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Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix were at odds over a read-through during the production of ‘Joker’

Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix Didn’t Get Along in ‘Joker’ — Here’s WhyRobert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix were at odds over a read-through during the production of ‘Joker’ putting the director ‘between a rock and a hard place.’

Filming Joker may not be an experience Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix look back on fondly … at least when it comes to the dynamic between them. The actors clashed on the set of the 2019 film. But it wasn’t about the storyline or a simple case of differing personalities. Rather, their conflicting approaches to filming caused friction between Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix.Did Joaquin Phoenix get along with Robert De Niro?As Joker director Todd Phillips told Vanity Fair, a problem came up almost immediately as a result of Phoenix and De Niro’s acting methods. De Niro, he explained, liked doing read-throughs of the script from cover to cover prior to shooting. Whereas Phoenix adopted a looser, “let it happen” method.

It all started when Phillips got a call from De Niro asking him to relay a message to Phoenix. “Bob called me, and he goes, ‘Tell him he’s an actor and he’s got to be there. I like to hear the whole movie, and we’re going to all get in a room and just read it.’”

“And I’m in between a rock and a hard place,” Phillips said. “Because Joaquin’s like, ‘There’s no f***ing way I’m doing a read-through.’ And Bob’s like, ‘I do read-throughs before we shoot, that’s what we do.’”
Phoenix begrudgingly completed a read-through at De Niro’s Manhattan, New York, office. Then he turned down his co-star’s invitation to go somewhere and talk.
“He’s in front of Bob, and he goes, ‘I can’t, I gotta go home,’” Phillips said. “Because he felt sick after that read-through, he didn’t like it.”
After some encouragement from the director, however, Phoenix talked with De Niro. Ultimately, it ended with the About My Father star taking Phoenix’s face in his hands before kissing his cheek and saying, “‘It’s going to be OK, bubbeleh,’” Phillips recalled. “It was so beautiful.”
De Niro and Phoenix were OK not talking to each other much on the ‘Joker’ set
Despite naming De Niro as his “favorite American actor,” Phoenix confessed he and the Joker star weren’t particularly chatty. “The first day we said good morning,” he told the outlet. “And beyond that, I don’t know that we talked much.”
It wasn’t necessarily because of their different takes on how filming should go. Rather, both thought it was best for them and their characters.
“His character and my character, we didn’t need to talk about anything,” De Niro said, “We just say, ‘Do the work. Relate as the characters to each other.’ It makes it simpler, and we don’t [talk]. There’s no reason to.”
Additionally, Phoenix confessed fear might’ve played a role. “I was probably afraid that I would turn into a fan … So I couldn’t allow myself to think of him as De Niro.”
Who does Robert De Niro play in ‘Joker’?Bradley Cooper convinced him to join the cast
Although he didn’t star in Joker, Bradley Cooper did play a role in getting De Niro to sign on. The star served as a producer on Joker.
By the time the film headed for production, Cooper had developed a strong working relationship with De Niro. To date, the two have appeared in multiple movies together, such as Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.
Recalling how Cooper advised him to join Joker, De Niro noted in a 2020 interview how he admired Cooper’s work on A Star Is Born.
“I met [Joker director] Todd Phillips, and I liked him. I thought, ‘This will be an interesting project,’” De Niro said. “Bradley was one of the producers and he told me to do it. He’s really terrific.”
What he did with A Star Is Born, the way he worked on it quietly by himself, put it together, found the right actors, the right people,” he continued. “When you know what you want to do, that’s a great thing, and you know it’ll be special.”
So, that’s how De Niro wound up playing Joker’s Murray Franklin. The talk show host serves as something of an inspiration to Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck. However, Fleck’s transformation into the Joker was cemented when he kills Murray Franklin on live television. Safe to say Robert De Niro will not be in Joker 2 coming in 2024.
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JEFF BRIDGES: I was kind of surrendering to the idea that I might die,” Bridges said of his illnesses


JEFF BRIDGES REFLECTS ON CANCER DIAGNOSIS: ‘CAME PRETTY CLOSE TO DYING’

Over three years after his lymphoma diagnosis, Jeff Bridges reflected on a harrowing set of circumstances that left him on death’s door.

“It’s amazing the way the mind can forget all that stuff,” the 74-year-old actor told Page Six. “I don’t think too much about the past.”

