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Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
How Larry Ellison And David Ellison Pulled Off The Paramount Deal
T he Federal Communications Commission greenlit the $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance Media on Thursday, 383 days after the deal was first announced. The merger, which is set to close on August 7, will transform Larry Ellison, 80, and his son David Ellison, 42, into one of the most powerful duos in Hollywood, wielding influence over TV shows, movies, news and more. As Paramount's chairman, CEO and owner of 50% of its voting rights, David Ellison will oversee an entertainment empire with more than 1,200 film titles, including everything from 'Top Gun: Maverick' to a remake of 'It's A Wonderful Life,' plus distribution rights to another 2,400 films. Other crown jewels include popular channels MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime and CBS Network. But it's his father who controls the purse strings and owns the equity, according to regulatory filings. The elder Ellison may have helped get the deal over the hump in other ways, too. The merger was approved only after some key concessions from both parties. Paramount agreed to pay President Trump $16 million—to be used for his future presidential library—in July to resolve a lawsuit over 60 Minutes ' edit of a 2024 interview of Kamala Harris. (A couple of weeks later, CBS said it would end Trump critic Stephen Colbert's late night show next May, citing cost overruns.) Ellison's Skydance, meanwhile, had to make written commitments promising that the company's programming would embody 'a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum' and that it would 'adopt measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media,' per the FCC's letter announcing the decision. Another late change had to do with Ellison's control. FCC filings from September 2024 initially showed that David's father, Oracle cofounder and chief technology officer Larry Ellison, the second richest person on earth, held all of the voting and equity shares in the Pinnacle Media Ventures holding companies acquiring the Paramount stake. These shares were held through his Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust, the same entity that owns his Oracle shares and most of his estimated $1.5 billion in real estate. Per these filings, the Ellison family also owned 67% of the equity and 78% of the voting rights in Skydance in part via Sayonara LLC, a parent company of the Pinnacle entities. (Ellison, a devotee of Japanese art and architecture, named Sayonara's three subsidiaries Aozora, Hikouki and Furaito, Japanese words meaning 'blue sky,' 'airplane' and 'flight.') In October 2024, an amendment filed with the FCC changed the voting rights so that David Ellison held 100% of the Pinnacle entities' voting interest, but dad kept the equity. There was yet another change in mid-July. This time David's voting rights in post-merger Paramount were reduced to 50%; his father Larry got 27.5%, according to FCC filings. That means no single shareholder can outvote David, but it also means that he needs his father to approve everything from budgets to key investments. (Larry Ellison appears to control all of the Ellison family's approximately 26% equity stake tied to those voting shares in post-merger Paramount, plus at least 10% more with no voting power, assuming all existing shareholders choose to receive their maximum cashout. On top of that, the Ellisons also own another 6.7% equity stake through Skydance Entertainment Group, per the initial 2024 filing, although it's unclear how that's split between father and son.) If his dad ever decided to team up with Gerry Cardinale's Redbird Capital, which invested in David's Skydance in 2020 and controls the remaining 22.5% of the vote, the two parties could block David Ellison. David Ellison could also sway Redbird if his father disagreed. The main reason for the change, at least two sources say, has more to do with money than power. ' From a voting standpoint, David Ellison will be in control through his entities, but the taxable benefits will flow to Larry,' says Los Angeles-based mergers and acquisitions lawyer Alex Davis, who is not involved in the transaction. Davis says the changes were probably due to regulatory reasons and are not unusual. 