Celebrity News February 16, 2023
Elizabeth Banks Recalls Seeing Ray Liotta Days Before His Death (Exclusive)
It’s man versus coked-up beast in the new horror-comedy flick “Cocaine Bear,” which stars Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich and O’Shea Jackson Jr.
“Extra’s” Billy Bush spoke to the stars and director Elizabeth Banks, who also opened up about the movie being one of the late Ray Liotta’s final projects.
Banks said of Ray, “He was absolutely amazing. I saw him eight days before he passed away. He was in such a great mood.”
She added, “I'll remember him just as a genuinely true blue, wonderful big-hearted guy.”
In the movie, a bear gets ahold of some cocaine after it falls from the sky in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Elizabeth confessed, “I went down the rabbit hole looking up the real story and truly I felt it was kind of sad that this bear had become collateral damage of this broken war on drugs, and that this movie could be a redemption story for the bear.”
While chatting with Keri Russell, Billy points out, “The bear cuts a wide swath and takes out a lot of people.” She replies, “Oh, my God. Everyone goes down. It is gory.”
Speaking of bears and coke, O’Shea joked, “Every Christmas, we see those polar bears and they love Coke,” referring to the famous Coca-Cola commercials.
Billy recalled seeing a story about three and a half tons of cocaine being found in the ocean, leading him to ask if we might see a sequel called “Cocaine Shark”?
Jackson said, “Oh, my God. As long as they got both of us in it. I'm fine with whatever.” Alden added, “Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Cocaine Bear” is in theaters February 24.