I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world.

October 8, 2013

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For ‘Magic Mike’ crew, being sexy is a lot of work

‘It’s harder than anyone thinks for guys to actually be sexy.”

Channing Tatum (No. 50 on Empire magazine’s list of 100 Sexiest Movie Stars) was on the back patio at Cinema Bar in Culver City, commiserating with Matthew McConaughey (People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 2005) and Joe Manganiello (No. 1 on Men’s Health magazine’s best Summer Bodies of 2011).

Although a heady cloud of easy charm and testosterone was forming spontaneously above the picnic table, slowly expanding and intoxicating any females in proximity, Tatum elicited enthusiastic nods from his fellow actors as he explained just how much work it takes for guys like them to be sexy—especially when they’re nearly naked. And oiled. And onstage. Gyrating.

“Girls can just do it, just walking.... Guys, it’s not the same thing. Especially when you put them in a thong,” Tatum insisted. “Everything you’re trying to do to be sexy makes you look like a clown. I challenge any guy to go and try to be sexy to his girl.... It’s a very humbling experience.”

Many a gaggle of gal-pal moviegoers will be happy to render a verdict on the issue not long from now, as the three bare nearly all in Steven Soderbergh’s male-stripper film Magic Mike. Inspired by Tatum’s brief turn in the world of exotic dancing in Tampa, Florida, in his late teens, Magic Mike features McConaughey as the male revue’s fire-breathing emcee, Manganiello as lady killer Big Dick Richie and Tatum as the show’s main attraction, Mike. On the surface and in trailers and other advertising, Magic Mike seems like nothing but a raucous bachelorette party relocated to a cinema. Soderbergh loads the front half of the film with copious amounts of fun, flesh and flamboyance. But the back half mellows into melancholy as Mike initiates a young dancer dubbed the Kid (Alex Pettyfer) into the troupe and the newcomer moves toward center stage.

Mike’s budding romance with the Kid’s sister (played by Cody Horn, daughter of new Disney studio chief Alan Horn) pushes him to re-examine his life choices.

Soderbergh sparked to the idea of a male stripper movie when he was filming Haywire with Tatum last year in Spain. “I told him about this eight-month period in my life, and he was like, ‘You’ve got to make that film.... You should write it for sure,’” Tatum recalled. “And I was like, ‘OK, Steven Soderbergh, I’ll get right on that.’”

Tatum’s producing partner, Reid Carolin, did get on it, penning a script, and the shoot came together quickly last fall as the prolific Soderbergh had a brief window of availability between his other projects. Carolin and Tatum, along with veteran Soderbergh producers Gregory Jacobs and Nick Wechsler, scraped together about $7 million, the director said, and embarked on a rapid 25-day shoot in Southern California and Tampa.

McConaughey, 45, said it didn’t take much for Soderbergh to persuade him to come aboard. “I got the call and talked to Steven, and within 10 minutes when he pitched it to me, I was on my knees in my kitchen, banging the floor, laughing,” he recalled. “I love the idea of these corny little sub-cultures and worlds, and Steven’s great at it.”

Manganiello, who’s well known as the werewolf Alcide Herveaux on the HBO series True Blood and recently played a buff object of envy in the movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting, was a bit more hesitant.

“The clothes come off a lot on True Blood so there was a sense of ‘OK, when am I going to have my shirt on again?’” Manganiello, 35, said. The actor said he consulted his What to Expect co-star Chris Rock on the decision, telling him, “I don’t know, because my shirt’s off again, and I just think dudes are going to hate my guts if I don’t put a shirt on soon. And Chris was like, ‘Guys are going to hate your guts anyway. Brad Pitt spent 15 years with his shirt off. He’s doing fine.’”

With the cast in place, learning the choreography was the next major hurdle. Alison Faulk, who has worked with the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears and Pink, designed the routines—everything from a trench coats-and-umbrellas dance performed to “It’s Raining Men” to a classic fireman-in-suspenders number.

