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#WonderWoman

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Dawnaress Rose turned 8 Happy Anniversary today!

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  MVP of Horror: Rachel True reflects on her experience as the only Black star of 'The Craft'

Rachel True is the first to tell you that she wasn’t supposed to be in The Craft. When the script for the 1996 Goth horror favorite first made the rounds in Hollywood, there were several obstacles that stood in the way of her joining a cast that included rising stars Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Robin Tunney. “I had to fight to read for it,” True tells Yahoo Entertainment now. “My agents at the time were like, ‘You’re probably too old.’” (Watch our video interview above.)

Not only that, but the role that True auditioned for — Rochelle Zimmerman, one of four teen girls at a Catholic high school who form a Manon-worshipping witch’s coven — was written for a white actress. Undaunted, she relied on “smoke and mirrors” to get into the room and ultimately won the part, setting a new precedent for teen movies in the process. “It’s a big movie in terms of my career, but it’s also a big movie for Black people out there,” she says. “It’s one of the first teen movies that wasn’t a Black teen movie or a white teen movie.”

The obstacles didn’t end after True landed the role. If anything, they intensified during and after production as the actress felt herself being marginalized in favor of her co-stars. True makes it clear that she didn’t experience any overt hostility from the rest of the cast; instead, it was the studio and people behind the camera who seemed intent on holding her back. “When we were shooting the movie, I had literally been told by my team to stay away from Fairuza,” she remembers. “[They said] she can get away with stuff, and you will get fired for it. I was literally told, ‘You’re Black, so don’t say, ‘F*** you, mommy,’ like the white girls.’”

She also had to fight for equal attention during the film’s publicity tour. “They put up a poster of the four of us, mentioned the three girls and then skipped down the call sheet, I think, ‘This is how Black actors get underpaid, this is how they get forgotten, and it’s part of why I mouthed off about the publicity back in the day that I was excluded from. At the time, I don’t think my castmates understood; they were like, ‘You’re not as famous as us.’ What they didn’t get is that in the early to mid-1990s, [the studios] excluded the Black person, which meant they were never going to be as famous as you because they didn’t get the press.”

True experienced that exclusion as recently as last year, when she took to Twitter to reveal how a fan convention declined to invite her to a planned Craft reunion featuring Balk, Campbell and Tunney. (The actress credits Balk, now a close friend, with tipping her off about being left out.) “I had my guy call them up and say, ‘You could have the first reunion since 1996 with all the ladies, and they were like, ‘No thanks,’” she says. “My thing is that everything in life comes down to money, and if you don���t want the money [from a cast reunion] then as a Black person, what else am I supposed to think?”

After her tweets went viral, the convention reversed course and the full Craft coven reunited in March 2019. “I’m glad I spoke up,” True says. “Hopefully it opens the door for other people, so that when I go to the conventions it's not just me and maybe one other Black person.”

Racism is a subject within The Craft as well. As originally written, Rochelle struggled with bulimia, but the film’s co-writer/director, Andrew Fleming, revamped that storyline after True was cast. In the finished film, the character’s antagonist is Christine Taylor’s Laura Lizzie, a high school mean girl with a special hate-on for Rochelle. “First of all, Christine Taylor is so nice,” True says, laughing. “People come up to me and say, ‘Was she really racist?’ And I’m like, ‘She’s the sweetest woman in the world!’ I had gone to an all-white public school, so it was a great way to exorcise those demons if you will. It wasn't the first time someone called my hair pubic hair — that's the truth. So to have that in the movie was fitting, I think, as far as how people think.”

During filming, True remembers being uncomfortable with the way Fleming used her skin color as a plot point. “I remember thinking, ‘Do they see Blackness as a problem?’ All the characters have issues, and to me being Black wasn’t an issue; the way other people treat me for being Black is the issue. But once I really thought about when I got older, I realized it’s a good thing they have that in there. We’d come out of a time where we had things like The Cosby Show where nobody ever mentioned racism, and here was a movie that tackled it head on. I do think it’s interesting, though, that the other three characters never say anything about it! Not one of them is ever like, ‘That’s too bad that she’s racist towards you.’ I don’t think they would do that today.”

One other story choice that still rankles her a quarter century later is that Rochelle loses her supernatural powers at the end of the movie, while Tunney’s Sarah keeps hers. “Even in the mid-‘90s they knew they couldn’t kill off the Black chick,” she jokes. “But I was like, ‘Rochelle is more powerful than this! She’s an astral bridge, why is she cowering?’ That’s actually how I felt about that scene.”

