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Woody Harrelson really learned to dunk to win bet with Wesley Snipes on set of 'White Men Can't Jump'
While basketball hustlers Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson) and Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) eventually team up for some schemery in Ron Shelton’s 1992 sports classic White Men Can’t Jump, that didn’t stop the competition between the actors playing those characters throughout the shoot.
“I remember having an actual contest with Wes where I was trying to dunk. We were betting and everything, and I was losing,” Harrelson told Yahoo Entertainment about shooting the film, which celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this year, during our recent Role Recall interview (watch clip above).
Snipes retired to his trailer, and it was then that a woman on the production crew introduced Harrelson to the concept of yoga stretching, a practice the actor, now 56, has since passionately embraced.
“I didn’t even know about stretching. But I started stretching, and the next thing you know I could dunk the ball,” he said. “This was on a 9-and-a-half-foot rim, by the way, I couldn’t do it on a 10-foot rim. But even on that, it was the peak, the absolute top of my abilities… I got to where I could stuff it.”
Then the real-life hustling commenced.
“[Wesley Snipes] came out of his trailer, and I pretended I couldn’t [dunk]. And then we upped the bet and upped bet, and then I slammed it. I’ll never forget the look on Wes’s face. That was a joyous moment.”
Watch our full Woody Harrelson Role Recall interview:
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Guy Pearce Says 'Why Not?' To 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' Sequel
With ’90s franchises like Power Rangers and Jurassic Park returning to theaters to big box office, now seems to be the perfect time for that six-wheeled desert queen, Priscilla, to roll back onto the big screen. The titular vehicular star of the rollicking 1994 Australian comedy, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the tour bus Priscilla ferried a trio of drag queens — played by Hugo Weaving, Terence Stamp and Guy Pearce — on a road trip across Australia powered by ABBA tunes and resplendent, Oscar-winning costumes. Speaking with Yahoo Movies recently, Pearce confirmed that a second Desert adventure is a frequent topic of conversation among the three actors and director Stephan Elliott. “Ideas keep coming up every couple years. It would be fun. Each of us has a moment where we go ‘Why not?'” (Watch our video interview above.)
But don’t book your tickets for Priscilla’s next voyage anytime soon. Pearce says that the actors will probably be “quite old” by the time any sequel becomes a reality. But he’ll always treasure his memories of making the original film, whether it was Stamp tripping during a complicated dance number or the three of them hitting Sydney’s drag clubs in full costume before shooting began. Pearce is also regularly humbled by the impact the movie has had on audiences. “I have a lot of people who come up to me and say, ‘It was because of that movie that I came out to my parents,’ so I hold that film really dearly to my heart,” says Pearce, 49, who’s currently starring in the dark western Brimstone.
While Priscilla the bus, transported the cast from Sydney to Alice Springs, Priscilla the movie, took Pearce abroad: The international success of the film helped launched the actor’s career in Hollywood. Watch our full role recall with Pearce below, where he discusses his appearances in such memorable films as L.A. Confidential and Memento.
Read more from Yahoo Movies:
Guy Pearce on Torturing Dakota Fanning and Carice Van Houten in ‘Brimstone’
Guy Pearce and Dakota Fanning Share a Sinister Bedroom Encounter in ‘Brimstone’ Exclusive Clip
Role Recall: Hugo Weaving on His Journey From ‘Priscilla’ to ‘The Matrix’ to ‘The Dressmaker’
Guy Pearce Still Can't Believe He Was In 'L.A. Confidential'
Guy Pearce has had 20 years to get used to the idea that he was in L.A. Confidential, the celebrated ’50s-era detective yarn that premiered in theaters in September 2007 to great acclaim. But speaking with Yahoo Movies recently, the Australian actor expressed amazement that he ever shared the screen with such stars as Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey and Kim Basinger, who won an Oscar for her role as femme fatale Lynn Bracken. “I really loved the script, but I had no feeling I would get the role,” Pearce, currently starring in the western Brimstone, says now. “When I was asked to do it, I couldn’t believe it.” (Watch our video interview above.)
