title: Paul the Apostle

text: Fuller Seminary theologian J. R. Daniel Kirk finds evidence in Paul's letters of a much more inclusive view of women. He writes that Romans 16 is a tremendously important witness to the important role of women in the early church. Paul praises Phoebe for her work as a deaconess and Junia who is described by Paul in Scripture as being respected among the Apostles. It is Kirk's observation that recent studies have led many scholars to conclude that the passage in 1 Corinthians 14 ordering women to "be silent" during worship was a later addition, apparently by a different author, and not part of Paul's original letter to the Corinthians.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Other scholars, such as Giancarlo Biguzzi, believe that Paul's restriction on women speaking in 1 Corinthians 14 is genuine to Paul but applies to a particular case where there were local problems of women, who were not allowed in that culture to become educated, asking questions or chatting during worship services. He does not believe it to be a general prohibition on any woman speaking in worship settings since in 1 Corinthians Paul affirms the right (responsibility) of women to prophesy.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: There were women prophets in the highly patriarchal times throughout the Old Testament. The most common term for "prophet" in the Old Testament is in the masculine form, and in the Hebrew feminine form, is used six times of women who performed the same task of receiving and proclaiming the message given by God. These women include Miriam, Aaron and Moses' sister, Deborah, the prophet Isaiah's wife, and Huldah, the one who interpreted the Book of the Law discovered in the temple during the days of Josiah. There were false prophetesses just as there were false prophets. The prophetess Noadiah was among those who tried to intimidate Nehemiah. Apparently they held equal rank in prophesying right along with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elisha, Aaron, and Samuel.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In pronouncing an end within the church to the divisions which are common in the world around it, he concludes by highlighting the fact that "there were New Testament women who taught and had authority in the early churches, that this teaching and authority was sanctioned by Paul, and that Paul himself offers a theological paradigm within which overcoming the subjugation of women is an anticipated outcome".


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Classicist Evelyn Stagg and theologian Frank Stagg believe that Paul was attempting to "Christianize" the societal household or domestic codes that significantly oppressed women and empowered men as the head of the household. The Staggs present a serious study of what has been termed the New Testament domestic code, also known as the "Haustafel". The two main passages that explain these "household duties" are Paul's letters to the Ephesians and to the Colossians. An underlying Household Code is also reflected in four additional Pauline letters and 1 Peter: 1 Timothy 2:1ff, 8ff; 3:1ff, 8ff; 5:17ff; 6:1f; Titus 2:1–10 and 1 Peter. Biblical scholars have typically treated the "Haustafel" in Ephesians as a resource in the debate over the role of women in ministry and in the home.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Margaret MacDonald argues that the "Haustafel", particularly as it appears in Ephesians, was aimed at "reducing the tension between community members and outsiders".


title: Paul the Apostle

text: E. P. Sanders has labeled Paul's remark in 1 Corinthians about women not making any sound during worship as "Paul's intemperate outburst that women should be silent in the churches". Women, in fact, played a very significant part in Paul's missionary endeavors:


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Most Christian traditions say Paul clearly portrays homosexuality as sinful in two specific locations: Romans 1:26–27, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Another passage, 1 Timothy 1:8–11, addresses the topic more obliquely. Since the 19th century, however, most scholars have concluded that 1 Timothy (along with 2 Timothy and Titus) is not original to Paul, but rather an unknown Christian writing in Paul's name some time in the late-1st to mid-2nd century.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Paul's influence on Christian thinking arguably has been more significant than any other New Testament author. Paul declared that "Christ is the end of the law", exalted the Christian church as the body of Christ, and depicted the world outside the Church as under judgment. Paul's writings include the earliest reference to the "Lord's Supper", a rite traditionally identified as the Christian communion or Eucharist. In the East, church fathers attributed the element of election in Romans 9 to divine foreknowledge. The themes of predestination found in Western Christianity do not appear in Eastern theology.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Paul had a strong influence on early Christianity. Hurtado notes that Paul regarded his own Christological views and those of his predecessors and that of the Jerusalem Church as essentially similar. According to Hurtado, this "work[s] against the claims by some scholars that Pauline Christianity represents a sharp departure from the religiousness of Judean 'Jesus movements'."


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Marcionism, regarded as heresy by contemporary mainstream Christianity, was an Early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144. Marcion asserted that Paul was the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Marcion believed Jesus was the savior sent by God, and Paul the Apostle was his chief apostle, but he rejected the Hebrew Bible and the God of Israel. Marcionists believed that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In his account of his conversion experience, Augustine of Hippo gave his life to Christ after reading Romans 13. Augustine's foundational work on the gospel as a gift (grace), on morality as life in the Spirit, on predestination, and on original sin all derives from Paul, especially Romans.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In his account of his conversion Martin Luther wrote about righteousness in Romans 1 praising Romans as the perfect gospel, in which the Reformation was birthed. Martin Luther's interpretation of Paul's writings influenced Luther's doctrine of "sola fide".


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In his commentary "The Epistle to the Romans" (; particularly in the thoroughly re-written second edition of 1922), Karl Barth argued that the God who is revealed in the cross of Jesus challenges and overthrows any attempt to ally God with human cultures, achievements, or possessions.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In addition to the many questions about the true origins of some of Paul's teachings posed by historical figures as noted above, some modern theologians also hold that the teachings of Paul differ markedly from those of Jesus as found in the Gospels. Barrie Wilson states that Paul differs from Jesus in terms of the origin of his message, his teachings and his practices. Some have even gone so far as to claim that, due to these apparent differences in teachings, that Paul was actually no less than the "second founder" of Christianity (Jesus being its first).


title: Paul the Apostle

text: As in the Eastern tradition in general, Western humanists interpret the reference to election in Romans 9 as reflecting divine foreknowledge.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Jewish interest in Paul is a recent phenomenon. Before the positive historical reevaluations of Jesus by some Jewish thinkers in the 18th and 19th centuries, he had hardly featured in the popular Jewish imagination and little had been written about him by the religious leaders and scholars. Arguably, he is absent from the Talmud and rabbinical literature, although he makes an appearance in some variants of the medieval polemic Toledot Yeshu (as a particularly effective spy for the rabbis).


title: Paul the Apostle

text: However, with Jesus no longer regarded as the paradigm of gentile Christianity, Paul's position became more important in Jewish historical reconstructions of their religion's relationship with Christianity. He has featured as the key to building barriers (e.g. Heinrich Graetz and Martin Buber) or bridges (e.g. Isaac Mayer Wise and Claude G. Montefiore) in interfaith relations, as part of an intra-Jewish debate about what constitutes Jewish authenticity (e.g. Joseph Klausner and Hans Joachim Schoeps), and on occasion as a dialogical partner (e.g. Richard L. Rubenstein and Daniel Boyarin).


title: Paul the Apostle

text: He features in an oratorio (by Felix Mendelssohn), a painting (by Ludwig Meidner) and a play (by Franz Werfel), and there have been several novels about Paul (by Shalom Asch and Samuel Sandmel). Jewish philosophers (including Baruch Spinoza, Leo Shestov, and Jacob Taubes) and Jewish psychoanalysts (including Sigmund Freud and Hanns Sachs) have engaged with the apostle as one of the most influential figures in Western thought. Scholarly surveys of Jewish interest in Paul include those by , , , and .


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In the 2nd (and possibly late 1st) century, Gnosticism was a competing religious tradition to Christianity which shared some elements of theology.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Elaine Pagels concentrated on how the Gnostics interpreted Paul's letters and how evidence from gnostic sources may challenge the assumption that Paul wrote his letters to combat "gnostic opponents" and to repudiate their statement that they possess secret wisdom.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Muslims have long believed that Paul purposefully corrupted the original revealed teachings of Jesus, through the introduction of such elements as paganism, the making of Christianity into a theology of the cross, and introducing original sin and the need for redemption.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: Sayf ibn Umar claimed that certain rabbis persuaded Paul to deliberately misguide early Christians by introducing what Ibn Hazm viewed as objectionable doctrines into Christianity. Ibn Hazm repeated Sayf's claims. The Karaite scholar Jacob Qirqisani also believed that Paul created Christianity by introducing the doctrine of Trinity. Paul has been criticized by some modern Muslim thinkers. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas wrote that Paul misrepresented the message of Jesus, and Rashid Rida accused Paul of introducing (polytheism) into Christianity. Mohammad Ali Jouhar quoted Adolf von Harnack's critical writings of Paul.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In Sunni Muslim polemics, Paul plays the same role (of deliberately corrupting the early teachings of Jesus) as a later Jew, Abdullah ibn Saba', would play in seeking to destroy the message of Islam from within. Among those who supported this view were scholars Ibn Taymiyyah (who believed while Paul ultimately succeeded, Ibn Saba failed) and Ibn Hazm (who claimed that the Jews even admitted to Paul's sinister purpose).


title: Paul the Apostle

text: The critics of Paul the Apostle include US president Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, who wrote that Paul was the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." Christian anarchists Leo Tolstoy and Ammon Hennacy took a similar view.


title: Paul the Apostle

text: In the Baha'i faith, scholars have various viewpoints on Paul. Discussions in Bahá'í scholarship have focused on whether Paul changed the original message of Christ or delivered the true Gospel, with proponents of both positions.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Lucy Alexis Liu (born December 2, 1968) is an American actress. Her accolades include winning a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Seoul International Drama Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu has starred as Ling Woo in the television series "Ally McBeal" (1998–2002), Alex Munday in two "Charlie's Angels" films (2000 and 2003) and Joan Watson in the crime-drama series "Elementary" (2012–2019). Her film work includes starring in "Payback" (1999), "Shanghai Noon" (2000), "Chicago" (2002), "" (2003), "Lucky Number Slevin" (2006), "Watching the Detectives" (2007), "The Man with the Iron Fists" (2012), and "Set It Up" (2018).


