This Week's Inspirational Pop Culture Moment

Photo by Mike Yarish/Lifetime Networks

Project Runway All-Stars has reunited some of the franchise's favorite designers in a battle of fashion's best creative minds. Last week, Gordana Gehlhausen was told she was out and was asked to pack up her tools and leave the workroom. But don’t cry for the Yugoslavian-born designer. She has a thriving business waiting for her back in San Diego, California.

In a recent exclusive interview she revealed that she had hoped she would go further in the competition. But she also noted that she did achieve another personal goal on the show. She wanted to prove to older women that it's never too late to follow your dreams.

She Gehlhausen, "It is important because as a woman in today’s society, it’s so much expected from us. We are supposed to be successful in whatever we do — good mothers, good wives. If we gain five pounds, god forbid. There’s so much pressure on us from society."

She continued, "Let's say we raise the kids and send them to college. And then all at once we wake up in, let’s say, my age in mid or late forties or fifties and say, ‘Oh my god. All my life I have been giving to others and trying to nurture or whatever.’ And then everybody goes their own way and then you say, ‘What about me? Where am I in here?'"

Gordana encouraged women in this position to pursue their passions. "If you find something that you really enjoy to do but you are worried about, ‘Oh my god, am I good enough?’ It’s really important to just do something just because you enjoy doing it. And sometimes, when you have a love for something that you do, the success comes naturally with it. It’s important to remind women that our role is not over just because our kids went to college or now that our husbands are successful, and we just need to just sit home and clean and cook. Unless that’s what they enjoy to do."

The designer stated that women often come in to her San Diego shop and comment on how fortunate she is to be following her passion. She remarked, "I don’t think it’s just lucky. It’s being determined to do what you love to do. Sometimes women are scared to even try something, because they feel like, ‘Wow, there’s so much competition out there and I’m really not as good.’ But if you really go into it and give yourself a try without even judging yourself, you might be surprised by the results."

Watch Project Runway on Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST?8 p.m. Central on Lifetime.

For related stories check out:
Sweet P. Falls Flat on Project Runway
Gordana Gehlhausen on Her Reason to Sign-Up for Project Runway


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Liam McIntyre Takes on Spartacus

 Spartacus:  Vengeance ©2011 Starz Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved. 

Never has an actor found himself in a position more enviable and unenviable at the same time. Liam McIntyre is getting a huge break, landing the title role in the Starz series Spartacus: Vengeance. But unfortunately he got the part when previous star Andy Whitfield died of cancer last fall. In a recent conference call interview, Liam talked about stepping into the legendary sandals.

Liam described the position he found himself in on Vengeance. “I had a unique situation of trying to create a new Spartacus that felt like the same guy that Andy's Spartacus was. So I mean it was a fantastic and very unique process to go through. It must be a really sad thing to have to even look at. But I certainly will never, touch wood, never have to go through anything like that again in my life, I suppose.”

The 29-year-old Australian actor recounted, “I watched the first season and Gods of the Arena countless lines. And so for me it was unique in the way that, I really felt like I was right there with all of Andy’s performances. So I really felt like I got Spartacus as he portrayed him. So to me more than anything, it was important to make sure that Spartacus as a character continued as that character and not just some totally different person who was inspired by different things.”

Gordana Gehlhausen on Her Reason to Sign-Up for Project Runway: All Stars

  2011 Lifetime Entertainment Services, LLC, All Rights Reserved 

When Gordana Gehlhausen made her first run at the top prize on Project Runway, she came in fourth place to Irina Shabayeva. In a recent exclusive interview the Yugoslavian born designer explained why she decided to give it another go on Project Runway: All Stars.

Gordana confessed, “I wanted to return because I felt that that season I was a little bit robbed, because there was a situation between Bravo and Lifetime in my season. That’s exactly when Lifetime had taken over the show from Bravo. And even if I made it to fourth place I was really hoping to have the opportunity to create a line and show at [New York Fashion Week in] Bryant Park even if it wasn’t televised. But see I didn’t have the opportunity because of the switch in the networks.”

She continued, “So when that opportunity came for All Stars, obviously I’m pretty successful in my business, in my private life so I gained confidence, too. So I was actually thinking I would make it farther than I did.”

Angelina Jolie's Directorial Debut In the Land of Blood and Honey

 Photo by Pop Culture Passionistas

When Angelina Jolie decided to make her screenwriting and directorial debut, it wasn’t surprising that she chose to tackle a sensitive topic. But she also opted not to lean on the predictable crutch of casting big Hollywood names to ensure box office success. Instead she went to the land in which the film was based, Bosnia, and hired local actors to tell her dramatic tale, In the Land of Blood and Honey.

At a recent event at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California, Angelina talked about this daring decision. “I wanted to cast from the region but I ended up just casting who happened to be the best actors. And they also happened to be from the region. And so I always wanted that. It was always going to be that. But there’s nobody that could have done this better. Nobody.”

As an added coup, the actors also helped Jolie develop the story of fractured relationships in a battle worn country as well. She recounted, “Our cast was all born Yugoslavian and shared the same history books, shared so much, shared families. And the war divided them among different lines — ethnic, religious lines — and labeled them different things. And tried, and still in some ways, tried to divide and push them into focusing on their differences.”

