January 19, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Steven Ogg in “Snowpiercer” – Courtesy TNT(NEW YORK) — Snowpiercer, TNT’s adaptation of the 2013 Bong Joon-ho sci-fi film, will stay on the tracks into season 3.

The network announced that the post-apocalyptic show, starring Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly, Hamilton Tony winner Daveed Diggs, Sean Bean, and Steven Ogg, has been renewed before the show’s second season debuts on January 25. 

The series is set onboard a 1,001-car train that can never stop, which houses the only human survivors of a climate catastrophe that left the earth an arctic wasteland. The train is divided by class — because, well, people — and there’s a rebellion from the regulars who eke out a living in the back against the elite living high on the hog in the front cars.

Steven Ogg, a veteran of The Walking Dead, and known to a generation of gamers as Trevor from Grand Theft Auto V, plays survivalist Pike in Snowpiercer. He tells ABC Audio he wasn’t expecting the show’s train sets to be so realistic. “The train’s moving — it shakes. It’s awesome,” he laughs.

“It was funny: at first we were told there was going to be movement on the train, but that first time when you have your first words to say, and ‘Action’ is called, and all of the sudden the train starts going back and forth a bit — I forgot all my lines.”

Ogg adds, “You sort of have sea legs. I certainly found myself always holding on to either side. You remember in the old days when we used to fly in planes?” the actor asks sarcastically, “when you walk down the aisles, you sort of hold on to each side? That’s how it feels in the train — you sort of feel at the end of the day like you’re still on a ship, that movement…It’s pretty amazing, that world, truly.”

Snowpiercer returns Monday, January 25 at 9 p.m. ET on TNT

By Stephen Iervolino 
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

January 19, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Ernie Hudson — Paul Warner/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — In a chat with the UK movie magazine Empire, director and co-writer of Ghostbusters: Afterlife Jason Reitman revealed how emotional it was to screen the film for Ivan Reitman, his dad — and the director of the original films. 

The follow-up features the film’s original cast reprising their roles, along with Stranger Things‘ Finn Wolfhard and Captain Marvel co-star Mckenna Grace, playing siblings who move to rural Oklahoma, and thanks to a series of supernatural occurrences, end up taking part in their late scientist grandfather’s old job: busting ghosts.

Jason Reitman, 43, tells Empire he screened the movie for his 74-year-old dad in early December. “My father hasn’t been leaving the house much because of COVID. But he took a test, put on a mask and drove down to the Sony lot to watch the movie…”

The younger Reitman revealed, “And after, he cried, and he said, ‘I’m so proud to be your father.’ And it was one of the great moments of my life.”

For his part, co-star Ernie Hudson, reprising his role as former skeptic Winston Zeddemore, tells ABC Audio about the pandemic-delayed film, “I was disappointed that it didn’t come out last summer, and then they pushed it to February and now it’s pushed to the summer.”

He adds, “But I know the studio wants it to be shown in the theater, where people hopefully will see it to get that full experience as opposed to streaming it…”

The film is now slated to open June 11.

Hudson adds, “For me to…work with a new cast, but also to to be [back] together with Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts…I really feel blessed to have been a part of this franchise and what it means to people.”

By Stephen Iervolino 
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

January 19, 2021 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins reunited virtually in part to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film that netted them both Best Actor trophies, The Silence of the Lambs, Johnathan Demme’s adaptation of Thomas Harris novel.

The conversation was part of Variety‘s ongoing “Actors on Actors” series. 

Hopkins, who of course played the brilliant Hannibal Lecter, admitted to being confused by the film’s title at first. “My agent sent a script. He said, ‘Why don’t you read this? It’s called Silence of the Lambs.’ I said, ‘Is it a children’s story?”

For all of Lecter’s icy menace — modeled after an old acting teacher of Hopkins’, he revealed — it was he who was at first intimidated by Foster, who played newbie FBI recruit Clarice Starling. “I was scared to speak to you. I thought, ‘She just won an Oscar [for The Accused].”

Calling the Best Picture-winning film, “a life-changing adventure…for both of us,” Foster, who played newbie FBI agent Clarice Starling, recalled the pair’s first read-through of the script, sitting opposite each other at a table. “And as you launched into Hannibal Lecter, I felt a chill come over the room.” 

Foster also wondered if people “still ask [Hopkins] if he would like a nice chianti,” as one would expect, to which Hopkins replied, “all the time.” 

As fans would hope, Hopkins ended the conversation with an in-character “Goodbye, Clarice,” to which Foster laughed and responded, “Goodbye, Dr. Lecter.”

By Stephen Iervolino 
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.