“I’d never danced,” said McConaughey, who also sings in the film. “We know one thing, it ends up with clothes off. I was thinking, there will never be enough time. I could rehearse this thing for 10 years.”

Even the experienced Tatum, 32, confessed to nerves. “I’m about to go on stage and dance for the first time, and I’m like, ‘Why did I want to do this again? This is completely not what I remembered.’ I was terrified.”

But once onstage, the actors said, a pleasurable trance sets in. “You’ve got anxiety, there’s fear, but you’ve got pride and you’re like, man, I worked this, I want to nail this,” McConaughey said.

It’s the coming off stage, said Manganiello, that’s more painful. “For me, it was like coming out of a blackout. You get up there, you do this thing, and then it was like waking up the next morning covered in blood and having no recollection of what the hell you just did,” he explained. “You’re sitting backstage after your routine, in a thong, sweating, the music is over, you’re just sitting there alone in silence...going ‘What did I just do? People are going to see this!’”

The dozens of women who got to play bit parts as club patrons were more satisfied than your typical group of extras, Soderbergh laughed. “The first time we shot [the ‘Raining Men’ routine], it was with 110 extras. These women were very happy. We had a lot of return extras—like 96 percent, which is unheard of on a movie.”

At one point, one woman got a bit overzealous and reached for McConaughey’s thong. “I remember feeling it go boom,” he said, “and just as the cool draft was going a little further than it had been, I went, ‘Oh, yep,’ and tucked into a roll.”

“He was kind of asking for it,” Soderbergh said. “That was entrapment. He was provoking them.”

Magic Mike is hardly McConaughey’s only provocative role this year. Moviegoers will next see him as a hit man in William Friedkin’s NC-17 rated Killer Joe, and later in the year he’ll turn up as an enigmatic vagabond in Jeff Nichols’s Mud and as a kinky newspaperman in Lee Daniels’s The Paperboy.

Tatum has been busy too. Besides appearing in Haywire, he’s already had two blockbusters in very different genres this year—The Vow (a romance) and 21 Jump Street (a buddy comedy). It’s a far cry from his days as a dancer in Tampa, when Tatum said he typically took home about $150 a night. Although his character in Magic Mike spends more than six years dancing, Tatum in reality lasted less than a year in the male revue.

“You get in at 18, and halfway through 19 you look around and you’re like, ‘Man, I don’t want to do this.’ I never really enjoyed taking my clothes off. That was a weird thing,” he said. “I really enjoyed the dancing, the performance of it all, the craziness of the life. But I would always take my pants off and run off stage.”

As the Kid becomes more central to the troupe, Mike realizes that he wants out of the club scene. He has dreams of running his own custom furniture business. “I think everyone’s been in a situation where they’re like, ‘What do I do now? What do I do with my life?’” said Tatum.

It’s certainly a theme that struck a chord with Soderbergh, who has been saying for years that he wanted to exit the filmmaking world and engage in other artistic pursuits. Now 49, he insists that Magic Mike will be followed by just two more movies—The Bitter Pill, about a woman who develops a prescription medication habit, also featuring Tatum, which recently wrapped filming; and a Liberace biopic with Michael Douglas that starts production in July. After that, he plans to write a book and stage at least one play.

“The Kid is kind of a mirror for Mike,” said Soderbergh. “As a result, he starts to reconsider where he is. He thinks the Kid is like him, but then realizes that he’s not. The more he sees of it, the more he needs to make a change.”

“Obviously, this is really my change too. It’s just time to reboot.”

In Photo: Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey and Joe Manganiello admit to a few nerves on the set of Steven Soderbergh’s male-stripper-centric film.

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Chace blushes at being called sexy

“Oh, how sweet of you!”

Is that how a Hollywood hunk would react to being considered one of the world’s sexiest?