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu provided voice acting for Master Viper in the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise (2008–2016) and Silvermist in the "Tinker Bell" series (2008–2014). Her other voice credits include "Maya & Miguel" (2004–2007), "Mulan II" (2004), as well as the English and Mandarin-dubbed versions of "Magic Wonderland" (2014) and "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" (2013).


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu was born on December 2, 1968, in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. In high school, she adopted a middle name, Alexis. She is the youngest of three children born to Cecilia, who worked as a biochemist, and Tom Liu, a trained civil engineer who sold digital clock pens. Liu's parents originally came from Beijing and Shanghai and immigrated to Taiwan as adults before meeting in New York. She has an older brother, John, and an older sister, Jenny. Her parents worked many jobs while Lucy and her siblings were growing up.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu has stated that she grew up in a diverse neighborhood. She learned to speak Mandarin at home and began studying English when she was five. She studied the martial art "kali-eskrima-silat" as a hobby when she was young. Liu attended Joseph Pulitzer Middle School (I.S.145), and graduated from Stuyvesant High School. She later enrolled at New York University and transferred to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she was a member of the Chi Omega sorority. Liu earned a bachelor's degree in Asian languages and cultures.


title: Lucy Liu

text: At the age of 19, while traveling on the subway, Liu was discovered by an agent. She appeared in one commercial as a result. As a member of the Basement Arts student-run theater group, she auditioned in 1989 for the University of Michigan's production of "Alice in Wonderland" during her senior year of college. Although she had originally tried out for only a supporting role, Liu was cast in the lead. While in line to audition for the musical "Miss Saigon" in 1990, she told "The New York Times", "There aren't many Asian roles, and it's very difficult to get your foot in the door." In May 1992, Liu made her New York stage debut in "Fairy Bones", directed by Tina Chen.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu had small roles in films and TV, marking her debut. In 1992, she made her big-screen debut in the Hong Kong film "Rhythm of Destiny", which starred Danny Lee and Aaron Kwok. In 1993, she appeared in an episode of "L.A. Law" as a Chinese widow giving her evidence in Mandarin. Liu starred on the sitcom "Pearl", which lasted one season. Shortly after the end of "Pearl's" run in 1997, Liu was cast in a role on "Ally McBeal". Liu originally auditioned for the role of Nelle Porter (played by Portia de Rossi), and the character Ling Woo was later created specifically for her. Liu's part on the series was originally temporary, but high audience ratings secured Liu as a permanent cast member. Additionally, she earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series.


title: Lucy Liu

text: In 2000, Liu starred in "Charlie's Angels" along with Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz. In 2001, Liu was the spokeswoman for the Lee National Denim Day fundraiser, which raises money for breast cancer research and education. In 2004 Liu was appointed an ambassador for U.S. Fund for UNICEF. She traveled to Pakistan and Lesotho, among several other countries. In 2002, Liu played Rita Foster in Vincenzo Natali's "Brainstorm". She appeared as O-Ren Ishii in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film, "Kill Bill". While in negotiations for "Kill Bill" with Tarantino the two joined to help produce the Hungarian sports documentary "Freedom's Fury". She won an MTV Award for Best Movie Villain for her part in "Kill Bill". Subsequently, Liu appeared on several episodes of "Joey" with Matt LeBlanc, who played her love interest in the "Charlie's Angels" films. She also had minor roles as Kitty Baxter in the film "Chicago" and as a psychologist opposite Keira Knightley in the thriller "Domino". In "Lucky Number Slevin", she played the leading love interest to Josh Hartnett. "3 Needles" was released on December 1, 2006, Liu portrayed Jin Ping, an HIV-positive Chinese woman.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu had previously presented her artwork under a pseudonym, Yu Ling (which is her Chinese name). Liu, who is an artist in several media, has had several gallery shows showcasing her collage, paintings, and photography. She began doing collage mixed media when she was 16 years old, and became a photographer and painter. Liu attended the New York Studio School for drawing, painting, and sculpture from 2004 to 2006. In September 2006, Liu held an art show and donated her share of the profits to UNICEF. She also had another show in 2008 in Munich. Her painting, "Escape", was incorporated into Montblanc's Cutting Edge Art Collection and was shown during Art Basel Miami 2008, which showed works by contemporary American artists. Liu has stated that she donated her share of the profits from the NYC Milk Gallery gallery show to UNICEF. In London, a portion of the proceeds from her book "Seventy Two" went to UNICEF.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Early in 2006, Liu received an "Asian Excellence Award" for "Visibility". She also hosted an MTV documentary, "Traffic", for the MTV EXIT campaign in 2007. In 2008, she produced and narrated the short film "The Road to Traffik", about the Cambodian author and human rights advocate Somaly Mam. The film was directed by Kerry Girvin and co-produced by photographer Norman Jean Roy. This led to a partnership with producers on the documentary film "Redlight".


title: Lucy Liu

text: In 2007 Liu appeared in ""; "", a supernatural thriller co-starring Michael Chiklis in which Liu plays an undead reporter (for which she was ranked number 41 on "Top 50 Sexiest Vampires"); and "Watching the Detectives", an independent romantic comedy co-starring Cillian Murphy. She made her producer debut and also starred in a remake of "Charlie Chan", which had been planned as early as 2000. In 2007 "Empire" named Liu number 96 of their "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". The producers of "Dirty Sexy Money" created a role for Liu as a series regular. Liu played Nola Lyons, a powerful attorney who faced Nick George (Peter Krause). Liu voiced Silvermist in "Disney Fairies" and Viper in "Kung Fu Panda".


title: Lucy Liu

text: In March 2010, Liu made her Broadway debut in the Tony Award–winning play "God of Carnage" as Annette on the second replacement cast alongside Jeff Daniels, Janet McTeer, and Dylan Baker. Liu is a supporter of marriage equality for same-sex marriage, and became a spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign in 2011. She has teamed up with Heinz to combat the widespread global health threat of iron deficiency anemia and vitamin and mineral malnutrition among infants and children in the developing world.


title: Lucy Liu

text: In March 2012, she was cast as Joan Watson for "Elementary". "Elementary" is an American Sherlock Holmes adaptation, and the role Liu was offered is traditionally played by men. She has gained praise for her role as Watson, including three consecutive nominations for the People's Choice Awards for Favorite TV Crime Drama Actress. She also has played police officer Jessica Tang on "Southland", a television show focusing on the lives of police officers and detectives in Los Angeles, as a recurring guest actor during the fourth season. She received the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Drama Guest Actress for this role. Liu's other directorial credits include 6 episodes of "Elementary", an episode of "Graceland", the episode "Dearly Beloved" of "", and the second-season premiere of "Luke Cage".


title: Lucy Liu

text: In August 2011, Liu became a narrator for the musical group The Bullitts. In 2013, Liu was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Liu was named Harvard's 2016 Artist of the Year. She was awarded the Harvard Foundation's arts medal at the annual Harvard Foundation Award ceremony, during the Cultural Rhythms Festival in Sanders Theatre. She is also part of the cast in the post-apocalyptic thriller "Future World", directed by James Franco and Bruce Thierry Cheung. Her first national museum exhibition was held at the National Museum of Singapore in early 2019 and was titled "Unhomed Belongings."


title: Lucy Liu

text: In April 2021, Liu was cast as the villainess Kalypso in the upcoming superhero film "Shazam! Fury of the Gods". In 2022, she was cast to voice a role in the Walt Disney Animation Studios film "Strange World", and in Jake Kasdan's upcoming film "Red One".


title: Lucy Liu

text: In 1991, Liu underwent surgery after a breast cancer scare. "The doctor sort of felt and said it was cancer and it needs to come out. I went into shell-shock. It was pretty traumatizing." The lump was removed just two days after the doctor's examination and was found to be benign.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu has studied various religions, such as Buddhism, Taoism and Jewish mysticism. She has stated, "I'm into all things spiritual—anything to do with meditation or chants or any of that stuff. I studied Chinese philosophy in school. There's something in the metaphysical that I find very fascinating." She has been a member of the Chinese-American organization Committee of 100 since 2004.


title: Lucy Liu

text: Liu is a single parent. She has a son, Rockwell, who was born in 2015 via gestational surrogate. She has stated that surrogacy was the right option for her because, "I was working and I didn’t know when I was going to be able to stop." She was involved in Tylenol's #HowWeFamily Mother's Day Campaign, which celebrated non-traditional families.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Pharrell Lanscilo Williams (; born April 5, 1973) is an American record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter. Alongside close colleague Chad Hugo, he formed the hip hop and R&B production duo the Neptunes in the early 1990s,<ref name="Sony/ATV"></ref> with whom he has produced songs for various recording artists. In 1999, he became lead vocalist of the band N.E.R.D., which he formed with Hugo and drummer Shay Haley. Williams has been widely referred to as one of the most influential and successful music producers of the 21st century, having had a significant impact on the sound of modern popular music.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Williams released his debut solo album, "In My Mind", in 2006. In 2013, he produced and was featured alongside T.I. on the song "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and his song "Happy" was the lead single for the soundtrack of the film "Despicable Me 2". In the same year, he was featured on Daft Punk's single "Get Lucky", which won Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. His second album, "Girl", was released in 2014.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Williams has received numerous accolades and nominations. He has won 13 Grammy Awards, including three for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical (one as a member of the Neptunes). He is also a two-time Academy Award nominee: in 2014 for Best Original Song, for "Happy" (from "Despicable Me 2"); and in 2017 for Best Picture, as a producer of "Hidden Figures".


