This summer we all fell in love with the U.S. women's national soccer team as we cheered them on through their nail-biting run to the Women's World Cup final. And perhaps no player from that team captured the country's imagination like goalkeeper Hope Solo, who next week will tango her way back onto our TV screens as a competitor on the 13th season of ABC's Dancing With the Stars. We're pleased to announce that Grantland will be checking in with Hope every week about her stint on the show. Today we spoke with her about why she agreed to do DWTS, her fondest memories from the World Cup, and her fellow dancers Chaz Bono, Ron Artest, and (front-runner?) David Arquette.
Nicolas Wending Refn’s Drive is about a stunt driver by day, getaway driver by night played by Ryan Gosling. Among its many recommendable qualities (the performances, Refn’s visual virtuosity, bringing back toothpicks and satin jackets) are the film's fully analog car chases and stunts. So who was responsible for Drive's action? Meet stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott. We spoke with him this week about his career, Ryan Gosling, and a funny thing that happened one day on the set of the Jet Li/DMX classic, Cradle 2 the Grave.
Paul Rudd as an actor is extremely glib and likable. On the phone he’s no different. We recently spoke with him on a variety of subjects ranging from his new movie, Our Idiot Brother, to facial hair, hippies, incest, and his I Love You, Man-esque relationship with Jon Hamm. He wouldn’t share details about his role in Judd Apatow’s top-secret, currently-filming, quasi sequel to Knocked Up, in which he once again plays husband to Apatow’s wife and father to his kids, but he did admit to the existence of at least one human being immune to his charms: 8-year-old Iris Apatow.
Arriving in theaters in New York and Los Angeles today is Senna, the award-winning, Grantland-approved documentary from director Asif Kapadia about the life and tragic end of Brazilian Formula One champion Ayrton Senna. Impressively cobbled together from a mountain of archival video, Senna (being distributed by ESPN Films, among others) forgoes the standard talking-head interviews and voice-over narration and lets the charismatic racing icon tell his own story, in news clips, home movies, and in-car footage. We spoke with Kapadia about the film.
Staring into a mirror on last night's Breaking Bad, Walter White attempted to convince a black-market gun dealer (and himself) that the serial-numberless pistol he was negotiating to buy would be used only for legally permissible purposes: "It's for defense," he stammered. "Defense." We didn't believe him, and we're pretty sure he didn't either. For insight, we called three-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston and asked him a few questions. As always, if you haven't seen last night's episode, beware of spoilers.
Breaking Bad finally returned last night, picking up right where it left off 13 (!) months ago, with Jesse aiming a gun at poor Gale's head and, despite some perceived ambiguity regarding the season finale's final camera angle, most assuredly not missing. On Friday, we spoke with series mastermind Vince Gilligan, who discussed the season premiere's bloody events in vivid detail, so if you didn't watch the show and still intend to, by God, please stop reading. We're serious about this: "Spoiler alert" doesn't even begin to do it justice.
