Bloodline star Abbas Alizada discusses his admiration for Bruce Lee and the martial arts legend’s influence on him, and more. On the other hand, Bloodline writer-lead actor Adrianna Edwards talks about writing the film, shooting it in Kerala’s jungle, and the rarity of female-led cinema.

Abbas Alizada, who stars in the action-adventure film Bloodline, is nicknamed the ‘Bruce Lee of Afghanistan’ for his striking resemblance to the martial arts legend and actor from Hong Kong. Abbas humbly puts the moniker down to people’s love for Bruce Lee extending over to him due to the facial resemblance. Talking about his idol, Abbas says, “People call me that nickname because I look like Bruce Lee. He is my hero from childhood; he is always in my mind and heart because he influenced me a lot.” Speaking about Bruce Lee’s influence on him, Abbas adds, “The first time I saw him in films was when I was eight years old, and that piqued my interest in martial arts. I went to a martial arts training centre, but eventually I had to train by myself due to my financial situation. Back then, I learnt how to use nunchaku just by watching Bruce Lee films.”

Nunchaku is a difficult martial art weapon to master, and it was no different even for Abbas before Bruce Lee films came as help for him. “It is difficult to learn. If you do not know how to use the nunchaku, you will hurt yourself. I am speaking from my own experience. I hit my head accidentally with it and hurt myself very badly the first time I was learning it on my own. I did not want that to happen again, which was why I decided to watch Bruce Lee’s films and learn it in a more professional manner.”

All these experiences helped Abbas when he had to learn the ropes of the martial art form kalaripayattu for Bloodline, an action-adventure film set in South India. In the film, Abbas’s character learns kalari from Adharva (Jojo George), who is described as a master of the art form. Abbas came to know about kalari for the first time while working on the film, and he admits that it is a difficult art to learn for first-timers. He shares, “My martial art skill is quite important for the film. At the same time, I have done kalari for the film. It is generally difficult to learn, but my skills in martial arts helped me learn it. If you know martial arts, you can learn any martial art style rather easily.”

While it is great for someone like Abbas to be able to carry forward the legacy of Bruce Lee in his own way, there is also a flip side to it. Abbas knows that there are positives and negatives to being associated with such a legendary figure by name itself. “The positive side is that millions of people love Bruce Lee. And when they see my videos and films, I remind them of him. I feel proud when people call me Bruce Lee impersonator or even the Afghan Bruce Lee. However, the negative side is that people also tell me you cannot be Bruce Lee. That is also true, and I am willing to accept that I cannot be him,” says the actor while reminding us, “No one can be Abbas Alizada, either.”

Interestingly, Bloodline is also the first film where Abbas is named Lee. The character helps Adrianna Edwards’ cop in her search for her missing sister in Kerala. Adrianna is also credited as the writer of the film. When asked about how she managed to write such a film set in Kerala that discusses Indian mythology, Adrianna says, “Most of the ideas were Jojo’s, including the ones concerning mythology. I helped make the screenplay more suitable for a Western audience. I added more depth to the storyline and the relationship between the characters.”

Bloodline will release in Malayalam, Hindi, and Tamil through the Indywood Distribution Network on January 24 before English, making it a rare female-led film with a non-Indian cast to release first in the regional languages. Addressing why more such films are not made worldwide, writer-actor Adrianna reveals, “In many industries, women are still climbing their way up. In cinema, too, they are still finding films with the leads. Martial arts films have more men than women. I know that women also practice kalari, but the martial arts genre is mostly male-dominated.”

Many portions of the film were shot in the jungles of Kerala, which could pave the way for certain wild encounters. But for Adrianna, the wildest encounter they had was with “giant spiders and mosquitos.” Speaking about her experience working in the forest, she says, “Shooting in the jungle with the waterfall was a beautiful experience. But the mosquitos and the spiders were something else.” Abbas quips, “I guess you forgot one thing, Adrianna: rain. It rains there all the time.”

Abbas has been to multiple parts of the world, including Pakistan and India, but he visited Kerala for the first time for Bloodline. He fondly remembers the warm hospitality and kindness of people in South India. “They have excellent behaviour and attitude,” says Abbas.

He still harbours his long-time dream of visiting Hong Kong to take a picture with the statue of his idol. “I have been trying to go there for a long time now, but I could not because of the political situation in Afghanistan. I am planning to visit it as soon as possible to see the Bruce Lee statue.”

News Credits: Cinema Express

Naomi Watts remembers David Lynch and how “instrumental” he was in her Hollywood career.

