True, Angelina Jolie may have only hinted at an eventual retirement some time in the future, and only because fame no longer provides the same spiritual nourishment as raising a family or being committed to charitable work. Nevertheless, the message is clear – Angelina Jolie is quitting acting because Jennifer Aniston called her uncool this week.

Great, that’s just what we need – a power-crazed Jennifer Aniston. Now that she knows what can happen when she deploys the word ‘uncool’, we doubt very much that she’ll stop at Angelina Jolie. All we’ll say is this – don’t be surprised if Vince Vaughn suddenly decides to retire from acting as well or if, you know, Brad Pitt develops a horrible wasting disease on his penis. Or something.

Today hasn’t been deemed an international day of mourning just yet, but give it time. Angelina Jolie has decided that she’s probably going to retire from acting at some point in the future, and that’s probably the worst news we’ve ever heard in our entire lives.

After all, who’ll star in all the moronic movies about tattooed women who shoot cars until they explode and little worthy Oscar-baiting movies about beautiful women who fight against serious real-world issues? What’s that? Milla Jovovich and Charlize Theron respectively? Oh.

But anyway, that doesn’t detract from the fact that Angelina Jolie is retiring from acting. Probably. One day. Probably. People reports:

“I don’t plan to keep acting very long… I’m ready to do a few things now and fade away and get ready to be a grandma one day. I won’t work again probably for another year. So maybe it’ll be once a year, then maybe it’ll be once every three years. I’m not so worried that I want to keep this pace up and try to be something and be a celebrity and be a successful actress forever.”

You see? Angelina Jolie knows that there’s more to life than being an actress – like curing diseases in poverty-stricken African nations, or drawing attention to the unthinkable plight of the world’s refugees, or seeing the magic in a child’s smile. Plus making films is boring, and now she can stay rich and famous forever because Brad Pitt got her pregnant a couple of times.

But why now? Why has Angelina Jolie announced her retirement from acting now? It’s simple. It’s because – by calling her uncool earlier this week – Jennifer Aniston managed to get more headlines than Angelina Jolie, and the only thing Angelina Jolie could do to wrestle them back was to say that she might quit acting one day.

This was a dangerous move, because it means that Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston are now locked into a quickly-escalating spiral of death for headlines that nobody will be able to survive. You see, now Jennifer Aniston will try and top Angelina’s announcement – perhaps by getting married this weekend – and then Angelina Jolie will have to come back with something even more sensational. So, to save everyone some time, here are the next three months of headlines we can expect from Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston:

ANGELINA JOLIE: I’M ADOPTING AGAIN

JENNIFER ANISTON: YEAH? WELL I’M PREGNANT

ANGELINA JOLIE: I’VE GROWN A PENIS

JENNIFER ANISTON: I’VE GROWN TWO PENISES AND A LOVELY SET OF BALLS

ANGELINA JOLIE: I USED TO BE ADDICTED TO HEROIN

JENNIFER ANISTON: I KILLED A MAN WHILE DRINK DRIVING AND I DON’T EVEN REGRET IT

ANGELINA JOLIE: I’VE CURED AIDS WITH MY BARE HANDS AND CAN TRACE MY BLOODLINE DIRECTLY TO JESUS

JENNIFER ANISTON: EVERYONE LOOK! LOOK AT ME! I’M STANDING ON TOP OF A CHURCH IN A CROWDED SQUARE AND I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL BLOW MY OWN BRAINS OUT UNLESS ALL OF YOU LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME NOW! I’LL BLOODY DO IT!

Etc.

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That’s not exactly what happened, though. Instead, what Joaquin Phoenix got was one slightly incredulous man in a suit who quickly collapsed into slightly unprofessional fits of helpless giggles upon hearing the news. And, as we all know, since Joaquin Phoenix has never done a single humorous thing in his entire life, the news didn’t go down particularly well.

We’ve got the incredible video footage of Joaquin Phoenix announcing his retirement from acting to the world’s least caring man after the jump. It’s funny, but be warned – if the apathetic reaction causes Joaquin Phoenix to reverse his decision and sign up for a sequel to The Village, we’re going to hunt that giggling man down like a dog.

