Latest news with #HeyUGuys
Perth Now
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Octavia Spencer is returning for Ma 2
'Ma 2' is in development with Octavia Spencer returning to the title role. The 55-year-old actress has been announced for the upcoming sequel, which will see her reprise her role as the eponymous killer from the original 2019 thriller. Blumhouse Productions founder and CEO Jason Blum has confirmed plans for the follow-up, and heaped praise on her "iconic performance" in the first film. He said in a statement: "'Ma' has proven to be a social phenomenon since its release in 2019, with fans eagerly embracing the film and Octavia's iconic performance as Ma. "Ma likes to say 'don't make me drink alone,' so we're thrilled Octavia will join us again for a second round.' As of yet, development on the project is in its early stages, with no release date set or director attached. In the 2019 movie - which was helmed by 'The Help' director Tate Taylor - a group of high school students struck up an unlikely friend with Octavia's Sue Ann Ellington. The lonely veterinarian - with a wild party animal streak - let the teens party in her basement, but their intergenerational friendship soon took a sinister and violent twist when their bond started to cool off. Taylor previously revealed he was keen to continue his longstanding film partnership with his friend Spencer, and back in 2021 there were already talks for a sequel. He told Entertainment Weekly: "Can you believe how much 'Ma' lives on? Isn't that just crazy? "I don't think we thought 'Ma' was going to have this afterlife as this cult thing, and I think it's worth discussing [a sequel]. "I know Octavia would do it, that's why I purposely left her death ambiguous!" Although Ma's death is implied, it's never shown on screen, and Taylor had already given plenty of thought to how she could return. He said: "My idea is that she's moved to another town, and she has open houses in another city and kills people in the open house. "I think she'd be a real estate agent in the Pacific Northwest, and just murder white people looking at McMansions. That's as far as I've gotten!" Meanwhile, Spencer - who has been friends with the filmmaker for around 30 years - previously opened up about the "mutual trust" they share. She told website 'Hey U Guys': "Tate and I met as PAs in Mississippi on 'A Time To Kill'. When we moved out here we became roommates but I worked on everything, all of his short films. "The only film I didn't work on with him was 'A Girl On The Train'. So we've worked together a lot more than people know. "When you have someone who has your best interest at heart and its mutual we trust each other, he trusts me as an actor, I trust him as a director and writer. I feel fortunate that I get to have that type of work collaboration."
Perth Now
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Ana De Armas loves her Ballerina character
Ana De Armas has loved becoming part of the 'John Wick' franchise. The 37-year-old actress plays Eve Macarro, a ballerina who trains as an assassin, in 'Ballerina', the new 'John Wick' spin-off film, and Ana has relished becoming part of the action franchise. She told The Hollywood Reporter: "I love the character and I think we can go anywhere from where we left it." Ana hailed Chad Stahelski, the director of the 'John Wick' movies, and Keanu Reeves - who plays the legendary hitman - for helping to establish the film franchise. And Ana is now excited to see what the future holds. The actress - who worked with Keanu on 2015's 'Knock Knock' and 2016's 'Exposed' - said: "It's really cool. I really like this character and the story and the universe and everything that Chad and Keanu created with the 'John Wick' films, and now to be a part of it, it's really special." Ana pushed herself to her physical limits in preparation for her role in 'Ballerina'. The Hollywood star admitted that the role was more physically taxing than anything she's done previously. She shared: "Every day tested my limits, just endurance and the level of discipline and commitment and focus that you have to have to take on a movie like this is something that I had never done before, and especially for a long period of time." Keanu, 60, reprised the role of John Wick to star in the new movie, and he admitted to being wowed by Ana's action skills. The actor acknowledged that his co-star is "really great at action". Asked when he felt most impressed by Ana, Keanu replied: "When we would go from training to then when we would start - after they say action and you get into it - to see her go into that next level, where you really saw her joy for the action and filling action with her character." Ana is a long-time fan of the 'John Wick' franchise, and she recently admitted that she jumped at the chance to star in 'Ballerina'. Speaking to HeyUGuys, Ana explained: "As a fan of the 'John Wick' franchise, and everything Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski had done, I was like ... I have a great foundation there. And I think our movie is just so very organic and in a really good place for us to carry on with this world. And I love the character. "So, I was just like ... tick, tick, tick. This makes sense." Despite this, Ana had to spend "months and months" preparing for the project. She explained: "Everything was so challenging. And the training especially. "Stepping into the training period was kind of like ... it was not like I was underestimating what I was going to have to do, but it took me a moment to realise the discipline that it requires to take on something like this."
