1.In Glass Onion, writer and director Rian Johnson confirmed that the last shot of Janelle Monáe's character (Helen) reflected the renowned Mona Lisa painting. The Mona Lisa played a huge role in the film, with Edward Norton's aloof character (Edward) bragging about owning it to his "closest friends." Johnson told the Wrap: "The notion of squinting and seeing something different was baked into the structure of [the final shot]. Everything Edward says when he's talking about the Mona Lisa in front of everybody [fuses with Helen] at the end. She burned the Mona Lisa, but the Mona Lisa lives on in Helen."
2.The infamous "Peppa Pig" quote from Season 2 of The White Lotus was actually improvised. Sabrina Impacciatore (who played Valentina) didn't know her quick-witted joke made it into the final cut. "I'm so glad it's on the show because Mike [White] said: 'You can improvise if you want in this scene,'" Impacciatore told Access Hollywood: "It was on my third day of shooting, and I was intimated by Jennifer [Coolidge] because to me, she's a goddess. I improvised, I said: 'Peppa Pig,' and do you know what happened? She could not stop laughing."
3.Ashanti sang demo vocals on one of Jennifer Lopez's biggest hits: The Murder Inc. remix to "I'm Real." She also claimed that she helped write Lopez's second big remix: "Ain't It Funny." Ja Rule (who was also featured on both remixes) said the producers kept Ashanti's demo vocals on "I'm Real." "It's weird because obviously you get frustrated for not getting credit or not being properly labeled," Ashanti told Metro UK last year. "But then that turns into something you get admired for."
4.In 1989, the Grammys created a new category: "Best Rap Performance." DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith (then the Fresh Prince) were nominated for the award and won for "Parents Just Don't Understand." However, they refused to attend the ceremony because according to the New York Times, the Grammys didn't plan on televising the category. To show their support, rappers like LL Cool J and Salt-N-Pepa didn't attend the ceremony either.
5.Cate Blanchett put a lot of homework into playing fictional queer conductor Lydia Tár in 2022's TÁR. Not only did she learn how to play the piano and conduct an orchestra, but she mastered a specific US accent like she's never done before. According to Variety, Blanchett "listened to recordings of Susan Sontag — that famously highbrow, queer member of New York's elite — whom she calls: 'a really razor-sharp, absolutely authentic public intellectual.'"
6.Jenna Ortega, who played Wednesday Addams in Netflix's Wednesday, came up with the iconic dance number to "Goo Goo Muck" by the Cramps all by herself. Ortega revealed to Vulture: "I pulled inspiration from videos of goth kids dancing in clubs in the '80s. Lene Lovich music videos, Siouxsie and the Banshees' performances, and [Bob] Fosse. I feel like I gained a new level of respect for that line of work."
You can watch Jenna Ortega's dance from Wednesday here:
7.Dionne Warwick hosted an intervention in the '90s with Snoop Dogg and Tupac about their misogynistic music lyrics. "We were kind of scared and shook up. We're powerful right now, but she's been powerful forever," Snoop Dogg said. "Thirty-some years in the game, in the big home with a lot of money and success."
Dionne Warwick said to Snoop Dogg and Tupac: "You're going to have families, you're going to have children, you're going to have little girls. One day that little girl is going to look at you and say: 'Daddy, did you really say that? Is that really you?'"
8.Judy Garland and Jack Haley, who famously starred as Dorothy and the Tin Man in 1939's The Wizard of Oz, would have a familial connection down the line. Their children, singer Liza Minnelli and Jack Haley Jr., married each other in 1974.
9.The summer after Lizzo dropped out of college, she went on a walk in her neighborhood in Colorado and ran away from a coyote while singing Beyoncé's "Green Light." In Vogue's 73 Questions series, she said: "In [my] neighborhood, there were coyotes. I was walking through the neighborhood, and I saw this gray dog, and I was like: 'That ain't a dog.' He had a look in his eyes — I just ran in the opposite direction to 'Green Light' by Beyoncé."
10.John Stamos has collected a LOT of Disney memorabilia over the years, and displays it in an office/studio on his Beverly Hills property. He owns items from Disneyland and Disney World rides like The Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World, and Snow White's Enchanted Wish. Stamos even snabbed a gigantic Disney sign from eBay when the site first started.
You can watch John Stamos's home tour here:
11.Megan Fox got a tattoo of Marilyn Monroe after filming the first Transformers movie because she loved the idea of Monroe's crafted persona. In 2009, Fox told The New York Times: "She was always playing a character within a character — the psychology behind that is very interesting. I didn't want to be literal. I didn't want to put someone on my arm who I wanted to emulate."
12.Joan Crawford used to soak her eyes in boric acid to make them sparkle in her movies. In an old beauty guide by Max Factor, he described the method Crawford used for sparkling eyes: "Her eyes were once merely a pretty blue, [but] today, she's made them the focal point in her face — wonderfully large. We all have that habit of rubbing our eyes before bed and upon rising, but Joan makes a point of keeping her eyes clean. She uses mascara to give the eyes that very open look, [and] when she raises them, they seem to widen the eyes even more that way."
13.In a 2021 interview with People, Bowen Yang talked about the legendary Saturday Night Live afterparties and his personal experiences with them. When he first became a cast member in 2019, he said: "Everybody [usually] goes to a steakhouse in Midtown and sits at a table and sips on one martini and leaves — but you'd have to go to the after-afterparty with a password." He went into detail about his best afterparty experience in 2020. "One of my happiest moments [was when] RuPaul hosted and all of the Season 12 girls [from RuPaul's Drag Race] came," Yang said. "The DJ played house music from the '90s, and everyone got on tables and danced — and it was Cecily [Strong's] birthday. It was one of the best nights. I feel like that's the potential an SNL afterparty usually has."
14.Stevie Nicks' song "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream)" was inspired by the Twilight movies. On The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2016, Stevie Nicks happened to be on the show the same night Taylor Lautner made an appearance (who played Jacob in the Twlight saga). Nicks told Lautner: "I saw the first Twilight movie on the road — then I went to the movie theater and saw the second one, and I fell so in love with it that I went back to my room and I wrote this song called 'Moonlight,'" she said. "It was about Bella and Edward and [Jacob], and it's my favorite song."
You can listen to "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream)" by Stevie Nicks here:
15.And one time when Keanu Reeves met a starstruck fan, he did the ever-classic Matrix dodge move for them. "I remember seeing Keanu Reeves in New York a long time ago when I was a young (and probably very annoying) pre-teen. I yelled out: 'Yo, Neo!' and then I mimicked the bullet-dodge motion from The Matrix," Reddit user u/MrMandurecalled. "He looked back at me, laughed, and mirrored the same move in acknowledgment. It's such a great memory because I feel like anyone would have been justified in getting annoyed and shrugging a kid off, but instead, he was a good sport and humored me. I'll never forget it."
What pop culture fact do *you* have up your sleeve? Let us know in the comments below!
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