Pearce is front and center in L.A. Confidential as by-the-book LAPD detective Ed Exley, who reluctantly partners with rough and tumble Bud White (Crowe) to sleuth a coffee shop shootout. Written by Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson, who also directed the film, the screenplay considerably pares down James Ellroy’s sprawling novel, which spans nearly a decade in the lives of the characters. (Hanson passed away in 2016.) And Pearce says that Ellroy’s book was his primary source of research. “There’s eight years of character study for all of our characters in there. That enabled me to expand on the history of this character and where that uptight, WASP-y sensibility came from.”
To hear Pearce’s thoughts on some of the other memorable roles in his filmography, including Ravenous and Prometheus, watch our full Role Recall below.
Read more from Yahoo Movies
Guy Pearce Says ‘Why Not?’ to ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ Sequel
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‘L.A. Confidential’ Author James Ellroy on Curtis Hanson: ‘He Was a Voyeur, He Was a Camera’
Role Recall: Jeff Goldblum on 'The Fly' makeup, why he unbuttoned in 'Jurassic Park,' and his Cate Blanchett crush
Love for Jeff Goldblum has been in full ‘blum’ lately. The actor/jazzman/international treasure has been receiving the type of internet tributes in the past couple of years that is usually reserved for the likes of Bill Murray or Nicolas Cage. (Just see the EDM remix of his Jurassic Park laugh, or how many Jeff Goldblum shower curtains one can purchase online.)
And a resurgence in high-profile roles for the 65-year-old Pittsburgh native has coincided with it all. In 2016, Goldblum revived his role of the brilliant scientist David Levinson in Independence Day: Resurgence, and later this year, he’ll return to dinosaur-inhabited lands as the wisecracking Dr. Ian Malcolm in the sequel-to-reboot Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
In-between those sequels, though, came the clearest sign yet that Goldblum is back in the highest fashion: a gig in the Marvel tentpole Thor: Ragnarok, where the King of Eccentricity got to riff right and left as a candy-colored gladiator Gamemaker, appropriately called “the Grandmaster.”
In a new “Role Recall” interview with Yahoo Entertainment (see above), the infinitely enthusiastic screen icon talked us through his most beloved films, from ensemble bonding in his 1983 breakout The Big Chill to laughing it up (and unbuttoning that shirt) in 1993’s megahit Jurassic Park to beholding the power of Cate Blanchett in Thor: Ragnarok.
The Big Chill (1983) The Lawrence Kasdan-directed drama featured a powerhouse cast — including Glenn Close, William Hurt, and Kevin Kline — as college chums who reunite after one of their friends commits suicide. The victim was played by Kevin Costner in his film debut, but his flashback scene, which Goldblum described in detail, was famously cut from the finished work. “It was poetical, and metaphorical,” Goldblum said of the foreshadowing sequence, in which Alex (Costner) hesitates to carve a Thanksgiving turkey with a sharp knife.
Jeff Goldblum in ‘The Fly’ (Fox)
The Fly (1986) Goldblum spent five hours in a dentist’s chair getting transformed into a man/fly hybrid by eventual Best Makeup Oscar winners Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis in David Cronenberg’s horror remake. Still, as unsightly as the feature’s creature would be, the film turned Goldblum into something of a sex symbol, even if he’s reticent to acknowledge it. “I don’t who says that, but there you go,” he said. “I had my flowy locks at that point.” Though he will admit that once Seth Brundle’s DNA was mashed up with an insect’s, he’s given to “volatile storms” and “a fevered, unquenchable sexuality.”
Jurassic Park (1993) Dr. Ian Malcolm’s laugh (or “suggestive gurgle,” as Goldblum calls it), heard aboard a chopper with Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie (Laura Dern), came on one of the first days of shooting Steven Spielberg’s beloved dinosaur thriller. “We were on me, and it just occurred. … I don’t think it even said [he laughs] in the script.” (FYI, you can play Goldblum’s Jurassic laugh for 10 hours straight on YouTube if you’re so inclined.)
As for his most meme’d moment, Malcolm’s oddly timed chest-baring after breaking his leg during a T-Rex attack, Goldblum did his darnedest to justify it. “It’s supposed to be Costa Rica, right? So things are hot and I’m sure I’m in some sort of fever. So all the logic is that we gotta get some of these wet clothes off immediately,” he said. “As I remember, I don’t think anybody fought me on that.”
