Tommaso Boddi/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) — Rainn Wilson revealed how well he can act under pressure. While filming his new drama Blackbird last year, wildfires were closing in on his home in California, but he refused to let interfere with his acting.
Wilson recounted to ABC Audio what was going through his mind as the flames advanced toward his house.
“As we were shooting, I was 80% certain that my house was burning down in California,” the actor admitted. “I was literally getting updates on my phone, where I could see the fire going down my street!”
Despite Wilson’s growing anxiety while watching the fire close in on his home, he buckled down and smiled his way through filming a particularly hilarious scene with Kate Winslet.
“We had to shoot the scene, we were losing light,” the Emmy nominee detailed. “I couldn’t be like, ‘Guys. Can we not shoot the scene my house might be burning down?’ It was like ‘OK here we go!’”
Thankfully, his home was spared.
Blackbird follows a woman — played by Susan Sarandon — who has opted to end her life and hosts one final family reunion to say her goodbyes.
Wilson says the film is a must watch, describing, “There’s a lot of laughter to be had so I feel like it’s a necessary film to kind of just really experience the human condition.”
Director Roger Michelle told ABC Audio that the movie explores how humans instinctively fall back on humor even in the darkest of times, adding, “In these situations, people reach for their laughter and their humanity.”
He hearkened to a particular scene involving Sarandon, revealing, “When she is on her death bed, she makes a joke! She says ‘Don’t let me die with my mouth open!'”
Blackbird is available to watch in theaters and digitally rent on Amazon Prime.
(NEW YORK) — At least 28 people were arrested overnight as civil unrest continued in Louisville over a grand jury’s controversial decision in the Breonna Taylor case.
Tensions have boiled over in the streets of Kentucky’s largest city in the days since a grand jury declined to indict three white police officers in the death of Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman shot in her own apartment in March.
Police began arresting people as soon as a 9 p.m. curfew imposed by Mayor Greg Fischer went into effect Saturday, authorities said.
Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officials said in a Twitter post that just before the curfew started, orders were given over loudspeakers for protesters to clear out of Jefferson Square Park in the downtown area. Officials said the orders to disperse were made when police officers saw people “gathering plywood shields and other items that could be used as weapons” and gleaned from media reports that demonstrators were intending to engage in a standoff with police.
While many protesters left the area, police said a large group sought sanctuary at the First Unitarian Church, several blocks from the park.
Just before midnight, according to police, a small group of people left the church and set pieces of wood police described as “plywood shields” on fire in the street outside the church and began causing destruction in the area.
Many windows at Spalding University, a private Catholic school, and at nearby Presentation Academy, a women’s college-preparatory high school, were smashed, police said.
LMPD officials released police helicopter surveillance footage of several people apparently throwing objects through the windows of a car parked on the Spalding University campus, and two people lighting an incendiary device and throwing it inside the car, causing a small explosion and fire.
The FBI field office in Louisville tweeted that it is working with Louisville police to identify the individuals who set the car on fire.
Around 2 a.m., police tweeted that 28 people had been arrested on Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
During protests Wednesday night, two Louisville police officers were wounded in shootings and a suspect was arrested. The suspected gunman, Larynzo Johnson, 26, who is jailed on $1 million bond, was charged with two counts of assault on a police officer and 14 counts of wanton endangerment of a police officer. He has yet to enter a plea.
The protests in Louisville, which have been ongoing for more than 120 days, were refueled on Wednesday when a Jefferson County grand jury announced that none of the police officers involved in the shooting that left Taylor dead in her apartment were indicted for her death.
Only one officer involved in the shooting that killed Taylor was indicted by the grand jury. Brett Hankison, who was fired in June for violating police department policy during the Taylor shooting, was charged with three counts of felony wanton endangerment for firing errant shots into Taylor’s apartment that penetrated a wall and went in the residence of a white family.
State Attorney General Daniel Cameron said at a news conference following the grand jury’s announcement that Hankison, Officer Myles Cosgrove and Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly fired a total of 32 shots into Taylor’s apartment while serving a search warrant on March 13.
Cameron claimed the officers opened fire when Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired at them first with a licensed gun hitting Mattingly in the leg when the officers forced open the front door in the early morning hours.
Taylor, dressed in her nightclothes, was shot six times by bullets fired by Cosgrove and Mattingly, Cameron said, adding that an FBI ballistics analysis determined that the one fatal shot came from Cosgrove’s 40-caliber weapon. He said that none of the shots fired by Hankison struck Taylor.
