Names and faces
Actor and screenwriter Paul Rudd picked up his 2018 Man of the Year award from the nation’s oldest collegiate theatrical organization at Harvard University on Friday night. Rudd received the Hasty Pudding honor during a black-tie event.
The Boston Globe reported the actor was celebrated in a roast that targeted his
“dad face” and his past as a bar mitzvah
DJ. Hasty Pudding said it chose the Ant
Man star because his career has spanned many genres, from independent to mainstream films, from heartfelt comedies to superheroes. He plays the lead in the coming The Catcher Was a Spy, the real-life story of Ivy Leaguer and major league ballplayer Moe Berg, a spy with the forerunner of the CIA during World War II. “Filming in Fenway was one of the greatest days I’ve ever had in my life, let alone my acting life,” Rudd said Friday. “I’m a baseball fan and was on hallowed ground. To be on the field, wearing the uniform, and playing somebody who is real, which is a new experience for me, was surreal.” Actress Mila Kunis was celebrated as Woman of the Year on Jan. 25, the same day the 223-year-old group, known for comedic revues that feature men in drag playing female characters, said it would allow women to join its cast, starting next year.
Woody Allen’s French film distributor has defended the American director against sexual abuse claims, saying he has been unfairly caught up in the fallout surrounding the #MeToo movement. Writing in the French weekly Le Point, Mars Films head Stephane Celerier dismissed the furor over renewed allegations by Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, that Allen molested her in an attic in 1992 when she was 7. Celerier describes the accusation as a family drama caught in the cross hairs of the #MeToo movement amid fallout from the allegations of rape and sexual harassment against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein. It is “shameless opportunism,” Celerier said of the fresh attacks against the director in the media that he said “taint the dignity of real victims.” His defense of Allen is the latest chapter in an emerging narrative in France, particularly in its film industry, that the Hollywood anti-abuse campaign has gone too far. Farrow in January gave her first on-camera interview to CBS This Morning about her longstanding abuse allegations against the 82-year-old filmmaker. Allen has long denied the allegations and was investigated but not charged.