Those memories are balanced out by the fun that True had making The Craft, whether it was flying around on harnesses or having a plaster mold made of her face for certain special effects sequences. “I loved all that stuff — I love movie magic. It's why I love being an actor because you put on this character and you get to experience life! I knew there was a lot for me to learn; Fairuza gave me a really good tip, because she was more experienced than I was. For the scene where we licked blood off our fingers, I kind of deep-throated my finger and she told me, ‘Rachel, it’s film and it’s a close-up. Just a small lick will do.’ So she might not have been the friendliest when we were shooting, but she was there to make a great movie. And she makes the movie, right? She’s so intense and fabulous in it.”

True shares other stories about the making of The Craft, as well as tales from her eventful life and career, in True Heart Intuitive Tarot, a boxed set that includes a tarot deck and a guidebook that’s part memoir and part tutorial. “It’s helped me with my career in Hollywood, a town full of smoke and mirrors,” True says of her lifelong interest in tarot. “I use tarot as a therapist — like a shrink in a box I like to say — so that I understand what I’m upset about or what’s going on.”

And with the True Heart book and deck, she’s hoping to instruct other people on mastering the art of reading tarot cards. “People hit me up on my DMs, saying, ‘Can I get a reading from you?’ And I’m like, ‘No, you can’t afford me!’” she laughs, adding that she’s mostly retired from doing public and private readings. “The idea with the book is that you can learn it for yourself... and you can heal yourself.”

The Craft is available to stream on Hulu or rent or our purchase on Amazon, iTunes and FandangoNOW. True Heart Intuitive Tarot is available on Amazon.

— Video produced by Jen Kucsak and edited by John Santo

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

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Eli Roth's History of Horror at PaleyFest NY 2020

Presented by Citi. Creatives of AMC's Eli Roth's History of Horror (Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino) gather with moderator Clark Collis at PaleyFest NY 2020 to celebrate their show. Topics include: how Roth got the idea to "capture the stories of horror auteurs"; why Tarantino wanted to be a regular on the series; the joys of spotlighting virtually unknown horror films that were unappreciated upon their release; what proved the stuff of nightmares for Roth and Tarantino when growing up; what makes gore-filled "slasher films" so alluring to Tarantino; if horror films consistently reflect the anxieties of the times in which they were made; the effect of popular TV shows like "The Walking Dead" and "Lovecraft Country" on horror films; and the perfect horror films to watch on Halloween night.

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Why TV judge Jerry Springer supports court-packing: 'It's important to have a Supreme Court that recognizes America's values'

With Senate Republicans likely to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett as Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement on the Supreme Court this week, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will face renewed pressure to expand the court’s ranks should he defeat President Donald Trump on Nov. 3. Court expansion — or, as some call it, court-packing — is a controversial topic that the vice president has so far avoided discussing in-depth, to the frustration of some of his supporters.

But if Biden decides to move ahead, he’ll have the support of at least one famous judge: Jerry Springer. “I originally didn’t think it was a good idea,” the talk show host-turned-presiding justice of NBC’s syndicated courtroom series, Judge Jerry, tells Yahoo Entertainment. “But now I’m OK with extending the Supreme Court if that’s what it takes to guarantee the ideal America.”

For Springer, the argument in favor of expanding is a clear-cut case of balancing more the conservative values Barrett is expected to favor in cases involving abortion and voting versus the more progressive values favored by majorities of the country in national polls. “On the one hand, you have the value of having nine justices for so much of our history,” Springer explains. “But I balance that against the value of, for the next two generations, women aren’t going to have control over their own bodies and we’re not going to enforce the right of everyone to vote. When I balance those values against the value of saying, ‘At least we kept it at nine,’ it’s not a balance of moral equivalency. It’s important to have a Supreme Court that recognizes America’s values of saying all people are created equal.”

Like the rest of the country, Springer — who was a politician and journalist before getting into daytime television in the 1990s with The Jerry Springer Show — closely followed Barrett’s confirmation hearings and took issues with several of her comments, including her description of herself as an “originalist” when it comes to interpretations of the Constitution. “That theory makes absolutely no sense, and I’ll tell you why: the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia was a political process, and everyone had different intentions and different ideas. It was weeks and weeks of bargaining and negotiating, so if you want to decipher the original intent, you’re not being intellectually honest, because there was no single idea. They all compromised! Maybe you can figure out one person’s intention, but there is no way you can figure out the collective invention.”

