Fans of the hit NBC drama This Is Us were recently shocked to learn that Chris Sullivan, the actor who plays Toby, doesnt weigh as much as his on-screen character!
In an interview with Us Weekly, the 36-year-olds co-star Susan Kelechi Watson revealed that he wears a fat suit and prosthetic jowls while embodying Kates love interest, a man who struggles with his weight and suffered a heart attack because of his health issues.
Chris on the show (left) vs. real life. (Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Although Chris hasnt spoken out about his surprising wardrobe its not exactly a secret if youve ever spotted him on a red carpet his co-star chrissy metz, who plays kate, previously said that shes contractually obligated to shed pounds before clarifying her comments on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
MORE: Adele"s Weight Loss See Before and After Photos of the Grammy Winner"s Transformation!
"I was kind of like, "I hope I get to lose weight." Thats a win-win for me motivated in a different way this time," the actress shared. "It wasn"t mandated. It wasn"t like, "You have to do this." But if this is the story line, naturally you would lose weight. So Im excited if that should happen."
Scroll through the gallery below to see more photos of Chris looking super handsome in real life!
CJ McCollum Interviews Kyrie Irving & Russell Westbrook (Funny Interview)
NEW ORLEANS -- On Thursday afternoon, the day when many were arriving for NBA All-Star festivities, Pepsi unveiled the latest shortin the Uncle Drew series featuring Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving.
That was just the beginning of Uncle Drew"s New Orleans takeover.
"With fresh and exciting content, Pepsi will look to reignite the courtside excitement around Uncle Drew and continue its legacy of rewarding fans with fun, exciting and authentic moments in pop culture and sports,"said Aziel Rivers, Director of Pepsi Marketing. "With the availability of brand new Uncle Drew merchandise on UncleDrew.com, we are really able to show the evolution of the Uncle Drew brand which keeps fans connected at multiple touch points both on and off the screen."
In large part because of fans demandingUncle Drew gear, the websiteUncleDrew.com launched Friday, an ideal tipoff to All-Star weekend.
The site, which is now the digital one-stop-shop for all things Uncle Drew, gives fans a chance to purchase merchandise, get behind-the-scenes footage of the cast"s character transformations and watch all the Uncle Drew episodes.
In New Orleans, as Irving prepares for the 3-Point contest Saturday night and also Sunday"s game, fans wereable to stop by the pop-up shop at famed restaurant Daisy Dukes on Chartres Street for the ultimate Uncle Drew experience, courtesy of Pepsi.
Chris Fedor, cleveland.com
The space, modeled after the pizza jointfrom the recent ads with JB Smoove ("Angelo") and Baron Davis ("Louis"), had a number of items available to buy, includingthe leather brim snapback hat, the "fundamentals" tee and "it"s all about buckets" hoodie -- all items that reference memorable quotes fromthe ads.
There was a special menu, featuring Uncle Drew"s pizza (pepperoni, mushrooms and olives), the Drew burger, Louis" shrimp po" boy combo and Angelo"s gumbo.
So what"s next for Uncle Drew? What"s next for Irving, as his brand continues to grow?
A starring role in a full-length feature film.
"Seeing the response that it"s gotten has been awesome, not only from kids but just across the world, it has been awesome," Irving said in an interview on ESPN Radio. "Really a fun-filled environment when I"m doing that and I enjoy every minute of it.
"Now that we"re coming out with a movie I"m just thinking about the possibilities. We"re just trying to create history and become a great basketball movie that it just won"t be as cliche of Uncle Drew is getting back on the court and going to find his players. It will be some twists in there, which I"m excited to present to you guys."
Conceived, developed and produced by PepsiCo"s in-house content creation arm, Creators League Studio, the film will extend the Pepsi brand beyond the bottle.
"Today"s consumers want to live the brand as much as consume it, and the tremendous success we"ve had with the Uncle Drew franchise is a perfect example of how we"re building ecosystems around our flagship brands," said Lou Arbetter, General Manager of Creators League Studio. "Pepsi and Kyrie Irving are looking forward to expanding the Uncle Drew universe."
The film release date is unknown, but Irving said he has talked with teammate LeBron James, who had a role in "Trainwreck," about the amount of hours that goes into making a movie.
Who knew an older man played by Irving who masks his immense basketball skills before showing up others in local pickup games would grow into something this big?
First an ad -- "Chapter 1" of Uncle Drew -- that has become the most-viewed basketball-related video in YouTube history, having been watched more than 47 million times. Then more chapters, starring other NBA players (Kevin Love, Ray Allen and Nate Robinson). Now a website, with a plethoraof fun and popular merchandise, and a pop-up store at the center ofthe NBA universe this weekend. Soon, a movie.
"I think I can get more enjoyment from being behind the camera, but being in front of it is also awesome," Irving said during Friday"s All-Star Media Day. "Getting to act and become an alter ego and it"s just a beauty, and, you know, playing another role."