'His profitable businesses could benefit from any kind of taxable losses or depreciation with this business.' A spokesperson for Skydance declined to comment. Redbird, David Ellison and the FCC did not respond to a request for comment before publication. It's possible that President Trump's taking office in January also had something to do with it, too. While David Ellison met with both Trump and FCC Chair Brendan Carr ahead of the deal's approval, he also donated around $1 million to Joe Biden's reelection campaign in February 2024. Meanwhile, Larry Ellison and Trump have a longstanding relationship. In January, Ellison showed up at the White House to help Trump announce his $500 billion Stargate AI infrastructure initiative. And Trump told reporters that same month that he'd be open to an Ellison-led deal to buy TikTok, for which Trump has extended its sell-by date to September. Plus, Ellison has promised an overhaul of Paramount-owned CBS—potentially seeded by Skydance's vow to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs. 'I think he's going to run CBS really well, and I think he's making a good deal to buy it. I think he's great,' Trump said of Larry Ellison at a July 3 rally. Oracle is reportedly in talks to have Paramount and Skydance run on the same Oracle-provided cloud technology, worth $100 million per year. That's a pittance for Ellison, who's worth more than $290 billion, and earns more than $1 billion (before taxes) each year in Oracle dividends alone. A s for how David shares in that wealth, it's somewhat of a black box—intentionally. Larry Ellison put 90,000 shares into a trust for his two children, David and Megan, at Oracle's IPO in 1994. (They were three years and two months old at the time, respectively.) If the trust had held onto those shares, they'd be worth more than $4 billion today. But there is little paper trail since. After the 1994 prospectus, the children's trust was mentioned intermittently, then for the last time in a 2012 filing. By then, David and Megan were listed as having 933,334 Oracle shares via their trust. That's a fraction of what they should have had by then on a split-adjusted basis, meaning that millions of shares were either distributed directly to them; swapped out of the trust for other assets; sold as part of diversification or some combination of all three. What we do know is that David and Megan also got shares in NetSuite, a pioneering cloud computing company in which their dad was an early investor. When Oracle bought NetSuite in 2016 for $9.3 billion, David pocketed some $370 million (pre-tax) that today could be worth as much as $550 million. Skydance, Paramount and Larry Ellison have been intertwined from the start. In 2008, Larry Ellison incorporated Sayonara LLC for 'media production investments' and started pledging his Oracle shares as collateral for lines of credit, around the time David and Megan Ellison were gearing up to start Skydance and production studio Annapurna Pictures in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Per FCC filings, Sayonara LLC is one of the entities that owns the Ellisons' controlling Skydance stake. In 2009, David Ellison raised $350 million, some from his father, to finance a five-year agreement with Paramount to co-produce movies. He notched his first big hit with The Coen brothers' Oscar-nominated 2010 film 'True Grit,' the first feature film produced by Skydance, which grossed more than $250 million worldwide on a $38 million budget. As of mid-2024, Skydance had produced or co-financed 35 feature films, 24 of which were in partnership with Paramount, per regulatory filings. In 2023, Skydance lost $54 million on nearly $1 billion in revenue. (Meanwhile, Megan's Annapurna Pictures, known for critically acclaimed films including 'Her' and 'Zero Dark Thirty,' reportedly struggled with hundreds of millions in debt and flirted with filing for bankruptcy protection—eventually resolved with her father's help.) Although it's not known whether Ellison uses his pledged Oracle shares to finance Annapurna, Skydance or possibly the latter's merger with Paramount, it's likely, according to Davis. As of September 2024, Ellison had pledged 277 million shares, or $68 billion worth, of Oracle stock, to 'secure personal term loans only used to fund outside personal business ventures,' per a regulatory filing. Regardless, the fact that David Ellison has relied so heavily on his dad to help finance Skydance and now Paramount suggests that he may not yet have access to much if any of his Oracle shares. And while David, of course, will be running Paramount as CEO, behind closed doors, no one quite knows how Larry and David will coexist. More from Forbes Forbes South Park's Creators Are Now Billionaires By Matt Craig Forbes How Jeffrey Epstein Got So Rich By Giacomo Tognini Forbes 'We'd Call That Corruption': How Trump Used The Presidency To Expand His Global Empire By Dan Alexander Forbes Inside Private Equity's $29 Trillion Retirement Savings Grab By Hank Tucker Forbes Vibe Coding Turned This Swedish AI Unicorn Into The Fastest Growing Software Startup Ever By Iain Martin
