Jennifer Garner’s childhood dream takes her to Broadway
It would be hard to argue with Jennifer Garner’s success on the big and small screens. But she says her first real career break comes Nov. 1 when she hits the Broadway stage.
Garner will play Roxanne to Kevin Kline’s long-beaked lover when “Cyrano de Bergerac” opens at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York. The show will run through Dec. 23.
This marks Garner’s Broadway debut, and she calls it “the one thing I’ve really wanted to do all my life.”
“I’ve had such good luck in my career,” she says of her TV and film roles, which included playing Sydney Bristow in ABC’s “Alias” and a federal investigator in Sept. 28’s “The Kingdom.”
“But those were all accidents,” says Garner, 35. “The stage is what I dreamed about doing when I was a kid.”
So it makes sense that she rehearses with her own. Garner, who has a daughter, Violet, with husband Ben Affleck, says she prepares for the role when mother and daughter tuck in at night.
“I get under the covers with her and read my lines with a flashlight,” she says. “But I can only do two pages at a time. It wakes her if I turn the page. But what a great way to prepare.”
Nelly cracks his ‘Knuckles’
Nelly’s first single for his upcoming “Brass Knuckles” album finds him asking “Wadsyaname.” He says the playful tune is a fun way to reintroduce himself after a three-year absence.
The 14-track “Brass Knuckles” arrives Nov. 13 and will feature appearances by Snoop Dogg, Babyface, Lil Wayne, T.I., Rick Ross, Pimp C and Akon and production by the likes of Jermaine Dupri, Pharrell Williams and Bryan-Michael Cox. “Wadsyaname” was produced by newcomer Neff-U, who built the track around the piano line for K-Ci & JoJo’s 1998 hit “All My Life.”
“We were just in the studio playing around with the keys, and he played that and I remembered that that was the jam,” Nelly says. “I asked him to see if he could put a drumbeat with it, and we had it. It’s really a song that’s more for the ladies.”
“Brass Knuckles” is his first new album since he simultaneously released the albums “Suit” and “Sweat,” which premiered at No. 1 and 2 on the Billboard 200 chart in 2004. While the new album is not nearly as expansive, he’s still confident that it will do well even in a shrinking CD marketplace.
‘Standing’ joins reality tribe
Gone is much hint of the duplicity, sneakiness and snarkiness of, say, CBS’ “Survivor.” But there’s plenty of action and more than a few physical injuries on Discovery’s “Last One Standing,” which premieres Oct. 4 at 9 p.m.
In the 12-part series, six athletes are immersed in remote tribes, where their challenge is to live and train with indigenous tribesmen and then represent them in competition each week with other tribes. The series will crown the athlete who wins the most individual contests, which range from Zulu stick fighting to a foot race in the Mexican mountains, in which the contestants, wearing only handmade sandals, push their physical and mental limits.
“It looks like a program that would appeal to just guys because of the sporting aspect of it,” says Discovery programmer Mary Donahue. “But if we can get women to come to it, they will see heart and they will see a band-of-brothers aspect to it.”