The Hollywood Reporter - 30.10.2019

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Heard Around Hollywood

About Town

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 34 OCTOBER 30, 2019

ZELNICK: @TRUNIAGEN/INSTAGRAM. KRAVITZ: JIM SPELLMAN/FILMMAGIC. SABAN: JON KOPALOFF/GETTY IMAGES. KELLEY: AXELLE/BAUER-GRIFFIN/

FILMMAGIC. BROLIN: STEVE GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE.

RABBIT

: KIMBERLEY FRENCH/TWENTIETH

CENTURY FOX. MAN, STREET: ADOBE STOCK. KOCH: FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES. BROOKS: COURTESY OF SUBJECT. BURTON: COURTESY OF FAMILY. ORLANDO: COURTESY OF BET. KLINKE: THE LIGHT + COLOR. STONE: KRIS LABANG.

Josh Brolin Avenges Santa Monica Crime Fighters
Turns out Thanos is even more powerful than a Santa Monica City
Council member. Josh Brolin — the 51-year-old veteran actor and
Avengers nemesis — recently stepped into a social media war between
SMCC member Ted Winterer and Santa Monica Problems, a Twitter
and Instagram group dedicated to uncovering crime and “other issues
plaguing” the city. After Winterer blocked SMP from his Twitter feed
(he has 2,479 followers), SMP responded with a terse post — “Blocking
your constituents will not make [crime] go away” — that Brolin, a
Santa Monica resident with wife Kathryn Boyd and young daughter
Westlyn, saw and shared with his 2.8 million Instagram followers.
Guess what happened next. “I got pilloried by people from around the
world,” says Winterer, who admits to being “somewhat of a klutz” on
social media. The council member quickly unblocked SMP and invited
Brolin for a coffee (which the actor has not yet accepted). “I’m a big
fan,” says Winterer. “I’ve seen Avengers twice. My son and I even went
on opening weekend.”

Josh Brolin, a Santa Monica City Council member’s worst nightmare.

This hunk was once on the CBS board.

Strauss Zelnick Goes Topless
in Youth Pill Ad
Strauss Zelnick is losing his shirt
again. The 62-year-old
chairman and CEO of video game
giant Take-Two Interactive
— who served for a year as
chairman of the board of
directors of CBS Corp. until it
merged with Viacom this fall
— has been sporting his chiseled
abs in an online ad for a dietary
supplement. He’s posed topless
before — for the cover of his 2018
book Becoming Ageless: The Four
Secrets of Looking and Feeling
Yo u ng er T h an Ev er — but this
time his photo is accompanied by
a sales pitch (“I take Tru Niagen”)
and a small-print disclaimer
noting that Zelnick is a paid
spokesperson for the Tru Niagen
company. Whether the youth pill

How Koch Went From

Howard to Hawk

What’s in a name? Not much,

unless you’re Hawk Koch. The

73-year-old producer of such

films as Wayne’s World and Primal

Fear — and now the author of

Magic Time: My Life in Hollywood, a

memoir about his four decades in

the business — was born Howard

W. Koch Jr., after his father,

the much-admired producer of

The Manchurian Candidate and

Airplane! As if living in his dad’s

shadow wasn’t hard enough,

there was a third Howard Koch

in Hollywood: the

one who co-wrote

Casablanca. So, 23

years ago, at age 50,

this Howard Koch

adopted his child-

hood nickname — Hawk — as

his official moniker. “I met this

amazing rabbi,” Koch tells

Rambling Reporter, “and he

said, ‘Did you know hawks can

see a squirrel a half-mile away?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could

see the panoramic of your life

and the detail at the same time?’

I thought, ‘Wow, that would be

great.’ ” Still, Koch hasn’t been

able to completely escape his dad’s

shadow: In 2012, he was elected

president of the movie Academy,

Howard Sr.’s old job. They’re the

only father and son ever to run

the organization. — STEPHEN GALLOWAY

David E. Kelley Pitches Wife a

Fish Farm Series?

There’s a scene in Big Little Lies in

which one of the characters grills

a restaurant server about the

sourcing of the menu’s seafood.

Now we know where that came

from: The show’s creator, David E.

Kelley, 63, owns an Idaho-based

fish farm. “I say to my wife once

a week, ‘How about a series about

a fish farmer?’ ” Kelley (aka, Mr.

Michelle Pfeiffer) joked during

an Oct. 16 talk at the Aquarium

of the Pacific in Long Beach,

explaining that his hobby fish

company, Riverence, is now the

second largest steelhead trout

producer in the U.S. Fish from

his farm are sold at Santa Monica

Seafood and are on the menu at

such L.A. restaurants as Tender

Greens, Momofuku, Bottlefish

and Toast. Kelley told the crowd

that his biggest challenge as a fish

farmer is the cost of fish food (“I

write television shows to pay for

fish feed,” he quipped), although

his company’s name appears

to be a problem, as well. At one

point at the Long Beach event, an

attendee mistakenly referred to it

as “Riverdale,” a TV series Kelley

didn’t even write. “It’s a very

good show,” he gently corrected

her. — DEGEN PENER

The Day Taika Waititi Made

Little Archie Yates Cry

In Taika Waititi’s Third Reich

sendup Jojo Rabbit, 10-year-old

scene-stealer Archie Yates gets to

accidentally launch grenades into

buildings and deliver some of the

film’s most memorable zingers

(“It’s definitely not a good time to

be a Nazi”). But it wasn’t all fun

and games on the set — especially

while shooting the film’s grim

battle sequence in the third act.

“It was really cold yet really hot,”

says the British fourth grader,

who plays the title character’s

adorably hapless best friend.

“And there was smoke and sulfur

everywhere, which really hurt my

nose. I started getting into a tizzy,

works, there is at least one false

claim in the ad: Zelnick didn’t get

paid a dime for taking off his

clothes. “Mr. Zelnick is a friend of

our CEO Rob Fried [who is

married to actress Nancy Travis],”

explains a rep for Tru Niagen.

“While he is not a spokesperson,

he does take Tru Niagen and

allows us to use his image in our

social media campaigns.”

Koch

Rambling Reporter

By Chris Gardner

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David E.

Kelley

and

Michelle

Pfeiffer