as well as the local community people. We are very sorry we are able to delivery only a limited version of the games but we want to have through operations to ensure a safe and secure games so that the people world over will be able to find the Olympic and Paralympic ideals,” Seiko said.
The Tokyo Olympics organizing committee had already ruled that spectators from abroad won’t be allowed “due to the prevailing worldwide COVID-19 pandemic,” including the emergence of more contagious variants.
Tournaments and leagues across the globe have been slowly welcoming back fans, often at reduced capacity, in recent months. The 2020 Games will feature over 300 events representing 33 different sports. For the elite athletes competing, the question of whether fans’ attenance can impact their performance, is an important one.
“Fundamentally, my experience in coaching professional and college athletes is that any change to the performance environment causes some level of stress,” Jonathan Fader, a psychologist who has worked for the New York Mets and New York Giants and a founder of the coaching practice SportStrata, told ABC News. “That change could be weather, that change could be a new coach, that change could be fans.”
There haven’t been studies done during the pandemic on elite athletes and their performance with or without fans, Sam Sommers, a psychology professor at Tufts University and co-author of “This Is Your Brain on Sports,” told ABC News. But “we do know that the presence of other people is physiologically arousing, it makes our heart beat faster, it focuses our attention on what we’re doing,” he said.
“We do perform differently in front of other people than we do on our own,” Sommers said. “There are research findings that suggest that performing in front of others can be a good thing when you’re doing something that is familiar and that you’re well-practiced in.”
Athletes themselves have talked about the difference with fans back in attendance. French tennis player Gael Monfils told ESPN that playing in front of a larger crowd at this year’s French Open was “incredible.”
“I could feel their energy. It definitely made me so happy. Cannot be happier than that,” said Monfils, who reached the second round of the tournament. “I was missing the crowd.”
For the home nation, there may also be benefits from an exuberant Olympics crowd. An analysis published in the Journal of Sports and Sciences in 2003 found that crowd noise can influence officials’ decisions, resulting in a greater home advantage.
Whether or not fans in attendance matters could largely depend on the sport. The crowd at a professional baseball or basketball game is not the same as what you’d find in golf, for instance, Sommers said.
“I mean this with no disrespect, but your average archer or rower may not be used to performing in front of large groups, so the effects may be different,” Sommers said. “You couldn’t offer blanket across-the-board predictions, but there is evidence that suggests that the presence of a lot of people can change our performance.”
Well-trained, seasoned athletes who typically compete in front of large, loud crowds are likely to train for those conditions to tune out any distractions, Fader said.
“What we know is that it helps, usually, to train under the same circumstances that we’re gonna perform,” Fader said. “What a lot of people do is they’ll actually bring in crowd noise. [NFL football coaches] will train players in the cold if they know they’re gonna play in the cold.”
While some athletes may thrive off the energy of fans, there could be benefits to having no crowds in attendance, Fader said.
“There’s less to focus on, and there’s no one heckling you,” he said.
A lack of a home crowd in particular could take the pressure off hometown athletes, one sports psychologist told Reuters ahead of the 2012 London Games.
At Fader’s practice, which works with Olympic athletes, coaches help competitors deal with crowds in part through a mental practice called imagery.
“It helps you in terms of your ability to deal with crowd noise, or non-crowd noise, if you’ve mentally practiced that situation,” Fader said.
Whether or not spectators are in attendance is part of a larger question about “not knowing what normal is anymore,” Sommers said.
“This is a question not just about sports, it’s for the whole world — what’s it going to be like in my college classrooms in the fall? What’s it going to be like in restaurants? What does the future hold?” Sommers said. “All the stuff that we’ve learned over time is thrown into question. We’re figuring it all out, sports is no different.”
As Britney Spears‘ conservatorship controversy grows, her little sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, issued another plea asking the singer’s fans to leave her alone.
Jamie Lynn, 30, first broke her silence regarding her big sister’s conservatorship last month in a series of Instagram stories, where she said, “Maybe I didn’t support her the way the public would like me to, with a hashtag on a public platform, but I can assure you that I’ve supported my sister long before there was a hashtag and I’ll support her long after.”
Despite her remarks, fans continued to accuse the Zoey 101 alum of profiting from her big sister’s legal situation and being complacent about the conservatorship. Those accusations intensified following a New Yorkerarticle, published July 3, that claimed Jamie Lynn and other members of her family “have all spent years on [Britney’s] payroll, and, as friends who spoke with her at the time recalled, she was increasingly resentful of their efforts to influence her.”
Members of the Spears family have yet to publicly react to the New Yorker report. However, on Tuesday, Jamie Lynn received some vindication when the British tabloid Daily Mail issued a counter claim about her, stating in its headline, “Britney Spears’ sister Jamie Lynn shares photos of her home life… after it’s revealed she is the ONLY family member not on singer’s payroll.”
The Nickelodeon star took a snapshot of the article and shared it to her stories, captioning the post, “Facts….now leave my broke-a** alone.”
Since Britney asked to end her 13-year conservatorship last month and leveled serious accusations against her conservators and members of her family, Jamie Lynn began limiting what she posts on social media. She also disabled comments across her accounts.
Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — At least 60 people have now been confirmed dead and 80 others remain potentially unaccounted for since a 12-story residential building partially collapsed in South Florida’s Miami-Dade County last month.
The disaster occurred on June 24 around 1:15 a.m. local time at the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach. Approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed, according to officials. The rest of the building was demolished on Sunday night, due to concerns about its structural integrity and an incoming tropical storm.
For two weeks, hundreds of first responders carefully combed through the pancaked piles of debris in hopes of finding survivors. But no one has been found alive in the wreckage of the building since the morning it partially collapse, and officials announced Wednesday evening that the search and rescue operation, in its 14th day, would shift to a recovery mission.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told reporters that the decision was “a result of a consensus by those closest to the rescue efforts that the possibility of someone still alive is near zero.”
“And while there seems to be no chance of finding life in the rubble, a miracle is still possible,” Burkett said during a press conference Wednesday evening.
To mark the somber move, a moment of silence was held in honor of all the victims, of whom 35 have been identified thus far. A candlelight vigil was held later that night at the memorial site for the victims.
Reflecting on the transition the next day, U.S. Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., told reporters: “When that happened, it took a little piece of the hearts of this community.”
Crews paused their work atop the piles early Thursday “for a brief moment of silence to honor the two-week mark since the collapse,” according to Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
“We have now officially transitioned from search and rescue to search and recovery,” Levine Cava said during a press conference Thursday morning. “The work continues with all speed and urgency. We are working around the clock to recover victims and bring closure to the families as fast as we possibly can.”
“We are taking as much care as ever to proceed to find victims in the rubble,” she added.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters that crews “will identify every single person” who is found. Officials will also continue to help the survivors and the families of the victims get back “on their feet as best as we possibly can,” even after the media attention wanes, DeSantis said.
Meanwhile, 200 people who were living or staying in the condominium at the time of the disaster have been accounted for and are safe, according to Levine Cava, who has repeatedly stressed that the figures are “very fluid” and “continue to change.”
Crews have hauled away more than 7 million pounds of debris from the vast scene, but large piles of rubble still remain. Officials said it could take several weeks to get to the bottom of the wreckage. Crews have been working virtually nonstop, with help from teams who came from across Florida and elsewhere in the United States as well as from abroad. However, their efforts were halted for almost an entire day last week due to safety concerns regarding the still-standing structure, prior to the demolition. Poor weather conditions have also forced them to temporarily pause working.
The cause of the partial collapse to a building that has withstood decades of hurricanes remains unknown and is under investigation. Built in the 1980s, the Champlain Towers South was up for its 40-year recertification and had been undergoing roof work — with more renovations planned — when it partially collapsed, according to officials.
“This tragedy shook our community and the world,” Levine Cava told reporters Thursday.
Mariah Carey can officially shake off some of her legal woes. The singer has settled the $3 million lawsuit levied against her ex-assistant, Lianna “Azarian” Shakhnazarian, for alleged trying to blackmail her.
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2019, was closed out on Wednesday by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Andrew Borrok, who simply wrote “Case settled,” Page Six reports. The terms of the settlement were not made public.
Carey, 51, accused her former assistant, who was fired in 2017, of betrayal and blackmail — claiming that Shakhnazarian secretly filmed her during personal activities and then threatened to release them if she didn’t pay her $8 million. The pop star also claimed that a non-disclosure agreement that Shakhnazarian signed when she was hired in 2015 was violated.
(NEW YORK) — You may have noticed that prices for some goods at the grocery store are going up. But now, there’s another type of inflation that consumers should be on the lookout for — it’s called “shrinkflation.”
The term has be coined by experts to describe when manufacturers shrink package sizes but make shoppers pay the same price. And, they warn, the practice is on the rise.
ABC News’ Becky Worley appeared on Good Morning America Thursday to let consumers know what to look out for:
Angela Bassett, who played Chadwick Boseman‘s onscreen mother in Black Panther, wasn’t able to reveal much about the movie’s upcoming sequel, Wakanda Forever, but did promise that the film will honor the late actor.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Bassett — who plays Ramonda, the mother of Boseman’s character, King T’Challa, aka Black Panther — revealed just how much work and detail is being poured into the sequel, the production of which has just begun.
“There have been about five incarnations of the script and I hear another one’s coming,” she disclosed. Because of the current fluid state of the plot, Bassett said of the movie, “I don’t know what it’s going to look like at all.”
However, Bassett assured fans the film will honor Boseman.
“Of course, with our dear king going on to glory, a lot of things had to be shifted and changed, so thankfully, Ryan [Coogler] and Joe Robert Cole, they’re just such masterful storytellers that they’ve found a way into this world,” Bassett promised. “And, hopefully it will be satisfying, I think, for the fans and it will be honorable of our Chad. We love our king.”
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige announced last year that the role of T’Challa would not be recast following Boseman’s death in August at age 43 after a private battle with cancer. Instead, Feige vowed Wakanda Forever would focus on “furthering the mythology and the inspiration of Wakanda.”
The sequel is slated to premiere in theaters a year from today — July 8, 2022.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