Winnipeg Free Press
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Fringe reviews #11: Your only way out is through the lighting booth
100% UNTRUEBADOUR Paul Strickland Presents RRC Polytech (Venue 11) to Sunday ⭐⭐⭐⭐ It sounds like the setup for a bad joke: a guy from Kentucky walks into a college classroom singing silly songs… But in the case of fringe favourite Paul Strickland, it's more like a guy strumming an acoustic guitar while surrounded by old friends. The storytelling songster has a wonderful rapport with his audience. Maybe it was his praise for the Winnipeg fringe scene ('It's very special here') or his self-deprecating humour, but the sedate, mostly middle-aged crowd at Friday's afternoon performance adored it. The songs are hit-and-miss, but what's most impressive is how Strickland can go from surreal to sentimental, and make it all work ('My Dad turned into a pile of wool. Mama sewed him into a sweater … Whenever I wore it, it felt like a big hug.') His longtime director Erika MacDonald also joins him onstage in character as a surprise guest. A relaxing respite from some of the fringe craziness. — Janice Sawka BEST FRIENDS FOREVER B12 Theatre Productions CCFM — Antoine Garborieau Hall (Venue 19), to Sunday ⭐⭐⭐½ Kaycee is a heavyset woman, unhappy with her body and her life, failing her university classes and going downhill fast. Ally is her dependable, goofy galpal since childhood. And Dee is younger, slimmer, cuter, but strangely driven to make friends, even if by forcing herself into someone's life. Winnipeg writer/director Kennedy Huckerby created this dramedy out of her background in mental health support and a desire to showcase stories of female friendship. All actors give commendable performances: Elena Modrzejewski (Kaycee) has the standout scene of the play, as she cries over her dying grandfather's bedside, but needs to project more in other scenes. Avery Mittermayr (Ally) is just plain fun. Maija Buduhan (Dee) is appropriately enigmatic. David Lange ably contributes a variety of male supporting roles. The 60-minute run time forces Kaycee's crisis to escalate unnaturally quickly, and the final explanation of Dee's hold over her, while unexpected and clever, is resolved too easily. Definitely geared towards women, but with valuable lessons for all regarding toxic friendships. — Janice Sawka CACTUS Cactus Theatre Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6) to Sunday ⭐⭐⭐ The local Cactus Theatre was formed to present the late Manitoba playwright Daniel Gilmour's dark comedy Cactus. At 60 minutes, it is perhaps a touch too long, since it seems scattered at first, but the play soon shapes itself into a funny and moving piece about confronting death and subsequent grief. Tom is visited by the angel of death. He is there to guide Tom through his life's episodes — A Christmas Carol and It's A Wonderful Life are noted comically — before his demise. There is a lesson to be learned but it isn't what one expects. Tom faces his grief in a gut-wrenching way that makes you gasp at the work's theatrical daring. Gilmour avoids sentimentality with intelligence, while his humanity shines through the sometimes messy structure. The production balances the play's comic and dramatic intentions well. It honours Gilmour, whose death at age 38 in 2023 was a loss to the local playwriting community. — Rory Runnells DAREDEVILS Corael Productions MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to Saturday ⭐⭐⭐ ½ The names of daredevils Charles Blondin and Maria Spelterini may not resonate much today, but they were once called out by roaring crowds as they stepped into some of the most treacherous tightrope stunts of the 19th century. Winnipeg playwright Ellen Peterson's comedy imagines them as frenemies in Niagara Falls, where they are attempting to traverse its river gorge. Blondin is Spelterini's teacher and would-be lover, though the student appears to be overtaking the master, much to his chagrin. Nearly every line of dialogue seems dedicated to driving home Blondin's flamboyance and chauvinism — part Inigo Montoya, more Pepe Le Pew — and the younger Spelterini's pluck and intrepidness. This becomes repetitive. Nevertheless, the actors make solid use of the material and there's real craft elsewhere in Peterson's script. The language, by turns bawdy and highfalutin', is a lot of fun. Moments of vulnerability by Blondin in the play's conclusion add a welcome sense of discovery and dramatic depth. — Conrad Sweatman THE GALLERY WALL Evens and Odds Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to Saturday ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½ A painter and an aspiring journalist meet and, almost by chance, begin to open up about the past experiences that have shaped who they are today. What each of them learns from each other, and about themselves, propels a deeply engrossing, character-driven theatrical treat. The script for this 60-minute dramedy is a star in its own right. The dialogue is natural and fast-paced, driving meaningful character growth through a combination of sassy banter and reflective musings. The tone shifts effortlessly between humour, tenderness and tension that drives real depth. Ella Cole and Kirstin Caguioa deliver exceptional performances — you can feel the chemistry between them, and both bring relatable charm to their characters. It's easy to sympathize as they struggle to navigate the uncertainty in their futures. There are a few areas where the narrative wanders slightly, but this performance ultimately delivers a strong, character-driven experience. — Matt Schaubroeck RIOT! Monster Theatre King's Head Pub (Venue 14), to Sunday ⭐⭐⭐ ½ It's 1849 in New York City. The streets smell of urine and class tensions are mounting. In steps the thespian Macready, the toast of the elite, to perform at the exclusive Astor Place. Conflict with his rival Forrest, a working-class theatre hero, help to spark a bloody theatre riot. Vancouver-based brothers Jeff and Ryan Gladstone's retell this history as a rapid-fire one-hour comedy. They swap characters, accents and insults with brilliant skill. It's little wonder this touring show has been a hit in so many other cities. The Gladstones tell us that they hope their show will help the politically unaligned better come to understand the value of dialogue. This is nice, but caricatures of 19th-century WASPs and theatre culture have very little to do with today's political polarization. More importantly, they don't seem particularly daring either — for all its F-sharps, the comedy feels a little low-stakes to crackle. — Conrad Sweatman THE SHOW MUST GO ON! Mad Tom Theatre Company Théâtre Cercle Molière (Venue 3), to Sunday ⭐⭐⭐ In the theatre world, the 'curse of Macbeth' has it that if actors say the very name of Shakespeare's famous tragedy, they'll invite toil and trouble. This local 75-minute comedy (not 90) written and produced by young local actors imagines this curse befalling a high school theatre production. It often feels like an affectionate send-up of theatre kids. Woe to the teen today who posts an overly earnest skit online and finds himself trolled by legions of edge-lords in the comments. One character in Show seems to embody this comment section: he calls everyone 'gay' and — we hesitate to say — gets some of the show's funniest lines. Show makes the mistake of having him succumb to the curse too quickly, because the show's best stuff is the repartee between opposing types rather than the wilfully ludicrous plot. But there's no point scrutinizing things too closely. It has the novice feel of a show by kids fresh out of high school, but also it has an infectious energy. It's a bit long, but it's fun. — Conrad Sweatman STORIES I WON'T TELL THE KIDS / DES HISTOIRES (PAS) POUR LES ENFANTS TiBert inc. Le Studio at Théâtre Cercle Molière (Venue 20), to Sunday ⭐⭐ ½ Rob Malo has made a name for himself through a long career as a storyteller and children's entertainer. This 50-minute series of stories, targeted towards a more mature audience, tries to welcome in a new demographic for the longtime entertainer. Unfortunately, the cohesion of the show falls a little flat. There is definitely some adult content at the show — too risky, apparently, for even ChatGPT — and does earn some genuine laughs. But Malo also spends a significant amount of time of his stage time on a kid-friendly historical tale that, while interesting, does not thematically match the rest of the more risqué humour. Malo is a passionate and polished raconteur, and each of tales would likely have a rapt audience