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Pharrell Lanscilo Williams was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on April 5, 1973, the eldest of the three sons of teacher Carolyn and handyman Williams. His ancestry goes back many generations in Virginia and North Carolina. One of his ancestors journeyed to West Africa in 1831, prompting other relatives to emigrate from the U.S. to Liberia in 1832. Williams met Chad Hugo in a seventh-grade summer band camp, where Williams played drums and Hugo played tenor saxophone. They attended Princess Anne High School where they were in the school band. Williams graduated from high school in 1991 and he attended Northwestern University for two years before dropping out.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In the early 1990s, Williams formed a hip hop group named Surrounded by Idiots with Chad Hugo, Timbaland, and Magoo; they disbanded before making any records. He then formed a four-piece "R&B-type" group, the Neptunes, with friends Shay Haley and Mike Etheridge. They entered a high school talent show, where they were discovered by producer Teddy Riley, whose studio was next to the school. After graduating, the group signed with Riley.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Williams wrote Riley's verse on Wreckx-n-Effect's 1992 hit "Rump Shaker". As the Neptunes, Williams and Hugo produced Noreaga's 1998 single "Superthug". The Neptunes began working with rap duo Clipse (rappers Pusha T and Malice) in the late 1990s, and worked on Clipse's album "Exclusive Audio Footage", which was not released.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: The Neptunes produced Mystikal's single "Shake Ya Ass" (2000), Jay-Z's single "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)" (2000), and Nelly's single "Hot in Herre" (2002). They worked with singer Kelis, producing her first two studio albums, "Kaleidoscope" (1999) and "Wanderland" (2001). In 2001, N.E.R.D., a band composed of Williams, Hugo, and Haley, released their debut album "In Search of...". Williams and Hugo signed Clipse to Arista Records through Williams' Star Trak Entertainment imprint in 2001. The Neptunes produced songs on singer Babyface's 2001 album, "Face2Face", including its lead single "There She Goes". The Neptunes produced the Britney Spears songs "I'm a Slave 4 U" and "Boys" for her third studio album, "Britney" (2001).


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2002, Clipse released their debut album, "Lord Willin'", with produced entirely by the Neptunes. That year, the Neptunes produced numerous songs on Justin Timberlake's debut album "Justified", including the singles "Señorita", "Like I Love You", and "Rock Your Body". In 2003, the Neptunes released a compilation album, "Clones". According to an unnamed August 2003 survey cited by "The Age", it was found the Neptunes produced almost 20% of songs played on British radio at the time; another survey in the US found they'd produced 43% of radio songs. The Neptunes produced Snoop Dogg's single "Drop It Like It's Hot" (2004), which also featured vocals from Williams.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: The Neptunes produced Gwen Stefani's single "Hollaback Girl", which entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 82 on the issue dated April 2, 2005, and topped the chart within six weeks of its release. In 2006, Williams released his debut solo album, "In My Mind". It debuted at number 3 on the US "Billboard" 200. The Neptunes produced Clipse's second album, "Hell Hath No Fury". The Neptunes produced several songs on Stefani's second album, "The Sweet Escape" (2006), including the promotional single, "Yummy", which features Williams. In December 2006, Williams was announced as a performer at Concert for Diana in Wembley Stadium, London on July 1, 2007. In 2007, the Neptunes produced on Jay-Z's tenth studio album, "American Gangster".


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Williams worked with Madonna for her eleventh studio album, "Hard Candy" (2008). In June 2008, an article in "NME" revealed that Williams was interested in producing the next album of American rock band the Strokes. Later that year, Williams worked on a remix album for Maroon 5, titled "". N.E.R.D. released their third studio album, "Seeing Sounds", in 2008.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Williams worked with Shakira on her songs "Did It Again", "Why Wait", "Good Stuff", and "Long Time" for her sixth studio album, "She Wolf" (2009). The following month, Williams made a guest appearance on French singer Uffie's debut album, which was released in early 2010.<ref name="Busy P Blog 10/03/2009"></ref> The Neptunes produced numerous songs on Clipse's third album, "Til the Casket Drops" (2009).


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2010, Williams worked on the music score for the animated film "Despicable Me" with composers Hans Zimmer and Heitor Pereira. In 2010, N.E.R.D. released their fourth studio album, "Nothing", through Star Trak. In late 2011, Williams worked on three tracks for Mike Posner's second album, "Sky High". In 2012, Williams composed and produced the music for the 84th Academy Awards alongside Hans Zimmer.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2013, Williams collaborated with French electronic duo Daft Punk on the songs "Get Lucky" and "Lose Yourself to Dance", both included on Daft Punk's fourth studio album, "Random Access Memories". "Get Lucky" peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart and number two on the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2013, Williams collaborated with Azealia Banks with the song "ATM Jam". The song was initially intended for Banks' debut studio album, "Broke with Expensive Taste" (2014), but was later removed from the album after Banks blamed Williams for the song's poor commercial performance. Williams penned three new original songs, included alongside composer Heitor Pereira's score, for the film "Despicable Me 2" (2013). These were "Just a Cloud Away", "Happy", and "Scream" (featuring CeeLo Green). His two original songs from the first film, "Despicable Me" and "Fun, Fun, Fun", were also reprised on the "Despicable Me 2" soundtrack. He also participated in the drummer sessions of the soundtrack of "Man of Steel" by Hans Zimmer. In March 2013, Robin Thicke's single "Blurred Lines", written and produced by Williams, was released. The song peaked at number one in multiple countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. In mid-2013, Williams was involved in two songs that sold a million copies in the UK: "Get Lucky" and "Blurred Lines".


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In August 2013, Busta Rhymes talked about an unreleased "documentary album" by Williams where he talks about "inner-city strife and hardship". In November 2013, Williams released the first 24-hour music video for "Happy"; guest appearances included Magic Johnson, Steve Carell, Jimmy Kimmel, Odd Future, among others. On November 1, 2013, Williams performed with a gospel choir at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine black parishioners were shot and killed on June 17, 2015.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: It was announced in December 2013 that Williams had been nominated for seven Grammy Awards, including Producer of the Year. In the same month, Williams signed a contract with Columbia Records, and announced an album set for release in 2014 that would feature "Happy". For "Happy", Williams was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In February 2014, Major Lazer announced they would be releasing a five-track EP titled "Apocalypse Soon" on the 25th of that month. The EP, released via Mad Decent and Secretly Canadian, features Williams and Sean Paul, among others. The first single off the EP, which features Williams, is titled "Aerosol Can". Williams contributed a verse to Future's February 2014 single "Move That Dope", which also featured Pusha T and Casino over production from Mike Will Made It.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: On February 18, 2014, Williams announced via Twitter that his second album, "Girl", would be released on March 3, 2014. The album was supported by a European concert tour, Dear Girl Tour. At the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014, Williams's song "Happy" lost to "Let It Go" from "Frozen". Afterwards, when "GQ" magazine asked Williams "how badly" did he want the Oscar, he responded: "When they read the results, my face was...frozen. But then I thought about it, and I just decided just to...let it go". At the Oscar Awards that same year, he wore a controversial outfit consisting of a tuxedo with shorts. In May 2014, Williams received an Innovator Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In March 2014, it was announced that Comme des Garçons would be releasing a unisex fragrance with Williams, named after his album "Girl". On March 31, 2014, Williams was announced as a new coach for the seventh season of "The Voice", replacing CeeLo Green. In June 2014, it was announced that Williams would make a guest appearance on the docu-series "Sisterhood of Hip Hop". Williams co-composed the score for "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014) with Hans Zimmer, Johnny Marr, Michael Einziger, and David A. Stewart. Williams was the executive producer of Atlanta rapper T.I.'s ninth studio album, "Paperwork", which was released on October 21, 2014, by Grand Hustle and Columbia Records. In May 2014, Williams curated an art show named after his album, "Girl", at the Galerie Perrotin in Paris, France. The show included artists Takashi Murakami, JR, Daniel Arsham, and Marina Abramović, among others. Williams collaborated with Gwen Stefani with the song "Shine" for the animated film "Paddington" (2014).


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In January 2015, Williams was announced as the musical director for a 7-continent Live Earth concert on June 18, 2015, to raise awareness about and pressure governments to act on climate change. On February 8, 2015, Williams made a cameo in an episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Walking Big & Tall" where he comes to Springfield to write a new anthem for the town. Williams recorded three songs for the soundtrack to the 2015 animated film "". On May 18, 2015, Team Pharrell had 16-year-old Sawyer Fredericks win the eighth season of "The Voice".


title: Pharrell Williams

text: At the 2015 Grammy Awards, Williams performed an orchestral rendition of "Happy" with Hans Zimmer and pianist Lang Lang that included a tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, inspired by Eric Garner's death and the Ferguson unrest. In 2015, a unanimous jury determined that "Blurred Lines", which Williams co-wrote and produced, was an infringement of the 1977 Marvin Gaye song "Got to Give It Up". The jury awarded the Gaye family $7.4 million in damages for the copyright infringement based on profits generated. In October 2015, the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University named Williams as their artist-in-residence. He gave the 2017 commencement address at the university and received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree on May 17, 2017. In 2018, Williams worked with Ariana Grande for her fourth studio album, "Sweetener" (2018). He produced several songs on the album, and is featured on the song "Blazed".


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In March 2019, Williams and the city of Virginia Beach announced the launch of a three-day music and cultural festival titled "Something in the Water", to be held during College Beach Weekend, April 26–28, on the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. The festival lineup included Travis Scott, Migos, Janelle Monáe, SZA, Rosalía, Anderson .Paak, Jhené Aiko, Mac DeMarco, Maggie Rogers, Lil Uzi Vert, Missy Elliott, Pusha T, Dave Matthews Band, and DRAM. The first day of the festival was cancelled due to severe storms. The "Pharrell and Friends" set that closed the festival's second day, featured Williams and a lineup of guests, including Jay-Z, Diddy, Busta Rhymes, Usher, Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Charlie Wilson, and Tyler, the Creator. The festival's final day featured Trey Songz, Chris Brown, Lil Duval, and members of SWV and Blackstreet. Williams produced five songs for Walt Disney Pictures' "The Lion King" (2019), marking his third collaboration with composer Hans Zimmer. In October 2019, Williams stated that he now regrets being associated with the 2013 song "Blurred Lines", which received intense backlash for its apparent sexist themes.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In the past, Williams has stated that he does not have any direct musical influences, but he has expressed his admiration for several musicians, including Michael Jackson, J Dilla, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Rakim, and Q-Tip. Williams explained that A Tribe Called Quest's debut album, "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" (1990), caused a "turning point" in his life, which "made him see that music was art".