Irving has always been into the arts. He says he will have a behind-the-scenes role in the film, which is expected to include other NBA players. He won"t, however, be helping with the script.
"I"m not into writing," he said. "I"m behind directing and producing, so watching all those hours and hours of outtakes and chopping it up and all of that, I think I should just add co-director and let them direct it."
In his short time in the nba, irving has racked up sponsorships with Nike, Pepsi, AK and Mountain Dew. As of three weeks ago, the 24-year-old point guard hadthe NBA"s fourth most-popular jersey, behind Stephen Curry, James and Kevin Durant.
While his star continues to shine on the hardwood-- appearing in his fourth All-Star Game in six years this Sunday -- Irving has become a luminary off it as well.
"I think it"s the way he carries himself on and off the court," NBA legend Julius Erving, who appeared at the Uncle Drew pop-up shop and even sported one of the hats for photo ops, told cleveland.com of Irving"s popularity. "He"s very humble, yet very determined and focused and very talented.
"You know, talent -- the cream comes to the top in every scenario. The challenge is whether you can stay there or not so I think he has proven in a short period of time that he"s smart, he"s articulate and he"s the type of leader whose worthy of having followers.
"He"s the type of inspirational talent who is worthy of having fans. He"s proven himself in that regard and I think he will continue to do so."
With each passing year, the number of superhero stories flooding into theaters seems to quintuple. There are more team-up movies, crossover television events, and just an excess of all around masked altruism. Its reaching the point where one can feel as if theyre being buried alive under six feet of capes and computer generated rubble. Luckily, Logan is not one of those movies. Despite featuring the rugged grimace that started this 21st century genre craze, or maybe because of it, Hugh Jackmans swan song to the claws is a stripped down and bitter affair.
How marvelous.
It turns out that like the quieter, more deconstructionist Westerns that heralded a reflective temperament following the indulgences of 1950s Oaters, Logan seeks to carve out a fairly intimate character study about an aged do-gooder in a country for no old mutants. And the film wildly succeeds at its goals with b****y verve. Seriously, there is so much blood. More miraculous still, though, is that Logan is also without question the best superhero movie in years, and certainly the most ambitious one since Christopher Nolan hung up the cape.
The film makes no illusions about its Western influences. Taking a page out of Clint Eastwoods Unforgiven, as well as perhaps Sam Peckinpahs own story of American legends aging gracelessly in ignominious gore in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Logan opens on a grim and sparse future. Its the year 2029, and even though there is still no wall built along the Mexican border, things remain fairly apocalyptic for mutantkind.
There have been no new mutants born in the last 25 years, causing a graying and bearded Logan to suggest maybe they were just Gods mistake. Worse, his mentor and hero Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) has developed dementia, which forces him to go into hiding since the U.S. government has classified his deteriorating brain as a WMD. Xavier wastes away waiting to dieand angrily dropping F-bombs like its a David Mamet playin a capsized water tower south of the border. Logan meanwhile works part-time as a limousine driver, hoping to save enough money to buy himself and Xavier a boat so they can spend their remaining days at sea.
Yep, after 200 years, Logans mutant genes are also failing him. He can still heal from gunshots or stab wounds, but it takes a very long (and painful) time. Thus two old men waiting to expire will suddenly see their lives turned upside down when a Mexico City nurse (Elizabeth Rodriguez) smuggles a young girl across the border. That girl is named Laura Kinney (Dafne Keen), and its fair to say shes a blood relation to Logan. After all, she shares his healing factor, adamantium claws, and a mighty prickly disposition.
Shes also the first new mutant Charles or Logan have seen in decades. Hence, like Children of Men, she is the future they must protect. But theyd best hurry, because government bad men led by a cheerfully malicious Boyd Holbrook, a bounty hunter with a mechanical hand, want her head something fierce.
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The more utilitarian and economical Logan is in its American frontier simplicity, the more subtly impressive director James Mangolds film reveals itself. Mangold and co-writers Michael Green and Scott Frank wallow in an affinity for Western iconography. But it is more than the sub-genre trappings that play in the films favor. Rather, unlike so many recent blockbusters that put on a small polish of espionage or mystical fantasy sheen to an otherwise turgid formula, logan escapes most of its clichs while basking in practical stunts, old fashioned photography, and a kind of defiantly over-the-top grit.
Indeed, Logan is incredibly violent. Almost excessively so in moments where either the titular anti-hero or his pint-sized protgferociously maul their enemies like theyre Leonardo DiCaprio on a bear hunt. But while the picture relishes its R-rating too much at times, it also marks a refreshing re-think of superhero action. These are legends whose lives have been glamorized in comic books, just as the dime novel turned Congressman David Crockett into a raccoon-capped Davy. Still, the twinkle of myth remains here; you can see it in Hugh Jackmans eye.
