3 Questions for Dennis Quaid

Dennis Quaid has lived out some childhood fantasies in his award-winning career portraying such legends as astronaut Gordon Cooper in The Right Stuff and Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire — not to mention President Clinton in HBO’s The Special Relationship.

One can’t quite say that being like Donald Trump was a fantasy for Quaid, but viewers may observe shades of “The Donald” in Samuel Brukner, the ruthless billionaire with a mouth bigger than his net worth at the center of the TV series The Art of More. The first 10 episodes of the new show, which delves into the crime and deception behind the glamorous facade of two fictional New York auction houses, begin streaming on Crackle, November 19. Quaid also stars in the movie Truth, which opened at the end of October.

Quaid is an avid cyclist and an even more avid family man. He has a son Jack, from his marriage to Meg Ryan, and twins, a boy and a girl, with his wife, real estate broker Kimberly Buffington. He got headlines after he became an activist demanding better guidelines for hospital safety when his newborn twins were given a near fatal dose of medicine. “It was a lot of stress, and who needs that?” he remembers. “But the kids had a happy ending, and that’s the good news.”

The Saturday Evening Post: I’m told you are a very involved and fun dad.
Dennis Quaid: It’s the second time around with the twins. The thing about it is that it’s a lot different to have a boy and a girl. Having a girl is such an amazing experience. So different from having a boy because she knows more than I do already. I just really have fun watching them grow up. Then with my 23-year-old, Jack, who’s become an actor, it’s really the whole reward of the friendship that we’ve developed. It’s fantastic. Something I didn’t expect. You put the time in, and it’s like what you put in is what you get out. The best piece of advice I think I’ve given my kids is I want them to follow their heart. I want them to do something that they love. My mother was really great about that, making me feel like I could do really anything that I made up my mind I wanted to do.

SEP: In The Art of More you play a handsome, rich, show-offish jerk — is that a kick?
DQ: It’s always fun to play someone like Samuel Brukner because he doesn’t follow the rules. People like him are fascinating to watch because they have so much money and power that they can say anything they want. That’s why it’s fun to watch Donald Trump these days. He’s always been a novelty act. Now, he’s just taken it up a notch. Like Trump, Brukner doesn’t care if anyone else sees him as a jerk. Or, if he does, he keeps it a closely guarded secret.

SEP: You’ve been on the screen for a long while now. Is acting still fun for you?
DQ: I feel a lot more at ease than I did way back when. When you’re young and brash, you’re also secretly scared to death. Now, I don’t have the pressure of “you’ve got to make that next movie that’s going to put you over the top.” But at the same time, you always need that fire in your belly; otherwise, it’s just a job.

What was fake on the Internet this week: Dennis Quaid meltdown, rhino extinction and GMO weed

 

 
At left: The lady accused of sleeping with Wu Tang Clan. At right: Her ex/accuser. (Divorce Court)

 

There is so much fake stuff on the Internet in any given week that we’ve grown tired of debunking it all. Fake Twitter fights. Fake pumpkin-spice products. Amazing viral video? Nope — a Jimmy Kimmel stunt!

So, rather than take down each and every undeservedly viral story that crosses our monitors each week, we’re rounding them all up in a quick, once-a-week Friday debunk of fake photos, misleading headlines and bad studies that you probably shouldn’t share over the weekend.

Ready? Here’s what was fake on the Internet this week:

A screenshot from Quaid’s fake freak-out. (YouTube)

 

1. Dennis Quaid did not have a hysterical on-set meltdown. We are leading with this particular bit of tomfoolery because it is both the best and worst hoax of the week. Worst because it was obvious and terrible: Footage of the alleged meltdown was uploaded to an anonymous and brand new YouTube account, a tell-tale sign of forgery. Best because people actually called it out: As my brilliant colleague Emily Yahr noted on Tuesday, the Internet approached the video skeptically from the start.

Viewers pointed out that this particular Quaid is known for being a classy dude. Other oddities? No one could identify the alleged movie set and the audio is suspiciously well-timed. Turns out the skeptics in the crowd were right: On Wednesday, Funny Or Die admitted it was behind the video.

2. A woman featured on “Divorce Court” did not sleep with the entire Wu-Tang Clan. Okay, this rumor technically originated on TV — but it was debunked on Instagram, and that’s Internet enough for me! Earlier this week, a man appeared on the Fox reality show “Divorce Court,” claiming his girlfriend had slept with all 10 members of the rap group Wu-Tang Clan. As unlikely as that allegation already seemed, Wu-Tang’s manager and several members of the group have since denied it explicitly.

“I would’ve remembered her,” Method Man wrote on Instagram, among many more offensive things. Besides, that would’ve violated the Wu-Tang groupie policy! As the manager told The Mirror after the “Divorce Court” allegations, “no girls on the bus unless they talk want to talk about music, politics or chess.”

3. Three police officers did not pose with a sign that said “don’t make me shoot you in the back.” File this one to the obvious Photoshop folder: In the past year, a picture of three officers in Nashville has been edited to include a variety of loaded messages, including “police lives matter” and “Obama, Holder, Sharpton & DeBlasio have blood on their hands.” Local NBC affiliate WSMV reports that the signs were originally part of a public safety campaign encouraging drivers to give a wide berth to emergency vehicles parked on the shoulder.