Yes, that’s how Chace Crawford said when told by a group of international journalists at a round-table interview for What To Expect When You’re Expecting, the Lionsgate comedy-romance inspired by Heidi Murkoff’s best-seller self-help book for pregnant women. The movie opens tomorrow nationwide, released locally by Pioneer Films.

In the movie, Chace plays Marco, a food-truck chef who gets his business rival Rosie (played by Anna Kendrick, see story below) pregnant not long after they become friends but even before they have their first date.

“Thank you for considering me one,” Chace said, blushing a bit, making the journalists laugh along with him. “It makes me nervous, really, but thank you just the same.”

Of course, followers of the hit US TV show Gossip Girl (GG) will put Chace on top of any “sexiest list,” including Krista Ranillo who named her and husband Niño Jefferson Lim’s first-born Nate Jacob after the Chace’s GG character Nate Archibald, the handsome only child of a wealthy and well-known family in turmoil. “Chace is my favorite actor,” said Krista who is expecting her and Niño’s second child, also a boy (according to the ultrasound). “I love the name Nate and, siempre, Archibald which happens to be the real name of my father, Archie (Mat Ranillo III).” (Trivia: Chace’s GG co-star Ed Westwick was here last year to shoot for Penshoppe of which he’s among the A-list endorsers, including Zac Efron.)

He showed up in denims and simple T-shirt at a function room of Four Seasons, the same venue where the previous day’s general presscon was held but including only the female cast like, aside from Anna, Jennifer Lopez (subject of last Sunday’s Conversations With Ricky Lo), Elizabeth Banks and Cameron Diaz (featured in Conversations on Sunday, May 20). Still, even in casuals, Chace looked sexy, what her fans would describe as to-die-for (ask Krista), never mind if he downplayed his “being sexy.”

Before What To Expect When You’re Expecting and Gossip Girl, Chace starred in Joel Schumacher’s Twelve (2010) as a young drug dealer whose high-rolling life is dismantled after his cousin is murdered. “I’m clean-living,” volunteered Chace who grew up in Plano, Texas. “I don’t do drugs.” His first big break was in The Covenant and he will be seen next in Peace, Love & Misunderstanding with Catherine Keener, Elizabeth Olsen and Jane Fonda.

Asked how he deals with the loss of privacy and the paparazzi, Chace admitted, “It’s a bizarre by-product of the business. It’s not as bad in New York, where we shoot Gossip Girl, as it is in L.A. where I now live. It happens but,” he shrugged, “I guess you just have to accept that it’s there. But definitely, I wouldn’t like somebody sticking outside my house or trying to crush into my window. It’s weird!”

Anything else that he had to sacrifice for stardom?

“Hmmmmm,” Chace added, “now I have to be careful. I just can’t go out of the house naked like I used to do.”

How very restricting! So how does he usually enjoy his time away from the limelight (if he ever is, that is)?

“Well, I try to have time for myself. Recently, I went to Dallas for a couple of weeks to play golf and waited around for my nephew to come out, which he did. Otherwise, I’d rather stay home than go out.”

And who does he look up to as role model?

“Oh, Paul Newman! I’ve seen his movies. I just love him in any role he played.”

At what point in his life did he realize that he wanted to be an actor?

“I always loved film since I was a kid. I’ve been fascinated with the works of Fellini and other great filmmakers, so I guess the desire to be an actor came very early in my life. But in school, I kind of had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew older. I was good in football and I thought everybody was good in music except me. I’m glad I ended up an actor.”

Anyway, not wanting to be typecast in his Gossip Girl character, Chace said that he hopes to expand his horizon and keep growing.

“I need to change my look and try other kinds of roles,” he explained. “I can’t be Nate Archibald forever.”

Now, the “crucial question.” I told Chace that his Filipino female fans would like to know what kind of girls turn him on.

“Hmmm, that crazy question always comes up. No, I don’t really have a stereotype. I know who she is when I see her.”