As an actor whos played a superhero longer than any performer, Jackman continues to hold onto a passion that has long left most of his contemporaries. And unlike other haphazard X-Men movies from the past, Logan meets that commitment in its better moments, such as when a hero called the Wolverine must say some words of sorrow, and they just will not come. But its all there on Jackmans marred face.
Stewart is also well utilized; he and Jackman started this franchise together nearly 20 years ago. And in what will likely be the last installment for each, there is a palpable camaraderie, like two grizzled stage actors whove been sharing and fighting for the spotlight over their entire careers. Stewart has played Charles Xavier so many times that he can elicit boundless empathy in his sleep. But getting to play that same sweetness in a dying mind that cannot remember which of his friends are alive or dead, or where he is, brings a renewed poignancy to his final bow.
Dafne Keen is where much of the films lightness comes from. Undoubtedly destined to be the crowd-pleasing favorite when the movie opens, her Laura is often quiet and remote, but she is every bit as feral and cantankerous as the old man, adding the right amount of youthful counterbalance. She also holds her own against Jackman while swearing in Spanish, which is its own kind of achievement.
Still, Logan is not flawless. While Holbrook is fairly fun as a slimy bad man who seems like a slightly more exaggerated, comic book version of Ben Fosters fiend in Mangolds straight ahead Western, 3:10 to Yuma, Holbrooks Donald Pierce is never actually that intimidating. And Richard E. Grant, always a welcome presence, is primarily wasted as the films other villain, the mad scientist who created Laura and who is decidedly Britishand did I mention mad?
Their third act secret weapon also represents more of a need for a physical threat as opposed to the ingenious storytelling twist one imagines the filmmakers were attempting. Nevertheless, even in these later missteps, the film still features some of its best elements, such as images of contracted government players chasing the half-Mexican Laura across woodlands like shes one of the supposed boogeymen that ICE is currently being unleashed on. Just as Bryan Singer used the fears stoked during the Bush years against members of the LBTQ community as parables in his early X-Men films, Logan is a compelling update of those undergirding themes, leading to splendidly uncomfortable results.
In the end, Logan achieves its goal of saying goodbye to Hugh Jackmans Wolverine in a brutally earnest way. By the closing credits, audiences will feel like theyve lost something. And yet, what they have gained is a superhero movie worth remembering.
Lookin" good, Toby! The popular character recently woke up from a coma on This Is Us, but the actor who plays him, Chris Sullivan, might appear to regular viewers of the NBC drama as though he"s been very active for the past few months. Fans who have noticed a slimmed-down Sullivan on red carpets during this awards season may have wondered if his physique is part of an upcoming story line, and Us Weekly has the scoop!
PHOTOS: Celebrity Fat Suits
Costar Susan Kelechi Watson (Beth) revealed to Us at a press event that the actor, 36, actually wears a fat suit while filming his scenes. So while its still possible that weight loss is in the future for toby, sullivan hasn"t had to make any major lifestyle changes lately.
Side by side of Chris Sullivan at the People"s Choice Awards and Chris Sullivan as Toby in "This is US" Ron Batzdorff/NBC
Body image is a prominent theme for Toby and on-off girlfriend Kate (Chrissy Metz), as the two characters met at a weight-loss support group and bonded over their calorie-counting lifestyles. He suffered a heart attack in last month"s winter finale but returned to his typically upbeat self in last week"s episode, even accepting an apparent marriage proposal from his main squeeze.
This Is Us" Mandy Moore on Whether Rebecca Cheated on Jack With Miguel "This Is Us" Fans Aren"t Actually Happy That Toby"s Still Alive Jack vs. Miguel! This Is Us" Eight Moments to Make You Sob
Metz previously said in an interview that she is contractually obligated to lose weight for her role, as Kate makes a concerted effort to trim her figure. The actress later clarified the remarks on a December visit to the Ellen DeGeneres Show, explaining that she is not feeling pressure from the show"s team to shed pounds.
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"I was kind of like, "I hope I get to lose weight." Thats a win-win for me motivated in a different way this time," Metz, 36, told Ellen DeGeneres. "It wasn"t mandated. It wasn"t like, "You have to do this." But if this is the story line, naturally you would lose weight. So Im excited if that should happen."
PHOTOS: Celebrities" Weight Loss and Transformations: Before and After Pictures
This Is Us airs on NBC Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
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Scott Pruitt is promising an aggressive rollback of regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency. NPR takes a look at what he"s likely to target and the challenges he will face.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Scott Pruitt has been sworn in as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Democrats pushed hard against Pruitt"s nomination and staged an all-night debate last night. They had called him unfit for the job. as oklahoma"s attorney general, pruitt sued the EPA more than a dozen times, and he promises to aggressively roll back what he calls the agency"s activist agenda. NPR"s Nathan Rott is with us now to talk about this. Hey, Nate.
NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So what is Scott Pruitt likely to do?
ROTT: Well, it"s hard to say with any certainty. There have been hints of budget and staff cuts, but those have mostly come from people in the agency"s transition team so far who don"t speak for Mr. Pruitt himself. In his confirmation hearings, Pruitt did say that he wants to restore balance to the EPA, which can be read a few ways. He believes that the EPA and environmental regulation had been picking winners and losers in the last few years, especially under President Obama, the losers mostly being farmers, ranchers, oil and gas, industry basically. So I think it"s fair to say that he"s going to try to ease regulations for those groups.
I asked that question, though. What can he do to a lot of former EPA officials and administrators? Here"s the answer I got from Tracey Woodruff, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who worked at the EPA under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
TRACEY WOODRUFF: They could defund certain programs that they don"t like. They could try and identify things that they think are not useful, go after staff that they think are in - working in areas that they don"t agree with.
ROTT: And her list keeps going and going and going, so really there"s a lot of things.
MCEVERS: I mean, so will Pruitt be able to eliminate entire programs at the EPA? I mean, President Trump in the past has even talked about getting rid of the agency altogether.
ROTT: Yeah, he did. And he - I mean, he backed off of that claim later in the campaign, but that"s been a big concern for people. And I think really that"s the question we can answer with the most certainty. It"s very, very unlikely that the Trump administration can or would even want to get rid of the EPA. It"s just too complex of an agency. Here"s Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the EPA under President George W. Bush.
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: This is an agency that"s established by law. There are a number of pieces of legislation that have been passed to frame it. It"s not something that you can just wave a wand and do away with, nor do we want to.
ROTT: And really the same is true to an extent for a lot of the country"s bigger environmental regulations - the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act. One former administrator of the EPA put it to me this way. Deregulation takes just as much time as regulation. Which is a very D.C. way of saying it takes a really, really long time, possibly years, and there could be complications, like lawsuits.
MCEVERS: There already has been some tension at the EPA since Trump"s inauguration. You reported on a clamp down on communications and concerns about how scientists" work would be vetted. How will Pruitt be received by the agency?
ROTT: I think that"s going to be one of the most interesting things to watch in the coming days and weeks. I mean, you"ve got nearly 800 former EPA employees who signed a letter saying that Pruitt is unfit for the office. You"ve got current employees leaking memos and participating in rallies against him. Christine Todd Whitman, that former administrator we heard from earlier, said that this is unprecedented. She"s never seen this level of animosity between existing staff and an incoming EPA head.
And we could see that flare in the next week. An Oklahoma judge yesterday ruled that Pruitt has to turn over thousands of emails and other documents between himself and fossil fuel companies by next Tuesday. And so if that shows a disregard for science or closer ties to industry, it could get a really big backlash.
MCEVERS: NPR"s Nathan Rott, thank you very much.
ROTT: Thank you, Kelly.
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The Rush Limbaugh Show Podcast - 02.17.2017 (February 2017)
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While President Trumps media-bashing press conference yesterday was pilloried by the mainstream press, a lot of conservative media figures loved it, especially Rush Limbaughwho called it particularly effective.
He elaborated on those remarks today on his radio show, explaining that the heated presser was effective in rallying his voters, effective in rallying his supporters, cause they needed it.
Trump supporters, Trump voters have been watching this past month go by with these incessant, endless allegations of incompetence, Limbaugh said, and Trump had been tweeting and reacting to it. But they needed this, and thats why I referred to it as effective because it clearly, clearly was, and they were discombobulated by it, flabbergasted by it.
limbaugh also said he thinks that the media will never be on the same stage as Trump because they live in a completely separate world. He also said they have no desire to learn anything about his voters outside of their preconceived notions.
Limbaughs praise of the press conference led to President Trump tweeting this out:
Rush Limbaugh Podcast 2/17/17 | Obama Deep-State Operatives Are Leaking to Undermine Trump
Please enable Javascript to watch.
While President Trumps media-bashing press conference yesterday was pilloried by the mainstream press, a lot of conservative media figures loved it, especially Rush Limbaughwho called it particularly effective.
He elaborated on those remarks today on his radio show, explaining that the heated presser was effective in rallying his voters, effective in rallying his supporters, cause they needed it.
Trump supporters, Trump voters have been watching this past month go by with these incessant, endless allegations of incompetence, Limbaugh said, and Trump had been tweeting and reacting to it. But they needed this, and thats why I referred to it as effective because it clearly, clearly was, and they were discombobulated by it, flabbergasted by it.
Limbaugh also said he thinks that the media will never be on the same stage as Trump because they live in a completely separate world. He also said they have no desire to learn anything about his voters outside of their preconceived notions.
Limbaughs praise of the press conference led to President Trump tweeting this out:
