Entertainment Shorts

From 007 to Macbeth: Daniel Craig plots return to Broadway

NEW YORK (AP):

Fresh off his turn as James Bond, Daniel Craig has his next project lined up, and it has also got plenty of blood being spilled.

Craig will return to Broadway in 2022 as Macbeth in a revival of Williams Shakespeare’s tragedy, with Ruth Negga making her Broadway début playing Lady Macbeth.

Macbeth will play the Lyceum Theatre starting on March 29, 2022, with an opening set for April 28. Tony Award-winner Sam Gold will direct. Barbara Broccoli, who produces the James Bond films with her brother, is a producer of Macbeth.

Craig was last on Broadway in a 2013 revival of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal opposite his wife, Rachel Weisz, and directed by Mike Nichols. Craig also starred opposite Hugh Jackman in 2009’s A Steady Rain. Gold directed Craig in a 2016 off-Broadway production of Othello alongside David Oyelowo.

Negga, whose film credits include Loving and World War Z, started her career in the theatre, and in 2020 made her New York City theatrical début in the titular role of Hamlet.

It will mark the second high-profile Macbeth after Joel Coen’s Shakespeare adaptation The Tragedy of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. That film will be released in theatres on December 25 and Apple TV+ on January 14.

Man who broke into Eminem’s home gets probation, time served

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, Michigan (AP):

A man who broke into Eminem’s suburban Detroit home and allegedly told the rapper “he was there to kill him” has been sentenced to five years’ probation and time served.

Matthew Hughes, 28, was sentenced last week by a Macomb County Circuit Court judge under a plea and sentencing deal with county prosecutors, the Macomb Daily reported. He was released after serving 524 days in the county jail.

Hughes said little at the hearing and made confusing statements in his pre-sentencing report, said his attorney, Richard Glanda.

Eminem, who agreed with the outcome, did not attend the hearing.

Hughes wasn’t armed when he was discovered early on April 5, 2020, in Eminem’s home in Clinton Township. Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, was sleeping when he was awakened by the noise of Hughes breaking a kitchen door window with a brick paver.

Hughes allegedly told the rapper “he was there to kill him,” according to court testimony.

Eminem got Hughes to leave the house, where he was met by security guards and held until police arrived.

In August, Hughes pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of a second-degree home invasion in exchange for dismissing the charges of first-degree home invasion, malicious destruction of property between US$1,000 and US$20,000, and assault of a jail employee. A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such at sentencing.

‘View’ hosts say they had false-positive COVID tests

NEW YORK (AP):

The two co-hosts of The View, whose COVID-19 tests derailed a planned interview with Vice-President Kamala Harris last week, said on Monday that their results turned out to be false positives.

Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro were pulled off the air on Friday in a startling moment of live television that forced an abbreviated Harris interview to be conducted remotely.

None of the hosts who were on Friday came into contact with Harris. Hostin and Navarro, along with Joy Behar and Sara Haines, were tested multiple times over the weekend, and all results were negative, the show said.

“It really was uncomfortable for my results to be released publicly before I even knew what was going on,” Hostin said on Monday.

She said her husband, a doctor, had to be pulled out of surgery as a precautionary measure when the news became known, and her children were taken out of school. All are safe, she said.

“I was flabbergasted,” Navarro said.

After the two were taken off the air, the show had to kill time, with Behar and Haines engaging in a question-and-answer session with audience members until the remote interview with Harris was set up.

“That led to some really awkward television that I’d like to have back if I could,” said The View executive producer Brian Teta, who apologised on the air to Hostin and Navarro on Monday.

Hostin said she is fully vaccinated, so she was convinced she would likely be fine, even if the test were positive.

Navarro also lashed back at Donald Trump Jr for a Friday tweet in which the former president’s son wrote, “Given the Ana Navarro news, I think it’s time for a national conversation about the dangers of COVID-19 & obesity.”

“If you wanted to have a conversation about COVID and obesity, you could have had it last October,” Navarro said, in reference to President Donald Trump’s bout with the disease.

Autopsy: Actor Michael K Williams died of drug intoxication

NEW YORK (AP):

Actor Michael K. Williams died of acute drug intoxication in what New York City’s medical examiner said on Friday was an accidental death.

Williams, known for playing Omar Little on The Wire and an Emmy Award nominee this year, had fentanyl, parafluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine in his system when he died on September 6 in Brooklyn.

Williams, 54, was found dead by family members in his penthouse apartment. Police said at the time that they suspected a drug overdose.

The city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner said it would not comment further. A message seeking comment was left with Williams’ representative.

In recent years, Williams had spoken frankly in interviews about his struggle with drug addiction, which he said persisted after he gained fame on The Wire in the early 2000s.

“I was playing with fire,” he told the Newark Star-Ledger in 2012. “It was just a matter of time before I got caught and my business ended up on the cover of a tabloid or I went to jail or, worse, I ended up dead. When I look back on it now, I don’t know how I didn’t end up in a body bag.”

In an interview shortly after Williams’ death, New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said that he had spoken with the actor earlier this year about collaborating with the department on community outreach.

Williams worked with a New Jersey charity to smooth the journey for former prison inmates seeking to re-enter society and was working on a documentary on the subject. Another project involved reaching out directly to at-risk youth.