(E-mail reactions at entphilstar@yahoo.com. You may also send your questions to askrickylo@gmail.com. For more updates, photos and videos visit http://www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.) - FUNFARE By Ricardo F. Lo (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)

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The Girls' Guide To Calling Out Sexism Without Being Attacked

Crazy sexist advertising. Can we call it out? Does that make us B****es?

A few weeks back, when product manager Shanley Kane put the Silicon Valley startup Geeklist on blast for its sexist promotional video—in which a panti-clad co-ed dances “girls on trampoline” style for the camera—the young tech world was highlighted for its nonchalant sexism. Just days earlier, another company, Sqoot, had taken heat for advertising “beer-serving women” as entertainment at a hackathon event.

But what was most disturbing to me wasn’t the sexism itself (I’m not the type to get offended by sex in marketing. I’m sold stuff by sexy women in 99% of my life. That ship has sailed), it was the heat Kane took on Twitter for calling attention to the video in the first place. The first tweet by Kane on the issue was tame enough: “@csanz @rekatz why the ads with a woman in her underwear dancing around to dupstep?”

Almost immediately the conversation was about Kane’s behavior—her tone and the fact that she expressed her opinion in a public forum—rather than the video itself. As Rachel Balik pointed out on ForbesWoman, Katz also complained that he once bought Kane and her friends drinks and thus didn’t understand why she “couldn’t be nicer.”The whole conversation can be read here.

While the incidents led both companies to apologize and launch an initiative to support and promote the achievements of women in technology, the response from the vox populi on the worldwideweb was overwhelmingly one of “shut up, woman.” Over on CNET, Ben Parr tried to rationalize: “The problem is simple: technology is still a male-dominated industry. Male-dominated teams lack female viewpoints, which can contribute to the objectification of women.”

For Balik, the San Francisco-based writer who covered up the affair in a guest post on our site, the sexist back-and-forth hit especially close to home when she began receiving responses to her article from male colleagues and friends. Two former coworkers told her they didn’t like her article because “We want to be able to look at scantily clad women,” adding that, since the tech world is mostly male, “What’s wrong with marketing to the audience?” Another emailed her and told her she should re-think the photo used in her bio as she looked like she looked a little, well, post-coital. Yes, really. The fact that her public criticism of her industry upset her male friends is one thing. That they used it as an opportunity to attack her character is another entirely.

But the truth of the matter is, casual (and even not-so-casual) sexism isn’t just a technology or startup problem. In 2011, there were over 11,000 officially charges of sexual harassment filed with the EEOC resulting in more than $52 million in settlements. And research shows that while the vast majority of women say they’ll not only call out but shut down sexual harassment or sexist behavior in a hypothetical situation, in practice next to none of us do.

And what’s worse, when we do raise the alarm, we’re most often met with criticism, threats or even retaliation. At the very least, women who call out sexism can expect to hear the B word, which makes me beg the question: Is it even possible to nip sexism in the bud without a little mud getting slung your way? Of course, researchers and “experts” say yes, that men actually like being reminded of their sexist behaviors and will, in fact, like you more for it. But in real life, women know that’s usually not the case.

When I first took this question to the social graph, hoping to crowd source a helpful guide for women to confront sexism on the job in a healthy, mutually beneficial sort of way, I was met with case after case of failed attempts to do just that. A few examples from different industries:

“I took out a prospect for lunch … an old[er] man. (I’m in the insurance industry). We had a nice lunch and he referred to his desire to become a client eventually. At the end of the lunch, I stood up to shake his hand, and he pulled me forward and kissed me. This is right after he went on about his lovely wife and grandchildren. Total pig. I pulled back in shock and mentioned his wife, and he said, “maybe we can do this again, but over dinner?” I said a firm “No!” and of course out comes the B-word. “Well, you don’t have to be a bitch about it,” he grumbled.”

