Names and faces
Will Smith isn’t expecting any push-back from the NFL over his forthcoming football drama, Concussion. “I don’t think it’s going to generate too much controversy [with the NFL]. There will be a little difficulty in swallowing it, as it was for me. I’m a football dad, you know,” said the 47-year-old father of three. Smith was honored Sunday at the Hollywood Film Awards for his work in Concussion. He plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic neuropathologist who uncovered the effects of head trauma on the brain in football. “You don’t want it to be true,” Smith said on the red carpet. “I think that the science is really irrefutable and the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu is such a powerful story. I think that it will be difficult at first for some, but I don’t think that it’s going to be that big of an issue. It’s something that we have to accept.” Concussion made headlines after The New York Times reported the film was altered to placate the National Football League, a charge director Peter Landesman and Sony have denied. The Grammy-winning rapper, who recently appeared on the remix of Bomba Estereo’s song Fiesta, also discussed his return to music after a decade-long hiatus. “It’s such a new exploration for me. The most fun that I have. There’s nothing that compares to being on the stage with a hit record.”
Country singer Kellie Pickler is a veteran of reality television after honing her musical and dancing skills on American Idol and Dancing With the Stars, so she was very careful about agreeing to a new CMT reality show about her marriage to songwriter-producer Kyle Jacobs. “You definitely have to set boundaries from the start with anything you do,” Pickler said of her new show, I Love Kellie Pickler. “And keep things sacred for you and your marriage.” The 13-episode series, premiering Thursday at 9 p.m., doesn’t have the designer lifestyle and high drama found in the Kardashian household, or the raucous, drunken carousing of CMT’s signature reality show, Party Down South. The sweet Southern singer and her husband wanted to give fans a peek at their home life, but in a wholesome, family friendly way. “We want to keep it light and positive,” Pickler said. “There’s enough darkness out in the world. And there’s enough negativity on television.”