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‘When I was writing the script, I went and hung out in Rocco DiSpirito’s kitchen,’ Mandvi says of his upcoming movie.By Eric Ditzian
Aasif Mandvi
Photo: Mandel Ngan/ AFP/ Getty Images
Aasif Mandvi has a big appetite. A conversation with him will touch on curries and tandoors, the best places to get Indian dishes in New York and London, and the connections between Indian food and family life.
It comes as a surprise, then, that the “Daily Show With Jon Stewart” correspondent actually shed pounds while filming “Today’s Special,” an upcoming comedy in which he stars as a highly trained Manhattan chef forced to take over his family’s Indian joint in Queens.
“That’s not because I wasn’t eating!” he laughed during a recent conversation with MTV News. “I was eating like a crazy person. But we were sweating our asses off. Those kitchens are incredibly hot. There were flames. You stand there for 12 hours a day, and the first week we were only shooting in the kitchen. It was like Bikram yoga class.”
Mandvi did quite a lot of sweating over the project before he stepped into that kitchen too. The film is based on a one-man, off-Broadway play he staged in 1998. It was a six-character drama inspired by his family members and first brought to life in his standup routine. Years later, he returned to the play with Jonathan Bines, a writer for “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and together they sculpted the raw material into the screenplay that became “Today’s Special.” It’s getting a North American release on October 8.
We’ve seen Mandvi a lot on camera, from hilarious work opposite Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” to his supporting comedic roles in films like “Ghost Town,” to more dramatic work in “The Last Airbender” and the CBS series “Jericho.” But until “Today’s Special,” Mandvi has never been able to show off his range as an actor. The film allows him to veer from the broadly comic to the dramatically energized to the tentatively romantic.
For the portrait of his chef, named Samir, Mandvi and Bines pulled from a wide spectrum of celebrity cooks. “He’s an amalgam of different chefs,” Mandvi said. “When I was writing the script, I went and hung out in Rocco DiSpirito’s kitchen. He’s got some Emeril Lagasse in him and some Gordon Ramsay in him. Samir isn’t a celebrity chef, though. That’s part of his problem, I suppose, because he’d probably like to be.”
From the saucy Jessica Alba in “Little Fockers” to James Franco’s grueling journey in “127 Hours,” the MTV Movies team is delving into the hottest flicks of fall 2010. Check back daily for exclusive clips, photos and interviews with the films’ biggest stars.
Film has 17 collective nods; ‘Glee’ and Miley Cyrus have 13.By Gil Kaufman
Taylor Lautner in “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse”
Photo: Summit Entertainment
No matter which way you slice it, the night of August 9 is likely to be a big one for “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” With final nominations announced on Monday (July 12), the teen vampire drama leads all nominees at the Teen Choice Awards 2010 with 17 nods total, including 11 for Taylor Lautner.
Among the new nominees for the Katy Perry-hosted show revealed on Monday (July 12) were: Justin Bieber, B.o.B, Taio Cruz, Drake and Eminem in Choice Summer Music Star Male, with Miley Cyrus, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Perry and Rihanna all nominated in the female category.
As for Choice Summer Song, it will be Gaga (“Alejandro”) against B.o.B with Hayley Williams (“Airplanes”), Travie McCoy with Bruno Mars (“Billionaire”), Perry again with Snoop Dogg (“California Gurls”) and Ke$ha (“Your Love Is My Drug”).
The Choice Summer Movie race has major firepower, with a battle brewing between “The A-Team,” “Despicable Me,” “Grown Ups,” “Inception,” “The Karate Kid,” “Knight and Day,” “The Last Airbender,” “Salt,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.” Male movie stars vying for the prize include: Zac Efron in “Charlie St. Cloud,” Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson in “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” Adam Sandler in “Grown Ups” and Jaden Smith in “The Karate Kid,” while the female category will focus on Cameron Diaz in “Knight and Day,” Selena Gomez in “Ramona and Beezus,” Angelina Jolie in “Salt,” Emma Roberts in “Twelve” and Kristen Stewart in “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.”
With “Eclipse” leading all nominees followed by Miley Cyrus and “Glee” with 13 each, the Teen Choice Awards will be handed out by Khloe, Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Logan Lerman, Zachary Levi, Ryan Sheckler and Yvonne Strahovski, who join previously announced presenters David Archuleta, Kristen Bell, John Cena, Miranda Cosgrove, Zac Efron, Victoria Justice, Jim Parsons and Shailene Woodley.