A series of four doctored photos circulating online (Original: Tennessee Metro Police)

 

4. The West African black rhino did not go extinct this week. (Although if you think this is a happy debunk, you have another thing coming.) Contrary the mournful and very viral tweets from luminaries like Ricky Gervais, this particular species of rhino has been extinct since 2011. It seems that the confusion sprung from another endangered rhino: On Thursday, CNN published a sobering report on the last male northern white left in the world.

 5. Monsanto hasn’t developed the first “genetically modified strain” of marijuana. More than 100,000 people have shared this story from World News Daily Report, probably because it hits the outrage sweet spot between Monsanto and legalized pot. Everything World News posts, of course, is actually made up. It’s probably also worth noting that we’ve long had stronger, genetically selected pot.

6. “Marco Rubio” is not an anagram for “Birac Obama.” Daniel Kibblesmith, a former skewerer of Internet culture for parody site Clickhole, made this joke on Twitter — the actual joke being that it’s not true, there aren’t enough letters. We fell for it! Sorry. Accidents happen. Especially when it comes to great anagrams…

Dennis Quaid’s new TV role echoes Donald Trump

As Sam Brukner, Dennis Quaid (center) has the art world at his beck and call. Photo: Crackle Sony TV

 

Crackle, the free streaming site most known for Jerry Seinfeld’s amusing, low-key “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” is delving into a decidedly more glamorous setting for its first drama series “The Art of More” — that of high-end auction houses, with their exorbitant purchase prices and rapacious cast of characters.

“Every time I see on the news about a Van Gogh painting selling for hundreds of millions of dollars or Elvis’ original Cadillac, people turn around and take notice of it,” star Dennis Quaid tells The Post. “It brings out the basest of human emotions — greed and lust and envy.

“It’s rife for drama.”

In the series (all 10 episodes of which premiere Thursday), Quaid plays Sam Brukner, a brash New York real estate tycoon with political ambitions who bears more than a little resemblance to Donald Trump.

“He definitely came to mind in the description of the character,” says Quaid, who has golfed with the now-presidential candidate a few times. “About two months into shooting [Trump] announced [his candidacy]. We had to laugh because it was just too good.”

Much of the conflict in “The Art of More” stems from the two rival auction houses that covet Brukner’s art collection. Representing Parke-Mason is Graham Connor (Christian Cooke), a rookie account man who shares Brukner’s military/blue collar background. Eager to prove that he belongs among the elite, Graham faces off with DeGraaf executive Roxana Whitman (Kate Bosworth), the upper crust daughter of the firm’s CEO. Not surprisingly, she has a romantic past with Brukner.

Roxana (Kate Bosworth, above) signs a client on his death bed in “The Art of More.”Photo: Crackle Sony TV

“She is highly intelligent, calculating, and she has a seemingly impenetrable armor. She’s a woman in a man’s world and so she’s constantly having to prove herself,” says Bosworth, who modeled Roxana after the many femme fatales played by Michelle Pfeiffer. “The audience is never quite sure what side of the line she’s on and she could turn at any moment. She’s unpredictable and I mean that in both the cunning and cutting side but also in a more vulnerable way, as well.”

Graham and Roxana take a win-at-any-cost approach to their jobs, whether it’s him getting pulled back into the antiquities smuggling trade he practiced as a soldier in Iraq or her signing a high-profile client on his deathbed.

“What’s interesting about all the characters, Roxana included, is there’s a real questionable morality to all of them because they’re all in desperate situations and feel the need to prove themselves in different ways,” Bosworth says.

“There’s a lot of greed in that world,” she adds. “At least with our show, there’s a real sexiness to it … All these characters are holding their cards to their chest and not giving too much away.”

Dennis Quaid Appears To Lose It On Film Set In Leaked Video (UPDATE)

UPDATE (April 15): Turns out Dennis Quaid's on-set freakout was a prank, courtesy of Funny or Die. That's right, Jimmy Kimmel was not the schemer behind this one.

Previously ...

TMZ obtained video of actor Dennis Quaid simply losing it on the set of one of his films, or at least that's what seems to be happening.

In the leaked clip, the 61-year-old actor is heard yelling at someone for walking on set while he is running his lines: "I can't even get a line out until dopey the d--k starts whispering in your ear, you're not even watching anymore."

He continues ranting, "No, don't f--king 'Dennis' me. I am doing my job here. This is the most unprofessional set I have ever been on. Quaid also unleashes a string of profanities while whoever is filming suddenly pans the camera away from him.

While Quaid certainly wouldn't be the first actor to get caught on camera losing it on set (hello there Christian Bale), HuffPost Entertainment has reached out to his rep for a comment, since you can't necessarily trust anything you read/see on the Internet.

The footage, which was actually uploaded to YouTube on April 10, reeks of yet another viral video set up.

"It feels scripted to me, but so does every viral video since [Jimmy] Kimmel started doing his schtick. It's really messing with my mind," a Redditor named Thumpar wrote on Monday, while another Redditor named AmazingMarv agreed: "Yes. There's something too on-point about it. Like if an actor were to do something like this, it would look exactly like this. Looks planned."

Did Quaid really have an on-set meltdown or is this the work of Jimmy Kimmel or some other viral marketer? Only time will tell.