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Saturday, November 27, 2010

'King's Speech' Star Colin Firth Talks Awards-Season Love And 'Dumb Luck'

2010 best actor nominee looks poised for another Oscar nod.
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Colin Firth in "The King's Speech"
Photo: The Weinstein Company

For the second year in a row, Colin Firth finds himself at the center of awards-season chatter. And after losing out on a best actor Oscar for "A Single Man," the 50-year-old actor has again established himself as one of the frontrunners in that category, thanks to his turn as the stammer-afflicted King George VI on the verge of Britain's entry into World War II in "The King's Speech."

It seems Firth is an actor at the top of his game, but to hear him tell it, it's as much a matter of good fortune as it is great talent.

"It's just dumb luck," he told MTV News at the Toronto film festival in September. "That's all: Just getting a crack at it. Sometimes you just take roles to stay in the game or pay bills and hope the good ones are going to come along.

"I was never in a world of perfect choice, and now I feel like I've had a couple of real plums landing in my hand," he added.

It was at fall film festivals in Toronto and Telluride, Colorado, as critics first began to catch screenings of "King's Speech," that it became clear we'd still be talking about Firth's performance come awards season. He's been faithfully making the publicity rounds ever since, and as he told us when we chatted earlier this month in New York, he's not bored with the experience.

"Funnily enough, I find it easier than many things," he said. "There are so many angles you can approach it from, to do with the way people are reacting to it to the surprises we've had along the way to nuances about the actual history itself. I think this has a lot of mileage in it.

"It's been very gratifying for audiences to have howls of laughter and be open to crying," he continued. "To see that happening in the same film is a triumphant feeling. When you're in Telluride, you can put it down to altitude — one glass of wine amounts to 10. So we had to test it at sea level as well to see if people enjoyed it, and they did."

Did you see Firth's performance as King George VI? Give us your review in the comments below.

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1653074/20101124/story.jhtml

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Royal Wedding Tickets: Will & Kate Wedding Lottery

Can we win a lucky seat at the Royal Wedding? Tickets are possibly going to be offered to the UK public and we may see a Will & Kate wedding lottery? If the couple gets their way it will be a ?people?s ceremony.” Get all the details, with more pictures and videos below.

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T.R. Knight and Brendan Fraser Have Said Goodbye To Broadway

T.R. Knight, Brendan Fraser, Patrick Stewart, David Hyde Pierce and Mark Rylance are among the high-profile actors whose Broadway season has ended rather abruptly. Those are the early casualties after poor box-office results, weak reviews or a combination of both shortened the runs of the plays “Elling,” “La Bete” and “A Life in the Theatre.” [...]

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Rihanna Bested By Susan Boyle, Jackie Evancho On Billboard 200

Two "Talent" show singers top the charts, while Rihanna's Loud debuts at #3.
By Gil Kaufman

Rihanna
Photo: Matt Harper/ MTV News

Though it's an American holiday, Thanksgiving must be turning into Susan Boyle's favorite. After setting records last week with her second album, The Gift, former "Britain's Got Talent" runner-up Boyle will retain the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart next week thanks to sales of another 335,000 copies, and despite challenges from nine new competitors, according to figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan.

Last week, Boyle became the first woman, and only other artist besides the Beatles and the Monkees, to land two straight #1 albums within a calendar year in both England and the U.S. She retains the crown as another reality singer from a Simon Cowell-produced show, 10-year-old "America's Got Talent" runner-up Jackie Evancho, comes in just behind with her debut EP, O Holy Night (#2, 239,000).

That means Rihanna has to settle for a #3 debut for her fifth album, Loud, which sold 207,000 copies. It marked her best U.S. chart sales debut to date, besting the #4 bow of last year's Rated R, which came in with sales of 181,000. She leads a parade of new names in the top 10 which also includes Josh Groban's Rick Rubin-produced Illuminations (#4, 191,000), Kid Rock's Rubin-produced Born Free (#5, 189,000), Rascal Flatts' Nothing Like This (#6, 165,000), Keith Urban's Get Closer (#7, 162,000), the "Glee" Christmas album (#8, 161,000) and Nelly's 5.0 (#10, 63,000).