Cameron said the investigation showed Mattingly and Cosgrove were justified in their use of force because Walker shot at the officers first and they returned fire to protect themselves.
“This justification bars us from pursuing charges in Ms. Breonna Taylor’s death,” Cameron said.
Cameron also said the investigation determined that the officers, who had a “no-knock” warrant, knocked first on Taylor’s door and announced themselves before ramming the door open. He cited an independent witness who corroborated that scenario.
On Friday, Taylor’s family and their attorneys called on Cameron to release the transcripts of the three-day grand jury proceedings, alleging Cameron’s office presented scant evidence, if any at all, specific to Taylor’s shooting, thereby assuring no charges would be filed in the death of the emergency medical technician. The lawyers also disputed Cameron’s claim that the officers knocked and announced themselves before forcing their way into Taylor’s apartment, saying a dozen other people at the apartment complex, including Walker, say they did not hear the plainclothes police officers make their presence known before the barrage of gunfire rang out.
The grand jury’s announcement followed a $12 million settlement Taylor’s family reached earlier this month with the city of Louisville in a wrongful-death lawsuit Tayor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, filed in April. The settlement, which lawyers for the Taylor family say is the largest ever paid out for a Black woman killed in an alleged police misconduct case, also includes an agreement from the city to implement major reforms in the police department in hopes of preventing a similar tragedy from occurring.
The FBI is still investigating how the warrant for Taylor’s apartment was obtained. Lawyers for Taylor’s family alleged the affidavit for the warrant in a drug trafficking investigation targeting Taylor’s ex-boyfriend contained lies.
Cameron conceded that his office did not look into the warrant as part of its investigation.
The Department of Justice is also investigating to determine if any civil rights violations occurred in Taylor’s shooting, and an LMPD internal probe has been launched to determine if six officers involved in the drug trafficking case that led to Taylor’s death violated department policies.
During the news conference in Louisville with Taylor’s relatives on Friday, activist Tamika Mallory, who has been leading the protests in Louisville, slammed Cameron, Kentucky’s first African American attorney general, as an advocate for the police and traitor of the Black community.
“We are not going home,” said Mallory of New York. “We will make sure that this city is as uncomfortable as it can be and we intend to travel across the state of Kentucky and make sure that in every corner of this state they know who you are Daniel Cameron and who is upholding the system of white supremacy that continues to oppress our people.”
Mallory added that until the officers involved in Taylor’s shooting and the investigation that led to the tragedy are fired from the police department, “I promise you, we will make these streets hot.”
(YORBA LINDA, Calif.) — A California woman has been charged with attempted murder after driving through a group of dueling protesters during a “Caravan for Justice” event Saturday afternoon.
The dueling protests held in Yorba Linda, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles, quickly boiled over into animosity as Black Lives Matter demonstrators clashed with Donald Trump supporters.
“Approximately 30 minutes after the protests began, we began to receive reports of physical altercations occurring between the two protest groups, including at least one individual who was pepper-sprayed by another protestor,” the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
The crowd grew to about 250 people and due to the violence and “reports of individuals within the crowd having weapons” the sheriff’s department declared an unlawful assembly.
It was after a dispersal order was given that a woman, identified as Tatiana Turner, drove through a group of protesters, many waving Trump flags, outside the Yorba Linda Public Library at about 3 p.m. local time. Two people, a man and a woman, were hit by the car, with both suffering “major injuries.” Both are expected to survive, officials said.
Orange County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Dennis Breckner told Los Angeles ABC station KABC the woman struck by the vehicle broke both her legs.
The white sedan was pursued by dozens of protesters who smashed several of the car’s windows before she was detained by law enforcement. Dozens of deputies were on hand for the two protests, which had been scheduled for weeks.
Turner, 40, of Long Beach, was charged with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon and was booked into Orange County Jail.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department identified Turner as a member of the “Caravan for Justice” event.
Another person at the event, Jason Mancuso, 46, was arrested on charges of failure to obey the dispersal order, the sheriff’s office said.
The incident Saturday came two days after a person was hit by a pickup truck at a protest in Hollywood. Protesters surrounded the truck Thursday night after which it tried to get away from the situation and hit a person in the street, the Los Angeles Police Department said. The person was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
In another accident at the same event, two vehicles crashed into one another when a truck involved in the protests tried to block in a white Toyota Prius. The Prius backed into a Mustang as it tried to escape the situation, police said.