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2005, Williams partnered with Japanese fashion icon Nigo to create the streetwear brands Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream footwear. In 2008, Williams co-designed a series of eyewear and jewelry for Louis Vuitton. In 2008, Williams founded a non-profit organization called "From One Hand To AnOTHER" (FOHTA). In 2009, Williams unveiled a collaborative sculpture with Takashi Murakami at Art Basel, which spoke to the metaphor of value. In May 2011, it was announced that Williams would serve as creative director of KarmaloopTV alongside founder and CEO Greg Selkoe and former AMC president Katie McEnroe.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In May 2012, Williams launched the social media venture I Am Other. In August 2013, Williams created a line of sunglasses for fashion brand Moncler called "Moncler Lunettes". In 2014, Williams entered a long-term partnership with Adidas. His Adidas NMD "Human Race" collection was released on July 23, 2016. In February 2014, Williams announced a collaboration between G-Star Raw and his textile company Bionic Yarn called "RAW for the Oceans," a collection of denim made from recycled plastic that is found in the ocean. The project was presented at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2014, Williams appeared on a cover designed by French artist Grégoire Guillemin of New York-based men fashion magazine Adon, covering the collaboration. Williams released a collection for retail giant Uniqlo in April 2014 entitled "i am OTHER". It was created with Nigo, creative director of UT, the company's T-shirt division. In 2014, Williams worked on art with Emmanuel Perrotin and a French manufacturer, Domeau & Pérès. In June 2014, artist collective Rizzoli published a book by FriendsWithYou, "We Are Friends With You", that featured contributions from Williams, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Peter Doroshenko. Williams was the executive producer of the 2015 crime comedy-drama film "Dope".


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2017, Williams designed a €1,000 sneaker in collaboration with Chanel and Adidas. Verizon partnered with Williams on April 26, 2019, to launch a tech-fused music curriculum in a nationwide Verizon Foundation Learning schools. The education organization under Verizon Foundation works toward providing free technology, internet access, technology-focused curriculum to under-resourced middle schools. In November 2020, Williams launched Humanrace, a skin care brand. In December 2021, Williams would launch the winter line "Premium basics" together with Adidas Originals.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In June 2022, Doodles announced Williams as its Chief Brand Officer. Additionally, Doodles have set a release date for Williams to release a Doodles album that will be available to stream in addition to be sold exclusively as NFTs.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: Williams married his longtime partner, model and fashion designer Helen Lasichanh, on October 12, 2013. The couple have four children together: son Rocket (born in 2008) and triplets (born in January 2017). The "Despicable Me" song "Rocket's Theme" was written in honor of their son Rocket.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: In 2005, Williams was voted "Best Dressed Man in the World" by "Esquire". He is a fan of the science fiction series "Star Trek", as indicated by his consistent use of the Vulcan salute to signify his label name, Star Trak. Williams is a skateboarder and has a half-pipe inside his home. In 2011, Williams announced that he is building a $35 million after-school center in his home town, Virginia Beach. In 2015, Williams bought a house in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles. In 2019, Williams offered internships to 144 students at Promise Academy in Harlem, New York City.


title: Pharrell Williams

text: On March 26, 2021, Williams' cousin Donovan Lynch was shot and killed by an officer from the Virginia Beach Police Department after "brandishing a handgun" following three shootings in the area. Williams has called for a federal investigation into the incident.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Shazam! is a 2019 superhero film based on the DC Comics character of the same name. Produced by New Line Cinema, DC Films, The Safran Company, and Seven Bucks Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the seventh installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). It was directed by David F. Sandberg from a screenplay by Henry Gayden who co-wrote the story with Darren Lemke, and stars Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Djimon Hounsou. The film follows teenager Billy Batson (Angel) as he is chosen by the ancient wizard Shazam (Hounsou) to be his new champion by saying the name "Shazam", allowing him to transform into an adult superhero (Levi) with various superpowers. Billy and his foster brother Freddy Freeman (Grazer) must discover Billy's new powers in order to stop the evil Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Strong) and the Seven Deadly Sins.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Development of a live-action "Shazam!" film began at New Line in the early 2000s, but was delayed for several years. The film went into pre-production in 2009, with Peter Segal as director, John August as writer and Dwayne Johnson being considered to star as the villain Black Adam, but the project fell through; Johnson acts as an executive producer on "Shazam!" William Goldman, Alec Sokolow, Joel Cohen, Bill Birch, and Geoff Johns, among others, were all attached to the project as writers at various points. The film was officially announced in 2014, with Johnson attached to star as either Shazam or Black Adam. In January 2017, he was cast to lead a solo Black Adam development project. Sandberg signed on to direct "Shazam!" in February 2017, and Levi was cast that October, with Angel joining the following month. Principal photography began in Toronto on January 29, 2018, with most of the film shot at Pinewood Toronto Studios, and wrapped on May 11.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: "Shazam!" was released in the United States in RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, 4DX, and ScreenX on April 5, 2019. The film was a box office success, grossing $366.1 million worldwide, and received positive reviews from critics, who praised Sandberg's direction and the performances of Levi, Angel and Grazer, as well as its generally light tone and sense of fun. It was followed by the spin-off film "Black Adam" (2022) and a sequel called "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" will be releasing in 2023.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In 1974 in Upstate New York, young Thaddeus Sivana is riding in a car with his abusive father and brother Sid during a snowstorm; being mocked and verbally harassed by them constantly. He is suddenly transported to the Rock of Eternity, a mystic temple located in another dimension. The ancient wizard Shazam has spent centuries searching for someone pure of heart to bestow his power and name as champion, after the previous champion released the Seven Deadly Sins. Thaddeus is tempted by the Sins, who promise him power if he will free them. The wizard deems Thaddeus unworthy and magically returns him to the car. Sivana's frustration and confusion leads to a vehicular accident which ends up with his father becoming paralyzed from the waist down and even more resentful towards him. Both he and Sid blame Thaddeus. The Sins send Thaddeus a message via his 8-Ball toy telling him to find them.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In present-day Fawcett City, Philadelphia, 14-year-old foster child Billy Batson continually runs away from foster homes to search for his birth mother from whom he became separated while at a carnival ten years ago. He locks some police officers in a store and uses their computer to try finding his mother which is unsuccessful. He is placed in a group home run by Víctor and Rosa Vásquez, with five other foster children: Mary Bromfield, Pedro Peña, Eugene Choi, Darla Dudley, and superhero enthusiast Freddy Freeman. The embittered Sivana succeeds in his lifelong quest to find a way back to the Rock of Eternity. He becomes the Sins' vessel when the Eye fuses itself with his body and overpowers the wizard. He promptly uses his newfound powers to kill his father, brother, and Sivana Industries' board of directors.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Billy defends Freddy from bullies at school and is chased into a subway where he is transported to the Rock of Eternity. The wizard chooses Billy to be his new champion; by saying the name "Shazam", Billy transforms into an adult superhero. The wizard seemingly dies and leaves his magical staff behind. Freddy is taken into Billy's confidence and helps him explore his newfound powers, which include superhuman strength, near-invulnerability, and electricity manipulation. By saying "Shazam" again, he can transform back into his normal body. Freddy posts viral videos of the new superhero, and Billy starts skipping school to use his powers to busk for money and fame. He gets into an argument with Freddy after accidentally endangering and saving a bus full of people. Sivana arrives and demands that he surrender his powers. Billy discovers he is able to fly and escapes. He learns his biological mother's location and visits her, only to be heartbroken upon learning she abandoned him at the carnival after feeling inadequate as a young mother and no longer wanting him in her life.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Sivana deduces Billy's identity and takes his foster siblings hostage. Billy agrees to transfer his powers to Sivana in exchange for their safety. They go to the Rock of Eternity to use the wizard's staff to affect the transfer, but the children attack Sivana. Billy observes Sivana becomes vulnerable when all seven Sins leave his body. Sivana pursues them to a winter carnival and unleashes the Sins upon the crowd. Remembering the wizard's words, Billy uses the staff to share his powers with his siblings, transforming them into adult superheroes like him where he breaks the staff. The Shazam Family battles against the Sins while Billy faces down Sivana. Billy goads Envy into leaving Sivana vulnerable and recaptures them after forcefully pulling the Eye out of Sivana's head.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Billy and his siblings are hailed as heroes. They return the Sins to their prison and realize they can use the Rock of Eternity as their superhero headquarters. Billy finally accepts his foster parents and siblings as his "real" family. In his superhero form, he has lunch with his siblings at school, revealing to Freddy's surprise that he has also invited Superman.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In a mid-credits scene, the imprisoned Sivana is approached by a talking caterpillar, who proposes an alliance.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: The film also features John Glover as Thaddeus Sivana's estranged father of and CEO of Sivana Industries. Glover had starred in other DC Comics series and films: "", "The New Batman Adventures", and "" as The Riddler; Dr. Jason Woodrue in the 1997 film "Batman and Robin"; and Lionel Luthor in "Smallville". Natalia Safran was cast as Thaddeus' mother, though her scenes were cut from the film. Caroline Palmer portrays Marilyn Batson, Billy's biological mother. Wayne Ward and Landon Doak portray Sid Sivana, Thaddeus' bullying brother as an adult and a teenager, respectively. Carson MacCormac and Evan Marsh portray Brett and Burke Breyer, bullies at the children's school.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Director David F. Sandberg makes cameo appearances performing as each of the three Crocodile-Men (collaboratively assisted by Steve Newburn and Ned Morill), and provides the voice of the alien lifeform Mister Mind during a mid-credits sequence. Sandberg's wife, actress Lotta Losten, portrays Dr. Lynn Crosby; a researcher working with Dr. Sivana, who is killed by him. Sound designer Bill R. Dean has an uncredited cameo, providing the voice for a Batman toy, while Ryan Hadley, Zachary Levi's stunt double, appears uncredited as a stand-in body double for Superman. Hadley's appearance is a silent cameo, where the character is only seen from the neck down, due to Henry Cavill being unavailable to film the scene. Executive producer Dwayne Johnson's likeness is used for the mystically generated holograph of Teth-Adam, which the wizard Shazam conjures while teaching Billy the history of the Rock of Eternity, the Seven Realms of Magic, and his previous Champion. Johnson portrayed the titular role in "Black Adam".