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'America's Next Top Model': Which Contestant Was Eliminated For Being 'Too Cool For School' (VIDEO)

'America's Next Top Model': No Booty Tooch For AzMarie

There's something very sexy about a woman who's confident, sure of who she is and willing to stand her ground. Former Pussycat Doll and Jessica Sutta and Nadine Coyle of Girls Aloud joined the judging panel this week on "America's Next Top Model" (Wed., 9 p.m. ET on The CW), overseeing as the girls were put to the task of appearing in a girl group inspired music video.

For choreography, Tyra Banks brought some equipment in to teach the girls how to booty tooch. She compared it to a training bra, only for the tooch. But while all the girls went and put theirs on, AzMarie didn't. When pushed on the issue, she said she quite simply refused to put it on, and so she was banished from the training session.

On the US team, Kyle was a bit self-conscious, which hurt their performance, but so did AzMarie's defiance at the training session. After the US team lost the challenge, it came down to these two women.

"I thought you were going to be a finalist," Tyra said after eliminating AzMarie. "I thought, 'She might win because she has that extra special something.' But it's more than just this. We have to commit and go and say, 'Yeah I know I look good, but I'm also there and hungry and am ready.'"

Was it the right decision? Find out who goes next on "America's Next Top Model" Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.

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When sexiness stops being sexy

PAULA JOYE

THE NEW SEXY: The women of Jersey Shore are role models - and style icons - for millions of adolescents.

OPINION: It was an ordinary Saturday night. Not late, about 8.30pm. I was walking through the city, and ahead of me was a pack of women.

They looked about 30 from behind. Maybe on a hen's night? When they turned around I was shocked to see that the packs median age was around 17, 19 tops. Nothing adult about them.

They were dressed (and I use that term loosely) identically in outfits that went something like this:

(From the top) Overly curled, overly sprayed, overly long hair with extensions that fell below the bra line, push-up bras, false eyelashes, black smudgy eyeliner, fake nails painted white, bandage dresses so tight that they walked like their feet had been bound since birth and so short that you could see the brand of their underwear; orange fake tan, glitter body spray, clumpy, chunky high heels (the kind you see wrapped around poles) and lots of jangly, shiny things on their ears, fingers, wrists and ankles.

They'd thrown everything at it. Literally. It looked like their wardrobes and make-up bags had exploded. On top of them. There was way, way too much of everything.

The look was a major fashion fail, but that wasn't the part that disturbed me - we've all got it wrong before, particularly at that age.

These outfits were aggressively suggestive and sexual. There was no nuance, mystery or prettiness. From a distance they looked like a low-budget video shoot and up close it looked like they were open for business - business of the wrong kind.

I remember this age. It's a really strange time. You're fresh out of school with new-found freedom and you push boundaries with your wardrobe to explore your sexuality and femininity.

You also feel invincible - all young people do - and pay little attention to the kind of messages your clothes might be sending because your focus is on yourself and your bright, shiny future. Also, you just don't care. What would the world know anyway?

This is also the moment when suddenly you don't have to wear a uniform every day, so fashion becomes a novelty. This is when young girls dress older than their age - and inappropriately.

It's an important part of growing up, an absolute rite of passage, and a stepping stone on the journey of personal style.

When I was 18, the icons to follow were Madonna and Wendy James. They were boundary pushers in their bustiers, tutus, dog collars and studs.

I copied it all, but there was something more rebellious and anti-establishment about their message, and it had nothing to do with sex.

I know that dressing like them made me feel empowered but not necessarily sexy.

I can't help thinking that some of the more multi-dimensional heroines have been replaced by one giant Kardashian/Jersey Shore/video chick/Hilton/Victoria's Secret mush.

There doesn't seem to be any celebration of diversity, just a whole lot of glorification of waxed/tanned/augmented homogenisation.

This is the part where I begin to sound like a prude, isn't it?

Self-expression through fashion is essential. Young women should look shocking, be shocking, get it wrong, get it right, have fun and experiment with genre, time period - all of it.

I fear that's getting lost in a ridiculous rush to be sexy, and an even more contrived idea of what sexy looks like.