at any bar table or kitchen party. As a stage performance, this one is still falling a little flat. While most upcoming shows are in English, Thursday's performance will be en français. — Matt Schaubroeck WHERE DOES BOB BELONG ? Super Duper Productions Centre culturel franco-manitobain (Venue 4), to Sunday ⭐⭐ ½ In this quirky 45-minute show (not 60 as listed), Toronto-based red nosed clown Christopher Bugg presents the story of a clown and his life-size puppet friend/lover Bob. The best of the show is Bugg bringing Bob to some kind of life. Romance, longing and uffering follow as the two go through a chaotic relationship. The worst is when the clown indulges in a frenetic unconvincing bit involving genitalia props. In some way, which seems unclear, this tiresome vulgarity has to do with Bob. There is, finally, a Bugg-Bob reconciliation and a satisfying happy ending. The rake-thin performer has impressive control of his body, which he subjects to harsh treatment with many — perhaps too many — props. Bugg appeals to the audience, as clowns will, but it only stalls the action, rather than enhancing it. Maybe even 45 minutes is too long for the material Bugg offers. — Rory Runnells WHEREVER YOU MAY BE Reis' Pieces Theatre Co. Théâtre Cercle Molière (Venue 3), to Sunday Weekday Evenings Today's must-read stories and a roundup of the day's headlines, delivered every evening. ⭐⭐ ½ Hilde is the spunkiest resident in her personal care home. She came to Canada as a Ukrainian refugee and raised a family. Now she's an old wit with a bone to pick with her pious, nosy neighbour. She likes beer, salty foods and reviewing mistakes in the newspaper. A natural protagonist of a fringe show, then. Wherever You May Be is essentially community theatre. It deals with Mennonite community themes, and its sizable cast will probably continue to draw a big crowd of friends, family and fans. Erin Essery is strong as Hilde, but big amateur casts tend to have weak points (and, in this case, some weak characters). Wherever You May Be is a cosy play in search of a dramatic conflict. It flirts with punchy premises — populist Mennonite anger about 'elites' and taxes; religious tensions; memories of Soviet persecution — but these are carted off or resolved almost as quickly as they're introduced. The cast can sing though. More of this, please. — Conrad Sweatman
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Rochester creator will launch memories into space with new technology
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — We all have our favorite memories stored in photo albums or a flash drive to make sure we don't lose them. Well, one Rochester inventor focused on creating an eternal method of saving what's important, is taking classic memories to new heights. Bruce Ha came to the United States from Vietnam with his family at just 10 years old — nearly 50 years ago. 'When we came over, we had nothing except for photo albums that our family took. And with the photo albums, they're disintegrating. They're falling apart,' Ha said. When he came to Rochester in the 90s, it was a job at Kodak that continued Ha's passion for preserving history in an eternal format. His first way of doing that was by helping Kodak launch its CD-ROM technology. 'To create a permanent record, we have to put it into something that's… we have to consider a couple things,' Ha said. 'We have to consider, first that it's going to last, it's going to endure. And second, it's got to be recoverable.' That's exactly what Ha set out to do when he left Kodak and took on a new title of CEO of Stamper Technology. There, he created Nanofiche technology. 'We have to be able to do something that is visual, that is human readable. Otherwise, imagine 10,000 years from now, we uncover a bunch of digital things, like an SD card, a USB card. How do you go about reading that?,' Ha said. But on something made of gold or nickel, Ha said it's forever. But how does Ha store files on something so small? 'Nanofiche is the invention I created that puts information onto an analog format, and it's engraved onto nickel, and as nickel, it will endure, because the information is just missing,' Ha said. And it's something you have to see to believe and understand. Ha took News 8 into his lab and showed the process of creating Galactic Library Preserve Humanity, or simply put, GLPH. Pouring in the bits of nickel, using a laser to etch the images onto tiny and thin material, and viewing the files when the process is complete. Remember those disintegrating family photos? 