title: Shazam! (film)

text: The Seven Deadly Sins – a supernatural team of villains consisting of the demons Pride, Envy, Greed, Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, and Sloth – were portrayed by stunt doubles in motion capture suits on-set during filming, and depicted on-screen through CGI special effects. Their voices were collectively provided by actors Steve Blum, Darin De Paul, and Fred Tatasciore; Tatasciore previously voiced the Seven Sins in the direct-to-video "". In an Easter egg appearance, Andi Osho reprises her role as social worker Emma Glover from Sandberg's debut film "Lights Out".


title: Shazam! (film)

text: New Line Cinema began development of a "Shazam!" live-action feature film in the early 2000s, with multiple screenplay drafts, by William Goldman, the team of Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen, Bryan Goluboff, and John August. The version of the "Shazam!" script written by August, which went into pre-production in 2008, was an action-comedy which focused on the origin story of the hero, then known by his original name of Captain Marvel, and his young alter ego, Billy Batson. Peter Segal was attached as director and Dwayne Johnson was in talks to appear as the film's villain, Black Adam.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: New Line Cinema was absorbed into Warner Bros., a larger film studio also owned at the time by Time Warner, during the course of development. Following the success of Warner's Batman film "The Dark Knight" and the commercial failure of its lighter, family-friendly "Speed Racer", both during the summer of 2008, August departed from the project, citing pressure from the studio to make the screenplay darker and more serious. In August 2009, Bill Birch and Geoff Johns, a prominent DC Comics writer, were assigned to write the screenplay, while Segal remained attached as director. In August 2010, the studio considered canceling the theatrical film in favor of a live-action series for prime time network television. In December 2013, Segal stated that the film would not be happening, as the similarities between Captain Marvel and Superman had become an obstacle after the successful launch of "Man of Steel" earlier that year.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: While the film was in development limbo, DC Comics rebooted the comic book franchise as part of their New 52 relaunch in 2012. Due to the trademark conflicts with Marvel Comics, who owned the trademark for "Captain Marvel" for use with their own character of the same name, DC renamed their Captain Marvel superhero character "Shazam" at this time when the New 52 started. DC had been required to market and promote the character using the trademark "Shazam!", since acquiring the publishing rights from Fawcett Comics in 1972. Captain Marvel had originated at Fawcett in 1939, but fell into limbo after 1953 following a long legal battle with DC over Captain Marvel's similarities to Superman.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In April 2014, Warner Bros. revealed their upcoming slate of films based on DC Comics properties: "Shazam!", "Metal Men", "Fables", and "100 Bullets". The "Shazam!" film was tentatively set for release in July 2016. Dwayne Johnson stated he would be starring in "Shazam!" that August, but was undecided between portraying Shazam or Black Adam. In September, Johnson was cast as Black Adam, while Darren Lemke was set to write the script. In January 2017, Henry Gayden was hired to rewrite Lemke's script. In February 2017, David F. Sandberg was in talks with the studio to direct "Shazam!", while Dwayne Johnson was set to star in a "Black Adam" solo film, as opposed to appearing as the villain in "Shazam!", while Doctor Sivana, another nemesis of Shazam, became the "Shazam!" film's main villain. Sandberg was also approached to direct "Venom" for Sony Pictures, but Sandberg finally decided to direct "Shazam!" rather than "Venom" due to the former's crew consisting of several people Sandberg had worked with at New Line Cinema.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: By July 2017, the studio had begun active development on "Shazam!" and Sandberg was confirmed as director, with production to begin in early 2018. Dwayne Johnson relayed that a different creative team was now involved than when he first signed on to the film. After being cast as the lead, Zachary Levi stated in an interview, "the idea is that it's gonna feel like the movie "Big", but with super powers," when was asked about the direction DC Films and New Line Cinema are going for with "Shazam!" Warner Bros. stated that the film would be based on the 2012–2013 "Shazam!" backup feature from the "Justice League" comic book, by writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank, which told a modernized version of Shazam's origin.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In August 2017, director David F. Sandberg stated that the film would be the next to shoot in the DC universe, and by the end of the month, it had begun pre-production. By October 2017, cinematographer Maxime Alexandre and production designer Jennifer Spence, who previously worked with Sandberg on "", were added to the production. The next month, "Aquaman" stunt coordinator Kyle Gardiner was hired to work on the film's action sequences. On January 12, 2018, the film's release date was announced as April 19, 2019, later moved to April 5.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In August 2017, the casting process for Shazam and other characters had begun. Sandberg had stated in an interview that instead of de-aging an actor using special effects or computer-generated imagery, he would cast both a child actor and an adult actor for the role of the main character. Zachary Levi, John Cena, Zane Holtz, Jake McDorman, Derek Theler and Billy Magnussen all met with and/or auditioned for Sandberg for the role of Shazam.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: By October 2017, Levi was cast in the titular role. In November, Grace Fulton joined the cast as Mary Bromfield, one of Billy Batson's foster siblings. Fulton had previously worked with the same director on "Annabelle: Creation". Later that month, Mark Strong was in final negotiations to play Dr. Sivana. Strong confirmed he would be playing the role by January 2018. By November 2017, Asher Angel was cast as the titular hero's teenage originator Billy Batson. In December, Jack Dylan Grazer was added as Freddy Freeman, Batson's best friend. Later that month, Jovan Armand, Ian Chen, Faithe Herman, and Cooper Andrews were cast as Pedro Peña, Eugene Choi, and Darla Dudley, respectively, with Andrews portraying Víctor Vásquez, one of Billy Batson's foster parents.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: By January 2018, Ron Cephas Jones entered talks to play the role of the wizard Shazam, who granted Batson his powers. Later that month, Spanish actress Marta Milans joined the cast to play Rosa Vásquez, one of the foster parents at the home where Billy lives. By the end of January 2018, actress Lotta Losten, the wife of director David F. Sandberg, revealed that she has a role in the film. On April 23, 2018, Ross Butler was announced to have joined the cast. By July, Djimon Hounsou had replaced Jones as Shazam, due to Jones having scheduling conflicts. Henry Cavill was in talks to reprise his role as Superman from previous DCEU films for a cameo, but was unable to because of scheduling.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Principal photography for "Shazam!" began in Toronto and Hamilton, in Ontario, Canada on January 29, 2018, under the working title "Franklin", and wrapped by mid-May 2018. The film was set primarily in Philadelphia and is firmly established within the DCEU. Most of the production was shot at Pinewood Toronto Studios, and also several public locations around the city, including the University of Toronto, Woodbine Shopping Centre, and Hearn Generating Station. In early March 2018, filming took place at Fort York National Historic Site in downtown Toronto. By early May 2018, Asher Angel, among other young cast members, had finished filming his part, and principal photography wrapped on May 11, 2018. Reshoots and additional photography took place in Toronto between November and December 2018. Scenes set at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and well as other location work such as footage of the skyline and aerial shots, were filmed in the city of Philadelphia in December 2018. "Shazam!" had a production budget of $90–100 million (and about $102 million once post-production was complete), making it the least expensive DCEU film to-date.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: David F. Sandberg's two-time collaborator Michel Aller served as the editor for "Shazam!" Mike Wassel ("" and the "Fast & Furious" franchise) and Kelvin McIlwain ("Aquaman") were the overall visual effects supervisors for the film. Technicolor's VFX studios Mr. X (known for "The Shape of Water" and "") and Moving Picture Company (MPC) provided visual effects. Rodeo FX, DNEG, Digital Domain, and Rise FX also worked on the VFX.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: On July 21, 2018, Benjamin Wallfisch was announced as the composer for "Shazam!", marking his third collaboration with director David F. Sandberg after previously scoring Sandberg's "Lights Out" and "Annabelle: Creation". Wallfisch had also provided additional music for "", the second film in the DC Extended Universe.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Wallfisch cited John Williams and scores from 1980s Amblin Entertainment films as inspirations for "Shazam!", to match the tone of a film about "an old-school superhero from the Golden Age" In writing the score, Wallfisch stated that he was "picturing what might happen if a 14-year-old was put in front of a 100 piece orchestra and told there were no limits. I wanted the score to feel like it might have been written by an exuberant kid just having the time of his life with an orchestra."


