When I was auditioning for commercials, I once saw a poster that reminded the actors of how lucky they were to be there. I can’t remember the specifics of the math on this poster, but it outlined your odds of being called in for the role, and then your odds of getting a callback, and finally your very, very slim chances of booking the damn thing. In most actors’ lives, there comes a point when everything is resting on the shoulders of a TV ad: health insurance, the ability to quit waiting tables or canvassing the streets looking for donations to environmental organizations, the elusive screen time that could launch a career. With that said, here is Bryan Cranston in an early ’80s commercial for Preparation H, presumably around the time he was racking up early credits on soaps (Loving, One Life to Live). He always could play someone well-versed in chemistry — check out that hemorrhoid-soothing “oxygen action,” y’all!
- Every time they rework the new Twilight Zone movie, from Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way production company, I get a little more nervous. Don’t choke the Rod! Be gentle! The latest: It’s being redeveloped for director Joseph Kosinski (Tron).
- Annotating the rip-offs in Gaga’s “Applause” video: Madonna, Bergman, Bowie, Burton, and more.
- A study of how Harrison Ford got so grumpy. Maybe the answer lies in the power of his grouch finger.
- The new teaser for Eastbound & Down has fire Powers.
- Here is a video of Olivia Munn dislocating her shoulder.
- And here is where you can stream the new Neko Case.
- Thomas Gibson, recently of Criminal Minds but also Greg from Dharma and Greg, got catfished by an anonymous North Dakota woman. There is a hot tub video involved.
- Jeremy Renner is the greatest house flipper in the game.
- Actor Lee Thompson Young (Rizzoli & Isles, Friday Night Lights) has died of an apparent suicide. He was 29.
- Tommen, we hardly knew ye.
- Hee-hee. Alexander Skarsgard, all of him.
- Demi Lovato is getting close to sealing a deal for a “significant arc” on Glee.
- Headline of the day: Brad Pitt too “dumb” for art museum.
- Why can’t we all adopt direwolves?
- The Broadway Beatles revue, Let It Be, meets an early end.
- The Weeknd, ft. Drake.
- Enjoy the rest of your Monday with this “turducken of the sea.”