Last night was the first red carpet I’d hosted where I was actually a little nervous about how the interviews with the film’s stars would go, which included action stars/martial arts kings Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Sly Stallone, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, and Terry Crews.

Fortunately, this was a red carpet and not a boxing ring, but if the experience would be anything like interviewing legend Muhammad Ali, I would be straining to come up with questions, clamoring for more detailed explanations than ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and hoping to death I don’t get punched in the face for annoying the guy.

Alas, none of that happened (quite the opposite, in fact) and I had quite a lot of fun with these brawny hunks of steel.

A few behind-the-scenes tidbits:

• Sly has the prettiest daughters in the world. I’d hate to the be the guy taking his first born to prom…yikes!
• Rourke was the least amiable, but he had also admitted to only being in the film for about a day and a half and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a little worn out from all red carpet hoopla.
• Steve Austin was the incredibly genuine and not at all like the “Stone Cold” persona I would watch on TV as a kid. He’s very passionate and committed to his cross-over to acting – and I think we’ll see a lot more from this guy.
• Dolph Lundgren has a great sense of humor. Swedish, mixed nartial arts medalist, award-winning chemical engineer, handsome actor, and funny?  The guy is a genetic wonderboy.
• I forgot Randy Couture’s name, so I just introduced him as “HEYYYY!” Oops. Randy, I’m sorry. I still love you.

If you’d like to catch some of the interviews, here you are:

Thanks to MySpace and Lionsgate for bringing me on board!

Today I was going through some of my youtube messages (I do sift through them all…eventually!) and thought these three messages were funny because they  were in this order, and are fit the 3 categories of typical messages I receive from fans, viewers, and well, haters.

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MESSAGE #1 from JaiKayCee – The I-Hate-You/Hope-You-Die Message:
YOU SUCK
YOU SUCK
You are ugly! Your videos suck! QUIT YOUTUBE!

MESSAGE #2 from SportsMan10 – The I-Love-You-But-Can’t-Have-You Message:
Hoping this is truly you…
If this is really you…

I saw a video of yours and thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world. I searched further to find out who you really were. Then came the hard truth. I knew that all hope was lost for me when I read your life’s work.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it seems I have no other choice. I can honestly say that I believe your one of the very best of all God’s creations. I hope to follow you throughout your life to witness the many great things you’ll accomplish. This may sound corny, but I will wait until the next life to meet you if I have to. Thanks for being who you are.

MESSAGE #3 from iEnjoiSnowboarding – The I-Am-A-Horndog Message:
Dear Miss Taryn Southern
You are sexy as f*ck and need to message me back.
Im pretty sure we need to get together and have some frisky sex.
That’ll be all, talk to you soon babe.

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So now y’all have an idea of what hits my inbox on a semi daily basis. Lol. Gotta love the internet :)

And PS – To all of you who really do write me sweet, encouraging messages, it means the world…and makes all of the nasty messages worth it!!

Talk to you soon,

Taryn

Like many of you, it feels like I’ve been hearing about Avatar for…years. James Cameron’s Avatar is one of the largest movies that Hollywood has ever made and by far the most technologically advanced – but it might just take the cake for the longest film in development – 14 years.

Co-Host Quddus and I on the Blue Carpet” title=”avatar_bp_08-sm” width=”533″ height=”800″ class=”size-full wp-image-940″ />

Co-Host Quddus and I on the Blue Carpet

Tonight I was incredibly honored to co-host the LIVE red carpet premiere with Quddus (MTV) and Peter Saldman (EntertainmentPremieres.com) for 20th Century Fox, MySpace, and UStream.TV.

Not only did we have a blast chatting with all the key players (Sam Worthington, Michelle Rodriguez, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, James Cameron, etc) but also with all the fans on Twitter, UStream, and MySpace! We received hundreds of questions and comments and were able to ask them directly to the stars while they were being interviewed.

I’ve attached a few pics from the event, as well as the actual live footage (it’s an hour and a half, but I just embedded the last two sections with the most interviews.)

Special thanks to my fav. red carpet photographer Byron Purvis – http://photos.purvis.tv/events – for the photos :)

ALSO – we will be sending one lucky commenter a special Avatar prize pack in the next week – but give Quddus and I through the weekend to go through the comments :) If you’d like to be in the know about more live premieres and special prizes, please follow me on twitter – www.twitter.com/tarynsouthern – to get the inside scoop before it happens!

THE SHOW:

Hey guys! It feels like it’s been forever since I blogged up here (I guess it has been almost a week! yikes!)  I’ve been sick and a little under the weather, so it took a little motivation to get to work today.

I wanted to let you know that although Hott 4 Hill 2 hasn’t seen that many hits on YouTube, on MySpace we have 150,000 hits! I also got some really awesome comments in my inbox (and 1,000 friend requests….OMG!) so I just wanted to share a few of them with you:

Hey just call me a fan of your video, hott4hill. thats fuckin awesome dude. im not one for politics, im military. i let the politicians fight their own war. but that video had me bustin a gut dude. keep singin.

my sides hurt that vid was the shit, you are really funny and hott(well.duh!) keep up the good work i hope to see more . p.s. editing was hella good to. Captain Pat

You didn’t say much about John….. It seems no one does. That’s ok, but why not? We should focus on the issues and not how cool Obama is. So vote Mcain!!! Love Mike…P.S Your Video was good! I’m glad there are young people who care. Even if we don’t agree!