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In April 2018, a first look at "Shazam!" was shown at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, as director David F. Sandberg introduced behind-the-scene footage. During an interview with the podcast Film Riot in June 2018, Sandberg stated that "On this one, it was just like 'Yeah, I want this to be a classic superhero movie.' It takes place in the winter, so it's a lot of dark exteriors, but with a lot of colorful lights and stuff around them." On July 21, 2018, the first teaser trailer was shown at San Diego Comic-Con during the Warner Bros. panel at Hall H, with Sandberg, Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, and Jack Dylan Grazer in attendance. The trailer was later released online. It received a favorable response from journalists and audiences, who praised its humorous, zany tone.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: New footage from the film made its debut at Brazil Comic Con (CCXP) in São Paulo on December 9, 2018, during the Warner Bros. studio panel, with the footage described for the attendees as action-packed. A new trailer was released on March 4, and a three-minute sneak peek was included with the digital home media of "Aquaman". At the STP 500 on March 24, 2019, "Shazam!" was the primary sponsor of Aric Almirola and the #10 Ford Mustang in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Altogether the studio spent about $105 million promoting the film.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: On March 13, 2019, Warner Bros. Pictures announced that they were teaming up with Fandango for exclusive preview screenings on March 23, two weeks before release, on 1,200 select screens and 40 exhibition circuits. "Shazam!" premiered at TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood on March 28, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures in RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, IMAX, ScreenX, and IMAX 3D Formats, on April 5, 2019.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: "Shazam!" was released on digital download on July 2, 2019, and was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 16. Physical copies contain behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, and gag reels. , "Shazam!" has made $8.3 million in DVD sales and $21 million in Blu-ray sales, totaling an estimated of $29.4 million in domestic video sales.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: "Shazam!" grossed $140.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $225.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $366.1 million. It was estimated that the film needed to gross $235–250 million worldwide in order to break even, and "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the film made a net profit of $74 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Shazam!" was released alongside "The Best of Enemies" and "Pet Sematary", and was projected to gross $40–50 million from 4,260 theaters in its opening weekend. Two weeks before its release, the film grossed $3.3 million from Fandango advance screenings, higher than the $2.9 million made by fellow DCEU film "Aquaman" the previous December. It then made $5.9 million from Thursday night screenings on April 4, for a combined preview total of $9.2 million. The film grossed a total of $20.4 million on its first day, including Thursday previews but not the March screenings. It went on to debut to $53.5 million, finishing first at the box office. In its second weekend the film made $24.5 million, retaining the top spot, before being dethroned by newcomer "The Curse of La Llorona" in its third weekend. In its fourth weekend, it made $5.6 million and finished fifth at the box office, including behind fellow superhero films "" and "Captain Marvel".


title: Shazam! (film)

text: In other territories, the film was released in 53 markets on Wednesday, April 3 and Thursday, April 4, and was projected to debut to $100–120 million, for a global opening of $145–170. In its first two days of international release the film made $15.7 million, finishing first in 48 of its 53 markets. It was then released in an additional 26 countries, including China, where it made $16.4 million on its first day. It went on to have an international debut of $102 million, and a global total of $158.6 million. It came in first in 60 of its 79 markets, with its highest-grossing being China ($43.4 million), Mexico ($10.6 million), Australia ($10.3 million), the United Kingdom ($15.3 million), Russia ($8.4 million), and Brazil ($8.7 million).


title: Shazam! (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of with an average rating of , based on reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "An effortlessly entertaining blend of humor and heart, "Shazam!" is a superhero movie that never forgets the genre's real power: joyous wish fulfillment." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, and those at PostTrak gave the film an overall positive score of 83% and a 61% "definite recommend".


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Nick Allen of "RogerEbert.com" said that "while "Shazam!" is goofier (and darker) than it may look, you'll wish its superhero came with a little more spark," while "The Hollywood Reporter"s Frank Scheck called the film ""Big" on steroids" and praised the tone and performances. Alonso Duralde of "TheWrap" wrote, "If the "Wonder Woman" and "Aquaman" movies represented DC Comics' first big-screen steps away from the austere color palette of the Zack Snyder movies, "Shazam!" takes us deeply into primary colors in a single bound... this new DC entry has a lovely lightness, both in the visuals and in its tone."


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Writing for "The A.V. Club", Ignatiy Vishnevetsky gave the film a "B−" and said: "...while the story of an extremely overpowered champion rising to challenge a one-dimensionally sinister baddie might seem like the epitome of simplicity, "Shazam!" is still a modern-day tentpole blockbuster, overburdened with backstories for both hero and villain and subtexts that it can't (or won't) fully articulate." That publication followed up with a further consideration of masculinity in the film and the superhero genre generally, focusing on the transition of Billy Batson from an adolescent boy to a man with power and responsibility. Benjamin Lee of "The Guardian" gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, specifying, "The finale, while admirably self-contained and small-scale, grinds on for far too long, a boring escalation of anti-climaxes that cumulatively dull the intended emotional impact. It's a film in need of a tighter edit with a script in need of a sharper polish, an imperfect franchise-launcher that nonetheless represents significant progress for DC."


title: Shazam! (film)

text: Dwayne Johnson was attached to "Shazam!" early in development, and confirmed that he would portray the villain Black Adam in September 2014. The producers decided to give the character his own film in January 2017, and Adam Sztykiel was hired that October. Jaume Collet-Serra joined in June 2019. Additional casting took place over the next year, including four members of the Justice Society of America (JSA), and the script was re-written by Haines and Noshirvani. Filming took place from April to August 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia, and also Los Angeles. It was originally set for release on December 22, 2021, but was pushed back and released on October 21, 2022.


title: Shazam! (film)

text: On April 8, 2019, "TheWrap" reported that New Line Cinema was developing a sequel with Henry Gayden returning to write the film, along with David F. Sandberg directing and Peter Safran producing. In December 2019, New Line Cinema announced that the sequel would be released on April 1, 2022. The release date was delayed several times, and is due for release March 17, 2023.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Caleb Casey McGuire Affleck-Boldt (born August 12, 1975) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Satellite Award. He began his career as a child actor, appearing in the PBS television film "Lemon Sky" (1988) and the miniseries "The Kennedys of Massachusetts" (1990). He later appeared in three Gus Van Sant films: "To Die For" (1995), "Good Will Hunting" (1997), and "Gerry" (2002), and in Steven Soderbergh's comedy heist trilogy "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), "Ocean's Twelve" (2004), and "Ocean's Thirteen" (2007). His first leading role was in Steve Buscemi's independent comedy-drama "Lonesome Jim" (2006). He is the younger brother of actor Ben Affleck.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck's breakthrough came in 2007, when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Western drama "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and starred in the crime drama "Gone Baby Gone", directed by his brother Ben Affleck. In 2010, he directed the mockumentary "I'm Still Here". He then had a string of successful films in the early 2010s, including "Tower Heist" (2011), "ParaNorman" (2012) and "Interstellar" (2014), and received particular praise for his performance as an outlaw in the indie film "Ain't Them Bodies Saints" (2013).


title: Casey Affleck

text: In 2016, Affleck starred in the drama film "Manchester by the Sea". For his performance as Lee Chandler, a man grieving the loss of his children and his brother, he received universal acclaim and won the Critics' Choice Movie Award, Golden Globe Award, British Academy Film Award and Academy Award for Best Actor, and received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2017, Affleck received critical acclaim for his leading role in the supernatural drama film "A Ghost Story".


title: Casey Affleck

text: Caleb Casey McGuire Affleck-Boldt was born on August 12, 1975, in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Christopher Anne "Chris" Boldt and Timothy Byers Affleck. The surname "Affleck" is of Scottish origin. He also has Irish, German, English, and Swiss ancestry. Affleck's maternal great-great-grandfather, , known for the discovery of the Curmsun Disc, emigrated from Prussia in the late 1840s. His mother was a Radcliffe College- and Harvard-educated elementary school teacher. His father worked sporadically as an auto mechanic, a carpenter, a bookie, an electrician, a bartender, and a janitor at Harvard University. In the mid-1960s, he had been a stage manager, director, writer and actor with the Theater Company of Boston. During Affleck's childhood, his father was "a disaster of a drinker". Affleck first started acting by "reenacting what was happening at home" during role play exercises at Alateen meetings.


title: Casey Affleck

text: After his parents divorced when he was nine, Affleck and his older brother, Ben, lived with their mother and visited their father weekly. He learned to speak Spanish during a year spent traveling around Mexico with his mother and brother when he was ten. The two brothers spent "all of our time together, pretty much. Obviously at school we were in different grades, but we had the same friends." When Affleck was fourteen, his father moved to Indio, California, to enter a rehabilitation facility, and later worked there as an addiction counselor. He reconnected with his father during visits to California as a teenager: "I got to know him, really, because he was sober for the first time ... The man I knew before that was just completely different."


title: Casey Affleck

text: Growing up in a politically active, liberal household in Central Square, Cambridge, Affleck and his brother were surrounded by people who worked in the arts, were regularly taken to the theater by their mother, and were encouraged to make their own home movies. The brothers sometimes appeared in local weather commercials and as movie extras because of their mother's friendship with a local casting director. Affleck acted in numerous high school theater productions while a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He has said he "wouldn't be an actor" if not for his high school theater teacher Gerry Speca: "He kind of turned me on to acting, why it can be fun, how it can be rewarding."


title: Casey Affleck

text: At age eighteen, Affleck moved to Los Angeles for a year to pursue an acting career, and lived with his brother and their childhood friend Matt Damon. Despite having "the best possible first experience" while filming "To Die For", he spent much of the year working as a busboy at a restaurant in Pasadena. He decided to move to Washington, D.C., to study politics at George Washington University. He soon transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he followed the Core Curriculum for a total of two years. However, he did not graduate: "I would do a semester of school, go do a movie ... Opportunities kept presenting themselves that were hard for me to turn down ... By then, I didn't really have roots at the school or a group of friends."


