YouTube starts online hits music video chart

AFP, SAN FRANCISCO, May 13: YouTube on Thursday began publishing a chart that tracks top music videos at the popular Google-owned website.

A YouTube 100 chart online at youtube.com/music will be updated weekly based on the popularity of videos whether works are amateur or professional, according to YouTube product manager Chris LaRosa.

"On the Floor" by singer Jennifer Lopez was atop the inaugural list followed by "Judas" by pop queen Lady Gaga and "E.T." by musician Katy Perry.

"Not only does the YouTube 100 give props when fans make original videos for popular songs, it also captures YouTube's one-of-a-kind musical diversity," LaRosa said.

"YouTube users get into music as fans and original musicians, and our new chart gives the community a better way to find the most engaging music on YouTube."

France honours Tunisia director at Cannes

AFP, CANNES, France, May 13: Tunisian director Nouri Bouzid hailed the revolution in his homeland on Thursday as he accepted a Legion of Honour medal from France -- but wondered aloud about his future as a dissident.

In remarks addressed to his film-making compatriots, Bouzid -- whose 2006 film "Making Of" tackled Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism -- said: "Nothing must scare us anymore."

"I have always sided with the wounded, the losers, the defeated, people who have nothing left but their rebellion," he said.

But he acknowledged: "I do have a small problem with the revolution -- how am I now going to challenge authority?"

Bouzid accepted his laurel from Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand as Tunisia ends an 11-year absence from Cannes with "No More Fear", a documentary on the uprising that led to president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's downfall.

Scottish school massacre drama seeks Cannes prize

AFP, CANNES, France, May 13: The race for the Palme d'Or began Thursday with Scottish director Lynne Ramsey's powerful "We Need to Talk About Kevin" -- the first of a record four films from women in competition at Cannes.

Adapted from Lionel Shriver's Orange Prize-winning novel, the well-received movie stars Oscar winner Tilda Swinton as the mother of a teenager who carries out a massacre at his high school.

Following Woody Allen's light-hearted opening film "Midnight in Paris", which screened out of competition Wednesday, Ramsey's chilling drama depicts an ambivalent parent who watches her suburban family life slowly unravel.

An avid traveller and writer in her youth, Swinton's character Eva falls for kind-hearted homebody Franklin (John C. Reilly) and quickly falls pregnant.

But from the start, Eva fails to bond with Kevin (Ezra Miller), who appears even from his infancy to be hostile to his mother.

While Eva struggles -- there is a heartbreaking scene in which she tries to warmly smile at the baby to comfort him after he has been screaming for hours -- Franklin returns from work apparently blind to the torment at home.

Kevin becomes increasingly manipulative and brutal as he hits adolescence and is a master at driving a wedge between baffled Franklin and Eva, who is shocked to discover her own violent side.

The scenes are intercut with flashbacks from the school bloodbath that Kevin later unleashes with cold efficiency and Eva's attempts to cope with her own guilt and ostracism in the American town where the murders took place.

Ramsay, who drew rave reviews for her debut feature "Ratcatcher" in 1999, said Shriver's novel appealed to her as a study of the mystery of parenting.

"Families are so complicated and certainly my own is as well. I think I was attracted to it because my mother and father had a difficult relationship, although very different from this," the 41-year-old told reporters.

"The bond (between parents and children) is a complex one and also I'm at the age of thinking of having a child myself and wondered about some of these questions about responsibility. Sometimes a child is born and you just don't know who that child is."

Swinton said the film was careful to avoid the familiar trap of placing all the blame on a well-meaning mother for Kevin's development into a cold-blooded killer.

"This film is not social commentary but it happens to be true that in situations where particularly a son is violent that (people say) it's always the mother's fault," she said.

"The film makes a really radical suggestion -- that maybe what is even more frightening to a woman... is giving birth to her own violence."

After being shut out of the running at the world's top cinema showcase in 2010, female directors made an unprecedented four of the 20 contenders for the top prize this year, to be awarded May 22.

"We Need to Talk About Kevin" went head-to-head Thursday with "Sleeping Beauty", billed as an erotic thriller by Australian first-time film-maker Julia Leigh on which New Zealand-born director Jane Campion served as an advisor.

After the tough fare in the morning, Leigh's experimental picture offered a gut punch with the story of a student who takes a job passively fulfilling elderly men's sex fantasies while drugged and unconscious.

Leigh, a respected novelist, said she had taken inspiration from a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novella with a similar story line, and from Internet ads for "sleeping girls".

"I hope it has a strong impact on the audience one way or another," she said after an early preview left critics squirming in their seats.

"I want the audience to really be watching with a sense of wonder at what is going to happen next."

Mary Tyler Moore: brain surgery for benign tumor

AP, NEW YORK, May 13:  A representative for Mary Tyler Moore said Thursday that the veteran sitcom star has gone in to a facility for surgery to remove a benign tumor on the lining of her brain.

Spokeswoman Alla Plotkin says Moore's doctors recommended the elective procedure after monitoring the tumor "for years." Plotkin would not specify if the surgery had already taken place, or how Moore was doing.

The procedure was to remove a meningioma, a slow-growing tumor in the membranes that cover the brain. Meningiomas usually occur in older adults and are mostly benign.

