Sopranos actor gets his first Hollywood role after serving eight years in prison for his part in the murder of a NYPD officer.

According to reports, Lillo Brancato, who played a mobster in HBO’s ‘The Sopranos’, has landed his first Hollywood acting role after his 2013 release from prison. The actor was locked up for eight years following a robbery gone wrong in 2005 in which his friend shot an off-duty police officer.

From Daily Mail:

In December 2005, Brancato tried to break into an apartment with Steven Armento, a low-level mobster and the father of his girlfriend, to steal Valium but NYPD officer Daniel Enchautegui heard glass break as they entered the building and confronted them.

While Enchautegui waited for backup, a gun battle erupted and he was fatally shot in the chest.

Armento was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Brancato was found not guilty of murder but was convicted of robbery and sentenced to nine years in prison minus time served. He was released on December 31, 2013.

After leaving prison, he was given his second chance by William DeMeo, who wrote ‘Back in the Day’, and is also producing and starring in the movie.

Lillo Brancato is now filming ‘Back in the Day’ a movie centering around a Brooklyn boxer. ‘Back in the day’ centers around a Brooklyn boxer who is taken in by a mobster, according to the New York Post. The movie features Alec Baldwin, Danny Glover and Mike Tyson. Brancato plays the cousin of one of the boxer’s opponents and gets in a fight with the lead actor.

NBC censored at least two episodes of ‘Seinfeld’ for being politically incorrect.

It has been nearly a decade since ‘Seinfeld’ aired their series finale, and there are still things about the show that are being revealed to the public. Last year, during a Mike Ryan interview with larry Charles, it was revealed that an episode Larry Charles wrote, was so dark that the director and Julia Louis-Dreyfus refused to do it. It was called “The Gun,”. Now according to a New York Post piece, it was revealed about another unaired episode that was banned from airing:

NBC censors pretty much let Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David get away with whatever they wanted on “Seinfeld.” One of the few exceptions was a proposed episode in which George got in trouble for observing, “You know, I have never seen a black person order a salad.”

Uh-uh, said NBC. An entire episode on masturbation? Fine by us. But there will no joking about the dietary habits of African-Americans on this show. The script was nixed.

It seems to come down to the fact that the Seinfeld cast did not have any recurring black actors on the show making the topic taboo.

But the one taboo that Seinfeld conspicuously didn’t take on was race. Unlike 30 Rock, the show had no permanent black cast members. It was therefore poorly positioned to defy America’s ultimate no-no. Students of Seinfeld lore will know that the staff writer Larry Charles once pitched a storyline in which George got himself into trouble by observing that he’d never seen a black person order a salad. But the idea was deemed too controversial to proceed with.

According to Uproxx, that was not the only episode that producers censored and banned.”It surfaced in Dennis Bjorklund’s Seinfeld Reference: The Complete Encyclopedia, first published in 2010. Interestingly, that book also reveals that Carol Leifer — another Seinfeld‘s regular writers — also had two storylines nixed, one in which Kramer sued a bar over Ladies’ Night, and another in which Kramer played a guinea pig in a medical lab.”

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As the season finale of The Walking Dead draws near, last Sunday’s episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ ‘Try’ was crazy.

As Deanna grieved for her son and the group mourned the loss of Noah, a dark shadow crossed the town of Alexandria putting the future of the group into question.

The episode was filled with subtle references and foreshadowing, so here ar things you probably missed in ‘The Walking Dead’ ‘Try’:

1. The Broken Window Theory

In last week’s episode, ‘Spend,’ Rick told us a criminological theory that argues “If you keep the windows intact, you keep society intact.” Well, Rick really proved this theory when a fight broke out between Rick and abusing husband Pete where the two literally smashed through a window.

The fight looked like two dogs fighting over a bone than two grown men talking out their problems. The brawl showed the future of Alexandria is in question and Rick’s future is probably in real jeopardy.

2. The red theory

You may have noticed a red balloon throughout the episode. The balloon, which we later learned belonged to Sam, acted as a symbol to Rick’s state of mind through the episode. At first it was calmy floating around. However, the second time we see the ballon it was being dragged by Sam, tugging to get free – it just after this scene that Rick lost it and went back to Jessie and Pete’s house which resulted in the fight. The last time we see the ballon occurred when Rick was choking Pete and he looked up and noticed it had broken free of what had been holding it down, similar to Rick’s mental state and how he lost grip on reality.

