When you’re a hot young actor like Brendan Fraser, you might think it’s going to rain Bedazzled money forever. Or at least, it seems, Brendan Fraser’s ex-wife and divorce lawyer, who got him to pay $50,000 a month in alimony must’ve thought that. But the truth is, showbiz is an even crueler bitch than my ex-wife’s lawyer. So it is that Brendan Fraser now finds himself losing $87,000 a month, even while earning millions.

Take it away, TMZ:

Fraser filed docs in Connecticut recently as part of an ongoing battle with his ex-wife to lower his alimony payments, which currently sit at $50,000/month. To prove his financial situation ain’t what it used to be, Fraser listed his monthly income and expenses

According to Fraser, he makes about $205,704.04/month, but $112,803.25 goes to professional expenses leaving him with $92,900.79.  Fraser says he makes another $25,800.28 from interest and other financial things rich people get … and then the expenses kick in, including …

Alimony — $50,000
Mortgages — $5,000+
Property tax — $6,000+
Income tax — $34,132.52
Child support — $25,000
Gardening — $5,200
Various insurances — $5,000+
Family support and gifts — $5,000+
Staffing — $3,000
Pet care — $7.77
And it goes on and on …

All told, Fraser’s expenses have him losing $87,320.01/month. But Fraser’s assets reportedly total just a shade under $25 million. [TMZ]

$200 grand a month, not bad. That comes out to a shade more than a cool $2.5 million a year. Of course, according to this accounting, with his expenses, he’d have to make about $3.6 mil just to break even. Also, $3,000 a month for “staffing” sounds like a lot, until you realize that it probably means he has some assistant fresh out of college trying to afford her loan payments and LA rent making $36,000 a year. Which has to suck when some 8-year-old’s making $300K a year just for being Brendan Fraser’s kid. (Okay, so technically he has three sons – Griffin, Holden, and Leland, which are traditional Connecticut names – each earning $100K a year each).

But of course, all of this is if we believe Brendan Fraser’s own accounting. And I do, because I don’t think he’d try to lie. If you’re Brendan Fraser, you don’t want that much money riding on your ability to act. (*vigorous armpit farts*)

The market that once existed for indie movies that broke people like Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino mostly died with the economy, and these days, the big studios only care about the “potential franchise” movies, which is understandable, but shortsighted (a point I’ve made more here than once) in terms of maintaining film’s long-term cultural relevancy. Sean Penn makes a similar argument in a recent interview with Esquire, which isn’t new, except that he also points a finger at his fellow actors, who he says contribute to the system by making “monkey-f*ck-rat” movies. I dunno, that doesn’t sound so bad. I like that chimp-mouthf*cks-toad movie.

In a new interview with Esquire, Penn, who appeared in this fall’s indie drama This Must Be the Place, rips into today’s film industry — including his fellow actors.

“I just did this picture that I enjoyed doing. Gangster Squad. But I do think that in general the standard of aspiration is low,” he told the magazine. “Very low. And mostly they’re just doing a bunch of monkey-f*ck-rat movies, most actors and actresses. And I blame them just as much as I do the business. I know everybody wants to make some money, everybody’s got a modeling contract, everybody’s selling jewelry and perfume. I’m blinded by it. Bob Dylan said in an interview one time — somebody asked him, Are you really this reclusive? He says, No, I’m not reclusive, man. I’m exclusive. Exclusivity is like intimacy.”

I’m with him on the actors-need-to-try-harder-too thing, but he lost me quoting Bob Dylan. You can’t tell if Bob Dylan is singing “Blowin in the Wind” or “The Hurricane” these days, maybe it’s time we stopped treating him like an oracle. “I’m tellin ya, brother, integrity is just a cat screamin’ in a dishrag.”