In a new interview, the Mulholland Drive star revealed how the filmmaker kept her from quitting acting.

“[Lynch] was very instrumental to me even being in America,” Watts said on Live with Kelly and Mark. “I wouldn’t have stayed had I not met David Lynch.”

Watts told host Kelly Ripa and guest co-host Anderson Cooper that when she met Lynch, “the chips were down,” and it had been “ten years of flunking auditions.”

“Nothing was happening,” she added. “I was literally alienating people. I was making them uncomfortable because I was so like, ‘I need a job! I need a job!’” she recalled. “So much so that my agent at the time said, ‘You’re too intense. You’re making people uncomfortable.’ Yeah, I need a job. I’m desperate, I need to work.”

Before starring in the 2001 film directed by Lynch, Watts had starred in 1995’s Tank Girl and 1996’s Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering. Watts noted that due to the lack of big opportunities, she had “planned on going home multiple times” and then got a call from Lynch.

“Long story short, David Lynch called me in and has a very different way of casting,” she said. “He sat me down and just looked me in the eyes and asked me questions, and most of the time I was like, ‘How do I get out of your way? How do I speed this up?’ [Because] I’m sure I’m not right, because I just had that programming: I’m not funny, I’m not sexy, I’m too old, I’m too this, too that. And he just saw me and was able to sort of lift these veneers.”

Watts would land the role in Mulholland Drive and the filmmaker became “a real mentor and a friend.”

After Lynch’s death, Watts paid tribute to the director with a touching message on social media.

“My heart is broken. My Buddy Dave… The world will not be the same without him. His creative mentorship was truly powerful. He put me on the map. The world I’d been trying to break into for ten plus years, flunking auditions left and right,” Watts wrote on Instagram.

Watts ended her tribute, saying, “I just cannot believe that he’s gone. I’m in pieces but forever grateful for our friendship.

I’m yelling from the bullhorn: Godspeed, Buddy Dave! Thank you for your everything.”

News Credit : Deadline.com

He said he wouldn’t be in the last one, but he was.

Gabriel Basso is reflecting on the small part he’s played in American political history.

“It’s kind of weird to be included in that timeline” the actor told Variety in a recent interview while discussing his role as J.D. Vance in the 2020 adaptation of the newly-inaugurated vice president’s memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.

“When he’s thinking about his life — they made a movie of his book, and my name will always be in the description,” Basso said. “We talked a little bit. He’s a cool dude. We’re both from the Midwest. We just talked about life — about growing up in the woods.”

Basso, who hails from St. Louis, Mo., received one of the biggest breaks in his career when he was cast in Ron Howard’s cinematic retelling of Vance’s upbringing between Ohio and Kentucky.

When Howard’s production company Imagine Entertainment won the rights to adapt the book in a 2017 auction, Vance was a Yale law graduate and newly published memoirist with no stated political aspirations. He was also vocally critical of then-President Donald Trump. “My god what an idiot,” he tweeted in reference to Trump in 2016, and the same year described himself as a “never Trump guy” in an interview with Charlie Rose.

After realigning himself with Trump during his 2021 senatorial campaign, Vance was tapped by the former president as the official vice presidential candidate for his 2024 election bid. On Monday, Trump and Vance were sworn into office, after defeating Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the November election.

Basso has been largely silent on the subject of his role as Vance in the 2020 film, even as costars like Glenn Close have taken public jabs at the politician in response to controversial statements on subjects like IVF.

Howard defended the film upon its release as “a truthful family drama” and “a bridge to understanding that we’re more alike than we are different,” but this past September admitted that he was “surprised and concerned by a lot of the rhetoric coming out of that campaign.”

Basso most recently appeared in a supporting part in Clint Eastwood’s procedural thriller Juror #2, and currently stars in the series adaptation of Matthew Quirk’s The Night Agent on Netflix, which debuts the series’ second season on Thursday, Jan. 23.

Vance has not waded back into the waters of the entertainment industry since Howard gave his memoir the big-screen treatment, but in the days leading up to his inauguration, Trump did announce the appointment of Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight as “ambassadors” to Hollywood. He explained in a Jan. 16 Truth Social post, “These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest.”

News Credit : Entertainementweekly.com

Director Halina Reijn goes inside the music and inspiration of Harris Dickinson’s sensual shirtless dance.

