David What?

Please join us in welcoming the fine actor David Dastmalchian, a busy actor we've been loving since we first spotted him in The Dark Knight (2008) and who you'll soon see this summer in both Ant-Man (2015) and Animals (2015). He's the first of our special guest blogging actors this summer!
- Editor. 

David Dastmalchian © Caleb Condit

Hi!  I’m thrilled to be guest blogging for Nathaniel this week.  I'll take over tomorrow for a day. I’ve been following the the site for a long time and was thrilled when he asked me to Guest Star in anticipation of the upcoming release of Animals (2015) on May 15th.  (Guest Starring is SO much better than Co-starring FYI)   

Let’s see – you may or may not recognize me from my roles in some pretty cool films, some TV shows, a few hamburger commercials… on stage???  I’ve definitely played my fair share of what some may describe as “bad guys” (my sister calls them “psychos”) though I prefer to think of them all as misunderstood innocents trapped in circumstances beyond their control.  

In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008)I was playing “Guard” and “Montano” in a production of ‘Othello’ at a wonderful regional theater in Chicago (Writer’s Theater) when I had a chance to audition for a bank-robbing clown in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.  By a stroke of miraculous luck, I was cast as The Joker’s schizophrenic henchman, Thomas, and my journey as an actor changed – my dream of working in film began to materialize and I hit the road.  I was in NYC long enough to meet the love of my life and then moved to Los Angeles where I’ve lived since 2011. 

Tomorrow I’m gonna really open up and pour my soul all over these digital pages – or at least hopefully do fun posts and tell you more about Animals.

And most importantly – teach you how to properly pronounce my name.  David (Day-vid) Dastmalchian (Dast-mol-chin).  The phonetic trick for my last name is to imagine you’re saying “This small chin” but really fast.  Go ahead, try it…

On the set of Prisoners (2013) © Wilson Webb

Until tomorrow...

Star Wars: The Marketing Awakens

Manuel (and Yoda!) here to talk more Star Wars! 

A photo posted by Manuel Betancourt (@bmanuel) on May 4, 2015 at 4:30am PDT

I have been an avid Star Wars fan since as far back as I can remember (blame my mom who was obsessed with Harrison Ford!) and so I couldn't let this celebration go by without throwing my two cents.

Nathaniel already wished you all a Happy May the Fourth, but as if intent on making sure the franchise isn't resting on nostalgia, Vanity Fair has just released a number of beautiful portraits of the new recruits of The Force Awakens and I couldn't not share three of them with you: 

Oscar Isaac: woofworthy since 2011 (and probably even before but I do love him in Drive)

The helmet is off and we get a first glimpse at bad guy Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)

And I saved the best for last:

Lupita: luminous even when doing motion capture (her character is apparently a pirate named Maz Kanata) 

Which of these pics will you be framing and swooning over until December when the film opens? Do these portraits give you hope, or do they just give you flashbacks to the equally glossy and gawk-worthy ones that greeted Episode One?

Stage Door: Hand to God

Dancin' Dan here for one of my favorite times of the year: TONY TIME! When the Tony nominations were announced, I had my usual reactions of shock and awe (congrats to all the supporting ladies from Fun Home, but did we really have to include all of them at the expense of their counterparts from On The Town?), but what made me happiest were the multiple nominations for Hand to God, hands-down the best play I’ve seen on Broadway in ages.

When you walk into the Booth Theater (most recently the home to Bradley Cooper’s Elephant Man), you’re immediately greeted with cheery posters extolling the beauty of the world and God’s hand in creating it, along with heavily southern-fried Christian country-rock. If you’ve ever been in a church school, the set will look freakily familiar… do all of these things look alike? But then the lights go down, and we’re greeted by… a sock puppet. This sock puppet’s name is Tyrone, and despite his adorable appearance, he has some not-so-adorable thoughts on his mind.

More...

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May the Fourth Be With You

Happy annual Star Wars day. Since Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (just 228 days away) will make this whole year a perpetual Star Wars Day elsewhere on the net, we'll keep this brief. Here are four unqualified positive feelings about the franchise.

1. Nathaniel hearts Leia, Luke and Han (in roughly that order) as much as anyone & forever.
2. Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and even Darth Maul are superb villains. Deeply memorable villains are incredibly important to adventure genres such as space fantasy, action, sci-fi, superheroes, etcetera and it's one thing nearly every franchise could learn from this one.
3. The Empire Strikes Back is awesome.
4. Where would the world of sound design be without Ben Burtt? The world has never forgotten Darth Vader's breath, Chewie's throaty protestations, and R2-D2's beep bop boop beeping and never shall. What a great call Oscar made in 1977 to give him a special achievement Oscar. 

Classic Post Alert - Click for similar lovelies

Related:
Last Year's May the Fourth Be With You post 

Now you say four nice things about Star Wars in the comments.

Podcast (Season Debut): Furious Ultron 7

The Podcast is Back!

For this season's spoiler-heavy debut episode, Nathaniel is joined by Joe Reid and Anne Marie Kelly who share their feels about the Furious 7 and its home franchise from corny sentiment to Michelle Rodriguez's biceps. We also talk Joss Whedon, crowded and empty theaters, and the various intermittent joys of The Avengers: Age of Ultron from Elizabeth Olsen's elaborate hand gestures to Mjölnir getting around.

Running Time - 42½ minutes
00:01 Intro and "Previously On..."
02:00 Avengers moviegoing: geek behavior, costumes, crowds
09:00 Age of Ultron
33:00 Furious 7

Please to enjoy and continue the conversation in the comments. You can listen at the bottom of this post or download from iTunes.  

Furious Ultron 7