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Nicolas Cage Explains His Career Choices

Nicolas CageNicolas Cage doesn't regret any of his career choices.

The Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance star doesn't have a problem with his decision to accept roles in big action movies, insisting he was motivated to try something new because of naysayers claiming he couldn't do it.

"I don't look at it like [regret]. Much has been made of the fact that I made many action movies. The reason I did that was because the first time people said, you couldn't do it. 'You are not an action hero, forget it.' So what you saw was a dramatic actor acting like an action hero, trying to find characters that were interesting within the genre. And then I tried to mix in a little Lord of War, a little World Trade Center, The Weather Man and Bad Lieutenant and keep the spectrum going. Now having done that, I want to focus on the dramatic kind of filmmaking."

The star described his latest role in Joe as the continued "process of reinventing" himself, with a keen focus on deeper characters he could get to grips with:

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Dakota Johnson Has No Shame

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan on the set of 'Fifty Shades of Grey'Dakota Johnson has "no shame."

The 24-year-old actress is to portray Anasasia Steele opposite Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey in the big-screen adaptation of E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and she insists he has no concerns about shooting any of the raunchy scenes: "I don't have any problem doing anything. The secret is I have no shame."

And Dakota insists she was more interested in the "emotional" aspects of the story than any of the sexy scenes. When asked what intrigued her about the books, she told the new issue of America's Elle magazine, "Reading the book, I found myself more interested in the ways they were breaking each other down emotionally than the sex scenes. I think there's a part of a woman that wants to be the thing that breaks a man down."

The actress is the daughter of actor Don Johnson and his ex-wife Melanie Griffith and she claimed she used to get "picked on" for having famous parents by people who didn't even know her: "I think people, especially the press, like to pick on children of famous people and I think that's f***ing awful. Things get made up. It's so, so sad. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it as a 16 year old. You're like....Why? What did I do?"


Matthew McConaughey: I Wanted Frightening Roles

Matthew McConaughey with wife Camila AlvesMatthew McConaughey wanted to take on film roles that "scare" him.

The actor, who has been nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of a real-life AIDS victim in Dallas Buyers Club, made a conscious decision not to take a part in another romantic comedy, after appearing in How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days and Failure to Launch.

"I'm not going to carry on doing the same thing over and over. I was reading romantic comedies. And I liked them. But I wanted to do something that scares me a little bit. The first move was saying 'no' to scripts. That was six months of 'no' and then a year of nothing. And something happened. I gained anonymity and suddenly it became a good idea for William Friedkin [director] to call about Killer Joe or Steven Soderbergh about Magic Mike."

The 44-year-old star admits it was difficult not working for so long but he found comfort in his family, spending time with his wife Camila and their children, 13-month-old Livingston, Vida, four, and Levi, five.

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Noomi Rapace Isn’t Polite with Tom Hardy

Tom Hardy and Noomi RapaceNoomi Rapace doesn't "need to be polite" when she works with Tom Hardy.

The Swedish actress appears alongside the Batman: The Dark Knight Rises star in Soviet-era thriller Child 44, and says their on screen chemistry comes from being such good friends off-camera:

"I met Tom two years previously and we were looking for something to work on. What was really great was that we know each other really well, and we really trust each other, so we don't need to be polite, we don't need to start from zero. We could just melt into the next one. We had so much for free. It felt like we were this gypsy family coming from New York with all our family and the next stop was Prague [in The Czech Republic]."

Noomi also told how one of the main reasons she wanted to become an actress and travel the world was so it got her away from the cold winters of her native Sweden, but also acknowledged they were always a good time for her creatively. "Because it's dark and cold out, it forces people to be creative, you can't just sit and hang out. For six months it's dark and lonely and forces some creativity," she added.


Bradley Cooper Returning to Broadway

Bradley CooperBradley Cooper is to star in The Elephant Man on Broadway.

The American Hustle actor will reportedly portray disfigured John Merrick - who toured the UK in a freak show before being rescued by Dr. Treves - on the New York stage "without the aid of make-up or prosthetics," Entertainment Weekly has revealed.

He previously played the role in a limited run in 2012 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. It is unclear whether his co-stars in that production, Patricia Clarkson and Alessandro Nivola, will also appear in the Broadway show.

The play will mark Bradley's first return to the New York stage since his 2006 stint opposite Julia Roberts and Paul Rudd in Three Days of Rain.

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Keira Knightley Is Tired of Her Characters Dying

Keira KnightleyKeira Knightley is tired of her characters dying in movies.

