MULTIPLE ROLES: Seth MacFarlane directs, produces, co-writes and plays the role of the cowardly sheep farmer Albert in A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Surprising Western comedy is new territory for its stars, Seth MacFarlane and Charlize Theron.

By Rebecca Keegan

The day after the premiere of their new comedy, A Million Ways to Die in the West — and an after-party that rolled on until 4am —   Seth MacFarlane and Charlize Theron were each recovering in their own ways. He slept in and ate a grilled ham and cheese sandwich; she went to yoga and sipped green tea.

“I feel like such a loser,” Theron said, joining MacFarlane in the restaurant of a Beverly Hills hotel. “If I can go to yoga, I did not do it right.”

“No, you did it right,” MacFarlane said, clutching his head. Theron stared at her obviously suffering director and costar and laughed so loudly the sound reverberated through the bar and carried over a pianist playing Tiny Dancer.

MacFarlane and Theron have an easy rapport, which they deploy with gusto in A Million Ways to Die in the West. In the R-rated Western comedy their outsider characters discover a shared hatred of life on the frontier, with all of its violence and discomfort.

“At the core of this movie’s premise is that if you’re not an alpha male, what can you do out there?” said MacFarlane, who also wrote the film, with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild. “You’ve just gotta keep your head down.”

Both are venturing into new territory with A Million Ways to Die in the West, along with Universal Pictures, releasing the film this week. MacFarlane, 40, who directed the R-rated hit Ted, created the animated sitcom Family Guy and somewhat controversially hosted the Oscars in 2013, delivers his first starring film role, as Albert, a sheep farmer ill-suited to life in 1882 Arizona.

Just a movie with the word “West” in the title is a gamble — recent Westerns including last year’s Lone Ranger update and 2011’s Cowboys & Aliens flopped at the box office. And a Western comedy starring an untested leading man is really an oddity — the most successful in the niche genre, such as Blazing Saddles and Three Amigos, featured established stars.

Theron, 38, an Oscar winner who built her career on the strength of dramatic performances in movies such as Monster and North Country, is taking her first dip into a straight-up comedy as Anna, the dissatisfied wife of a notorious outlaw (Liam Neeson) who blows into town just as Albert is smarting over a breakup. Anna teaches Albert to shoot and to stand up for himself, helping him recover after his girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried), leaves him for a smarmy groomer of mustaches (Neil Patrick Harris).

Both MacFarlane and Theron like Westerns for different reasons. For a guy who built his career on satire, MacFarlane has a surprising affection for sincere characters like Gunsmoke’s Matt Dillon and High Noon’s Will Kane. He just bought the first two seasons of Little House on the Prairie on Blu-ray.

“These were just good guys, earnest good guys,” MacFarlane said. “I think that’s what’s missing from popular culture today. You can have edgy jokes, but it really becomes much more satisfying if you have a backbone of earnestness. ... People freak out ‘cause they think, ‘God, if I’m a millimeter off and I come off sappy,’ it’s like, who cares? So what? Most of America is far less cynical than we are on the coasts.”

Theron is partial to the landscapes and to the element of survival in darker Westerns like Unforgiven. Of the two, Theron, who grew up in South Africa, seemed better equipped for a dust-and-rain-whipped 70-day shoot in Utah and New Mexico than MacFarlane, who is from Kent, Conneticut. When she talked him into getting a Vitamin B-12 shot from the set medic, he bruised and she didn’t.

“That’s probably just circumstantial,” she said. “Now I’m just like an old princess. I’m not 20 anymore.”

The movie’s women — Theron’s sun-lit sidekick, Seyfried’s prissy ex-girlfriend, Sarah Silverman — run the gamut. As with Mila Kunis’ character in Ted, Theron’s beauty and affection for the movie’s flawed leading man sometimes strains credulity but also helps his case. When she laughs at MacFarlane’s joke about her “cans,” she makes it OK for the audience to do so too. Or at least that’s the theory. “It’s what Edith Bunker used to do for Archie,” MacFarlane said. “It makes it OK for you to like him.”

MacFarlane said he feels blowback not from audiences but from journalists.

“The press is very easily offended,” he said. “It’s the outrage industry. The rest of the country, they’re fine. They’ll laugh. They’re OK with it. I don’t operate in the way that I want to please the critics. That’s like putting a puppet show on for your parents. You want as many people to see it as possible, as many people to enjoy it as possible, and the audience at large is OK with that stuff.”

