October 26, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

NBC(NEW YORK) — This weekend’s Saturday Night Live skewered Thursday’s final presidential debate, with Alec Badwin and Jim Carrey reprising their roles as President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, respectively.

Maya Rudolph also returned, this time as debate moderator Kristen Welker.

Highlights included the president’s assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic: “We’re rounding the corner.  In fact we’ve rounded so many corners we’ve gone all the way around the block and we’re back where we started in March.”

After Baldwin’s promise that if elected “everyone in America will be on a big, beautiful ventilator,” Carey’s Biden described his plan for “Biden Care,” which “may not talk as smooth” and “may need a little bit more sunscreen than the previous melanin-rich plan, but damn it, it’s got heart and it works.”

On the subject of fracking, Carey’s Biden declared, “Oil, no; wind, yes; fracking, depends on what state I’m in.”

“I know more about wind than anyone,” Baldwin shot back.  “It makes golf shots go real bad” and “sometimes it goes into a twister and throws a cow right on top of Helen Hunt.”

Baldwin’s Trump closed with “Just remember how good things used to be back before the China plague…lowest unemployment numbers in all categories: Blacks, Asians, Latinxes, brunettes, MILFs, LGBTQAnon…”

Carrey’s Biden said in rebuttal, “You know who he is, and you know who I am.  I’m good old Joe…I don’t have a golden toilet seat, I have the soft, spongey one that hisses whenever I park my keister.”

Spoofing Rudy Giuliani’s appearance in Borat 2, Kate McKinnon appeared as the former New York City mayor who, after fiddling with his “microphone,” threatened to drop a “truth bomb” about Hunter Biden.

October 23, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Aidan Monaghan/NETFLIX © 2020(NEW YORK) — Wunmi Mosaku admits she had to dig deep to play her His House character Rial, a woman who is haunted by the ghost of her daughter and other refugees lost at sea.

“I found playing her quite extraordinary because she’s just different from me,” Mosaku tells ABC Audio. “I’m not as composed.”

In the Netflix horror film, Mosaku and actor Sope Dìrísù play a married couple who react very differently to the paranormal activity going on in their temporary housing. While Sope attempts to ignore the spirits, Mosaku seems attentive to them. The actress says Rial’s reaction is nothing like her own.

“Like I am someone who would run for the hills,” Mosaku jokes. “Like… Jurassic Park is scary for me.”

Even though Mosaku admits Rial’s behavior and reactions are very surprising, the Lovecraft Country star said she loved the challenge of playing an unpredictable character.

“I really love Rial because she dealt with this whole haunting in such an unusual way,” Mosaku says. “Whereas someone would probably respond how Bo does in his fear, and like push it away, saying ‘It doesn’t exist.’ Rial’s like, ‘What are you gonna say, let me hear.’ She like listens to this thing and she’s just feels fearless to me.”

It’s that fearlessness and confidence that Mosaku says ultimately attracted her to the role.

“There’s just something about her that’s just so intriguing and… [her] humor,” she says. “She’s the first to make a joke. She’s also so in sync with her husband that she knows that he’s no longer the same person. She knows that he’s changed. And she’s waiting for him to kind of get to that realization too.”

His House is now available on Netflix.

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

October 23, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

Starz(NEW YORK) — On The Spanish Princess Part Two, one relationship is emerging as “couple goals,” and it’s not Queen Catherine and King Henry VIII.

It’s Lina and Oviedo, the Queen’s trusted lady-in-waiting and crossbowman — played by Stephanie Levi-John and Aaron Cobham, respectively. While Catherine and Henry’s marriage starts to crumble this season, Lina and Oviedo’s relationship blossoms.

Levi-John and Cobham say they’re proud to represent two African-Iberian members of the 16th century royal English court — a part of history that has often been overlooked.

“I always say that representation is important,” Levi-John tells ABC Audio. “Before I just didn’t know that Black people and people of color were even around in England at this time.”

She continues, “It opened up Pandora’s box for me because I just didn’t know that we were here and I didn’t know that we were a part of court. And I think this show has a great way of highlighting and showing Lina and Oviedo as two human characters and not subservient people. Their place within the court is definitely valid and they have a reason to be there.”

“I feel very proud that my family get[s] to see me in a show where I get to portray someone who is a positive role model for other people,” Cobham adds. “And I think historically, people need to see themselves where they were to understand their history and understand who they are now and where people have come from.” 

The Spanish Princess Part Two airs Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.

By Andrea Tuccillo
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

October 23, 2020 • No Comments • Entertainment News

ABC/Randy Holmes(NEW YORK) — Rudy Giuliani is calling his headline-making Borat 2 appearance a “complete fabrication,” but Sacha Baron Cohen is urging everyone to watch the movie and “make your own mind up,” saying it’s “pretty clear” what happened.

“I would say that if the president’s lawyer found what he did there appropriate behavior, then heaven knows what he’s done with other female journalists in hotel rooms,” Baron Cohen, 49, said Friday on Good Morning America of President Trump’s attorney’s role in the movie, out today. “It is what it is. He did what he did.”

News broke earlier this week, when embargo for the Borat sequel lifted, of the former New York City mayor being featured in an allegedly inappropriate position in a hotel room with Baron Cohen’s female co-star, Maria Bakalova.

On GMA, Baron Cohen said he was “quite concerned” for Bakalova during the scene, but that he was in a hideaway so he could monitor what was happening. He said, “It’s my responsibility as a producer as well to ensure that the lead actor is looked after.

“I’ve always felt safe with our team, with our crew, with Sacha in my corner,” Bakalova said on GMA. “I actually never felt that I’ve been in danger. That’s why I’m lucky, because I had them.”

Giuliani tweeted a statement, writing, “The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar.”

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, the follow-up to Baron Cohen’s hit 2006 mockumentary, is out now on Amazon Prime Video.

By Carson Blackwelder
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.