Jeff Goldblum in ‘Jurassic Park’ (Universal)
Independence Day (1996) After Jurassic, Goldblum scored the second-biggest hit of his career (before Thor) three years later, with Roland Emmerich’s alien invasion blockbuster. There was a moment that linked both films: As Capt. Steven Hiller (Will Smith) and Levinson make an escape on a space shuttle, the latter yells out “Must go faster!,” a line we originally heard Goldblum use in Jurassic Park (and which Emmerich had him re-do in post-production). “I hope that Mr. Steven Spielberg looked kindly upon that. We appropriated it only with the utmost affection,” he said. “It was an homage. That’s a French word, it means some kind of glazed donut, I believe.”
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) Goldblum has appeared in two films directed by the quirky auteur Wes Anderson, with a third (the animated Isle of Dogs) set to open next month. All three have co-starred Bill Murray. “I love him to pieces, and he’s an interesting treasure, and international treasure,” he said of the actor. Goldblum particularly enjoyed staying across the hall from Murray at a bed and breakfast in Görlitz, Germany, while filming Budapest. “That’s what Wes Anderson does, he sets up these event locations and beautiful casts where you have a spectacular, unforgettable experience.”
Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Marvel’s “threequel” would be the second film to co-star Goldblum and Cate Blanchett after The Life Aquatic — but the pair didn’t get to share scenes in either of them. They did share one day on the set of the Taika Waititi-directed Ragnarok, so big-time Blanchett fan Goldblum made the most of it. “I was able to overlap her last day of shooting, and I came to the big soundstage and watched her, saw her again, and had moments of enchanting pleasantry — enchanting for me,” he said. “I watched her act. I think she’s magically spectacular.”
Watch Goldblum’s “Role Recall” segment on Thor: Ragnarok, now on DVD and Blu-ray:
Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:
Watch Jeff Goldblum nail a game of ‘5 Degrees of Jeff Goldblum’
This epic Jeff Goldblum improv was cut from ‘Thor: Ragnarok,’ but now you can see it here (exclusive video)
‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ teaser promises more dinosaurs, more Jeff Goldblum
'Talk about a memorable ride': Catherine Zeta-Jones on her pregnant Oscar win 15 years later
Catherine Zeta-Jones was nine months pregnant when she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Chicago. Fifteen years later, that night remains one of her most treasured memories … even though she immediately forgot what she said in her speech. “I couldn’t remember my name at the end of my pregnancy,” Zeta-Jones told Yahoo Entertainment while sharing memories of her most beloved films for our Roll Recall series. Of course, we couldn’t talk about her performance as slinky seductress Velma in Chicago without also talking about her unforgettable 2003 Oscar appearance. Not only did Zeta-Jones show up to collect her award at the very end of her pregnancy, she also performed the nominated song “I Move On” with Queen Latifah, ascending to the stage on a panic-inducing moving platform. “Talk about a memorable ride,” Zeta-Jones told Yahoo. “It was a roller coaster of shooting the film, promoting the film with my ever-growing bump, going to the Oscars with my ever-growing bump, singing live, winning, and then giving birth to my baby 10 days later. It was a real trip.”
Watch her recount that fateful ceremony above, and check out the full Roll Recall below. Some highlights:
The Mask of Zorro (1998)
“I can’t believe The Mask of Zorro is turning 20,” Zeta-Jones said of her breakout Hollywood film, in which she starred opposite Antonio Banderas. Though she’d been a working actress for years at that point, she was blown away by the production values. “It was a real sense of, this is a real film,” she said. “We had horse trainers and flamenco dance lessons, sword fighting lessons, horse riding lessons — it was just like, this is the way that movies used to be made, and here we are, making it here.”
Traffic (2000)
Words failed Zeta-Jones when it came to describing one of her favorite collaborators, director Steven Soderbergh. In Traffic, she played a pregnant housewife who discovered that her husband was a drug lord — and then proceeded to take over his illegal business. “It was just a joy to be a part of that great movie,” said Zeta-Jones. The film’s tricky subject matter made even some of its producers nervous. Zeta-Jones recalled one investor in particular angrily asking her, “Why are you doing a $30 million movie about drugs?” — and noted that when the film was nominated for Best Picture, “he looked super cute at the Oscars.”