The only other hold-over from last week's top 10 is Taylor Swift, whose Speak Now figures dropped by more than 30 percent to 146,000 as her first month of sales crossed the 1.7 million mark. Pink's greatest-hits collection, Greatest Hits So Far!, comes in at #14 (53,000), just beating out the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's Darkness on the Edge of Town outtakes collection The Promise (#16, 47,000).

Season nine "American Idol" winner Lee DeWyze set a new record for "Idol" champs, just not the kind he probably wanted. His first major-label effort, Live It Up, is officially the poorest-selling debut from an "Idol" champ in history, notching a lowly #19 chart bow on anemic sales of 39,000. The title was previously held by season-eight winner Kris Allen, whose debut hit the charts in 2009 at #11 on sales of 80,000.

It was a very rough second week for Kid Cudi, whose Man on the Moon 2: The Legend of Mr. Rager plummets nearly 80 percent to #21 on sales of 34,000, while Eminem's Recovery drops 12 spots to #23 while holding steady on sales at 34,000 and crossing the 3 million mark. It was also a big comedown for Cee Lo, as his solo album The Lady Killer nosedives 30 spots to #39 after sales shriveled by 40 percent to 25,000.

Despite selling 2 million digital tracks and 450,000 digital albums in their iTunes coming-out party, the Beatles have only one album in the top 50, with Abbey Road slipping in at #50 (19,000). Thirteen other digital albums chart in the lower regions of the top 200.

The Fab Four are having better luck on the iTunes album chart, where Abbey Road comes in at #6 and a special box set closes out the tally at #10. But it is all Rihanna on that chart, as Loud holds the #1 slot, followed by the "Glee" Christmas album, Rascal Flatts, A Day to Remember's What Separates Me From You, Urban, Swift, Groban and Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

iTunes doesn't release sales figures, but "Glee" rules the singles countdown thanks to guest Gwyneth Paltrow's cover of Cee Lo's "Forget You," followed by Ke$ha's "We R Who We R," Cee Lo's own sanitized version of his profane hit single, Katy Perry's "Firework," Pink's "Raise Your Glass" and the "Glee" cast's recording of "Singing in the Rain/Umbrella." The rest of the singles chart includes #7 song "What's My Name?" by Rihanna and Drake, the Black Eyed Peas' "The Time (Dirty Bit)," Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)" and Far East Movement's "Like a G6."

Things will get shuffled all over again next week with chart debuts from Kanye, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, My Chemical Romance, Ne-Yo, Jay-Z, Akon, Alan Jackson, Ke$ha and the "Burlesque" soundtrack.

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Jay-Z, Beyonce, Usher Support Alicia Keys At AIDS Charity Ball

Jay, Janelle Monae, Swizz Beatz were among performers at Keys' 8th annual Keep a Child Alive event.
By Jayson Rodriguez, with reporting by Hillary Crosley

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz
Photo: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images

Alicia Keys has proven to be as selfless in real life as she is in song.

The singer held her 8th annual Keep a Child Alive Black Ball event in New York on Thursday night. The fundraiser brought out Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Usher, Jay Sean, Janelle Monae, Jennifer Hudson, Whitney Houston and more.

Jay-Z and Keys' husband, Swizz Beatz, performed "On to the Next One," and Jay later performed "Empire State of Mind." Monae also hit the stage, as did Keys and Sade, who performed a duet, "Love Is Stronger Than Pride."

"It's my heart and soul," Keys told MTV News about the organization she co-founded. "Since the beginning, we've been very driven to do incredible work. I'm proud to show what four to five women who are very dedicated can do."

The organization benefits children and families who have been affected by AIDS but can't afford to purchase medicine; the event reportedly helped raise $2.4 million.

This year, Keep a Child Alive introduced the "Buy Life" T-shirt. The shirt features a large barcode on the garment; donors can buy the shirt and scan the code with their smart phones to make a donation to the charity. Every time the code is scanned by a phone, a donation goes through. Ryan Seacrest, Kim Kardashian and Katie Holmes are among the celebrity spokespeople appearing in ads for the shirt.

"It's like a dream to me to be among these people singing and performing, and opening people's eyes to what Keep a Child Alive can do," Keys said.

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