Guilty Pleasures
By Associated Press
Christian Bale breaks ground on foster homes he’s fought for 16 years to see built
PALMDALE, Calif. | Christian Bale broke ground Wednesday on a project he’s been pursuing for 16 years — the building of a dozen homes and a community center in Los Angeles County intended to keep siblings in foster care together.
The Oscar winner stood with a grin and a shovel full of dirt alongside local politicians and donors in the decidedly non-Hollywood city of Palmdale, 60 miles north and across the San Gabriel Mountains from Los Angeles.
But Bale, who was Batman in director Christopher Nolan‘s “Dark Knight” trilogy, wasn’t just playing Bruce Wayne and lending his name and money to a charitable cause.
The project was his brainchild and one he’s long lent his labor to, getting his hands dirty and on Wednesday standing in actual mud after a historic storm on a hard-won site he’d visited many times before.
“I would have done it all if it was just me by myself here,” Bale told The Associated Press in an interview on the large vacant lot between a public park and a bowling alley.
The British-born Bale has lived in California since the early 1990s and sought to build the community after hearing about the huge number of foster children in LA County, and learning how many brothers and sisters had to be separated in the system.
That was around 2008, the time of “The Dark Knight,” when his now college-age daughter was 3 years old.
“I didn’t think it was going to take that long,” he said. “I had a very naive idea about kind of getting a piece of land and then, bringing kids in and the brothers and sisters living together and sort of singing songs like the Von Trapp family in ‘The Sound of Music’. “
But he then learned “it’s way more complex. These are people’s lives. And we need to be able to have them land on their feet when they age out. There’s so much involved in this.”
Bale visited Chicago, spent several days in children and family services meetings. From there, he recruited Tim McCormick, who had set up a similar program, to head the organization that became known as Together California, a group Bale would co-found with UCLA doctor Eric Esrailian, a producer on one of his films.
“He said we’ve got to do this in California,” McCormick said. “To his credit, through all sorts of challenges, COVID and everything else, he never gave up.”
The men eventually found a sympathetic leader in LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, and in Palmdale, a semi-rural city of about 165,000 people, found a city with both a need and a willingness to take part.
The 12 homes, anchored by the community center, are set to be finished in April of 2025.
“It’s something that is incredibly satisfying for me, and I want to be involved every step of the way,” Bale said. “Maybe this is the first one, and maybe this is the only one, and that would be great. But I’m quietly hoping that there’ll be many of these.”
The 50-year-old Bale, who began acting as a child in films including Steven Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun” and the Disney musical “Newsies,” won an Oscar for best supporting actor for 2010’s “The Fighter.” He’s also starred in “American Psycho,” “Vice” and “Ford v Ferrari.”
Stage musical ‘The Queen of Versailles’ starring Kristin Chenoweth to make Boston bow this summer
NEW YORK | Visitors to Boston this summer will get a treat: A stage show that reunites singer-actor Kristin Chenoweth with her “Wicked” songwriter Stephen Schwartz.
Chenoweth will star as socialite Jacqueline “Jackie” Siegel in the live adaptation of the 2012 documentary film “The Queen of Versailles.” The musical will make its world premiere at Emerson Colonial Theatre from July 16-Aug. 18.
Tickets go on sale to the general public on Feb. 28.
The musical will explore how Siegel and her billionaire husband, David “The Timeshare King” Siegel, set out to build the largest private home in America in Orlando, Florida, a $100 million house inspired by the Palace of Versailles in France. The couple’s plans were dashed by the recession of 2008 and later they lost a teenage daughter to an overdose.
Producers say the musical “explores the true cost of fame, fortune and family.” They hope it can make it to Broadway after its Boston try-out.
Chenoweth earned a Tony Award nomination for best actress in a musical playing Glinda in “Wicked.” She previously won a Tony for best featured actress in a musical, for her role in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”
Academy Award-winning actor F. Murray Abraham will play Siegel’s husband and other cast members include Melody Butiu and Nina White. The story is by Lindsey Ferrentino and direction is by Tony Award-winner Michael Arden, who helmed the hailed recent Broadway revival of “Parade.”
Coming in 2026: The Oscars will add Academy Award for casting directors
Casting directors are some of the most important creatives in entertainment but have never been celebrated as such on Hollywood’s biggest night. Starting next year, however, that all changes.
The Oscars will add a new award to recognize achievement in casting for films released in 2025 and beyond, the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Thursday.