Nominations were also announced in the following categories: Choice Summer TV show (which includes bids for “Make It or Break It,” “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” and “So You Think You Can Dance”), Choice Male Summer TV Star (with “American Teenager” stars Ken Baumann and Daren Kagasoff earning nominations alongside “True Blood” star Stephen Moyer) and Choice Female Summer TV Star (with Nikki Blonksy of “Huge” going up against “True Blood” heroine Anna Paquin and “Teenager” star Shailene Woodley).
Fans aged 13-19 years old can vote once each day for all of their favorite nominees at www.TeenChoiceAwards.com.
Who are you rooting for in this year’s Teen Choice Awards? Let us know in the comments, and be sure to vote!
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Rapper sent the handwritten letter to Sports Illustrated.By Jayson Rodriguez
Lil Wayne
Photo: Johnny Nunez/ WireImage
Lil Wayne knows his sports well enough to understand free agency: When you’re not signed, you go with the best offer.
The Cash Money rapper was formerly a blogger for ESPN, opining about the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, among other topics. Now, however, the incarcerated rap star has sent his latest athletic musings to ESPN the Magazine’s rival, Sports Illustrated. (He’s also been posting about sports on his personal blog.)
Weezy sent a handwritten note to the publication with his predictions for the U.S. Open’s men’s and women’s tournaments. The rapper picked top-seeded Rafael Nadal in the men’s bracket and Belgian star Kim Clijsters to take the woman’s crown.
“I’m definitely rooting for [Nadal] to get the Grand Slam and win the U.S. Open,” Lil Wayne wrote on SI stationary after the magazine sent him a letter. “He’s already became the 2nd youngest player to win 8 major titles before the age of 25. He’s halfway there to Roger [Federer]’s 16. And even while battling knee tendinitis, he’s still ranked #1. His Wimbledon performance was one of a kind. He simply plays with pure passion and leaves it all out there on the court.”
Lil Wayne is slated to be released from prison in November. He was sentenced to a year in prison in New York after a 2007 gun bust.
Next month, the Cash Money Records superstar will release an EP directly online. Since he began his jail time, the rapper has released a flurry of music videos, recently appearing in Drake’s “Miss Me” clip.
Wayne’s protégé Drake said his boss has already set a November 5 date for his welcome-home concert. “November 5, the Welcome Home Weezy concert,” Drake told fans during a Ustream chat. “That’s gonna be crazy. I told you I got you. I would never just Ustream and talk about nothing.”
What do you think about Weezy’s take on tennis? Let us know in the comments!
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The singer shouts out her fans for making her the most-followed tweeter.By Mawuse Ziegbe
Lady Gaga
Photo: Derek Storm/ Splash News
Lady Gaga’s millions of fans have another title to call their Mother Monster: Queen of Twitter.
After steadily gaining on Britney Spears, who until recently was the most-followed user on the social-networking site, Gaga surpassed her fellow pop supernova over the weekend by landing over 5.7 million followers. At press time, Gaga’s Twitter army clocked in at 5,726,168 deep, besting Brit, who had 5,696,275 followers. Just days ago, the chart-toppers were neck-and-neck, with Spears boasting 5,646,028 Twitter peeps to Gaga’s 5,635,460.
When Gaga learned she had dethroned Spears, she took to the Internet to thank the people who made it all possible: her fans. In a video posted online, Gaga doles out heaps of “monster” love to her followers for solidifying her digital dominance.
Sporting a lace headpiece adorned with a sequined Twitter logo and an ornamental Gaga-fied version of the site’s familiar bird symbol, the singer addressed her nearly 6 million followers.
“Hello world, this is Lady Gaga, queen of Twitter,” said the singer, with a flourish of an illuminated scepter and a sprinkle of glitter; a move that was part-Elizabethan royalty and part-Glinda the Good Witch. “I wanted to thank all my beautiful little monsters for following me. Thank you for beginning my reign as Twitter queen.”
The singer then wished her Twitter-dom only the most enjoyable of experiences when logging onto the micro-blogging site.
“May you always have soft cuticles while tweeting,” Gaga said wistfully. “May you never have carpal tunnel.”
The “Alejandro” singer, who filmed the clip backstage at her Monster Ball Tour stop in Tacoma, Washington, promised to keep the Twitter nonsense to a minimum. “I vow never to partake in celebrity online shenanigans,” Gaga said. “And I vow to always tweet and tweet again.”
Before signing off, Gaga left her legions of viral fans with a few words of encouragement.
“Just remember that I love you,” Gaga said. “And love you yourself. Because little monsters, you were born that way, baby. I love you Twitter. See you at the Monster Ball.”
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