But, this red symbol is really significant. Back in Season 3 Morgan made a crazy speech saying that all he saw was red and producers are making sure that’s all that we see. The red boxcar that the group were held in at Terminus, Rick’s red handled machete, the red ‘A’, plenty of blood from those who have died and now the red ballon.

Will Rick end up like Morgan? I guess only time will tell.

3. Rick has changed

Over the last few episodes Rick’s behavior has changed for the worst and he has started to act more like ‘Shane’. His whole relationship with Jessie is similar to what Shane and Lori had through Season 1 and 2, not to mention Shane beat up Carol’s abusive husband, Ed, in much the same way that Rick did to Pete. What really showed how Shane completely changed was the speech Rick gave to Deanna shortly before Michonne knocked him out.

The speech is crazy similar to the speech Shane gave back in Season 2 just before he opened the barn doors. Here’s the clip but what do you think? Is this the end of Rick?

H/T: Moviepilot

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Co-Creator of ‘Empire’ reveals his inspiration for the characters and dialogue behind the hit TV series.

You cannot deny how talented Danny Strong is. The actor/writer has written two award-winning political dramas for HBO, two ‘Hunger Games’ movies, ‘The Butler, and now the most successful TV show in the last twenty years, Empire. He certainly has come a long way from a small role in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.

Danny Strong was recently interviewed on KCRW’s The Business podcast, and he revealed how he was able to write a show that was mainly focused on African-American culture.

“As far as my own experience in the African-American community, the truth is, when it comes for me and writing, I don’t write anything that I have ever had any experience in,” Strong said. “For me, it’s about what interests me, what excites me. Nothing is about my own life experience.”

Danny Strong also revealed where he came up with the idea for ‘Empire’.

“I was in my car in L.A., and I was driving around, and I heard a news story about Puffy, and I just thought, ‘Hip-hop is so cool. That’s what I should do next, something in hip-hop.’ And I immediately began thinking King Lear and The Lion in Winter, and that’s how I work. I go to classical archetypes.”

Danny Strong also revealed where he was inspired. “To procrastinate and for inspiration, I started watching Kanye West interviews. After 45 minutes… I said, ‘Alright, I’m good. I know how to do this.’”

I can only wonder if this interview was Strong’s inspiration for Terrence Howard’s character, Luscious Lyon.

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Image Credit: s_bukley / Shutterstock.com H/T: Uproxx

The extremely popular funny man Will Ferrell recently took a bold stance on College fraternities and sororities.

In a recently interview with the New York Times, Will Ferrell the controversy surrounding College Greek life.

Q. Will, we are fraternity brothers of Delta Tau Delta, albeit different chapters and years. The recent awful situation with SAE has brought out the “frat haters” in droves. Could you comment on your own fraternity experience and why (or why not) fraternity membership is still a worthy consideration for a college student? —Stephen Browning, Seattle

A.The incident in Oklahoma, that is a real argument for getting rid of the system altogether, in my opinion, even having been through a fraternity. Because when you break it down, it really is about creating cliques and clubs and being exclusionary. Fraternities were started as academic societies that were supposed to have a philanthropic arm to them. And when it’s governed by those kind of rules, then they’re still beneficial. But you gotta be careful. I was lucky in that the one I was in, we were really kind of the anti-fraternity fraternity. We were considered good enough to get the exchanges with the good sororities. We couldn’t get anyone to vote on anything, but if you needed 40 guys to show up and build a 20-foot-tall papier-mâchéversion of the Matterhorn, we were there and ready. But we didn’t take it too seriously. It was just about having fun. But I think it’s an interesting dilemma for universities these days.

What do you think? Is Will Ferrell right? Share with us your thoughts in the comments below!

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Vin Diesel got choked up during Paul Walker Tribute at the ‘Furious 7’ screening saying “It’s for my brother”.

Vin Diesel made a surprise appearance during a recent Los Angeles screening of Furious 7, where he opened up about Paul Walker’s death and it’s impact on his life.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

“This was a labor of love — it was in some ways the hardest movie I ever had to do because the relationships that you see on film are so real,” said Diesel, who was unable to attend the film’s premiere earlier this month at South by Southwest because his girlfriend was about to give birth. “When the tragedy happened, I lost my best friend. I lost my brother.”

Partway through his address to the crowd, Diesel became choked up and had to cut a sentence short. He was silent for a moment, which brought cheers of support from the audience members.

Universal releases Furious 7 on April 3. Vin Diesel’s full speech can be seen in the video below.

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