When did it stop being a pair of high heels and red lipstick and become Soft Porn Barbie? It's not just boring - it's dangerous.

Later in the week, at a makeup counter in a big department store, I started chatting to a young guy waiting patiently for his girlfriend, who was getting her makeup done. They'd both just turned 18.

I said: "You must love her very much to sit here while all this goes on". He replied: "Yeah, I love her, but I love her heaps more without all that on stuff her face".

Me too, Buddy. Me too.

-Sydney Morning Herald

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Amanda Seyfried afraid of being sexy

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Mum, 28, banned from clubs for being too old for sexy gear

Lisa Woodman (Pic: SWNS)

Humiliated mum-of-four Lisa Woodman yesterday raged at club bosses who barred her for being too old to flash her flesh.

Lisa Woodman, 28, admitted she liked to show off her 36DD boobs and shapely pins in low-cut tops, mini-skirts and long boots.

But the 5ft 3in, size 6 medical secretary told how she was left in tears when a bouncer barred her and said: “You’re too old to wear that get-up.”

Lisa, who has four children aged from 12 to three, got a boob job and started clubbing with her sister, Sarah, 32, after splitting from her partner last year.

She claimed two more clubs in the same group have also banned her and she said: “What’s wrong with what I wear?

“I’m not hurting anyone. I’m covering everything and I just want to have a good time.

“There were teenagers and girls in their 20s wearing much more revealing outfits, but they went straight in.”

Mode nightclub

Angry at being told she was too old for her outfit, she added: “I’m only 28 and still consider myself young. I always like to look sexy when I go out on the town.

“I split up from my partner last year and I was really upset so I had a boob job, now I just want to flaunt what I’ve got. I normally wear short skirts and one-piece outfits which might be revealing but never show off too much.”

The sisters claim they have been turned away from Mode, Tramps, and Velvet nightclubs in their home city of Worcester.

Lisa said: “One doorman even made me walk up and down in front of people, laughing at what I was wearing. I was in shock and really humiliated.

“I just want to be treated with a bit of respect.

“The staff told me I was banned for life unless I dress differently. It’s outrageous.”

Dean Hill, director of Nexum Leisure, which runs the clubs, said: “We expect people to make an effort and have a dress code of smart casual.

“It is the managers on the doors who make judgments based on behaviour, dress, if they’re abusive and whether they have ID. It’s private premises and we reserve the right to refuse entry.”

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Sonam surprised at being tagged 'sexy'

Mumbai, Dec 20 (IANS) Actress Sonam Kapoor's uber cool look in her forthcoming film 'Players' is earning her rave reviews. The 'Saawariya' girl is surprised at being tagged sexy and thanks her sister for her new avatar.

'Can you believe people are calling me sexy. I don't know where to look when they call me that. I am like 'really me?',' she said at the launch of a new programe 'Super Santa' for UTV.

'I don't know yaar, maybe I am like one of those girls. But it's nice to hear it for the first time in my life,' added the 26-year-old who played a simpleton in her last film 'Mausam' opposite Shahid Kapoor.

The first big release of 2012, 'Players' promos are out and Sonam, who sports sytlish wardrobe and glamorous look, says her sister Rhea should be credited for turning her into a sexy diva in the action thriller.

'It's all because of my sister. She has very carefully chosen clothes for me. It's not typical sexy, but it is like edgy sexy,' said Sonam, who was earlier styled by her sister Rhea for their home production 'Aisha'.

Coming out on Jan 6, 'Players' also stars Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Bipasha Basu.

Sonam debuted as a traditional girl in 'Saawariya' in 2007 and later played girl-next-door in 'Delhi-6'.

But with 'I Hate Luv Storys' she moved on to more chick look and continued it in 'Aisha' and 'Thank You' with elan.

Currently Sonam is filming for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' opposite Farhan Akhtar and would also start work on her sister's untitled next project soon.

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