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck acted professionally during his childhood due to his mother's friendship with a Cambridge-area casting director, Patty Collinge. In addition to local weather commercials and movie extra work, he appeared as Kevin Bacon's brother in the PBS television movie "Lemon Sky" (1988), directed by Collinge's husband Jan Egleson, and as a young Robert F. Kennedy in the ABC miniseries "The Kennedys of Massachusetts" (1990). These early acting experiences "meant nothing more than a day off from school" to Affleck, and he only began to consider a career as an actor when in high school. When he later moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career in earnest, his first movie role was as a sociopathic teenager in Gus Van Sant's 1995 satirical comedy "To Die For". During filming in Toronto, Affleck shared an apartment with co-star Joaquin Phoenix and they became close friends. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" praised Affleck's performance, saying he "skillfully capture[s] the pang of adolescence among no-hopers." However, Affleck then had a "disappointing" experience while making the 1996 drama "Race the Sun" and, "as soon as the film finished, I went to school."


title: Casey Affleck

text: While studying at Columbia, Affleck had a supporting role in Van Sant's "Good Will Hunting" (1997), written by his brother and their childhood friend Matt Damon. Despite arranging a first meeting between Van Sant and his brother to discuss the project, Affleck was reluctant to leave college temporarily to act in the film. He was eventually persuaded to play one of four friends living in South Boston – a role written specifically for him – and improvised many of his lines. Jay Carr of "The Boston Globe" praised the "emotional subtleties and variety" of the performances, and singled out "Casey Affleck's junior member of the quartet, dying to be taken as seriously as the others." Following the critical and commercial success of the movie, Affleck's career opportunities did not significantly improve. At the same time, his life became exposed to the public and parts of his life became "part of pop culture and public life." Also in 1997, he had a small role in Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy", starring his brother. He returned to university for a semester before quitting to focus on his acting career.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck's career entered a "dark" period, with a series of supporting roles in critical and commercial failures. He later remarked: "It dawned on me late that I should be selective about what I do." In the independent comedy "Desert Blue" (1998), he starred opposite Kate Hudson as a small-town jock. Peter Stack of the "San Francisco Chronicle" felt that, while "interesting", his character was "entirely underdeveloped". In 1999, he made an uncredited cameo in the teen comedy "American Pie" and appeared as a punk rocker romantically involved with both Gaby Hoffmann and Christina Ricci's characters in the New Year's Eve ensemble comedy "200 Cigarettes". In the comedy "Drowning Mona" (2000), starring Danny DeVito, Affleck played a shy gardener suspected of murder. Elvis Mitchell of "The New York Times" acknowledged, in an otherwise negative review, that his role was "well played". Also in 2000, Affleck had a small role in the comedy "Attention Shoppers" and played Fortinbras in Ethan Hawke's "Hamlet". He appeared as the brother of Heather Graham's character in the romantic comedy "Committed" (2000), with Emanuel Levy of "Variety" praising a "terrific" performance. Also in 2001, he had a small role in "American Pie 2" and appeared in the teen slasher film "Soul Survivors". Robert Koehler of "Variety" found him "bland" while Carla Meyer of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said that he did not make "much of an impression, [but may] have been too depressed to really act." One positive experience Affleck had during this period was working with Van Sant and cinematographer Harris Savides on "Finding Forrester" (2000) as Van Sant's assistant and technical consultant: "Can you imagine a better film school than that? Gus is not only somebody who I love a lot but is also who has taught me, maybe more than anybody else in film."


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck found a degree of commercial success when he was cast in Steven Soderbergh's heist comedy "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Damon. In roles Soderbergh originally intended for Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson, Affleck and Scott Caan played Mormon brothers and wisecracking mechanics who help to rob three Las Vegas casinos simultaneously. While it was a "great, fun social experience", Affleck spent much of his time on set "being, like, 100 feet away from the camera in the background." He would later reprise his role in "Ocean's Twelve" (2004) and "Ocean's Thirteen" (2007).


title: Casey Affleck

text: In 2002, Affleck and Damon starred in Van Sant's experimental drama "Gerry", playing two men who get lost while hiking in the desert. Affleck, Damon, and Van Sant conceived of the idea and wrote the screenplay together while living in neighboring New York apartments. The film, which had minimal dialogue, received mixed reviews. Affleck, who rarely watches his own movies, said of "Gerry" in 2016: "That was an incredible experience. I saw one scene recently out of context at the Telluride Film Festival and I can't believe anyone ever sat through the whole thing. It probably works better as a whole but one scene lifted out – I thought, 'This is unbearable!'" Also in 2002, Affleck starred with Damon and then-girlfriend Summer Phoenix in a West End stage production of Kenneth Lonergan's "This Is Our Youth". Lonergan and Affleck became friends during rehearsals, and Affleck later acted in workshop productions of Lonergan's plays in New York.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck's first leading role was in 2006's little-seen independent comedy-drama "Lonesome Jim", directed by Steve Buscemi. He played a depressed writer who returns from New York to live with his parents in Indiana, and begins a relationship with Liv Tyler's character. Buscemi has said he knew Affleck would be able to carry the movie after watching his performance in "Gerry". Stephen Hunter of "The Washington Post" remarked: "Affleck's interesting .. He probably can't be a star in big movies because his drawback is a voice that sounds like a snivel drawn through a wet nasal passage into a whine ... And yet in certain kinds of films – this kind – he's 100 percent authentic." Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" said Affleck "gets so far under the skin of this semi-charming jerk that the performance becomes both brave and aggravating." However, Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" felt it "would be a stronger movie if Mr. Affleck had the wherewithal to bare more of the passive-aggressive rage inside ... a more resourceful actor would have used this blank slate to scrawl a thousand telling details." Also in 2006, he had a supporting role in the romantic comedy "The Last Kiss" as a friend of Zach Braff's character.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck had a breakthrough year in 2007, with the release of two films featuring critically acclaimed performances. The first of these performances was in the Western drama "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", in which he played Robert Ford to Brad Pitt's Jesse James. Affleck auditioned repeatedly for the role. While the director Andrew Dominik had seen Affleck in "Gerry", he cast him partly because of his "beautiful-sounding voice. The voice is the thing that really gets you." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" described Affleck's performance as a "revelation" which "manages to make the character seem dumb and the actor wily and smart." Similarly, Claudia Puig of "USA Today" declared him a "real revelation [who] perfectly inhabits the role" while Todd McCarthy of "Variety" said Affleck made "an indelible impression as the insecure, physically unprepossessing weakling." Dana Stevens of "Slate" said "the movie belongs to Affleck [who] goes for broke in a wonderfully brave and weird performance as the craven naif Bob. Somehow he makes us want to flee this creep at top speed, even as we pray no harm will come to him." For his performance, Affleck was nominated for the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Casey Affleck

text: While he was filming "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" in Calgary, Affleck was visited by his brother, who offered him the leading role in his directorial project, the Boston crime thriller "Gone Baby Gone" (2007). While his brother was a first-time director and in the midst of a career downturn, Affleck had confidence in the project: "I felt like I knew him better than anyone else did." His performance, as an inexperienced private investigator tasked with finding a missing child, earned Affleck further plaudits for his acting. Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" said: "I'm not sure exactly when Casey Affleck became such a good actor ... Most actors want you to love them, but [he] doesn't seem to know that, or maybe he doesn't care." Jim Ridley of "The Village Voice" described him as "a major talent coming into his own" while Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" remarked that "the revelation is Casey Affleck, who heretofore has been a rather wormy, uncharismatic screen presence." Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" commented: "I'd never stopped to consider Casey Affleck as a movie star before, but under his big brother's tutelage, he blooms as a leading man of richly watchable savvy and intelligence."


title: Casey Affleck

text: While "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "Gone Baby Gone" were, respectively, a financial failure and a modest box office success, Affleck's acting career was widely believed to be at a turning point. However, he lost career momentum while directing "I'm Still Here" (2010), a divisive mockumentary about the musical career of his friend and then brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix. While Affleck later clarified that it was "a planned, staged and scripted work of fiction", there was much media speculation during filming about whether Phoenix's public behaviour was performance art or a genuine breakdown. Claudia Puig of "USA Today" remarked that, "whether truth or folly, it's not particularly well made. Even in the midst of Phoenix's most oddball and obsessive torment, it's boring ... What, exactly, is the point of a joke that nobody really gets?" Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" described it as "an interesting but half-baked exercise in persona deconstruction, celebrity politics, and meta-meta-entertainment ... Parts of it are close to genius; most of it is actively torturous to watch." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" said the film "turns out to be much more interesting to speculate about than to actually watch." Reflecting on the experience in 2016, Affleck said: "We never thought people would actually think it was real ... In hindsight, we should have had a press junket and done talk shows and said how it was a mockumentary."


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck used his own money to fund "I'm Still Here" and, after running out of cash, filming was paused for a month to allow him to play a Texan serial killer in Michael Winterbottom's crime drama "The Killer Inside Me" (2010). Affleck later expressed regret over the movie's graphic violence. Philip French of "The Guardian" found him "disturbingly brilliant" while Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" praised "a mesmeric, implosively powerful performance." Mark Olsen of the "Los Angeles Times" said Affleck "showcases his uncanny ability to project a person holding two thoughts in his head at once, as he often gives away nothing in his face to convey the firestorm obviously raging in his soul." Affleck then had a supporting role in the heist comedy "Tower Heist" (2011) and voiced a character in the 2012 animation "ParaNorman".


title: Casey Affleck

text: After spending "a big chunk of time" directing "I'm Still Here" and dealing with the subsequent backlash, Affleck returned to regular acting work in 2013. "It was ugly for a minute ... I sort of remembered why I liked acting and I missed it." In David Lowery's "Ain't Them Bodies Saints" (2013), Affleck and Rooney Mara starred as outlaw lovers in 1970s-era Texas. Affleck was drawn to the opportunity to play a character who "was a much better person than anyone thought", after a string of roles as "assassins or murderers or just creeps". Shannon M. Houston of "Paste" described him as the movie's "standout actor": "Down to his very jawline, Affleck captures the physicality and feeling of a sincerely romantic outlaw." Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times" remarked: "Affleck plays conflicted souls so very well ... Here you wish for a criminal's redemption." Matt Pais of the "Chicago Tribune" said: "He has great instincts when it comes to morally compromised anti-heroes, and without trolling for our sympathy, Affleck's Bob is more than just a collection of behaviors; it's a smartly considered performance." Sebastian Doggart of "The Guardian" said he "shows himself again to be a master of the criminal outsider" while Chuck Wilson of "The Village Voice" found him "flat-out heartbreaking".