No one has been arrested in either incident Thursday and the investigation was ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Saturdays’s sports events:
INTERLEAGUE Final N.Y. Yankees 11 Miami 4 Final Tampa Bay 4 Philadelphia 3 Final Pittsburgh 8 Cleveland 0 Final Minnesota 7 Cincinnati 3 Final Chicago White Sox 9 Chicago Cubs 5 Final Boston 8 Atlanta 2 Final L.A. Dodgers 7 L.A. Angels 6
AMERICAN LEAGUE Final Seattle 5 Oakland 1 Final Toronto 5 Baltimore 2 Final Texas 6 Houston 1 Final Seattle 12 Oakland 3 Final Detroit 4 Kansas City 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE Final Washington 4 N.Y. Mets 3 Final Washington 5 N.Y. Mets 3 Final Milwaukee 3 St. Louis 0 Final Colorado 10 Arizona 3 Final San Diego 6 San Francisco 2
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS Final L.A. Lakers 117 Denver 107
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PLAYOFFS Final 2OT Dallas 3 Tampa Bay 2
TOP-25 COLLEGE FOOTBALL Final (2)Alabama 38 Missouri 19 Final Kansas St. 38 (3)Oklahoma 35 Final (4)Georgia 37 Arkansas 10 Final (5)Florida 51 Mississippi 35 Final Mississippi St. 44 (6)LSU 34 Final (8)Auburn 29 (23)Kentucky 13 Final (8)Texas 63 Texas Tech 56 Final (10)Texas A&M 17 Vanderbilt 12 Final (12)Miami 52 Florida St. 10 Final (13)UCF 51 East Carolina 28 Final (14)Cincinnati 24 (22)Army 10 Final (15)Oklahoma St. 27 West Virginia 13 Final (16)Tennessee 31 South Carolina 27 Final (18)BYU 48 Troy 7 Final (19)Louisiana-Lafayette 20 Georgia Southern 18 Final (20)Virginia Tech 45 NC State 24 Final (21)Pittsburgh 23 (24)Louisville 20 (7)Notre Dame at Wake Forest 12 p.m. (Postponed)
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Police arrested a 25-year-old woman in a hit-and-run incident during demonstrations in Buffalo earlier this week over a Kentucky grand jury’s decision not to charge three police officers in the death of Breonna Taylor.
The Buffalo Police Department said it charged Joanna Gollnau, 25, of Buffalo, on Friday with felony reckless endangerment in the first degree and reckless driving for allegedly striking a bicyclist with her pickup truck during a protest in Niagara Square on Wednesday night.
The incident in Buffalo unfolded as protesters marched in the street near Niagara Square in the downtown area in the hours following the announcement of the grand jury’s decision in the fatal Louisville police shooting of Taylor.
Graphic video taken by ABC affiliate station WKBW-TV in Buffalo showed a maroon and white king-cab pickup truck drive directly into a group of demonstrators who pounded on the side of the truck and yelled for the driver to stop just before a protester on a bicycle was hit. The footage shows the truck speeding away as protesters on foot gave chase.
Buffalo police officials said the driver was eventually stopped by officers and detained for questioning.
A spokesperson for Slow Roll Buffalo, a nonprofit community group of bicycle enthusiasts, said that the woman who was hit by the truck is a member of its board of directors. She is now home and feeling fine, the organization said on Friday.
Buffalo Police Captain Jeff Rinaldo told WKBW that the department used video footage, including social media posts and city surveillance cameras, in its investigation. He told the station he was unsure of a motive, and that Gollnau has been cooperating with police. She is set to be arraigned on Nov. 3, according to WKBW.
A similar incident unfolded in Denver Wednesday night. Video taken by ABC affiliate station KMGH-TV in Denver showed a silver Volvo station wagon approach demonstrators marching in the street outside the state Capitol Building and then stopped. Several protesters were standing in front of the vehicle and banging on its hood as the car moved forward and accelerated, knocking one female protester to the ground, the footage showed. The driver sped away but was stopped by police and detained, police said on Twitter.
The two incidents came just hours after a Kentucky grand jury indicted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree in the shooting that killed Taylor, but neither he nor the other two officers involved in the fatal encounter were charged in her death.
The two hit-and-runs on Wednesday marked the latest in a series of incidents in recent months in which protesters have been struck while marching in demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice. On July 4, a protester was killed and another was injured when a car barreled into a Black Lives Matter protest on a closed freeway in Seattle.
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
Tommaso Boddi/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) — Rainn Wilson revealed how well he can act under pressure. While filming his new drama Blackbird last year, wildfires were closing in on his home in California, but he refused to let interfere with his acting.