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Reader Matt B. sent in this picture of Brad Cooper playing the Elephant Man onstage from People. I saw it a while back and forgot to post it, but I’m correcting that post-haste because it makes me laugh every time I look at it. See? This is what happens when you take one of the most handsome actors in Hollywood and have him play a hideously deformed freak without using any make-up. Can’t you tell? How ugly he’s supposed to be, from the face he’s making?? I mean for a second there I thought I was looking at the real Elephant Man, the acting is that good! You can tell he’s a real artist because he still does important work like this and not just shallow rom-coms. GRRR, ACTING!

Hahahahaha theater is so stupid.

[via TheSuperficial, People, BerkshireOnstage]

Balla lurns teh heartburn face from skool of hard knox

In quite possibly the dumbest statement to come out of an actress’s mouth since Jessica Alba said “good actors never use a script,” Twilight star Kristen Stewart told British GQ that she quit school in the seventh grade because her teachers failed her. And as long as we’re pointing fingers, I’d also like to hear what Stephenie Meyer’s English teacher has to say for herself.

Actress Kristen Stewart has lashed out at her former teachers, insisting they “failed” to support her while she was away from class on acting jobs.
The Twilight star began performing when she was just eight years old, and balanced work with attending school before deciding to drop out of mainstream education in the seventh grade when she was in her early teens.
And Stewart tells Britain’s GQ magazine she felt forced to have home schooling because her teachers refused to help her catch up when she was working on location.
“School became genuinely uncomfortable,” she says. “I was feeling a little self-conscious about the acting thing with my peers, but also my teachers became a problem. They didn’t want to do the extra work or put packages together so I could keep up while away.”
“They failed me. My teachers failed me. Not one, but all of them. I’m always slightly ashamed in a way, about what I do. I’m slightly embarrassed as I had such serious ambitions when I was younger, I just never imagined that I would ever have a reason not go to school. But then this happened.” [TheAge]

Yes, how dare those a-hole teachers not double their workload and create a special lesson plan for no extra pay so you could serve your country in the important role of “child actress.” People are always saying actors are selfish, entitled assholes, but I ask, isn’t it really the teachers? Whatever. You learn everything you need to know child acting anyway. “That Kristen Stewart, can’t add or subtract to save her life, but she sure can smile while eating oatmeal,” people say.

If you haven’t yet, make sure you check out XanSpencer.com, probably the finest actor website since Bruce Greenwood (see also: Corbin Bernsen’s IMDB bio). Besides his acting reel, which is hilarious (as amateur acting reels almost always are), probably the most notable thing about Spencer’s website is the way a miniature version of Spencer guides you around it himself, like a vaguely-effeminate version of the Microsoft Paperclip (“It looks like you’re casting an actor!”). But hey, it’s creative, the guy’s looking for a job,  and he’s likable enough. Give him a break, lots of people have douchier “testimonial quotes” on their sites. Jeff Wells, for instance, and he’s not even looking for a job, just trying to sound important.

Xan (pronounced “Zan”, apparently) writes that the site took 2 years and 1,847 hours to create, and I believe him. But what really puts it over the top for me isn’t the awesome cat shooting skills in his reel or the mini Xan guiding me around the site. It’s how much the dude LOVES WILL SMITH. I mean, he reeeally loves Will Smith. If loving Will Smith was dead hookers, Xan Spencer would be my crawl space. Get jiggy with this excerpt from his “Why I’m an actor” section:

There are other roles that I really aspire to be; doctor, honest lawyer, cop, FBI, military, super hero, real life hero, business man, overcoming adversity, sports player, entrepreneur etc. etc. There are literally 1000s of roles each year that would fit the description of these type characters, and help me fulfill my life goal.
Some may think that’s limiting myself as an actor, but I see it as the complete opposite. I see it as specializing and/or niching myself as an actor. People will come to love and appreciate what I bring on and off the screen, a special “unexplainable” element/quality that they may not be able to specifically point out, but something that my characters and myself offer that really grabs and sucks them in… I call it the Will Smith, Channing Tatum, Vin Diesel, Justin Bieber quality.

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen all those names in the same sentence before. Now that I have, it makes complete sense. (The emphasis there was his, by the way). Which brings us to his “favorite quotes” section.

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