'This is our family today,' Ha said as he showed the family photos etched on a GLPH. 'And oh, here's the image of when we first landed in Thailand. And all we had were exactly that.' Those memories, along with a huge library now on a number of sturdy nickel and gold will stand the test of time when they are launched into space later this year. Through a contract with Astrobotic technology, classics including Isaac Asimov's foundation trilogy, and 'It's A Wonderful Life' will be sent up. 'We can easily make these clones, and we can make these copies that will reside on Earth, and if anything happens, the last resort is the moon,' Ha said. 'In Vietnam, I would not have the ability to make this technology. I'm very grateful. And on this 50th anniversary, I'm putting together a library to preserve humanity and pay back to the world.' Ha said the GLPH have been tested in Hawaii where the High Seas were used to test the harsh environment on Mars. And after that test, the GLPH survived. Ha has also promised News 8 that this story will be etch onto a GLPH and sent up into space later this year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
BBC News
20-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Mariah Carey wins copyright case over All I Want For Christmas Is You
Mariah Carey has been cleared of copyright infringement in a case over her 1994 Christmas staple, All I Want for Christmas is a ruling issued on Wednesday, a US judge rejected the allegations of songwriter Adam Stone, who released a song with the same name in 1989. He accused Carey of exploiting his "popularity" and "style".Mr Stone, who performs under the name Vince Vance, was claiming at least $20m (£16m) in in her ruling, Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani cited expert testimony saying the two songs simply shared "Christmas song clichés" that were common to several earlier hits. Mr Stone and his lawyers had not "met their burden of showing that [the songs by] Carey and Vance are substantially similar", she Almandi also ruled that Mr Stone and his lawyers should face sanctions for filing "frivolous" arguments, that included "vague... and incomprehensible mixtures of factual assertions and conclusions, subjective opinions, and other irrelevant evidence".She ordered Mr Stone and his lawyers to repay the legal bills Carey incurred in defending the case. The case was originally filed in 2022, with Mr Stone claiming Carey's hit was copied from a song he'd recorded under the name Vince Vance and the court papers, he claimed his track had received "extensive airplay" during the 1993 holiday season - a year before Carey's song was recorded and her 2020 memoir, Carey said she had composed "most of the song on a cheap little Casio keyboard", while playing the movie It's A Wonderful Life for inspiration, before completing it in the studio with her co-writer Walter Mr Stone rejected that account."[Carey] palmed off these works with her incredulous origin story, as if those works were her own," he said in court papers. "Her hubris knowing no bounds, even her co-credited songwriter doesn't believe the story she has spun."The initial complaint was dropped in December 2022, but refiled a month Stone had hoped to share in the song's runaway success. All I Want For Christmas Is You earns about $8.5 million (£6.6 million) every year; and has spent 140 weeks in the UK's top 100. 'No similarities' Carey's lawyers asked the court to dismiss the case last August, arguing that Mr Stone had failed to establish copyright infringement."The claimed similarities are an unprotectable jumble of elements: A title and hook phrase used by many earlier Christmas songs, other commonplace words, phrases, and Christmas tropes like 'Santa Claus' and 'mistletoe'," they Wednesday's ruling, Judge Almadani endorsed two reports from musicologists hired by Carey's one, New York University professor Lawrence Ferrara testified there were "no significant melodic similarities" between the two added he'd discovered "at least 19 songs" predating Mr Stone's track that had similar lyrical ideas - several of which were also called All I Want For Christmas Is You.A similar report filed by the defence was ruled inadmissible - especially after its author admitted in a deposition that the melodies of the two songs were incomparable because "the rhythms are different".On that basis, Judge Almadani ruled in favour of the motion to Mariah Carey nor Mr Stone were immediately available for comment on the ruling.