We don’t know about you, but when we heard that Joaquin Phoenix was retiring from acting at the age of 34 this week, we conjured up something of a mental image. It involved a deliberate studio interview, or maybe even a press conference filled with respectful, hand-picked journalists who had previously championed Phoenix’s career.

The thing is, we literally couldn’t have been more wrong. What actually happened, as you’re about to see, was that a Joaquin Phoenix stand-in – a homeless man rendered virtually incoherent thanks to years of homelessness, alcohol abuse and screaming rabid insults at strangers – muttered a couple of slurry Kerry Katona-style sentences at a man holding a microphone, only to become utterly appalled when the man doesn’t take the news with the appropriate level of reverence.

Warning: what you’re about to watch might be the perfect thing that you’ve ever seen…

We’ve watched the Joaquin Phoenix retirement announcement more times than we care to remember now, and we still can’t quite pick the moment that best defines Joaquin Phoenix’s berserk ego. Here’s a handful of favourites, in no particular order:

1) “Ready, man in suit? This is an exclusive. An EXCLUSIVE! Your kids will be put through college by the exclusive profundity of what you’re about to hear.”

2) The look on Joaquin Phoenix’s face when the interviewer dares to actually touch him. “Don’t you know who I am?” it says. “I’m Joaquin Phoenix from movies like Ladder 49 and 8MM. Only supermodels and anointed saints are allowed to touch me!”

3) “It’s Casey’s time now.” You hear that, world? It’s Casey Affleck’s time now! For I, Joaquin Phoenix from Brother Bear, must retire from the spotlight of critically-ignored commercial failures to allow Ben Affleck’s little brother a go. I am so very, very gracious.

4) Joaquin Phoenix’s face at the 0:42 mark. We can’t work out if he’s thinking “How dare you laugh in the face of Joaquin Phoenix from that Mel Gibson film about the spooky aliens!” or whether he’s looking back and hoping for an apology, or whether he’s realised that quitting acting to concentrate on his music is perhaps the stupidest thing that any human being has ever done in all of history. All three, we think.

Still, at least now we’ve seen what Joaquin Phoenix looked like when he made his announcement, we can get more of a handle on what he meant by saying that he wanted to focus more on his music. Half past eight tomorrow morning outside Woolworths with a tatty three-stringed guitar it is. Don’t be late now.

No? Nobody liked that film? OK, well we have some unbearably sad news if you happened to like Reservation Road. What? None of you liked that either? The Village? Ladder 49? Signs? Brother Bear? Nothing? You didn’t like any of them? What about 8MM, for crying out loud? Everyone liked 8MM, right? No?

Christ, alright, look. What we’re trying to tell you is that Joaquin Phoenix has decided to quit acting forever. But before you start shrugging, bear this in mind – Joaquin Phoenix has quit acting so that he can focus on his music career. That sound you can hear right now? That’s the sound of your soul groaning.

If there’s one thing that actors like to do it’s complain about their job. As everyone from Keira Knightley to Sienna Miller has informed us, there’s literally nothing harder in the world than to be grossly overpaid to spend four months of the year being prettied up and expected to memorise some words off a piece of paper a small chunk at a time. It sounds like hell.

But while the likes of Keira Knightley only threaten to quit acting, Joaquin Phoenix has gone one step further. At the age of 34, Joaquin Phoenix has had enough of the slog and the graft of acting. And the enormous paycheques. And the constant string of willing sexual partners. And the comparatively slight workload. It’s all too much for him, so he’s off.

According to Joaquin Phoenix, you see, his new movie will be his last. That’s right, Joaquin Phoenix has a new movie coming out. No, we didn’t know about it either. And, no, now that we do know about it, we’re probably not going to watch it either. Anyway, The Telegraph reports:

The US star, who has twice been nominated for an Academy Award, said that his latest film, Two Lovers, would be his last. “I want to take this opportunity… also to give you the exclusive and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor,” he told the television programme Extra. He added: “I’m not doing films anymore.”

