Page 30 - aruba-today-20190426

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 26 april 2019

‘This Is Us’ star Chrissy Metz finds her film ‘Breakthrough’

By MIKE CIDONI LENNOX fell through ice on a lake ing, making what Metz
Associated Press in January 2015 and was called “a strong recovery”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Chris- drowning for 15 minutes — and provided inspiration
sy Metz says she believed before paramedics even for her daughter’s portrayal
in miracles well before get- started resuscitation efforts. of Joyce.
ting the call to meet pro- By the time the boy was in “To play, wholeheartedly,
ducer DeVon Franklin to the emergency room, he a woman who believes in
discuss taking the lead in had gone so long without miracles, you have to be-
director Roxann Dawson’s a pulse that doctors were lieve in miracles to some
just-released faith-based ready to call time of death. degree, I think,” explained
drama “Breakthrough.” But Smith wouldn’t accept Metz, who didn’t connect
Metz was already familiar it. She was given permission with the real-life Smith until
with the film’s story of Joyce to pray at her son’s feet as two weeks into filming.
Smith, whose son, John, a last attempt at CPR was In this April 4, 2019 file photo, Chrissy Metz poses for a portrait in “I felt like I already knew
promotion of her new film “Breakthrough” at the Four Seasons her,” Metz noted. “I
Hotel in Los Angeles. watched her on TV. I read
her book, ‘The Impossible.’”
performed — and, much to her mother, doctors were But making the one-on-one
everyone’s surprise, John’s openly pessimistic about a contact did inform her per-
pulse returned. And, even- return to quality life. formance. “Meeting her,
tually, he fully recovered Metz recalled her fury. “I you can’t help but real-
from the accident. told those doctors, ‘You ize she has been through
Metz recalled her first meet- might think you know my hell and back, and is bet-
ing about the film adapta- mom, but you don’t know ter for it.” Three years ago,
tion with producer Franklin my mom. And you don’t the 38-year-old Metz was
and executives from dis- know what she’s capable perhaps the least-known
tributor 20th Century Fox. “I of ... So, if you don’t have of the seven original “This Is
thought we were just gen- anything nice or positive to Us” leads. And while each
erally meeting, and then I say, you need to actually in the cast has landed ex-
ended up sharing the story leave my mother’s room,’” tracurricular gigs since the
of my mother’s medical she said. “And then, of acclaimed and popular
emergency.” course, we come to find series’ 2016 debut, Metz is
In 2017, Metz’s mother, out that Joyce said those the first to be top-billed in
Denise, suffered a massive things to John’s doctors.” a major studio theatrical
stroke, and even in front of Metz’s mom is home, walk- release.q

Review: Jon Land’s fans are in for

another wild ride

By BRUCE DESILVA sidearm, outguns a team
Associated Press of professional mercenar-
“Strong as Steel” (Forge), ies armed with automatic
by Jon Land weapons and RPGs.
Jon Land’s insubordinate, All of this, it turns out later,
trigger-happy Texas Rang- has something to do with
er Caitlin Strong is back the bubonic plague, a se-
again in another action- cret religious order that
packed thriller in “Strong as employs violence to pro-
Steel.” tect the one true faith and
This is the sort of thing you a stone ossuary that may or
might get if Dr. Frankenstein may not contain the bones
sewed John Wayne’s head of Jesus Christ.
onto Wonder Woman’s By the novel’s conclusion,
body, gave the fearsome Land manages to pull
creature an unlimited sup- these disparate elements
ply of bullets and dropped This cover image released by together.
it into “The Da Vinci Code.” Forge shows “Strong As Steel,” For the uninitiated, Caitlin
In the first 40 pages, the fol- by Jon Land. is a fifth-generation Texas
lowing events unfold in rap- Associated Press Ranger. As always in this se-
id succession: train in Texas and swipes ries, the plot has links to an
A freighter with a crew of three crates from a freight old case investigated by
dead men smashes into a car. Caitlin’s lover, re- one of her ancestors, and
dock at the Turkish Port of formed criminal Cort Wes- the cartoonish portrayals
Ordu. ley Masters, single-hand- of violence resemble what
A bride and groom are edly rescues a Homeland might happen if Quentin
gunned down at a drug Security operative on the Tarantino and Marvel’s cre-
cartel wedding in Mexico. brink of execution in Ven- ator of Venom got wasted
A team of assassins wipes ezuela. on cocaine and put their
out the crew of a railroad And Caitlin, with only her heads together.q