“Also,” Springer continues, “Are you going to rely on the intentions of people from 240 years ago who thought that Black people were three-fifths of a human being and that women should not have the right to vote? It’s just nonsense; these are people who are otherwise very smart using a big word to rationalize their negative point of view that hurts at least half the country. We can give it all kinds of names and rationales, but at the end, we’re down to this: Is it more important to keep the Supreme Court at nine, or is it more important that all people in America have equal rights? That's the only issue at stake. Whichever side you come out on, OK, but at least be honest to the decision that you're making.”

Clearly, Judge Jerry isn’t shy about adjudicating the current political situation in America. In a wide-ranging interview, he addresses why he voted for Biden, how the justice system is “set up to give white men the advantage,” and why the coronavirus will likely doom Trump’s chances of reelection.

Yahoo Entertainment: Because of coronavirus restrictions, you haven’t been able to have an audience for recent episodes. The audience reaction was always a big part of The Jerry Springer Show — is it odd not having people in the room now?

Jerry Springer: Well, the old show was obviously 100 percent dependent on a live audience, but in a courtroom, the audience has no purpose except to be background. Otherwise, they’re not involved and have to keep quiet. So it doesn’t really affect the decisions I make or the law I have to abide by, but it does change the atmosphere. What you’ll see in some episodes is that the producers have given me a laugh button, so whenever I make a quip or something like that, I push the button and you hear laughter in this empty courtroom.

Is it different for you to be put in the position of judging the people you’re talking to? As a talk show host, you mostly remained an impartial observer helping along the conversation.

The truth is that, in my life, I’m not very judgmental, and that’s due to my liberalism. I believe that people are entitled to live the lives they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else. I don’t cast judgment, because I don’t walk in their shoes. But you’re right: now I have that responsibility. I guess I treat it as if I’m their father or grandfather, and they need to be disciplined. I don’t [judge] out of meanness. I try to be understanding, and explain to them why I’m reaching the decision, and that it’s not a reflection on them or that they’re a bad person. In so many of the cases, the only entities that know the truth are the actual parties and God. Everyone else is just listening to what they’re saying and trying to make a fair judgment.

Do you ever get the sense that any of them are playing to the cameras?

When these suits are filed, no one has any idea that one day they’re going to be on television. Every morning, we have producers that look at every case that has been filed in the United States of America the day before, and if it seems like an interesting case, the plaintiff and defendant get a call going, “Would you like to have your case adjudicated by Jerry Springer on national television?” I am fully aware that if someone didn’t like me going in, why would they ever agree to have me be their judge? So obviously, the people that are coming before us are people that start out with a pretty good feeling about me. They think, ��Hey, this is cool. Let's have Jerry do it.” So in the very beginning, you can almost sense their nervousness of being in front of a guy they’ve watched on television for thirty years. That creates a different dynamic, and I’m conscious of that. So in the beginning, I let them state their case and get comfortable with me. Often they’ll just call me, “Jerry” and the producers will have to tell them, “For decorum, call him Judge Jerry.”

Based on the cases that you’re hearing, what’s your sense of what life for ordinary Americans is like right now?

Generally, the things that people are most angry or upset about are the things that happen in their everyday lives. Stuff like, “Why won't the neighbors cut that tree down?” Or, “That person insulted me.” That stuff tends to make you more angry than reading about legislation that Congress may have passed that has more worldly impact. Most often people are — for better or worse — most concerned with the things that immediately touch their family. So you can’t really judge a nation on what makes them angry in the moment.

But you can judge a nation based on what policies they tolerate, and that’s why this election is, in a sense, more about the voters and what we tolerate in our country from our government. I think people are going to the polls to say, “Does Trump really represent our country and our values?” And so, on election night, the whole world will be watching to find out what America is really like and what we tolerate. Because if you tolerate someone who is in a position of power, then what does that say about you? Aren’t you basically just driving the getaway car for this person who assaults our values?

Are you supporting Joe Biden?

Yeah, I’ve already voted for him. I think this election has nothing to do with being a Democrat or a Republican, and the best evidence you have is that if you talk to a friend who says, “I’m voting for Trump,” there’s always an explanation. They always start the sentence by saying, “Well, I know what he's like,” or, “I don't approve of his values,” or, “I wish he wouldn't use that language.” There’s always a qualification, which should be a red flag. Character matters: in fact, I would argue that character is the single most important trait of any president because you can delegate everything else. What you can’t delegate is character. You can get the smartest people on the world to be on your staff, but if you have bad character as a president, you will get the smartest people to figure out ways to do bad things, and that’s exactly what we're witnessing now.

