Hollywood for Grownups: Willie Nelson’s Buzzy New Book Will Have Your Mouth Watering

Just when you think you’ve heard it all on certain celebs, they cook up something brand new.

Hollywood for Grownups

Hollywood reporter Merle Ginsberg has written about celebrities, film, TV, music and fashion for publications including The New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Cosmopolitan and more. Each week she’ll cover celebrity news for AARP’s Hollywood for Grownups column.

Eric Bana in "A Sacrifice."

Vertical Entertainment/Courtesy Everett Collection

Eric Bana’s Not Afraid of the Dark

“I’ve always been fascinated with cults,” Eric Bana, best known for his roles in Black Hawk Down and Blueback, tells AARP. “They seem so loving and positive. That’s how they gain power over the vulnerable.” Bana, 55, plays a social psychologist who pursues a death cult that feigns benevolence in A Sacrifice, his new film out June 28. What his character doesn’t know: His on-screen teenage daughter is under the cult’s spell. While early audiences have found the film terrifying, Bana says he wasn’t the least bit afraid when he read the script, explaining that he understood the plot. “Post-pandemic, the younger generation was left terribly isolated. We older folks can look back at our lives before devices, social media. But isolation is the only adulthood they know.” That, coming from a guy who began acting in a wild comedy troupe where he wrote his own wacky scripts, is a surprise. “You know, most people in comedy are really dark,” says the rugged Aussie star of Munich, Hanna and Dirty John. “The comedic brain works from a place of negativity — it sees what’s wrong with things. I grew up on the thrillers of the 1970s. I need a bit of edge.”

The book cover for "Willie & Annie Nelson’s Cannabis Cookbook."

Courtesy Gallery Books

The Ambassador to Weedville’s New Recipe for Reinvention

Willie Nelson, 91, and his (fourth) wife Annie, 67, have cooked up something unprecedented. Sure, lots of celebs put out cookbooks, but this one comes with, shall we say, special enhancements. There’s fried chicken, chocolate cake and buffalo wings from the couple’s Texas ranch, of course, but all the dishes were created with edible cannabis. Willie & Annie Nelson’s Cannabis Cookbook: Mouthwatering Recipes and the High-Flying Stories Behind Them comes out Nov. 12 from Gallery Books. Their herb of choice: Willie’s Reserve cannabis, created in 2015. The country megastar’s inner circle includes some rather well-known herb smokers including Snoop Dogg; he teamed up with Willie and Martha Stewart last year to shoot a campaign for BIC’S EZ Reach lighter. While more at ease with other smokers, insiders say Willie lights up without hesitation, anywhere, with anyone. If longevity is any indication — well, so far, so good. He’ll need the fuel on his current summer-to-September U.S. tour, with a few high-profile acts: Bob Dylan, 83, plus Robert Plant, 75, and Alison Krauss, 52, then in July, John Mellencamp, 72, and Sheryl Crow, 62.