The 28-year-old actress appeared on the red carpet for the European premiere of her latest film, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit at the Vue cinema in London's Leicester Square and said she chose to appear in an action film because it was more "fun" than some of her recent roles, which have included Never Let Me Go, A Dangerous Method and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

"I got to the end of Anna Karenina and I sort of realized that I'd either been dying in every film or something horrific was happening to me in every film, and I wanted to do something where that didn't happen. I wanted goodies and baddies... this is a piece of wonderful, totally pure Hollywood entertainment, which I fancied. And then I did two more movies - one called Can a Song Save Your Life and one called Laggies - that are just incredibly positive and fun."

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Idris Elba Shrugs Off Golden Globes Loss

Idris ElbaIdris Elba insists he doesn't mind missing out on a Golden Globe.

The 41-year-old actor was nominated for the Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture prize for his portrayal of the late South African President Nelson Mandela in biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, ultimately losing out to Matthew McConaughey, who won the gong for his portrayal of AIDS patient Ron Woodroof in Dallas Buyers Club.

Speaking at the launch of the new adidas Stan Smith trainer at The Old Truman Brewery in Shoreditch, east London, last night, he exclusively told BANG Showbiz, "It's a difficult one because we all deserve an award for our performances."

However, Idris - who was also up against Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hanks and Robert Redford - did have some comfort in the fact he was accompanied by his pregnant girlfriend Naiyana Garth at the ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, and the brunette beauty was positively glowing as they walked down the red carpet. "She looked amazing on the red carpet, as she does all the time!" he added.

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Jared Leto Celebrates Oscar Nod with Vegan Pancakes

Jared LetoJared Leto is celebrating his Oscar nomination with vegan pancakes.

The 42-year-old star is over the moon at receiving a Best Supporting Actor nod for his portrayal of HIV positive transsexual Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club, however, his somewhat unremarkable plans to celebrate include going back to bed because the nominations - which were revealed at 5:38am Californian time today - were announced so early in the morning.

"I'm going back to bed and then wake up and make vegan pancakes. I thought I didn't get the nomination because I woke up and [mistakenly] thought it was getting light outside. But then I got a knock on the door from Emma Ludbrook, who produced [documentary film] Artifact with me," the newly-minted Oscar nominee quipped to The Hollywood Reporter.

Jared, who won a Golden Globe award for his performance on Sunday, will be in good company at the Oscars as his co-star Matthew McConaughey is up for Best Actor for his portrayal of AIDS victim Ron Woodroof.

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Cinecast: Star Wars VII Casting, Tarantino’s New Film, Marvel’s ‘Ultimates’

Margot Robbie+ Jesse Plemons - famous for both his role as Breaking Bad's Todd and looking a lot like a younger Philip Seymour Hoffman - is apparently being called back for Star Wars: Episode VII auditions, although Disney/Lucasfilm is keeping mum about it.

+ No one has been cast yet and it's due to begin production this summer, but because it's a Quentin Tarantino project, you can guarantee that it will be full of awesomesauce. Especially considering the name of the film is officially The Hateful Eight (for those who don't know, it's a reference to the famous 1960 western The Magnificient Seven).

+ Marvel has released details on its upcoming Ultimates project, which will apparently not feature one single white guy (yay!) - both leading male superheroes will be of a non-white background. Also more yayness: the All-New Ultimates will see FOUR female superheroes on the team.

+ Despite the meteoric success she's had starring in the Martin Scorsese black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street, Australian actress Margot Robbie says that she wants to be cast in a Quentin Tarantino film next.

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Sharon Stone Was Furious Over ‘Basic Instinct’ Scene

Sharon Stone in 'Basic Instinct'Sharon Stone "slapped" her Basic Instinct director the first time she saw her infamous leg crossing scene.

The 55-year-old actress had been reluctant to remove her underwear for the provocative moment but had been assured by Paul Verhoeven that nothing would be visible - so she was furious when she watched the 1992 thriller in the cinema for the first time and realized just how much she had exposed.

"When we did it, it was going to be an innuendo and the director said, 'We're seeing the white of your underwear, I need you to take them off.' And I'm like, 'I don't want you to see anything and he's like, 'No, no you're not going to.' So I gave him the underwear, put them in the pocket of his shirt, and he said, 'Now watch on the monitor...' In those days... it's not like now where everything is high definition, and when I looked at the monitor you really couldn't see anything. So when I saw it in the theater, with a bunch of other people, I was like [in shock]. When the film ended I went in the booth and I slapped him and I said, 'You could have showed me this to me by myself.'"

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