America’s Sweethearts (2001)
This Billy Crystal-penned celebrity spoof featured a rare comic turn from Zeta-Jones, who played a demanding Hollywood diva promoting a film in the middle of a divorce from her co-star (John Cusack) who is secretly in love with her sister and assistant (Julia Roberts). “I can’t even tell a joke… but I love to play comedy,” she told Yahoo.
Chicago (2002)
When director Rob Marshall approached her about Chicago, Zeta-Jones immediately knew that she wanted to play Velma Kelly, not the larger role of Roxie Hart (which went to Renée Zellweger). “Because I have to sing ‘All That Jazz,'” Zeta-Jones explained. Even now, her favorite number remains “a bit of a theme song” for the actress, playing whenever she does an event or introduces an award. And she’s not complaining: “I couldn’t wish for a better theme song.”
Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
Zeta-Jones remembers this Ocean’s Eleven sequel, her second film with Soderbergh, as being a non-stop party behind the scenes. “That was just so much fun to be part of all those boys, joking around all the time, and I was the only serious real actor going, ‘We’re making a movie here!'” she joked. While shooting in Rome, she was astonished by the crowds of screaming women that thronged around her co-star Brad Pitt. “I have never seen anything like that in my life,” she said.
The Terminal (2004)
Director Steven Spielberg first “discovered” Zeta-Jones in the 1996 television miniseries Titanic, and she was thrilled to work with him and co-star Tom Hanks in this drama about an immigrant forced to live in a New York City airport terminal. “If you’re going to be stuck in an airport, who better else to be stuck with than Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg?” she said. Not to mention that the set was a fully functioning space complete with a coffee shop, bookstore, and donut shop. “I ate so many donuts on that film, I remember, because they were there,” she confessed.
Watch Catherine Zeta-Jones share stories about her favorite films in our Role Recall.
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'The Bodyguard' turns 25: Kevin Costner remembers Whitney Houston, 'the perfect choice' for the role
Whitney Houston was said to be “declining in terms of her popularity” when her name came up as a possible co-star/romantic partner for Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard, the hit drama that opened 25 years ago, on Nov. 25, 1992.
“That didn’t really matter to me, I just thought she was the perfect choice,” Costner told Yahoo Entertainment about the late pop icon during a 2014 Role Recall interview (watch clip above). “It wasn’t her ‘in’ moment… Everybody alerted me to the fact that she was black, which I knew. It might have been easier two years earlier at her peak. But after that movie she became one of the biggest stars in the world.”
Indeed, Houston, who battled drug abuse later in her career and died in 2012, was two years past the release of her third consecutive hit record, 1990’s I’m Your Baby Tonight. She had also never acted in a film before. Costner, who was at the height of his career having just dominated the Oscars with Dances With Wolves, mentioned that Houston’s skin color repeatedly came up during casting, but insisted that he never considered race a factor in hiring her for the part of songstress Rachel Marron, whom his character, ex-Secret Service agent Frank Farmer, was hired to protect.
“I just think that people are trying to cast [who] they think is the best person, and sometimes the feeling was, ‘Well, let’s cast a real actress, that could be the best for the movie,” said Costner, whose string of hits at the time had included Bull Durham (1988) and Field of Dreams (1989). “It’s like faking being a good baseball player. When you see one of our world-class actresses faking being a great singer, it doesn’t seem right.
“So I really felt that we should go for a true singer. It didn’t matter if she was black or white. The fact that she was black, that didn’t matter to me.”