The National
18-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
How Jack Quaid became 'this generation's Tom Hanks'
There are two types of transcendent leading performers: Those you love to observe and those you can't help but feel for. And in the contemporary landscape, the latter has become the hardest to find. 'There's a real hole in the marketplace of actors,' says Robert Olsen, co-director of Novocaine. 'If you're looking at the next generation, Glen Powell fills the Tom Cruise slot, Timothee Chalamet is the next Leonardo DiCaprio, but where's the Tom Hanks? Where's the everyman?' And without an everyman, a lot of movies just won't work. Tom Hanks is needed for a role like Castaway, just as Jimmy Stewart was for a role like It's A Wonderful Life. For Novocaine, an action comedy about a man impervious to pain, Olsen and his co-director Dan Berk needed to find their own. 'At the time, we were watching the series The Boys, and we just started writing the character in Jack Quaid's voice, never even thinking we were going to be able to actually get him for the movie,' says Beck. 'We really do think he's this generation's Tom Hanks. He's funny, but you wouldn't call him a comedian. He's handsome, but not intimidatingly so like Brad Pitt. And everyone – man, woman, young and old – is charmed by him,' says Olsen. To say that Jack Quaid was made in a lab to be the perfect everyman would only be a slight exaggeration. After all, he's the son of actors Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid. Quaid became aware of his everyman qualities on the set of The Boys, playing a normal guy caught up in a world of superheroes and assassins. The show, which began as satirical counter-programming to the glut of Marvel and DC fare, has become a cultural juggernaut, with season four garnering 55 million viewers in its debut month last July – setting Quaid on a path to becoming a household name. 'I don't think you can train to be an everyman. I can't go to the tape and learn how to do it. It's just a quality you have and I'm lucky to have it. Some people find out they're going to play jerks for the rest of their life – and I also do that, come to think of it – but I'm glad I can do this as well,' he says. Quaid has been in the industry for more than a decade, getting his start on the first Hunger Games movie in 2012, but now that his leading man moment is finally here, he's not exactly sure how to play it. 'It's very hard for me to take a compliment,' Quaid admits. But as hard as it is for him to admit to himself how well everything's going, it's undeniable at this point. Novocaine, which releases on March 27 in the UAE, just topped box offices in the US with strong reviews, only weeks after his sci-fi thriller Companion found success critically and commercially. And stars are joining his projects just because he's on board. 'To be honest, the thing that drew me to this was working with Jack. I love everything he does. I've been waiting to work with him for literally years – his name is why I said yes,' says Novocaine co-star Amber Midthunder. Quaid thought he'd end up doing comedy – he got his start in sketch and improv – but being an action star is new to him. And as much as he excelled in it – he's not sure if that is his true path. 'I had to get in the best shape of my life for this movie,' he says. 'That's all gone now. It's out the window. I went back to candy immediately after it wrapped. They said 'cut' and I said 'hand me some Sour Patch Kids'.' And while he's now more adept at stunts after pushing himself further than before, he's having trouble unlearning the most challenging aspect of his Novocaine role – playing a man who can't feel pain. 'It's completely ruined me for every other fight scene I'm doing,' says Quaid. I'm shooting The Boys now, and I had one scene the other day where I got punched in the face, and I had to remind myself to show pain. It's too in me, now.' Quaid hasn't mapped out the kind of career he wants for himself – 'the world is too chaotic for that,' he says – but he does know that he's not going to take any shortcuts, trying to land roles with the biggest filmmakers or franchises in Hollywood. 'I love being on the ground floor with filmmakers like Dan and Bobby, or Drew Hancock who did Companion. I want to work with people who are coming up – to see them take off and work with them as they're doing it. I want to find incredible filmmakers at that stage and just keep those relationships going,' he says. There is one pet project he's dying to do, however, that doesn't fit this mould. He played the real-life scientist Richard Feynman in the Academy Award-winning Christopher Nolan film Oppenheimer (2023), and he still hasn't gotten the role out of his head. 'I'm trying to make it happen. This world is insane and Hollywood is weird, but I'm trying to figure it out. I just fell in love with the guy while researching him for Oppenheimer. It'll be the Oppenheimer cinematic universe – also known as the real world.' Novocaine will be released in cinemas across the Middle East on March 27