She continued, “But this cast, especially, is focused on their similarities and their unity and bravely came together to say, ‘We’re going to tell the story of our history.’ It’s very sensitive and it’s very difficult — more for them than for me. I was there to try to balance and listen and learn from them but they got into me through this. They taught me every day. And they have accomplished something in what they have done with this film and now that people in the region have started to see it and the dialogue it’s causing is everything we’d hoped for. So for us it was this journey.”

In addition to educating their director, the cast also rose to the challenge or Jolie’s extraordinary request —shooting the film in both their native tongue and in English. Her hope was to reach a wider audience that isn’t interested in viewing a foreign language film. Jolie explained, “We always wanted to [release the original language version]. That was the dream. But a lot of distributors and American studio people said, ‘There’s no way you’ll be able to ever get people to see a film on this subject matter, without big traditional celebrities that people know already, in a foreign language. It’s just impossible.’”

But when all was said and done, Jolie was surprised by the open-mindedness of U.S. audiences. She acknowledged, “To the credit of the America people, we screened it for them and they unanimously said, ‘We want to hear it in its authentic language.’ And so it showed me something. It showed them something — that people that tend to watch these types of films want to see something done as authentic as possible.”

Moviegoers also, it seems, like a good bittersweet story. Jolie described the film that tells a complex but not unusual tale of star-crossed lovers in the war-torn country of Bosnia. She remarked, “Unfortunately it seems very common at the time… This idea of Romeo and Juliet. They were born. They’re on different sides. They choose to be together. This couple they were born the same. [Ajla] and Danijel were born in the same hospital in Sarajevo. They’re born the same. They are the same. They fell in love at a time and a place where it was normal for there to be mixed marriages. It was embraced. It was wonderful. They had a promising beautiful future.”

She went on to talk about the tragic nature of such relationships, saying, “It was the war that turned them into enemies. It was the war that made it a bizarre or violent or… to me it’s a very sad love story because it’s a love story that would have been. And it represents the people of the country. They should be alive today. They should have a family today but they don’t. What happened to them is symbolic of happened to their country. So that is why it’s sad.”

Check local listings to see In the Land of Blood and Honey at a theater near you.

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The Biggest Loser's Lauren Lee Finds the Athlete Inside

Photo by Chris Haston/NB

On week three of The Biggest Loser, the Red Team voted to send home Lauren Lee. The exercise psychologist from Poolseville, Maryland, who played several sports in high school and college, struggled on the ranch to find her former self. Her trainer Dolvett Quince pleaded with her to find her inner athlete. Her teammates sent her home because they knew she had what it would take to continue her weight loss journey at home. If only she could believe those things herself. In a recent conference call interview, we spoke with Lauren about finding that athlete deep inside and her routine now that she's home.

Lauren was always very athletic in high school and college. When it came time to choose a major at Marshall University she picked adult fitness. She went on to get a Master's Degree in exercise science with an emphasis on cardiac rehabilitation. So how did someone so focused on health wind up on The Biggest Loser?

Lauren explained, "Through those years that I was in college after I stopped playing sports I knew that I had just to focus on my education. I grew up being dyslexic and ADD so I had to study this education so much harder and so much longer. So instead of going to the gym and focusing on my health, I was focusing on my education. I had to go to the library and study four or five hours instead of just an hour. So through college I had to focus on myself in a way without focusing on my health so that I can get through college so that I could get the job and pay the bills and all that kind of stuff."

She and her mom, Gail, tried out for The Biggest Loser and started at the ranch together as a team. But when the pairs were split up, Lauren was left to face her past alone, despite Dolvett and others encouraging her to find that inner-sportsman. She stated, "It was hard to be on the ranch and you’re still a big girl and everybody telling you that you’re an athlete. And I just couldn’t see it because I knew where I was when I was an athlete. So it’s hard to get that in my mind that I am an athlete." But after being eliminated from the show, she gave herself a big challenge, which she achieved. She declared,  "After running that half marathon is when I really saw in myself that I can do it. And that I am an athlete."

She said that accomplishment taught her a very valuable lesson, "I learned that I need to believe in myself that I can do anything that I put my mind to."

Now that she's home, she sticks to a very strict regime. She does not spend as much time in the gym as she did on the ranch but still works out two to four hours every day. She noted, "Doing from weights to cardio and everything in between. And just trying to keep on it so that I can lose this weight and kick some butt at the finale."

As for her diet at home, she does wish she had more time on the ranch to take in extra knowledge about nutrition. But she did relate her number one lesson, "You have to write everything down, good or bad, whatever you put in your body. You have to write it down and just keep yourself accountable for what you put inside your body."

She added, "There’s temptations out there every single day — there’s that chocolate bar and the grocery store, there’s a big humungous scoop of peanut butter in the cabinet. You just have to measure everything and be accountable for everything that you eat."

Now that she's on her road to being healthy she has a lot on the horizon. "I just am looking forward to being more active and having a lot more energy. On my bucket list I would love to run a full marathon. I’ve gotten half of it so I have half a check mark, but I would like to fully check off that full marathon off my bucket list. I would like to do a lot of things — skydive, parasail — a lot of just different activities that my weight was holding me back because there was a weight limit on them."

But her first goal is to take away the at-home prize at The Biggest Loser finale. She proclaimed, "I plan on continuing exactly what I was doing on the ranch. And just keep on working out and going to the gym and eating healthy so that I can look like a true athlete on the stage at the finale."

Watch The Biggest Loser on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central on NBC.

For related stories check out:
Mike Messina Talks About The Biggest Loser
 Ben Shur from The Biggest Loser on the Season 13 Twists


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