Wesley Snipes has broken two Guinness World Records in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images
His surprise appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine not only drew cheers from fans, it also made Wesley Snipes a multiple Guinness World Records holder.
Snipes first played the half-vampire vampire hunter in the 1998 hit Blade, and reprising as the character in Deadpool & Wolverineofficially gave him the record of Longest Career as a Live-Action Marvel Character. The feat beat out his co-star Hugh Jackman, who has played Wolverine/Logan in nine movies starting with 2000’s X-Men.
Guinness also points out that the 61-year-old bested Alfred Molina‘s record of the longest gap between character appearances in Marvel films: Snipes last played Blade in 2004’s Blade Trinity, which came 19 years and 231 days before D&W‘s debut.
Molina had a 17-year gap between playing Dr. Otto Octavius/Doc Ock in 2004’s Spider-Man 2 and reprising in 2021’s blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Marvel Studios has had a rough road trying to reboot Blade, following its announcement way back in 2019 that it snagged two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali to succeed Snipes.
The behind-the-scenes drama, including multiple script and creative changes, was winked at in Deadpool & Wolverine. Snipes says in the film, “There’s only been one Blade. There’s only ever gonna be one Blade,” prompting Deadpool to break the fourth wall and raise his eyebrows to the audience.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
Desi Lydic is back hosting The Daily Show, and it’s been a pretty good summer for the first-year anchor. She scored her first Emmy nomination as part of the revolving hosting team for the nightly Comedy Central news/satire series, one of several hosts who share time at the desk: Jon Stewart, Ronny Chieng, Dulce Sloan, Michael Kosta and Jordan Klepper.
However, Lydic tells ABC Audio that unlike The Morning Show, there’s no jockeying for power behind the scenes, even though “it would probably make for a more exciting, dramatic office energy.”
“I think a lot of us are really grateful that we get to pass it off back and forth, because it allows us to see our families and have a little bit of time to decompress in a wild news environment.”
Lydic recalls being really nervous before hosting her first show, and then things went horribly wrong.
“I look into the prompter and the teleprompter was reversed. … It was just this wacky glitch that had never happened in the history of the show since I had been there,” she shares. “And I said, ‘Welcome to The Daily Show, I’m Desi Lydic. We’re going to have to do this all over again, because our prompter is flipped.'”
Lydic says she and the other correspondents were “over the moon” when Jon Stewart returned to the desk, adding, “It feels like dad went out for cigarettes, and he did come back, which rarely happens.”
He also reminded them that it’s a comedy show and that they should “just try to make the smartest, funniest shows every day that you possibly can.”
“That being said, we do, you know, try to adhere to fact-checking, telling the truth, trying to get things right,” she adds.
Gena Rowlands, the award-winning actress known for her acclaimed roles in A Woman Under the Influence,Gloria and The Notebook, has died. She was 94.
Rowlands’ son, film director Nick Cassavetes, revealed in June 2024 that his mother had been living with Alzheimer’s disease for five years.
Her death was confirmed by The Associated Press.
A four-time Emmy winner and two-time GoldenGlobe winner, as well as the recipient of an Honorary Academy Award, Rowlands’ career in theater, film and television spanned nearly seven decades. She was perhaps best known for her film collaborations with her husband, the late actor and director John Cassavetes, and received two Oscar nominations for her starring roles in his films A Woman Under the Influence and Gloria.
Born Virginia Cathryn Rowlands in Cambria, Wisconsin, she made her Broadway debut in The Seven Year Itch in 1953. Rowlands met John Cassavetes when they were both students at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts and they were married in 1954. She spent the next six years working in TV, including opposite Cassavetes in the detective series Johnny Staccato, in which he starred. She also appeared in hit series like Bonanza, The Virginian, 77 Sunset Strip and Peyton Place.
Rowlands made her film debut in 1958 in The High Cost of Living. In 1963, she starred in her first movie directed by John Cassavetes: A Child Is Waiting. The couple would make nine more films over the next 10 years, including the Oscar-nominated 1968 drama Faces.
One of Rowlands’ most acclaimed roles was in the 1974 drama A Woman Under the Influence, which Cassavetes both wrote and directed as a showcase for her. The film, about the mental and emotional unraveling of a middle-aged, blue-collar housewife, earned Rowlands a best actress Golden Globe win and Academy Award nomination.
She received a second best actress Oscar nod for her 1980 title role in the crime thriller Gloria, also written and directed by Cassavetes, playing a woman who protects the young son of a mob bookkeeper by going on the run with him and an incriminating ledger of mob accounts.
Rowlands continued to work steadily in TV and movies, but arguably, her best-known, and most beloved, later big-screen role was in the 2004 romantic drama The Notebook, directed by Nick Cassavetes. Rowlands portrayed the elderly version of Rachel McAdams‘ character, opposite James Garner as her husband, who was played as a younger man by Ryan Gosling.
Nick Cassavetes directed his mother in three other films – Unhook the Stars, She’s So Lovely and Yellow – while Rowlands’ daughter, Zoe, directed her in 2007’s Broken English.
Later in her career, Rowlands appeared on hit TV shows including Monk and NCIS. Her last credited acting role was in 2014’s Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.
In addition to Nick and Zoe, Rowlands is survived by her and Cassavetes’ other daughter, Alexandra. Both daughters are actor/directors.
What was acceptable in Hollywood before and after the #MeToo movement is very different, and someone who has been there through it all, Winona Ryder, is sounding off.
To Esquire, the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star opened up about the old days of Hollywood in the ’80s and ’90s — and yes, some of her stories include disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Ryder didn’t provide the names of “a couple of people” in Hollywood “who were just blatantly sexually harassing me” when she was in her late 20s.
“It wasn’t an assault. But it was incredibly inappropriate. It was wild,” she said.
“I was lucky because I was known, so it didn’t happen as much as maybe it would if I had been a struggling actor. But I remember this feeling in your mind: You’re negotiating … You’re working it out while this person is being extremely creepy.”
It “soured” her on Hollywood, she said.
Regarding Weinstein, she believes a couple of awkward meetings with him got her blacklisted from potential projects.
“The one time I was supposed to have a meeting with [him], I went to the Miramax office and I extended my hand and he shook my hand and … we had a conversation and I left,” she recalls.
“And [afterward] I got like screamed at [by an agent]. ‘What the f*** did you do?’ Apparently, I offended him because I extended my hand?”
On another occasion, she says she unintentionally rebuffed his offer to star in an adaptation of the play Little Voice by recommending instead the “amazing” actress who had played the role onstage, Jane Horrocks. “And he got very weird and he left.”
For the record, the former producer, currently in jail on sex charges, denied the exchanges toEntertainment Weekly through his attorney, offering “only good thoughts and kind wishes for happiness and success for her.”
