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https://nerdist.com/article/rob-mcelhenney-changes-name-to-rob-mac/
I’ve been married for a little over seven and a half years. When my wife and I discussed the various logistical things about anything legal, one thing she was adamant about was taking my last night. This was not something I care about at all; what’s in a name, and all of that. But her maiden name was hard for people to pronounce and she longed for something simple like “Anderson.” In our patriarchal society, it’s maybe the easiest way to get a simpler last name. Or, if you’re an actor like It’s Always Sunny star Rob McElhenney, you can just tell everyone your new name is “Rob Mac.”
On Twitter (I will never call it the other thing), McElhenney posted a minute-long video explaining that he wants everyone to just call him Rob Mac because nobody can pronounce his actual surname. (It’s MACKLE-henney, for anyone curious.) He explains, he’s wasted literal years of time correcting people and talking about pronunciation. He also says that, while he loves his family and their name, he points out their specific spelling was the work of an official at Ellis Island rather than any actual Irish heritage.
As Rob points out, most people call him Rob Mac anyway. His character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is Mac. Mac is just his name! Okay? Okay. So don’t bother trying to pronounce McElhenney anymore. Part of me wonders if this all came from finding out even people in the UK and Ireland have trouble saying it. Must have been a big blow for someone who co-owns a Welsh football club. Welcome to Wrexham, indeed.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
The post Rob McElhenney Changes Name to Rob Mac Because Nobody Can Pronounce It appeared first on Nerdist.
I’ve been married for a little over seven and a half years. When my wife and I discussed the various logistical things about anything legal, one thing she was adamant about was taking my last night. This was not something I care about at all; what’s in a name, and all of that. But her maiden name was hard for people to pronounce and she longed for something simple like “Anderson.” In our patriarchal society, it’s maybe the easiest way to get a simpler last name. Or, if you’re an actor like It’s Always Sunny star Rob McElhenney, you can just tell everyone your new name is “Rob Mac.”
On Twitter (I will never call it the other thing), McElhenney posted a minute-long video explaining that he wants everyone to just call him Rob Mac because nobody can pronounce his actual surname. (It’s MACKLE-henney, for anyone curious.) He explains, he’s wasted literal years of time correcting people and talking about pronunciation. He also says that, while he loves his family and their name, he points out their specific spelling was the work of an official at Ellis Island rather than any actual Irish heritage.
As Rob points out, most people call him Rob Mac anyway. His character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is Mac. Mac is just his name! Okay? Okay. So don’t bother trying to pronounce McElhenney anymore. Part of me wonders if this all came from finding out even people in the UK and Ireland have trouble saying it. Must have been a big blow for someone who co-owns a Welsh football club. Welcome to Wrexham, indeed.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
The post Rob McElhenney Changes Name to Rob Mac Because Nobody Can Pronounce It appeared first on Nerdist.
A Walmart shopper is demanding answers from the mega-retailer after her watermelon seemingly randomly collapsed in on itself. In a viral clip, Raquel Janae (@gyaldem_ari) shared footage of the aftermath of a Walmart watermelon bursting on her stove top.
“What the [expletive], Walmart,” Raquel demands over and over in her minute-long TikTok. She shows how her kitchen floor was splattered with water, courtesy of a watermelon that was sitting on her stove. The stove was turned off, she says, so there is no immediate cause visible as to why her Walmart watermelon would collapse the way it did.
I mean, it’s good to have goals and aspirations, right? Seeking to break records and do the impossible is part of the fun of life. And that’s definitely what Florence Pugh had in her head when she filmed the MCU’s Thunderbolts* movie. In fact, she wouldn’t even let the MCU’s lawyers (a fearsome force, we bet) stop her from throwing herself off the world’s second-tallest building while filming the movie. Say that sentence five times fast. Pugh has now shared that during the filming of Thunderbolts*, she went up against insurance risk and no doubt Marvel’s legal team and her own to insist that she complete a totally insane stunt. She even incessantly emailed Kevin Feige to ensure her point came across. Forget leaping off a tall building, that’s true gumption. Below, you can check out what Pugh had to say about her insistence on jumping off the world’s second-tallest building while filming Thunderbolts*—but first, check out this featurette which walks us through the process.
For the record, the second-tallest building in the world is Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The building is 2,722 feet tall. (Holy!!!) Pugh’s character Yelena was set to jump off the tower in Thunderbolts*, but Pugh wasn’t about to let a stunt double have all the fun. Pugh shares, “I got on all the emails. It was in the script, and then slowly as we got closer and closer to shooting, they said they don’t think it’s going to happen because it’s a crazy insurance ordeal and obviously we’re not going to throw [me] off the second tallest building in the world. I was like what the fuck? Of course we are! We have to do that.”
Obviously! We bet Thunderbolts* Health and Safety absolutely loved this turn of events with Pugh. Pugh continues, “I was being a sassy Karen emailing Kevin [Feige] and saying it’s going to do wonders for the press tour. We have to do this! We’re going to have three women break three different Guinness World Records, and we’ll do this and this. I had to keep on pushing, and then they’re like, ‘Okay, if you want to fall off the second-tallest building, we’ll figure it out for you.’ I don’t mind heights. I quite like them and enjoy them, but that was a whole different ballgame and insane. The mental control I had to do that day was its own super power.”
To put into perspective what this Thunderbolts* stunt was really like, Pugh tells us more about the fallout. “I fell asleep for three hours after I did the stunt because my brain [went down].” Phew! That’s intense. Someone get Pugh up there in the stunt hall of fame with Tom Cruise. She definitely deserves it after this. Good thing the Oscars just opened up a Stunt category too…
Most recently, Pugh revealed what helped her to get through the stunt, noting, “I actually think stepping into the mind of Yelena saved me because in that scene she’s not supposed to be scared, she’s supposed to just be, like, chilling up there. So I had to just pretend like I was her. ‘It’s fine, I’m just dangling with my feet off that insane height.’ So it actually saved me.”
Florence Pugh stars in Thunderbolts* alongside Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This movie features a team of misfits forced to work together to save the world and prove they are more than their past.
Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* released in theaters on May 2.
Originally published on April 15, 2025.
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