The reason for Joaquin Phoenix’s sudden desire to stop making films? Because he’s an artist in the truest sense of the word and he wants to pursue a music career. After all, Johnny Cash was a famous musician, and Joaquin Phoenix played Johnny Cash in a movie once, so logic dictates that Joaquin Phoenix will be a famous musician too.

Just look at Jamie Foxx. He played Ray Charles in a movie and then released an album and… OK, bad example.

But good luck to Joaquin Phoenix. It isn’t easy to give up a successful and financially-rewarding career to try something brand new. So we wish you well, Joaquin Phoenix, and look forward to ignoring your songs with all the fierce concentration that we’ve been ignoring your films.

That most blasphemous initialising of ‘Oh My God’, which the youths of today treat so brazenly, as if the name of our Lord were merely a soiled menstrual nappy to be tossed away willy-nilly, it’s sacrilegious smudge left to spread amongst the scum-ridden culture-wasteland of working class society.

The word God must never be abbreviated. It is an act of devolution so disgusting that it shant be matched until the day The Kooks are considered anything other than the most grotesque of namby-pambies.

But, if hecklerspray were as pathetic as those sites, then right now we would be licking our own ejaculate into a mural of OMGs, high on to the ceiling above us, because Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are going to be acting together in the same movie.

Hollywood producer Avi Lerner summed it up succinctly:

“This is an event in world history.”

It certainly is.

Now then, the more switched-on fellows of the readership may well be saying, ‘Wait a minute, you ignorant posh twat, they already acted together, in 1995, in the movie Heat’.

And you’d be absolutely right, they did act in Heat, but only for two scenes and, splendid as they were, it’s not quite as long-john drenching as a whole movie of them together; in the same scenes; in the same rooms; two proud men; brushing by one another; perhaps sweating occasionally; the passion between them forever growing as the story approaches it’s arching jet of a crescendo.

Spiffing.

The film is called Righteous Kill, and is a remake of the hit French thriller 36 Quai des Orfèvres, which is apparently the address of the French CID in Paris.

Lerner told the Los Angeles Times:

“They’re playing New York City detectives; they are as New York as it gets. De Niro and Pacino the way you want to see them. They’re both very opaque. You don’t know whether they’re going to kiss someone or kill them. And that suspense is what makes their performances so intense in the moment.”

We know what you’re talking about, Avi, hecklerspray is a fan of the odd intense moment or two too and, as we ignore the worth of their recent output and the fact that 50 Cent will be starring alongside them as a character called Spider, we bend forth, cheeks asunder, and pray that the merging of their ingenious talent is lube-enough to cordially welcome them into our gaping expectations.

Read More – De Niro, Pacino get an offer they can’t refuse – CNN

You will once again get to look back at her and respond to what she says and does, as if she were actually in your front room with you!

Imagine that. All you need do is squint and someone as famous as Britney Spears will be hanging out with a dirty, little, scum-sucking prole like you – as if it were the most natural thing in the world!

You can lie back, close your eyes, get very, very sleepy and relax all your attention – all your being – toward her and vainly attempt to avoid orgasm as she washes you from head to toe with the benevolent waves of her acting ability and general mindset.

Britney Spears is returning to How I Met Your Mother.

A source tells People:

“The show is ecstatic and so is Britney. She had so much fun the first time around she really wanted to come back. It was a mutual decision to work together more.”

Britney Spears will do one episode, so the source says, but Fox studios would not confirm the appearance. They’re no doubt praying that they’ll get to confirm soon though, what with them being Fox – a TV network that actually managed to turn The Simpsons into the cheapest show on earth! The unparalleled bastards of ineptitude!

Cast member Jason Segel said:

“She was hilarious in the table-read, and I got to see her do the run-through as well, and she was great.”

That’s nice. But how about the other co-stars, such as Neil Patrick Harris, who will be disgusted by the news, as he is a man totally opposed to any form of ‘stunt casting’.

However, Neil Patrick Harris will no doubt be absolutely delighted by the news, a man totally in agreement with compromising the integrity of the show’s entire oeuvre in order to get better ratings. Hwa-tcsh! Dance piggy, dance!