What we’re also seeing is that an incredible number of people that worked for him have been coming out with books, articles and political statements saying something bad about his character. So at some point, aren’t we all agreeing — even if we're lifelong Republicans — that this was not the right pick? Go back to being a Republican later, but at this point, be honest enough that America is better than this. Tom Brokaw would never write a book about this generation that would say, “This was America's greatest generation.”

As someone who defined reality television in the 1990s, do you recognize those tendencies in Trump?

Well, yeah. And you know what? I have nothing personally against Trump, I just don’t think he should be president. I was the host of the Miss Universe Pageant back in 2008 when he still owned it, and he was only nice to me. So this isn’t a personal vendetta. We ought to be able to separate that. Hopefully, we’ll stand up and say, “Enough of this. This is wrong and we know it’s wrong. Let’s move on.”

Character matters: in fact, I would argue that character is the single most important trait of any president Jerry Springer

We’re having a larger conversation right now about the racial inequities built into the American justice system. What’s your take on where we are in that regard?

I don’t think there’s any question that we live in a society where almost everything has been set up to give white men — particularly wealthy white men — the advantage. That's the whole system. I’ll give you an example: I graduated from Northwestern University’s law school in 1968. Mind you, this was a major university in Chicago. We had 190 students in my graduating class, and of those 190 students, two were women and one was Black. I mean, think about that! This wasn’t some rural community in the South someplace. And these are the lawyers that become our judges and politicians.

So how do we even pretend that race hasn’t been a factor here? So if I've got African-American parties before me on the show, and I’m sitting up there on the bench as this old, rich white guy, of course I'm conscious of that. That’s why I keep telling them: “I am no better than anybody here. Get it? And so here’s why I’m reaching this decision.” But that’s not something I do just because I became a judge. I think you grow up with those values. One thing my parents taught me, and which we teach our children and grandchildren, is that you never ever judge someone based on what they are. You only judge people based on what they do. If you can live your life like that, you will never be prejudiced.

Does it frustrate you to see cases like Breonna Taylor, where no police officers were charged with her death despite widespread protests?

Sure, you question that. The system is such that there are always particular details that we don’t know in terms of what happens before a grand jury. So the reason that decision is reached may have been built into the system, not because of anyone on the grand jury. But the rules are inevitably set up to protect a white society. I don’t care what laws you change now: it still hasn’t been an equal competition for several generations. You've been having this race in our country for 240 years where people have a cinder block around their foot as they're racing the white guy.

Then you say, “You know what? Take that cinder block off his legs. Now let's continue the race.” Well, the white guy is already halfway around the track! So when people say, “Look, we're not discriminating now,” maybe you’re not, but you're still living with the benefits of having had that discrimination for 200 years. That's what the institutional racism means. It means that you haven't leveled the playing field; you’ve decided to try to level it now, but you're not making up for what happened before. And that's what this moment is all about.

The worst kind of racism, sometimes, is the polite racism, not the wacko white supremacists. They’re evil, but they’re wackos and everyone sees that. It’s the polite racists that dress up, and then just justify policies that when they’re alone in the room with just God, they know are mean and not fair. Why do they support making it difficult for Black people or Hispanic people to vote? What possible justification do you have for doing it? Because you know that if you can stop Black people from voting, the Republican has a better chance of winning.

We live in a society where almost everything has been set up to give white men — particularly wealthy white men — the advantage. Jerry Springer

One interesting side effect of the Trump era seems to be that political sex scandals seem to be having less consequence now. As someone with a scandal in your own past, do you think that’s changed now?

When people voted for Trump, I think they made that clear. Society has changed altogether, especially with social media. Behavior hasn’t changed, but people's reaction to it has, just because we live in a different world. I remember when The Jerry Springer Show first aired, it was considered outrageous. Nowadays, it seems so ridiculously tame compared to what's on social media.

Have you adjudicated any cases where the pandemic is a factor? And are you seeing a frustration with quarantine restrictions?

Yeah, we’ve had some. We’ve dealt with cases of people being evicted from their homes because they couldn't pay rent, which may violate a local ordinance or a state law. When you watch the show, you won’t be able to tell that I'm in the courtroom in Connecticut, but the plaintiff and defendant are elsewhere in the country. Because of the magic of television, it looks like they’re standing in the courtroom with me. Of course, people are getting upset with this whole [quarantine] situation, but what we have trouble understanding is this is the United States of America and we have the worst performance in terms of getting a grip on this virus than virtually any country in the world. I mean, how did that happen? How could we be the one country in the world that couldn’t make enough masks, and that couldn’t get enough ventilators?

