Daniel Radcliffe and Evan Rachel Wood on the new Weird Al biopic and ‘doing something crazy’
When a relatively unknown streaming platform announced it was making a biopic film of parody king Weird Al Yankovic – there was really only one man for the job.
It was revealed Daniel Radcliffe had signed on to play the musician soon after, joining actors such as Rami Malek and Taron Egerton who have starred as real-life performers in biopics in recent years.
Though unlike Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, this biopic is a parody – a reimagining of Yankovic’s life with everything from jumping into bed with Madonna, to wielding machine guns in South American drug dens.
Click to subscribe to Backstage wherever you get your podcasts
Speaking to Backstage, the TV and film podcast from Sky News, Radcliffe said he didn’t feel pressure playing Weird Al.
“There was something quite liberating for us about how different the people we’re playing are from their real-life counterparts,” he explained.
“You know, if I had been walking off set, and it was a ‘Serious Al’ biopic, I’m sure I would have been looking at Al every time and being like, ‘Oh, is he happy with that?’ Like, ‘is that moment we’ve recreated alright?’
“But, you know, when I’m walking down the table, letting loose with a machine gun, it definitely gives you a lot of licence to go ‘we’re just we’re doing something crazy and different’.
“If somebody played me as a crazy person, I’d be delighted.”
Westworld star Evan Rachel Wood, who plays a scheming Madonna, added: “I would have had to have gone to a boot camp if I was really doing her.”
She was referring to the rumours that actresses vying to play the Ray Of Light singer in her own biopic had to go through a gruelling dancing and singing bootcamp.
Evan Rachel Wood in Weird. Pic: Roku
Instead, Wood “watched as many interviews and videos as I could and then thought, ‘great, now just turn her into a raging sociopath, and we’re there'”.
The movie was made in a miniscule amount of time, with filming taking just 18 days in early 2022.
Not only that, but it packs in cameos in just about every single scene – from the likes of Jack Black and Lin-Manuel Miranda, to Conan O’Brien and Weird Al himself.
Plus factor in musical performances in kitchens, all the way up to stadiums – this shoot could not have been easy.
However, the breakneck speed of production wasn’t a barrier, Radcliffe told Backstage, saying instead it felt “amazing”.
“It was the fastest shoot I’ve ever done. It was amazing – it was so well-prepared, that you did feel like you were basically getting enough time for everything and everyone came in super prepared.
“Everyone came in also and realised very quickly, ‘oh, we’re getting like two, maybe three takes of everything. And that’s just that’s what it is, and you can’t be too precious about it’.
“The vibe on set was just… it did feel very celebratory all the time. There was no one on set that was indifferent to Al’s work.”
Evan Rachel Wood and Daniel Radcliffe in Weird. Pic: Roku
For Wood and Radcliffe – maybe in a few years we’d see films about their illustrious careers, as biopics seem to start becoming part of the Hollywood churn.
But who would play them?
“I almost need to feel like I need to stop giving this answer because we do get mistaken for each other all the time, and I think it’s probably annoying him, but Elijah Wood is the obvious place to play me in a parody of my life,” Radcliffe told Backstage.
Radcliffe and Wood became household names at similar times in the early noughties, with the pair starring in the lead roles in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises.
Wood says Rachel Brosnahan, the star of Marvellous Mrs. Maisel would play her, saying she is often mistaken for the actress.
Weird streams on Roku, a free streaming service, from 4 November.
Davina McCall has said her short-term memory is “a bit remiss” as she recovers from brain tumour surgery.
Speaking from her bed, the visibly emotional TV presenter posted a short video updating her Instagram followers on her condition, saying it had been a “mad” time.
She expressed an “enormous heartfelt thank you” to people who had messaged her after she revealed this month she had a benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, which she described as “very rare”.
Looking bright, but with a visibly bruised left eye, McCall said: “My short-term memory is a bit remiss.
“But that is something I can work on, so I’m really happy about that. I’m writing everything down, to keep myself feeling safe.”
She added: “It’s been mad, and it’s just really nice to be back home, I’m on the other side.”
In a message posted with the video, she reiterated her thanks for all the support she has received, adding: “Had a great night’s sleep in my own bed. Have a couple of sleeps during the day which keeps my brain clear… Slowly, slowly…”
When she first shared her diagnosis, she said chances of having it were “three in a million” and that she had discovered it several months previously after a company offered her a health scan in return for giving a menopause talk.
The 57-year-old star said support from her fans had “meant the world”.
She said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by her partner, hairdresser Michael Douglas, and her stepmother, Gabby, who she calls mum.
Becoming tearful, the presenter said: “I’d quickly like to say big up the stepmums. I don’t really say thank you to Gabby enough. She’s been an amazing rock my whole life.”
McCall was estranged from her birth mother, Florence McCall, who died in 2008.
McCall with 2002 Big Brother winner Kate Lawler. Pic: Rex Features
With a catch in her voice, McCall went on: “I’ve got a massive dose of vitamin G – I’m just really grateful. I’ve always been really lucky in my life, but I feel unbelievably grateful right now. So, thanks for everything, all of you.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting and sleeping loads and I feel really good. I’m just very lucky.”
Stars including presenter Alison Hammond, singer Craig David and radio host Zoe Ball quickly shared their delight at the positive update.
McCall rose to fame presenting on MTV in the mid-1990s, and later on Channel 4’s Streetmate, before becoming a household name as the host of Big Brother from 2000 to 2010.
McCall with her MBE, alongside her partner Michael Douglas and her daughter Holly Robertson. Pic: PA
She’s gone on to present programmes across the networks, the most recent being ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad.
Last year, McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
Married twice, McCall has three children, two daughters and a son, with her second husband, presenter Matthew Robertson.
She has lived with Douglas since 2022, and they present a weekly lifestyle podcast together, Making The Cut.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling novelist who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.
The Leeds-born author, who sold more than 90 million books, died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness and was “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, a spokeswoman said.
Taylor Bradford, who was often labelled “the grand dame of blockbusters”, hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success.
The story sold millions of copies and traced the journey of Emma Harte from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire.
The rags to riches story was followed by many other successful books with the author’s works being published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
The author on her 21st birthday. Pic: Bradford Enterprises/PA
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said the author was a “natural storyteller”, adding: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
Taylor Bradford, who was made an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, wrote a total of 40 novels during her career – her most recent was The Wonder Of It All, published last year.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
Taylor Bradford with her husband Robert in 1993. Pic: PA
Born in May 1933 as the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor, she worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post before becoming a reporter and then the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At the age of 20, she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
She met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, in 1961 and they married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963 before moving to New York the following year.
Read more on Sky News:
At least one dead after DHL cargo plane crashes
How long will unsettled weather last in the UK?
The couple were married for 55 years until he died from a stroke in 2019.
Following a private funeral in New York, the author will be buried alongside her late husband at the city’s Westchester Hills Cemetery.
Entertainment
Adele bids tearful farewell to Las Vegas residency as star admits she doesn’t know when she’ll perform next
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports8 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway