James Van Der Beek selling ‘Varsity Blues’ jerseys to raise funds for cancer treatment

Sydney Sweeney is sharing what she considered to be the hardest part of playing professional boxer Christy Martin in the new biopic Christy.

Much has been reported on the physical transformation Sweeney underwent to become Martin. She gained over 30 pounds and trained to be able to accurately portray Martin’s fiery persona while boxing in the ring. But even amidst all of that, Sweeney said the most difficult part of preparing for this role had nothing to do with the physical transformation.

“I think that it was honestly the responsibility,” Sweeney said. “I knew how important Christy’s story was and how much this movie is going to mean to people. And I think the weight of that responsibility was the hardest part,” Sweeney told ABC Audio.

In fact, Sweeney said that the physical transformation for the role was the most fun part of her preparation.

“I enjoyed that. I had a blast doing that. It was a lot of hard work,” Sweeney said. “It was 2 1/2 months of training every single day. I put on 35 pounds. And then when you’re filming, you’re still having to keep up that transformation and that workout regime.”

Sweeney said she continued that same training regimen throughout the entirety of the film’s shoot — going from “working out to filming to fight training.”

“It was exhausting and a lot hard work,” the actress said, although she maintained it wasn’t the most difficult part: “But I think the responsibility was the most pressing for me.”

Christy arrives in theaters everywhere on Friday.

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Henry Cavill has shared an update on his recovery after he sustained an injury while filming the upcoming film Highlander. Cavill took to Instagram to share how he has progressed since the September injury, which delayed production on the film likely until early 2026. The post includes several pictures of himself working out with his left leg in a boot. “Endure. In enduring, grow strong,” Cavill captioned the post …

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Jimmy Kimmel opened his show Tuesday night with a heartfelt monologue dedicated to his longtime best friend and bandleader Cleto Escobedo III, who died Tuesday morning at age 59.

“We’ve been on the air for almost 23 years, and I’ve had to do some hard monologues along the way, but this one’s the hardest,” Kimmel said while holding back tears. “Early this morning we lost someone very special, who was much too young to go, and I’d like to tell you about him.”

“He would call me. He’d send me notes all the time, big stuff, little stuff, whatever, telling me, ‘Oh, this was so funny. I love this. I’m proud of you. I’m so happy that we get to be together all the time.’ He would tell me how lucky he was. He was just a great older brother. No baggage, all love,” he continued. “There’s no one in my life I felt more comfortable with.”

“Always cherish your friends,” Kimmel added. “We’re not here forever.”

Escobedo, who went by Junior, was the saxophonist and leader of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! house band, Cleto and the Cletones, alongside his father, Cleto Escobedo II, an accomplished sax player who had previously put his own career with the band Los Blues on pause in 1966 when his son was born, in order to be close to home and raise a family.

Kimmel also regaled Tuesday’s audience about his lifelong friendship with the younger Escobedo, which began in 1977 in the Las Vegas suburbs, where his family had relocated from Brooklyn. According to Kimmel, Escobedo and his family lived “across the street and two houses over.”

After the two boys met, they became fast friends, Kimmel said.

“Not just regular friends either. We became like 24/7, ‘Mom, please, let me sleep over, please’ kind of friends,” Kimmel said. “One summer, I slept over at the Escobedo house 33 nights in a row … we were never bored. We were always up to something.”

From playing baseball and dressing up as cowboys to boxing, attempts at body building, and navigating puberty and girls, the pair were inseparable and later went on to be best man at each other’s weddings, Kimmel said.

That bond extended decades, and eventually, amid Escobedo’s own successful career playing sax on tour with Paula Abdul, recording studio albums and more, Kimmel had the opportunity to make his best friend his right-hand man in late night TV.

“In September 2002, I got a talk show out of nowhere — when you do a show like this you need a desk, you need an announcer, you need a Guillermo, and you need a band. And of course, I wanted Cleto to lead my band,” Kimmel said. “The idea that anyone other than him would lead the band was terrifying. It had to be him.”

Kimmel said he set up an audition for Escobedo and his father with ABC executive Lloyd Braun.

“Cleto and his dad played ‘Pick up the Pieces’ by Average White Band. And Lloyd saw it, saw the father and son together, he said, ‘I love it.’ And he just got up and left. And we’ve been working together every day for almost 23 years,” Kimmel said.

He continued, “We had our own language that almost no one else understood. We didn’t have to say anything. We’d sit here at rehearsal every day, we’d have to look at each other — and that would be it.”

While Escobedo’s cause of death has not yet been revealed, Kimmel gave a special thank you on Tuesday to a long list of doctors and nurses at UCLA Medical Center “for taking incredibly good care of him.” He also thanked “the team at Sherman Oaks Hospital that initially took him in.”

“I’m grateful for my friends, Cleto’s friends … everyone who checked in on him, everyone who called and visited him, who’ve been helping his family. Everyone here at our show [has] been so supportive,” Kimmel said, giving a shout-out to his family and Escobedo’s family, “who all did their best to be strong during these awful few months.”

“Mostly, I want to thank Cleto’s parents, Cleto and Sylvia, for making him and for sharing him with me and with all of us, and for treating me like their own son, always,” he added, before announcing Tuesday’s guest — one of Escobedo’s favorite people — Eddie Murphy.

Kimmel said Tuesday that he planned to “take the next couple nights off,” but that he had wanted “to be here tonight to tell you about my friend.”

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