DiCaprio doesn’t mind movie violence
Leonardo DiCaprio says filming violent scenes like in “Django Unchained” doesn’t deter him from wanting his movies to be great art.
The bloody revenge film about slavery before the U.S. Civil War has fueled some of the debate about whether Hollywood shows too much on-screen violence. DiCaprio portrays a ruthless plantation owner encountered by a freed slave and a bounty hunter ( Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz).
“My philosophy has kind of always been the same: Pain is temporary; film is forever,” DiCaprio said Thursday in South Korea.
“You do everything you possibly can, you give your all, all of your focus, and hopefully you come out with, if all the elements mixed together correctly, you come out with a great piece of art,” he said. “To me, cinema is the great modern art form.”
The film “Django Unchained” won two Academy Awards last month, supporting actor for Waltz and original screenplay for Quentin Tarantino.
’90s teen star didn’t get her celebrity
Tiffani Thiessen is probably best known for her role as Kelly Kapowski on “Saved by the Bell,” but the actress says she had no idea at that time how popular the teenage sitcom was.
“I mean, I was so young. I was 15 when I started that show,” Thiessen, now 39, said in a recent interview.
“I remember Mark-Paul ( Gosselaar) and I touring the (United) States and going overseas. … That was the first time that I realized what an impact that show had when 5,000, 6,000, 10,000 kids were showing up to these malls and these places where we would sit there for hours and do autograph signings and pictures and stuff,” she said.
“That’s when I was really like, ‘Where am I? What is this?’ Kids wanted my empty cup of water and, you know, things like that. It was strange.”
“Saved by the Bell” aired from 1989 to 1993.
Thiessen is grateful that she grew up in the limelight before TMZ and other 24-hour media outlets and gossip blogs came along on the Internet.
“Thank God I missed that. The photographers that would follow us were like for Teen Beat and Bop (magazines),” she said.
Thiessen currently stars in the USA series “White Collar.”
The birthday bunch
Accordionist Flaco Jimenez (The Texas Tornadoes is 74. Singer Bobby McFerrin is 63. Actress Susan Richardson (“Eight Is Enough”) is 61. Country singer Jimmy Fortune (The Statler Brothers) is 58. Singer Lisa Loeb is 45. Actor Terrence Howard is 44. Actor Johnny Knoxville is 42. Actor David Anders is 32. Singer LeToya Luckett (Destiny’s Child) is 32. Actress Thora Birch is 31.