Watch our full Role Recall interview with Kevin Costner:
Read more on Yahoo Entertainment:
Role Recall: Woody Harrelson on identifying with ‘Cheers’ character, learning to dunk, and what he really thinks of Jennifer Lawrence
Revisiting ‘The Money Pit’: Shelley Long reveals scene that almost killed her, working with an unknown Tom Hanks
Richard Gere Recalls Initial Reaction to ‘Pretty Woman’ Role: ‘Just Put a Suit on a Goat’
Role Recall: Woody Harrelson on identifying with 'Cheers' character, learning to dunk, and what he really thinks of Jennifer Lawrence
Over the course of a wildly successful, widely diverse three decades, Woody Harrelson has held down the tap on Cheers, proved white men can jump, and managed to survive The Hunger Games, winning an Emmy and receiving two Oscar nods along the way. The 56-year-old Texas native has two major films out this month — the Rob Reiner-helmed biopic LBJ, in which he’s virtually unrecognizable as the 36th president, and the Oscar-buzzing Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, where he plays a local sheriff under siege from a mother who wants justice for her murdered daughter — and has recently wrapped filming on 2018’s surefire blockbuster Solo: A Star Wars Story. Yahoo Entertainment recently down with Harrelson for a guided tour of his greatest hits in the latest edition of our Role Recall series. Some highlights:
Cheers (1985-93) Harrelson’s breakout role came in the classic NBC sitcom, where he joined the ensemble in 1985 as the kind, yet dimwitted bartender Woody Boyd. “It was a friend of mine who told me that there was this part you should go try out for,” Harrelson explains. “The part’s named Woody, he’s from Indiana, where we had gone to college, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’
“There was a lot about Woody Boyd that I resonated with. And though I didn’t think I was very innocent at the time, I probably was pretty innocent. It was the first time I really broke out of anonymity — and poverty.”
White Men Can’t Jump (1992) Harrelson really couldn’t jump for the Ron Shelton comedy about two basketball hustlers, a fact that resulted in endless taunting (and wagering) from co-star Wesley Snipes. “That was one of the funnest times I ever had doing a movie. I remember having an actual contest with Wes where I was trying to dunk. We were betting and I was losing. Then he went to his trailer … and this [crew member] told me, “Why don’t you ever stretch?” This is my first introduction to yoga,” Harrelson recalls, “and I started stretching and the next thing you know, I could dunk the ball. This is on a 9-and-a-half-foot rim, by the way; I couldn’t do it on a 10-foot rim. … He came out of his trailer and I pretended I couldn’t and we upped the bet and upped the bet and then slammed it. I’ll never forget the look on Wes’s face: It was joyous.
Indecent Proposal (1993) This extremely popular, extremely un-P.C. film starred Robert Redford as mogul who offers Harrelson’s character $1 million for a night with his wife, played by Demi Moore. “My mom was pretty psyched,” says Harrelson. “She didn’t come to visit me on set much, but with Robert Redford was in the movie, she came to the set for sure. She was like a little girl. It was fantastic.”
Natural Born Killers (1994) Harrelson and Juliette Lewis played a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde in Oliver Stone’s graphically violent road-trip movie that polarized audiences upon its release. “I didn’t know it would be that controversial. It was very controversial,” says Harrelson. “People are like, ‘Do you like doing controversial movies?’ I’m like, ‘Hell, no. I like doing movies people would go see, not movies people are boycotting.'”
The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) Harrelson reteamed with Stone and earned his first Oscar nomination playing Hustler magnate Larry Flynt in this biopic. “I wouldn’t have been much into doing this movie if I hadn’t come to respect Larry. I don’t respect much the pornography part of what he does,” Harrelson quickly adds, “But what he is as a person, and the rebel that he is, and even what he did recently offering $10 million for any information that leads to the impeachment of our so-called president… I’ve never met a more honest man.”
The Hunger Games (2012-15) For the blockbuster four-film saga based on the bestselling book series, Harrelson played mentor to Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen. “I love Jen,” Harrelson says with a smile. “She’s absolutely hysterical. She’s her own person. I love who she is. I think she’s a tremendous actress, but even more so as a person, she’s one of my top favorite people in the world.”
True Detective (2014) Harrelson and partner Matthew McConaughey both earned Emmy nominations for HBO’s esoteric mystery thriller. “Love working with Matthew, that’s the third thing we did together,” Harrelson says, ticking off their collaborations in EDtv and Surfer Dude. “He’s a hard-core committed guy… Man, what a performance.” But despite their good vibes on set and off, that doesn’t mean Harrelson wants to reprise their partnership for a follow-up season of True Detective. “I don’t see doing that because it went really well the first time and if you come back around to it, what else are you going to hear? ‘Not as good. Wasn’t as good. Boy, you guys were good before, but this time…’ I don’t want to hear that.”
Watch the complete Role Recall above.
Here’s Woody on why he almost didn’t appear in the upcoming Star Wars movie:
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