Perth Now
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Ana de Armas 'loved' playing Eve Macarro in Ballerina
Ana de Armas loves her 'Ballerina' character. The 37-year-old actress plays Eve Macarro, a ballerina who trains as an assassin, in the 'John Wick' spin-off movie, and Ana has revealed that she jumped at the chance to join the film franchise. Speaking to HeyUGuys, Ana explained: "As a fan of the 'John Wick' franchise, and everything Keanu Reeves and [director] Chad Stahelski had done, I was like ... I have a great foundation there. And I think our movie is just so very organic and in a really good place for us to carry on with this world. And I love the character. "So, I was just like ... tick, tick, tick. This makes sense." Despite this, Ana had to get herself in tip-top shape for such a physically demanding role. The actress actually spent "months and months" preparing for the project. The Hollywood star shared: "Everything was so challenging. And the training especially. "Stepping into the training period was kind of like ... it was not like I was underestimating what I was going to have to do, but it took me a moment to realise the discipline that it requires to take on something like this. "It was just months and months of training. Different kinds of training, too. It was like weapons to combat to some martial arts to ... just even learning the basics." Meanwhile, Ana previously admitted that becoming a movie star seemed like a distant dream during her childhood. The brunette beauty - who grew up in Cuba, before moving to Spain and then the US - told The Sun on Sunday newspaper: "I had there, in front of my eyes, people who were not working or who didn't have money. "On television I would see nothing more than old re-runs of soap operas or things that were of poor quality." Ana first dreamed of becoming a well-known actress at the age of 12. However, it required a lot of courage and ambition for her to achieve her dream. She explained: "I don't really remember a specific day that I said, 'I'm going to be an actress'. "In my home, we never had videos, DVDs or VHS. We used to watch movies at my neighbour's home. If I saw a scene played by a woman or a man that I really liked, I would run to the mirror and repeat it. "Then I would come back home and do the movie for my brother because he didn't see it. "I couldn't dream of anything else outside Cuba. You grow up thinking that it's good enough, it's all you need, which in some way is true. "You can dream big in Cuba but very few people can go outside and have the balls to make it happen."
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Australian director Ivan Sen, actor Aaron Pedersen bring Indigenous perspectives to Aussie films, TV
This article was originally published in the Houston Chronicle and is reprinted here with DarlingHouston ChronicleJay Swan is a he wouldn't see it that way, but he is. The fictional creation of Australian filmmaker/writer Ivan Sen, Swan is an Aboriginal police detective who investigates homicides and missing persons cases in his country's sprawling and sun-scorched Outback. Like the American cop and cowboy archetypes on which he's based, he's a taciturn loner who wrecked his marriage, failed at fatherhood and hit the bottle way too though he might stagger, he manages to remain upright on issues of right and why he has become the hero of what's turned into an unlikely hit franchise in Australia, appearing first in the 2013 film "Mystery Road," then the 2016 sequel "Goldstone," which had a screening at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston on April 4, and three seasons of the "Mystery Road" mini-series, with a fourth due to be released this year. Each of the movies and seasons of the TV series is self-contained though Swan's character arc acts as a through-line. Sometimes compared to "True Detective" and the early works of Taylor Sheridan (most notably "Wind River"), "Mystery Road" straddles the worlds of White and Black Australia, with Swan torn between as familiar a trope as Swan the detective/cowboy might be to American eyes, he also represents something new, a glimpse into an Indigenous Australian world that remains invisible in most of Australia's cinematic exports. In many films set in Outback, rural and small-town Australia — think the "Mad Max" "Wolf Creek" and "Wyrmwood" franchises, "Walkabout," "Picnic at Hanging Rock," "Wake in Fright," and the self-explanatory "Beaten to Death" — nearly everything and everyone in the country wants you "Mystery Road," and the work of many Indigenous directors, the Outback may be a place of danger, but it's also home. In Sen's world, and especially in "Goldstone," the landscape is rendered in all of its breathtaking and colorful wide-screen splendor. (For his 2023 film, "Limbo," Sen flipped the script and shot the Outback in a luminous black and white.)All of it makes for a fascinating character study, one that has broken through to the wider Australian audience, won multiple awards at home and become the most globally popular example of what's known as "Outback Noir." And Swan is a direct reflection of Sen, the man who created him, and Aaron Pedersen, the actor who has portrayed him in the films and first two seasons of the series and was a producer on the "Mystery Road" film. (The third and fourth seasons, "Mystery Road: Origin," is an origin story with a younger actor, Mark Coles Smith, in the main role)."Jay Swan is someone who has a similar history to my own," said photographer-turned-filmmaker Sen in an interview with the Australian film site HeyUGuys. "I grew up in a little country town and had to move between my local Indigenous family and the White part of the town. I spent a lot of time going between the two of them and didn't feel like I belonged to either camp."'The thing about (Jay Swan) is that he has strong relevance to what this country's about and also who we are, how we represent ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world,' Pedersen told the Houston Chronicle in a phone interview from Sydney in 2018. 'His story could go on forever because it's such a complicated journey, not only as an individual but as a community of people.' "Mystery Road" is an ongoing passion project for Sen. With "Goldstone," for instance, he not only served as director and screenwriter but also film editor, cinematographer and composer. Meanwhile, the TV series, on which Sen is an executive producer, has become a canvas for other Indigenous directors/writers such as Wayne Blair ("The Sapphires," which enjoyed an American release), Rachel Perkins (the Indigenous musical "Bran Nue Dae") and Warwick Thornton ("Samson & Delilah," a Cannes award winner and one of the best Australian films of the 21st century). It should be noted that this wave of Indigenous directors corresponds with an increased Aboriginal presence in the world of popular music as Jay goes from here is an open question. Pedersen was set to continue in the TV series until he decided to take a break from acting, forcing Sen and company to pivot to an origin story, which will continue in season even if Pedersen, who has also declined to work in Hollywood partly because it would take him away from caring for his special-needs brother, decides not to saddle up again, Swan's story doesn't have to end. Sen has created an indelible character whose journey is worth the Darling is the arts and entertainment editor for the Houston Chronicle, overseeing coverage of movies, television, pop music and the fine arts. He can be reached at He oversees the coverage of movies, television, pop music and the fine arts.