It’s one of the most memorable scenes in “Babygirl,” a visual, musical big screen moment that has taken on a life of its own on TikTok: A shirtless Samuel (Harris Dickinson) sensually dances to George Michael’s 1987 “Father Figure” for his older lover Romy (Nicole Kidman), the married CEO at the robotics company where he interns. While on a recent episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, writer/director Halina Reijn broke down the numerous decisions and inspirations that went into creating the scene, including her own experience as an actress stripping on camera and her desire to play with gender roles. As to the choice of the song itself, Reijn explained it was tied to the central question she posed to herself when she sat down to write “Babygirl.”

“For this movie my question was if it would be possible to love and accept all the different layers of myself, so not just the ones that I’m comfortable with showing my friends, or the outside world, but also the ones that I’m embarrassed about, that I’m nervous about, that I feel shame around,” said Reijn. “And for me personally, it’s mainly that I really have this tendency to want to show my vulnerable side in romance and I’m ashamed of that, and this song embodies all of that in a fun, playful, sexy way.”

George Michael’s life itself — coming out as gay in the 1990s and confronting head-on potentially embarrassing aspects of his personal life that became headline fodder for the tabloids — spoke to the film’s themes and was an inspiration for Reijn in making “Babygirl.”

“It’s also about freedom for me,” said Reijn. “George Michael has a very famous song called ‘Freedom,’ but it’s his whole life, and how he slowly dared to become who he really was is very important for my life and a big inspiration.”

What Michael represents for Reijn’s generation, which she includes Romy as being part of, played a part in the choice. As Reijn explained on the podcast, this scene is part of one of the film’s two longer hotel sequences that serve as the film’s two pillars, which were intended to mirror each other. The first cheap hotel room is Samuel’s territory, he rented it, and Romy is on uncertain footing, not even knowing how or where to sit. But the second hotel room, shot at a real-life floor-through suite at an expensive Manhattan hotel, is something Romy paid for, and Reijn imagined Samuel as being akin to Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) in “My Fair Lady” when he’s shocked by its grandeur.

“I wanted these two specific songs, one in the cheap hotel room, INXS’ ‘They Never Tear Us Apart,’ and the one in the luxurious hotel room, George Michael, to be of Nicole’s world,” said Reijn. “I thought that was very important [to be] of my generation. Harris dancing to that song was funny to me and amazing and moving because, of course, he’s younger, so he’s not her father, he’s not the daddy, she’s the daddy, but still he is carrying her around. And to me, why that is so important is because we all have that. We all, men, women, any human being, any person, has a young child inside of them that needs to be taken care of. Whether we are 80 years old or 6 years old, it’s still there. And that is what it taps into for me.”

While on the podcast, Reijn said she thought of the scene as therapy for the characters, as the lovers are helping heal each other’s wounds. In working with Dickinson and Kidman, she had extensive conversations about what the characters are emotionally experiencing so they felt a sense of freedom on set, but within the scenes’ carefully planned blocking — Reijn acted out the scene herself (including Dickinson’s dance) when writing and then with cinematographer Jasper Wolf.

“[When Harris] is dancing, I just told him, ‘Nicole’s gonna sit in a chair just like Mickey Rourke in ‘9 1/2 Weeks,’ and you don’t have to strip, you’re not Kim Basinger in ‘9 1/2 Weeks,’ but I want you to dance and it should be sensual, but I also really want it to be vulnerable. And so whatever you’re feeling, if you’re feeling real nerves, as Harris, just use them. It’s okay. It’s all okay,’” said Reijn. The director’s decades of acting experience meant she felt like she knew what Kidman and Dickinson needed in these intimate scenes, but it also was, in part, an inspiration for the scene itself. “How many times did I do a striptease in so many movies that I acted in? On stage, it’s almost been 99 percent of the time I’m taking my clothes off in any play that I did, so, of course, I’m also playing with gender roles, swapping them in a light way, and hoping that people, while they’re watching, are thinking about all of these things and having fun with it.”

Reijn also talked about how the film was as much about two different generations, as it was about gender, and she’s been pleasantly surprised how the scene has taken on a life of its own on social media.

“This whole ‘Father Figure’ thing becoming now this viral thing and everybody’s dancing on TikTok, and wives are forcing their husbands to dance on it, I love it,” said Reijn. “I think it’s just a great way to be in touch with these kinds of subjects, to talk about them and to talk about it, our honest vulnerability, and that is something that I think is very important in life.”

To hear Reijn’s full Toolkit interview, subscribe to the Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the full interview below, or subscribe to IndieWire’s YouTube page.

News Credits: Indiewire