The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio
The Star Online: Entertainment: TV & Radio |
| Rod Stewart, CeeLo Green to sing on 'The Voice' Posted: 29 Apr 2013 08:37 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop singers Rod Stewart and CeeLo Green will perform live in May on U.S. television singing competition The Voice, a prominent spot for artists to promote upcoming albums. Network NBC said on Monday that Green, a former judge on the popular contest, is slated to perform his new song Only You. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Stewart will perform material from his upcoming album, Time, his first release of original material in over a decade. Stewart (pic) and Green will perform on the May 8 episode, while Grammy-winning country-pop trio Lady Antebellum will promote their forthcoming album Golden on the May 14 episode. Pop singer Robin Thicke, singer-producer Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I. will all perform on the May 14 episode of The Voice, which averages about 14 million viewers over its two weekly shows. The competition's fourth season, which installed pop singers Shakira and Usher to replace Green and Christina Aguilera as judges, reaches its climax in June, when one of the aspiring contestants will be proclaimed the winner and get a recording contract. |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2013 08:41 PM PDT The Danish actor cooks up an interesting character with Hannibal. IT took a good two hours before producer Bryan Fuller could convince actor Mads Mikkelsen to star as the notorious serial killer, Dr Hannibal Lecter, in the new TV series Hannibal. The Danish actor was hesitant only because, to him, the character had already been portrayed to perfection by British actor Sir Anthony Hopkins. "I was very concerned. Why would I repeat something that has been made to perfection already? But Bryan Fuller gave me the script and explained his vision to me for two to three hours, and he convinced me that we would be doing something totally different. So, I agreed. But I was very reluctant, at first," says Mikkelsen in a telephone interview from South Africa where he is shooting a Western called Salvation. The series is a prequel to Thomas Harris' novels and the five films which the books inspired. In Fuller's Hannibal, Dr Lecter has not yet been incarcerated. His identity as the terrifying, cannibalistic serial killer is still a secret and the other characters on the show know him only as a successful psychiatrist. When the series begins, Dr Lecter is recruited by the FBI to help Will Graham, a troubled consulting FBI profiler, work through some issues. Graham's problem is his ability to empathise with the killers he profiles: he visits a crime scene and is able to see exactly what happened and, worse still, he is able to get inside the mind of the killer. Portraying the back story of Lecter is tricky – the audience already know exactly who Lecter is and what he is capable of. The secret is already out, so how can Fuller possibly portray Lecter as anything other than a monster? It was this aspect of the show and the character that appealed to 47-year-old Mikkelsen. "What we are doing is something else. We are starting before he is in jail. He is a man out in the real world who has to make real friends and behave, to a certain degree, normal," the actor says. One major difference is that in the movies and the books, Lecter was already incarcerated and therefore, he was entrapped. In the series, he is a free man. This, explains Mikkelsen, will give the TV viewers a chance to see a different side of Lecter. Though he hasn't had the opportunity to meet Hopkins, Mikkelsen is aware of the one tip his predecessor had for him on playing the formidable character. "He gave me one word of advice and that is not to play him (Lecter) evil. I totally agree because everything Lecter does is quite evil so there is no need to add to that. It was good advice," he says. Would he want to meet Hopkins? "Oh, yes! I would love to have a conversation with Anthony Hopkins, whether it is about Hanibal or not. In fact, I think I may prefer not to talk about Hanibal with him," he says with a laugh. Mikkelsen finds it interesting and "joyful" to play the part of Hannibal Lecter the ruthless serial killer. "I have in mind a theory that he is a fallen angel. He is as close to the devil as anyone can be. He has no specific reason for doing what he does except that he sees the beauty in death. "The thing about Hannibal is that he is not a character who has deep troubles or even a dark mind. He is a very happy man. He enjoys life. Every day is a new and wonderful day for him. What he does is grotesque but, in his mind, it's a beautiful day. He is kind of a happy character to play, actually," he adds. Because of the different circumstances in which the television