The Daily Dish: June 4

- The joke’s on us: Eminem was in on the MTV prank! The outspoken musician spoke to Rap Radio today and finally let the cat out of the bag. Apparently he was in on the MTV Movie Awards stunt that saw Sacha Baron Cohen, in full-out Bruno-mode, fall into his lap sans pants. The seemingly unplanned turn of events caused the rapper swearing a blue streak and then storming out of the auditorium in an apparent huff. "Sacha called me when we were in Europe and he had an idea to do something outrageous at the Movie Awards," Eminem told the radio program. "I'm a big fan of his work, so I agreed to get involved with the gag.” He admitted to finding the whole thing hilarious and went on to say, “I'm thrilled that we pulled this off better than we rehearsed it. It had so many people going 'nuts,' so to speak. Everyone was blowing me up about it." Many critics applauded his performance in the autobiographical 8 Mile, and after pulling off this stunt, I’m starting to think Eminem should seriously think about axing his music career and moving over to acting full time.

- David Carradine found dead in Bangkok. The popular actor, known for his lead role in the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" and as the titular character in the Kill Bill films, has been found dead at age 72. For more details, read the full story here.

- James Franco pulls out as speaker at alma mater. The actor has officially withdrawn from appearing at UCLA’s commencement ceremony after several student groups began protesting the California school’s choice of speaker. The Milk star graduated from the school in 2008 with an undergraduate degree in English but students in the 2009 graduating class immediately voiced their anger after his involvement was announced, insisting a more eligible candidate be chosen – perhaps someone who hadn’t just graduated himself? Leaders of the student opposition claimed the star lacked "the wisdom and perspective such a speaker is meant to provide the graduates". In an official statement, Franco says, “Unfortunately the date conflicts with me needing to be on location to begin pre-production on my next film. I wish everyone in the 2009 class the best of luck in all of their future endeavours.” Franco is currently studying filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and is also enrolled in Columbia University’s Master of Fine Arts Writing Program. Pencil in a date in June 2020, James, I’m sure they’ll be in touch again, if Tisch and Columbia don’t beat them to the punch.

- Easy A gets powerhouse supporting cast. You might remember us telling you about plans for this film, a modern re-telling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlett Letter”, in our inaugural Daily Dish. The film was originally announced as the story of a high school student (Emma Stone) who decides to emulate the novel’s lead character, Hester Prynne, to score top grades in English class but the plot appears to have been altered significantly over the past few months. The final script sees Stone’s character ostracized thanks to a nasty rumour about her promiscuity and she decides to use the unfortunate social status to her own advantage. In addition to the new plot details, Variety revealed a slew of actors who will be joining Stone and Amanda Bynes in this interesting adaptation, including Cam Gigandet, Penn Badgley, Lisa Kudrow, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, and Stanley Tucci. Little is known about the parts they will play but I’m guessing fans of Gigandet and Badgley won’t be fussy as long as their guys are up there on the big screen.