October 19, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Netflix(NEW YORK) — Viola Davis says she took on a role she “didn’t think [she] could play” when she transformed into the buxom, outspoken Blues singer Ma, in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

In a preview event for the upcoming Netflix film, Davis says she decided to play the titular character because of its immense challenge.

“I didn’t see myself as that age, that character, there’s just a lot of things I didn’t see myself as,” Davis, 55, said, noting that she actually “sees [herself] as 28.”

“It’s like I stopped at the age that I actually saw the play, until I realized, ‘Viola, now you are that age,'” she laughs.

Set in the 1920s, the film, based on August Wilson’s 1984 stage production, centers on Ma, a legendary Blues singer who struggles with her white agent and producer over control of her music amid racial tensions in the music industry. It also follows Chadwick Boseman‘s character of Levee, an ambitious trumpet player in Ma’s band.

“Well, not to compete with Chadwick’s mother, but Chadwick is my baby,” Davis says of the late actor, adding that she also played his mother in the James Brown biopic Get Up.

“Chadwick was just an artist,” Davis continued. “That’s just who he was. I don’t know if people know the exact impact of that statement.”

According to Davis, Chadwick was a pleasure to watch on set because he knew the importance of both “demanding” respect as a talent, while making sure to show up as a skilled and prepared actor.

“For someone so young, it was incredible to watch,” Davis said. “That level of not mistaking your presence for the event. That’s what [it was like] working with Chadwick all the time. The beauty of it.”

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom launches December 18 on Netflix.

By Candice Williams
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 19, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC(LOS ANGELES) — It looks like Taraji P Henson is back on the market.

The What Men Want actress, who recently celebrated her 50th birthday, confirmed she has called it quits with her fiancé and former NFL player Kelvin Hayden during an interview with The Breakfast Club morning show. 

Henson and 37-year-old Hayden, got engaged in May 2018 after two years of dating. The couple was set to get married in April but postponed the wedding due to COVID-19. But in the end, Henson says: “It didn’t work out.” 

“I tried, I said, ‘let’s do the therapy thing’ but if you’re both not on the same page with that, then you feel like you’re taking it on yourself and that’s not a fair position for anybody to play in a relationship,” Henson shared. 

Henson said the couple realized that they were prioritizing each other’s happiness over their own. “We have to first learn how to make ourselves happy, to make each other happy,” she added.

She didn’t share too much detail as to what exactly caused the breakup but she says: “It’s nobody’s business what’s going on in my personal life.”

“All I’m saying is relationships take work. And it takes both sides to really be there. It’s selfless,” she continued. “Sometimes, you gotta take it to the therapist and work it out first. That’s why it is so important.”

After launching a virtual therapy campaign earlier this year, Henson plans to continue pushing the importance of therapy and mental health, particularly within the Black community, on her upcoming Facebook Watch show, Peace of Mind with Taraji.

By Rachel George
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 19, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

L. Cohen/WireImage for Rogers & Cowan(LONDON) — The much-beloved 2004 romantic drama The Notebook stars Ryan Gosling as the younger version of an older man, played by James Garner, recounting the story of the love of his life.  But it was almost George Clooney and Paul Newman who starred in it — if only Clooney hadn’t gotten cold feet.

“Basically, I was going to play him as a young man, and it was funny. We met and said, ‘This is it. It’s going to be great,'” Clooney revealed during a wide-ranging virtual conversation Sunday at the British Film Institute London Film Festival, according to Deadline.

So what happened?  Clooney, who became friends with Newman late in the latter’s life, re-watched a few of the Oscar-winning screen legend’s films.

“He’s one of the handsomest guys you’ve ever seen. We met up [again] and I said, ‘I can’t play you. I don’t look anything like you. This is insane,’” Clooney recalled. ‘We just wanted to do it because we wanted to work together, [but] it ended up being not the right thing for us to do.”

Unfortunately, Clooney and Newman never worked together on screen before Newman died in 2008 at age 83.

Clooney can next be seen in the science-fiction film The Midnight Sky, which he also directed, debuting on Netflix in December.

By Christopher Watson
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.