I mean, look at what FDR did to mobilize America when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941! Every factory was turned into making the planes and the tanks we needed, and we won the war. This administration couldn’t even mobilize to have masks made. And frankly, if Biden wins, it won't be due to any of these social issues. Trump will lose because of his being unable to deal with the pandemic: that’s what is doing him in. It’d be nice to say it happened because people had a social conscience, but I think it’s more likely to be because of his failure to handle the pandemic.

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Donald Trump Griped About ‘60 Minutes’ Interview, But The Show Got The Last Word.

 We already knew that Donald Trump’s interview on 60 Minutes was one that went a bit off the rails. That’s because, in a bit of spite, the White House released its video version of it in advance of Sunday’s broadcast. What the segment itself showed is one of the sources of the president’s irritation: Correspondent Lesley Stahl’s tendency to challenge Trump on things that he has said — only to have him deny that he actually said them. In contrast to the raw footage from the interview, 60 Minutes had the advantage of mixing in clips to show the video proof. For instance, the show ran a clip of Trump at a rally saying, “Suburban women, will you please like me? Please, please. I saved your damn neighborhood, okay? ”Asked about the comment, Trump griped, “I didn’t say that. You know, that’s so misleading. I say jokingly, ‘Suburban women, you should love me because I’m giving you security. '”There also was the moment when Stahl noted how many people at Trump’s rallies were not wearing masks or socially distanced in the midst of a pandemic, with 60 Minutes adding footage from the events. After insisting attendees were wearing masks, Trump responded, “You’re so negative. These are the biggest rallies we have ever had. You just come in here with that negative attitude. You just come in here with that negative attitude.” He also was plenty miffed when she said that he used to have bigger rallies. And there was the moment when Stahl asked Trump about encouraging his supporters to chant “lock her up” when he references Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, the target of a foiled kidnapping plot by an armed militia group. Stahl said to the president, “You are very powerful, and the people who love you, love you with passion. And if you go after somebody the way you’ve been going after her, they take it to heart. ”“I haven’t gone after her,” Trump insisted. But the show ran a clip of a Trump rally where supporters chanted, “Lock her up!” and he responded, “Lock ‘em all up. ”As we all know, Trump was irritated enough that he cut this interview short, a moment that 60 Minutes aired as well, and one that will live in the show’s history. The takeaway from the segment is largely a reminder that Trump’s raging against the media is not a bug but a central feature of his campaign message. This certainly is not the first time we’ve seen Trump have run ins with the media, but it’s not 2016, or 2018, or early 2020, but nine days from the election. 60 Minutes is one of the last remaining opportunities for Trump to reach a wider national audience, short of a large scale advertising buy. He seized the moment, but any policy message was overshadowed by his defensiveness toward Stahl. The president may indeed have a point, that Joe Biden does get easier questions. But the advantages of having the bully pulpit during a presidential campaign, one that Trump has exploited, also come with the drawbacks of having to defend your tenure in office. As we saw in the 60 Minutes segment, that includes the lack of a healthcare plan, one that Trump insisted was in the works or was already finished. Oddly enough, after Trump walked out of the room, in came Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She handed Stahl a thick binder that was said to be the administration’s healthcare plan. The binder wasn’t blank, as some on social media have speculated. Yet, as Stahl said, “It was heavy. Filled with executive orders, congressional initiatives, but no comprehensive health plan. ”Norah O’Donnell interviewed Biden, and asked him about Trump’s attacks on Hunter Biden and the New York Post publication of unverified emails allegedly from the younger Biden’s laptop. But as Stahl told Trump in his interview, “This is 60 Minutes. And we can’t put on things we can’t verify. ”O’Donnell instead framed the question to Biden as one about the possibility that it was Russian disinformation. “From what I’ve read and know the intelligence community warned the president that Giuliani was being fed disinformation from the Russians,” Biden said. “And we also know  that– Putin is trying very hard to spread disinformation about Joe Biden. And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. ”The show also did some fact checking on some of Biden’s claims, including one about the trade deficit with China and another on just how much money will be raised via his tax plan. O’Donnell also asked Biden about his age, as he would be the oldest president ever elected and the Trump campaign has made an issue of it .“Donald Trump says you have dementia and it’s getting worse,” O’Donnell said. Biden responded, “Hey, the same guy who  thought that the 911 attack was a 7-Eleven attack. He’s talking about dementia? All I can say to the American people is watch me, is see what I’ve done, is see what I’m going to do. Look at me. Compare our physical and mental acuity. I’m happy to have that comparison.