Not counting the short-lived “popular film Oscar” which never came to be, this is the first time the academy has added a category since best animated feature film was established in 2001.
“Casting directors play an essential role in filmmaking, and as the Academy evolves, we are proud to add casting to the disciplines that we recognize and celebrate,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said in a joint statement.
The casting directors’ branch was created in July 2013 and currently has nearly 160 members.
“This award is a deserved acknowledgment of our casting directors’ exceptional talents and a testament to the dedicated efforts of our branch,” said Academy Casting Directors Branch governors Richard Hicks, Kim Taylor-Coleman and Debra Zane in a statement.
The first statuette will be presented starting with the 98th Academy Awards in 2026.
Casting directors, and stunt performers, have long lobbied for an Oscar category to recognize their specific contributions to film. But for now, the stunts will have to wait.
Defense requests a mistrial in Jam Master Jay murder case; judge says no but blasts prosecutors
NEW YORK | Defense lawyers sought a mistrial Thursday in the case against two men charged with the murder of Jam Master Jay, saying prosecutors improperly guided a witness to testify that one defendant confessed to her decades ago that he killed the Run-DMC star and told her “people get what they deserve.”
U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall ultimately denied the mistrial, partly because the witness had made similar prior statements that could have been broached to jurors anyway. But the judge angrily told prosecutors that their questions to the witness had crossed the line.
“There was no need whatsoever” for the queries, she said, raising her voice, while jurors were out of the room.
The heated issue threatened for roughly an hour to upend the long-awaited trial in one of the most infamous acts of violence in hip-hop history. Jam Master Jay, born Jason Mizell, was shot dead in his recording studio on Oct. 30, 2002.
A childhood friend, Ronald Washington, and Karl Jordan Jr., the DJ’s godson, are on trial. They have pleaded not guilty.
Washington’s former girlfriend Daynia McDonald testified Thursday that he called her to tell her Mizell was dead, hours after Washington had brought her to the studio to meet his celebrity friend. Stunned, she asked Washington how he knew of the DJ’s death.
“He said, ‘Because I was there,’ “ she testified.
In a subsequent conversation, she told jurors, she asked Washington whether he had something to do with the killing, “and he basically said yes.”
Then Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Misorek asked the questions that sparked the legal fireworks: “Did he say he killed Jam Master Jay?” and “Did he say that people get what they deserve?”
McDonald said yes to both.
After jurors left the room, the judge remonstrated with prosecutors over the questions. One of Washington’s lawyers, Susan Kellman, requested a mistrial, saying that prosecutors had planted “a seed of prejudice” that couldn’t be uprooted.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Artie McConnell said the government was only trying to keep McDonald’s answers squarely on Mizell’s killing and to ensure she didn’t venture into other, off-limits topics. Prosecutors had “the best of intentions,” he said.
“Your logic doesn’t follow, for me,” said the judge.
After lengthy discussion, DeArcy Hall decided the trial could continue, with a caveat: She told jurors to disregard the two questions and their answers.
Misorek was cleared to ask whether Washington “said anything else about Jam Master Jay’s murder.”
“Um, he just said that he killed him,” McDonald said, and that answer was allowed to stand.
Prosecutors and an eyewitness say Jordan shot the rap star while Washington stood at the door and brandished a gun. According to the government, the attack was spurred by bad blood over a planned drug deal.
Run-DMC was known for its anti-drug stance. But prosecutors and another witness have said that Mizell turned to the cocaine trade for money as the groundbreaking 1980s rap group’s career leveled off.
Attorneys for Jordan, 40, have said he was at his then-girlfriend’s home when Mizell was shot. Lawyers for Washington, 59, have said the government is bringing a slapped-together case against a man who was relying on Jay financially, not gunning for him.
Spike Lee, Denzel Washington reuniting for adaptation of Kurosawa’s ‘High and Low’
NEW YORK | Nearly 20 years after their last collaboration, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington are reuniting for an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s “High and Low.”
Apple Original Films announced Thursday that it is co-financing the film, which A24 will release theatrically before it streams on Apple TV+. It marks Lee and Washington’s first film together since 2006’s “Inside Man.” Their previous films include “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Malcolm X” and “He Got Game.”
Kurosawa’s “High and Low,” released in 1963 and starring Toshiro Mifune, was adapted from the Ed McBain novel “King’s Ransom.” The film, a potent thriller rich in class commentary, follows a wealthy industrialist targeted by kidnappers.
Filming starts in March.
—From AP reports