title: Casey Affleck

text: The opportunity to act opposite Christian Bale in the drama "Out of the Furnace" "reinvigorated" Affleck and reminded him why he enjoyed acting. Claudia Puig of "USA Today" found his performance as an Iraq War veteran dealing with posttraumatic stress disorder "completely captivating ... The chemistry between Bale and Affleck is powerful, intensifying the credibility of their brotherly bond." Matt Pais of the "Chicago Tribune" said Affleck "finds something fierce and noble in uneven material and in his character's rage. He's not like any other actor in American movies." Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" described the performance as "a searing portrayal of a young man who pushes himself to the punishing physical limit in search of both money and catharsis." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" remarked that Affleck "can come across as intensely vulnerable on screen, which nicely works for a broken man like Rodney." In 2014, Affleck and Jessica Chastain had supporting roles in Christopher Nolan's science fiction film "Interstellar" as the grown-up children of Matthew McConaughey's character, with Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" describing his character as "thinly developed". Also in 2014, Affleck and producer John Powers Middleton launched the production company, The Affleck/Middleton Project.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck starred in three films in 2016, the first two of which underperformed financially. In John Hillcoat's crime thriller "Triple 9", Affleck played an uncorruptible detective. Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said he "arrests our attention. I wonder if any other screen actor has ever seemed so focused and so distracted at the same time. He thinks more than he says, and so we listen, trying to get the part he's leaving out." Justin Chang of "Variety" described him as "one of the most persuasive leading men of his generation" while Brogan Morris of "Paste" declared him "maybe Hollywood's best offbeat leading man ... Few actors can suggest so much with such quiet precision, and even here Affleck is compulsively watchable despite his undercooked character." In Disney's disaster drama "The Finest Hours", Affleck played a taciturn engineer on board a sinking ship. David Sims of "The Atlantic" said he "gives the kind of measured, thought-out performance he's so eminently capable of, even if the film isn't complex enough to rise to his level ... He animates an introverted character with subtle mental busywork whenever he's on the screen." Sheri Linden of "The Hollywood Reporter" noted that he "manages to turn his man of few words into the movie's most compelling figure."


title: Casey Affleck

text: In his final role of 2016, Affleck starred as Lee Chandler, a grief-stricken alcoholic loner, in Kenneth Lonergan's drama "Manchester by the Sea". One of the film's producers, Matt Damon, initially intended to star in the film. When scheduling conflicts made this unfeasible, Damon agreed to step aside on the condition that he be replaced with Affleck. Lonergan readily agreed, remarking that Affleck was "the natural person to go to." Affleck had close relationships with both men and had previously offered notes on early drafts of the script. The movie was a box office success, and Affleck's performance received widespread critical praise. A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" described it as "one of the most fiercely disciplined screen performances in recent memory. [He] conveys both Lee's inner avalanche of feeling and the numb decorum that holds it back."


title: Casey Affleck

text: Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" praised his "quietly ferocious performance, his willingness to submerge himself into this character to an almost frightening extent." Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" said the film was "anchored by a quietly volcanic central performance by Casey Affleck, in a breathtaking breakout role he's long deserved." David Fear of "Rolling Stone" stated: "He's given impressive turns before [but] the way Affleck gradually shows you the man's bone-deep grief and emotional damage makes you believe that one of this generation's finest actors has simply been waiting to be coaxed out." Affleck won the National Board of Review, Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Academy Award for his performance.


title: Casey Affleck

text: After dropping out of Lowery's "Pete's Dragon" in order to star in "Manchester by the Sea", Affleck reteamed with the director to star opposite Rooney Mara in the experimental drama "A Ghost Story", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2017. Affleck's character dies suddenly at the outset and he spends much of the film covered by a white sheet with two eye-holes, haunting his former home. David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" said Affleck's performance managed to resonate despite limited time onscreen. Peter Debruge of "Variety" said Affleck "has never been an easy actor to read. He's a low-charisma mumbler who tends to keep his characters' emotions bottled up, making him the rare performer who can convey as much with a sheet over his head as he does without." Jordan Hoffman of "The Guardian" described him as "cinema's finest mumbler ... I can't even tell if he's speaking or just emitting high-pitched vibrations anymore." In 2018, Affleck starred opposite Robert Redford in the outlaw drama "The Old Man & the Gun", his third collaboration with Lowery.


title: Casey Affleck

text: In 2019, he directed, wrote and starred in the survival drama "Light of My Life". It had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 8, 2019 and received positive reviews from film critics. Affleck next starred in "Our Friend", opposite Dakota Johnson and Jason Segel, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, based upon a true story revolving around a couple, whose best friend moves in for support, following a cancer diagnosis. which had its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Affleck next acted in and produced "The World to Come", directed by Mona Fastvold alongside Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck was introduced to actress Summer Phoenix by her brother, Joaquin, in the late 1990s. They began dating in 2000, and acted together in both the 2000 film "Committed" and a 2002 stage production of "This Is Our Youth". The couple became engaged in January 2004 and married on June 3, 2006, in Savannah, Georgia. They have two sons, Indiana August (b. May 2004) and Atticus (b. December 2007). On August 1, 2017, Phoenix officially filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences", and it was finalized later that year. Affleck has said it was an amicable divorce and that they remain friends.


title: Casey Affleck

text: In a 2016 interview, Affleck said that he had been sober for "almost three years ... My father was a disaster of a drinker, my grandmother was an alcoholic, my brother spent some time in rehab – it's in our genes."


title: Casey Affleck

text: In 2008, Affleck filmed an episode of documentary series "4Real", in which he visited the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and remarked upon the progress they had made due largely to "their own resourcefulness and determination and their character, and not because of the goodness of our collective heart." During the 2016 presidential campaign, Affleck supported Hillary Clinton and characterized Donald Trump as "a dangerous fool". In 2017, multiple financial contributions to Trump were made by Affleck's production company, which he co-founded with John Powers Middleton. In a statement, Affleck denied involvement: "I had no knowledge of it, was never asked, and never would have authorized it ... The policies of the Trump administration, and the values they represent, are antithetical to everything I believe in."


title: Casey Affleck

text: In 2010, two of his former co-workers from "I'm Still Here" filed civil lawsuits against Affleck. Amanda White, one of the film's producers, sued Affleck for $2 million with multiple complaints including sexual harassment and breach of oral contract. She detailed numerous "uninvited and unwelcome sexual advances" in the workplace. White alleged that Affleck refused to honor the terms of the production agreement, including her fee, in retaliation.


title: Casey Affleck

text: The film's cinematographer, Magdalena Gorka, sued Affleck for $2.25 million with multiple complaints including intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of oral contract. Gorka alleged that she had been subjected to "routine instances" of sexual harassment by crew members including Antony Langdon, "within the presence and with the active encouragement of Affleck."


title: Casey Affleck

text: Initially, Affleck denied the allegations and threatened to countersue; his lawyer described both claims as "total fiction" and "completely fabricated". No countersuits were filed. His lawyer claimed, "Both women left the film in April 2009 and both were refused when they wanted to return", and "there was no mention of sexual harassment before June [2010]." The film's associate producer Nicole Acacio and an unnamed female editor both defended Affleck's conduct on set, saying that "I never saw anything out of the ordinary either on or off set", and "nothing I've ever witnessed would lead me to think he could ever do anything like that." The lawsuits were later settled out of court. Both women received credit for their work on the project; no details of any financial settlement were released.


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck addressed the allegations in a 2016 interview with "The New York Times", stating: "It was settled to the satisfaction of all. I was hurt and upset — I am sure all were — but I am over it. It was an unfortunate situation — mostly for the innocent bystanders of the families of those involved." The allegations and lawsuits attracted scrutiny during the 2016–17 film awards season, when Affleck was recognized for his performance in "Manchester by the Sea", which culminated in further controversy following his Best Actor win at the 89th Academy Awards. The following year, amidst the Me Too movement, Affleck withdrew from presenting the award for Best Actress at the 90th Academy Awards.


title: Casey Affleck

text: In a 2018 interview with the Associated Press, Affleck discussed the lawsuits and allegations in light of the Me Too movement. He characterized his behavior at the time of the lawsuits as defensive and said he has since worked to understand his own culpability. He acknowledged that the set of "I'm Still Here" was "an unprofessional environment" and that "I contributed to that unprofessional environment and I tolerated that kind of behavior from other people and I wish that I hadn't. And I regret a lot of that ... I behaved in a way and allowed others to behave in a way that was really unprofessional. And I'm sorry."


title: Casey Affleck

text: Affleck has been a vegan since 1995. He has been involved with animal rights campaigns for both People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Farm Sanctuary.


title: Casey Affleck

text: In 2017, Affleck supported the 37th Annual National Veterans Wheelchair Games hosted by Paralyzed Veterans of America. In January 2019, he attended the fourth annual Veterans Awards as a presenter.


title: Casey Affleck

text: In June 2020, Affleck, with his mother Christine, founded a fundraising effort, Stories from Tomorrow. The initiative was co-sponsored by Room to Read, WriteGirl and New Earth, an organization where Affleck is a board member. 'Stories from Tomorrow' matches original writing by children ages 5–18 with celebrities who read their work, which is then presented in video form. The money raised will be used to ensure that children around the world have access to education and food.


title: Ancient Greece

text: Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Greek city-states free from Alexander's jurisdiction in the western Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica). In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period.


title: Ancient Greece

text: Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars to the 5th to 4th centuries BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens. The conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon spread Hellenistic civilization from the western Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Hellenistic period ended with the conquest of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, and the annexation of the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, and later the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire.


title: Ancient Greece

text: Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization, the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art.


title: Ancient Greece

text: Classical antiquity in the Mediterranean region is commonly considered to have begun in the 8th century BC (around the time of the earliest recorded poetry of Homer) and ended in the 6th century AD.