Bridges revealed that during one of his bouts of chemo, he ended up contracting COVID, leaving him hospitalized for five months with extreme pain and very little hope.
“I was pretty close to dying. The doctors kept telling me, ‘Jeff, you’ve got to fight. You’re not fighting,’” he told People in May 2022. “I was in surrender mode. I was ready to go. I was dancing with my mortality.”
“I had no defenses,” he added. “That’s what chemo does—it strips you of all your immune system. I had nothing to fight it. COVID made my cancer look like nothing.”
Thankfully, the chemo session before contracting COVID was his last one, and he was able to go into remission while beginning this new fight. This allowed his body to fully focus on recovering, and with help from a procedure that used blood from other patients who had already beaten the disease, Bridges was finally able to make progress.
Over three years later, the actor is now “feeling” great and fully back into the swing of things, returning to film his upcoming show THE OLD MAN. It was while he was filming this show originally that he discovered he had lymphoma.
“I was doing those fight scenes for the first episode of THE OLD MAN and didn’t know that I had a 9-by-12-inch tumor in my body,” he told AARP Magazine. “You’d think that would have hurt or something, when they were punching me and stuff. It didn’t.”
Jeff Bridges recently walked the red carpet for the premier of his FX show THE OLD MAN, and fans were overjoyed to see the actor back after a series of health struggles.
While filming the show, doctors diagnosed Bridges with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The actor underwent chemotherapy, and during treatment, contracted COVID-19.
“I was kind of surrendering to the idea that I might die,” Bridges said of his illnesses. “That this might be the end of the race kind of thing, because that’s what’s going to happen to all of us at some point and maybe this was my time to go through that and I didn’t know.”
However, Bridges began to recover. The TRUE GRIT actor said that he realized that he still wanted to fight to stay alive.

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Alba will star in the lead role of Parker, who is the Special Forces commando


Netflix, Jessica Alba Team Up For Her First Movie In Five Years

Jessica Alba is coming to Netflix five years after her last feature film.

The streamer announced in a post on X this week that Alba will star in the Netflix original film Trigger Warning, which will debut on June 21.

The official description of Trigger Warning is as follows: “When a skilled Special Forces commando returns home to take over her family’s bar, she soon finds herself at odds with a violent gang running rampant in her hometown.”
Alba will star in the lead role of Parker, who is the Special Forces commando. Netflix also announced that Mark Webber, Tone Bell, Jake Weary, Gabriel Basso and Anthony Michael Hall are also starring in the film.
Trigger Warning is directed by Mouly Surya.
Alba’s last film appearance came in the 2019 crime mystery Killers Anonymous, which also starred Tommy Flanagan, Gary Oldman and Suki Waterhouse.
PROC. BY MOVIES

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Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly may have won herself a global fanbase as Beth Dutton but not everyone may realise this isn’t actually her real name


Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly may have won herself a global fanbase as Beth Dutton but not everyone may realise this isn’t actually her real name.

Yellowstone star Kelly Reilly, unlike her counterpart Beth Dutton, shies away from the spotlight, keeping details about her personal life under wraps, including her name.

Beth Dutton is the violent, foul-mouthed, feisty only sister of the Dutton family in the Western Paramount Network drama who certainly is one to fear.

Nevertheless, she has shown her soft side with her desire to protect her dad John Dutton (played by Kevin Costner) at all costs, as well as express her love for Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser).
Fans have loved watching Beth’s development since the show launched in 2018, although Reilly did have a number of other starring roles before its existence.
Some of which included True Detective, Flight, Sherlock Holmes and various appearances in theatrical productions, one of which she received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for.
Despite all of this fame and success, some fans may be surprised to learn that Kelly Reilly isn’t actually the actress’ real name.
Yellowstone actress Kelly Reilly is actually called Jessica Kelly Siobhan Reilly but chooses to go by one of her middle names, rather than her first.
It isn’t known why she was named Jessica but with Irish grandparents, her other middle name Siobhan is thought to have been passed down to her.
The star’s mum was a hospital receptionist, her dad Jack Reilly a police officer and her older brother Neil works as a professional golfer.
It’s quite common practice for celebrities to use their middle names for their stage name.
Other famous faces who have done this are Reese Witherspoon, Brad Pitt, Rihanna, Dakota Fanning and Ashton Kutcher.
But she is believed to be the only member of the Yellowstone cast to do this.
Unfortunately for fans of the award-winning drama, the number of Beth scenes to come is few and far between.
Yellowstone was cancelled last year with the network announcing that season five would be its last.PROC. BY MOVIES

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