Why not read a book instead, dear readers? Or scratch your bollocks for half hour? Or kill yourself (to death, perhaps)?

Anything else.

Read More – Britney Returning To How i Met Your Mother – People

Trust us, it works like a charm. Just look at Lindsay Lohan. She couldn't get an acting job for toffee after she had all that rehab, so she decided to get her norks out in a magazine instead and – bammo – Lindsay Lohan's scored her first post-rehab acting gig, playing Charles Manson's sidekick in a movie by the producer of Barb Wire.

OK, so that first sentence should have read ' the best way to star in a film that nobody's likely to ever watch is to whap your boobies out' but it's too late to change it now.

Competitive place, Hollywood. One minute you can be on top of the world making film after film about ginger girls who wink at magical cars a lot, and then the next minute you've been arrested with cocaine in your trousers and thrown in rehab for about a year. Then what do you do? After all, even when you're a cocaine-ravaged mess there's always a younger, hotter cocaine-ravaged mess waiting to take your place.

Lindsay Lohan's got the right idea – the second she left rehab Lindsay Lohan knew that the only way she'd ever get work again was to stay in the public eye. She didn't care how that happened, Lindsay was game for anything. Endless non-revelatory interviews about herself, naked photoshoots masquerading as art, tawdry internet sex tapes – anything that kept her name in producers' minds. And we'll be blowed if this tactic hasn't paid off for Lindsay Lohan.

Even though it was widely assumed that Lindsay Lohan would never get another acting job because people were scared that if they insured her she'd fall down drunk in a puddle or start frenzidly rutting a tripod on the first day of shooting, Lindsay Lohan has apparently got her first role since leaving rehab, as one of Charles Manson's pals. E! Online reports:

E! News has learned exclusively that Lindsay Lohan has signed on to star as Nancy Pitman, once a loyal member of Charles Manson's not-so-merry band, in the movie Manson Girls. The film's producer, Brad Wyman of Junction Films, confirmed the casting coup. "Yes, I am doing it with Lindsay," he tells E! News. A source familiar with the deal says that despite the fact that Lohan has had some recent brushes with the law and just completed rehab, "the production company is insuring her for the film."

If Lindsay Lohan playing the friend of a notorious murdery weirdo sounds familiar, then that might be because this Charles Manson film sounds a lot like that Bobby Kennedy movie of hers that nobody watched or the Mark Chapman film of hers that's just been released in America to horrible reviews. 

But don't worry if you think that, by making yet another drearily unpopular-sounding movie about a real life murder, Lindsay Lohan is just adding more nails to her acting coffin, because her Charles Manson film is bound to be more successful than her mark Chapman movie. It hasn't got Jared Leto in it, for a start – and that's usually a good gauge of a film not being completely awful.

Read more:

Lindsay Lines Up for Manson Girls - E! Online 

Are you sitting down? Please sit. Take a deep breath before continuing.

Liz Hurley is giving up acting.

It’s alright. Let it out. This is no time to be a man. Let those tears fall. This is a sad day for all of us. It’s like August 1997 all over again. From Metro:

“Filming is very hard with a child, and I found I wasn't able to be a good mum and do movies,” she said. “I decided I couldn't really do movies any more, which was a huge decision because I love making movies.”

And we loved watching you in them, Liz. Really we did. From Permanent Midnight to Serving Sara, everything you touched seemed to turn to straight-to-DVD gold.  

Liz, by the way, hasn’t made a film since 2004’s Method. We just assumed she was taking a break from acting and were waiting with baited breath for her return to the bargain bucket bin at Blockbuster. Now the worst has been confirmed a little bit of us has gone away, never to return.

Farewell to thee, Liz. You shall be missed. But we will never forget. Never forget.

Surely someone must have set up a help line by now? We’ll keep you updated on that front but until then hecklerspray is going to curl up in a ball and watch 2002’s Bad Boy on repeat until our eyes bleed.

Read more:

Liz Hurley Quits Acting – Metro

[story by Callum de Caestecker]