Nonetheless he does test screen his films and occasionally makes tweaks. Test audiences baulked at a funeral scene in A Million Ways to Die in the West, which MacFarlane cut but said he’ll put on the film’s DVD extras. “If something is not working over and over, you can’t delude yourself that it’s funny,” he said.

Theron said she and MacFarlane were happy to keep each other from self-delusion on set as well.

“We had a very honest relationship,” Theron said. “It’s like when a friend tells you, ‘Don’t wear that shirt.’” — Los Angeles Times/MCT

 

Jessica Alba says no to professional nannies!

Actress Jessica Alba has decided to avoid professional nannies and hire caring family members to look after her children. Alba, 33, is raising daughters — Honor, five, and two-and-a-half-year-old Haven — with husband Cash Warren. Now, Alba is apparently telling friends that she’s against the modern trend of parents hiring total strangers. “Jessica is really against the idea of people hiring strangers as nannies. She finds it unseemly and undignified,” raderonline.com quoted the source close to the actress-turned-baby-product-mogul as saying.

“Instead, Jessica says parents should find a younger member of their extended family to
take care of their kids part-time because they are sure to be more loving and connected to them.”

The source revealed that despite her wealth, Alba’s choice is also a financial one. “Plus, Jess says an added benefit is that you don’t have to pay family members nearly as much as people you get through employment services!”

Meanwhile, she is becoming a go-to expert on parenting thanks to the success of her Honest Company brand line of eco-friendly baby products. Early this month the actress was honoured with “Mother Of The Year” at an event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

“Her two cousins work for her as an assistant and a nanny and the situation is working out great for the busy mom,” the source said. Most importantly to Alba, “She has complete security in knowing that her cousins will love and protect her children as much as she does.” — IANS

 

Finally, Emma Watson completes her graduation

Actress Emma Watson has received a degree in English Literature after five years of studying. The graduation ceremony was Sunday and her mother Jacqueline Luesby was also present on the occasion. Emma graduated after five years — and three enrollments — at university, reports dailymail.co.uk.

Watson shared the exciting news on Twitter by posting a photograph of herself in a cap and gown. The 24-year-old took five years to complete the course, which she began in 2009 at Brown, before dropping out to shoot the final Harry Potter film - Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, in which she starred as the studious witch Hermione Granger.

Then, having transferred to Oxford University for another go at it in 2011, she was cast in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and put her studies on hold once more. She returned to Brown in January and has now completed her studies. In an interview with Elle Magazine last month, Watson revealed that once she began attending the prestigious Ivy League university in Rhode Island, many people told her it would be impossible to graduate.

“So many people told me it wasn’t possible. I kept saying, ‘I don’t care.’ This is what I want. And graduating will, for me, be really symbolic of all of that. I will be there. And I will be throwing a huge party,” she said. — IANS

Post Maleficent, Jolie finds her face ‘dull’

Actress Angelina Jolie says that she feels she looks “dull” after removal of Maleficent prosthetics. The 38-year-old donned prosthetics to transform the shape of her face to play the titular wicked fairy in the Sleeping Beauty and admits she felt “flat” when she returned to her normal self after the filming, reports contactmusic.com. She said: “It was quite important she didn’t look traditionally pretty. What’s now strange is when I go home for the weekend, I feel like my face is really flat — I feel very dull in comparison to her. She’s so much more fun.” — IANS

Jennifer Lawrence star struck

Actress Jennifer Lawrence was reportedly left star struck by pop sensation Justin Bieber after being introduced to him at the Cannes International Film Festival last week. The Huger Games actress reportedly fawned over the Canadian star when she was introduced to him at Vanity Fair’s 100-guest dinner at the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc, reports contactmusic.com. “(Jennifer) was dying to meet him. She told him she’s a big fan — and that she finds him cute,” a source told US Weekly magazine.

Robert Pattinson was also spotted hanging out with Bieber, who was on his best behaviour at the event and was “very nice” to all the guests. Another source said: “He went up to Justin at the bar and said, ‘What’s up?’ “ It’s not the first time 23-year-old Lawrence has been left in awe of an A-lister. Earlier this year, the stunning actress was lost for words when she came face-to-face with Homeland star Damian Lewis, who plays Nicholas Brody on the hit show. — IANS