series is set, it is quite safe to say that Mikkelsen's version will stand apart from his predecessors (other than Hopkins, Lecter was also played by Scottish actor Brian Cox in the 1986 film Manhunter). However, Mikkelsen is acutely aware that he will be scrutinised for his interpretation of the character but is certain that he can and will make the character completely his own. In an interview with The Telegraph recently, he intimated that copying the past would be "certain death". Having said that, Mikkelsen points out that some aspects of the character, however, will inevitably be the same. "The character is the character. We can't change that. He loves fine arts. He loves food. Everything banal, he hates. And he wears a three-piece suit. For that reason, we can't detach ourselves totally (from how he has been portrayed)," he reasons. Mikkelsen is also pleased to be working with Fuller, whom he describes as "brilliant". "He is probably the most energetic man I have ever worked with. He wants (to have) his hand on everything. He is just a brilliant, brilliant man and we should be thanking God every day that he ended up being a writer," he says. Prior to Hannibal, Mikkelsen won praise for playing the villain Le Chiffre in the 2006 James Bond movie Casino Royale. Playing a baddie, however, isn't something the actor consciously chooses. "Apparently, in American films, I am very much the bad guy," he says with a laugh. "But back home in Denmark, I have played a variety of roles … a family man, a drug dealer, a man falsely accused of paedophilia. I agree to do a role if I find it interesting. And if they cast me as a villain again, I will do it if it is interesting," he says. > Hannibal airs every Tuesday at 10pm on AXN (Astro Ch 701) and AXN HD (Astro B.yond Ch 721). |
| Posted: 30 Apr 2013 01:44 AM PDT IT goes without saying, Hannibal Lecter is a foodie. Well, that is, if you don't take into consideration the ingredients he uses in the preparation of his divine meals belong in the morgue rather than in his well-stocked fridge. The title character (Mads Mikkelsen) in Hannibal is often seen cooking an elaborate dish for himself and, sometimes, a guest. What his unsuspecting guests don't realise is when Hannibal says he loves to have them for dinner, he means it literally. For food stylist Janice Poon, the chance to create fake human organs for the show was just too delicious to say no to. In a telephone conversation with Poon who lives in Toronto, Canada – where Hannibal is also filmed – she shared that, creatively, she is allowed to be as imaginative as she wants on the show. "You can push the idea as far as you want. Nobody is going to say that it's over-the-top, or it's too gruesome." She details her culinary adventure for Hannibal on her entertaining blog (janicepoonart.blogspot.ca) – complete with illustrations, photos and actual recipes. From the blog, you will discover that she calls her nephew (a sports medicine intern) and niece (a physiotherapist) to get ideas on how to replicate a dish that Hannibal makes out of a girl's thigh, for instance. According to Poon, her family members don't think her questions are weird because they are all adventerous when it comes to food. "We are championship eaters and we are all avid cooks. I think, in many ways, because we have a Chinese background, we basically (eat) anything if you can make it into food," she said with a laugh. On the show, whenever Hannibal is cooking, real organs are used – "organs of pigs are almost exactly the same size and configuration as humans" – but when the actors are eating, Poon uses "a lot of bread, potatoes and glutinous rice flour" to replace them. Sometimes, using real meat is not an option as it cannot be kept at room temperature for a long period of time, especially since a scene may be filmed a dozen times. "I have to give them something manageable, something easy to chew and nothing that would stick to their teeth and nothing too spicy." Poon added that although each dish has its difficulty, the hardest thing she has had to prepare for the show so far is tongues. "Hannibal was feeding his guest what he said were lamb's tongues. "Hannibal is, of course, always lying about what he is serving his guest. I didn't want to serve lamb's tongue because it is too small. I wanted them to look like children's tongues. I just thought the actors didn't want to eat (lamb's tongue) bite after bite after bite – cutting that tongue tip every time. "So I made fake tongues out of bulgar (wheat) mixture to get that bumpy quality. But I had to form each one by hand and I had to estimate how many tongues I needed for a two-and-a-half page script. I made 60 of these tongues, steaming three at a time. Honestly, I was very lucky. If they had done one more take, then I would've been in trouble." |
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