The 74-year-old Moore gained stardom as a modern suburban housewife on the 1960s comedy "The Dick Van Dyke Show," then went on to headline her own successful series as a single woman pursuing a career.

Moore's plan to have the surgery was first reported on People magazine's website.

Gibson's rants might not be used in custody case

AP, LOS ANGELES, May 13: A series of Mel Gibson's racist and sexist rants might not be used as evidence during an ongoing child custody dispute, an attorney for his ex-girlfriend told a judge Thursday.

The disclosure comes a week after Oksana Grigorieva's attorney, Daniel Horowitz, told the court that his client was dropping her claims that Gibson physically abused her. That stems from a case over the custody and care of their infant daughter.

Horowitz's comments came after Gibson attorney Stephen Kolodny complained that he had been trying to get access to the Russian musician's laptop for nearly a year to find out more about the recordings.

Horowitz noted that Grigorieva is no longer seeking a domestic violence restraining order against Gibson and the rants were more important to those allegations than any other aspects of the case.

The recordings, which were leaked to the celebrity website RadarOnline.com, included misogynistic statements about Grigorieva by the Oscar-winner and also several racial slurs. The tapes were reviewed by authorities who eventually charged Gibson with misdemeanor domestic violence battery but have never been played in open court.

The "Braveheart" and "Lethal Weapon" star pleaded no contest to the battery charge and was placed on probation and ordered to undergo counseling.

"It should be noted that the sheriff's department did a thorough investigation of Ms. Grigorieva's laptop and turned over their findings to the district attorney, who concluded there was no evidence of any crime whatsoever by Ms. Grigorieva," her spokesman Stephen Jaffe said.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon on Thursday agreed to halt the case for a month to give Horowitz a chance to appeal a ruling rejecting a motion by Grigorieva to disqualify the actor-director's attorneys from the case.

She based the disqualification request on the fact that she had consulted and met with one of Kolodny's partners before the current case was filed.

Gordon rejected her motion, saying Grigorieva waited too long to raise the issue. He said the case, which has been heard largely in closed sessions, had already spanned 65 hearings and he had issued more than 100 rulings. There were thousands of pages of pleadings in the case, and most of Gibson's filings were handled by Kolodny's firm, Gordon said.

In all, Gordon estimated attorneys have billed more than $1 million for the case so far.

Horowitz said he thought there were enough issues involved with Grigorieva's consultation with Kolodny's partner, Ronald Anteau, that the appeals court may consider reviewing the case.

Gordon agreed to a brief delay, but ordered a proceeding scheduled for June 23 to remain on calendar. The remaining issues, the judge said, relate to child support and specific custody arrangements.

Schwarzenegger sheds old life as he plots return

AP, May 13: As Arnold Schwarzenegger plots his return to Hollywood, he will in some ways resemble the young Austrian who came to California many years ago: single and not a politician.

Now 63, he is older and while very fit, not quite as buff as he was in his "Conan the Barbarian" days. Yet Schwarzenegger's impending new chapter recalls the first time the former bodybuilder attempted — and wildly succeeded at — a quixotic transition to Hollywood.

Schwarzenegger finished his seven-year run as California governor in January. On Monday, he and his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver, announced that they are separating.

Unless there are tawdry details to come, the separation won't have any effect on Schwarzenegger's rebooted career. This is Hollywood, after all, not politics, where winning elections usually means having a supportive companion at the podium.

Simultaneously splitting from both his wife and politics only reinforces that this is a new, late phase for Schwarzenegger. In a statement, he and Shriver called it "a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us."

Already reorienting from Sacramento to Hollywood, Schwarzenegger has found that showbiz is happy to have him back.

He's making an animated TV show, "The Governator," with famed comic book writer Stan Lee. He plans to star as a horse trainer in the drama "Cry Macho" for producer Albert Ruddy ("The Godfather," "Million Dollar Baby"). He's also reportedly interested in starring as a border sheriff in Kim Ji-woon's planned "The Last Stand."

"I am not as eager to run for office," Schwarzenegger said in an interview with The Associated Press last month. "Entertainment is the important thing right now."

Many are surely awaiting Schwarzenegger's return to movies. He remains one of the most popular action film stars ever, a position younger stars have failed to usurp. His movies have grossed more than $1.6 billion domestically.

The last time he starred in a film was 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," which most viewed as a lesser installment in the series. A month after it was released, Schwarzenegger announced on "The Tonight Show" that he would run in the 2003 California recall election for governor.

"Being off-screen for so long, I think people are anxious to see what he'll do next on the big screen," says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com. "He was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. There's no way that he can come back quietly."

The animated "Governator" will likely be the first project that viewers see from Schwarzenegger. In it, he voices a superhero character based on Schwarzenegger's own life. In a sneak-peak teaser, the animated governor inverts his famous line on the state Capitol steps, saying: "I won't be back."

"When you are a governor, you deal with keeping the beaches clean, making sure there's enough funding for the after-school programs and the lunch programs for the kids, and all of those kinds of things," Schwarzenegger said when introducing the show in Cannes. "As an action hero, you just have to save the world — that's it."

The show is to be drawn from Schwarzenegger's personal life so much that the actor had told Entertainment Weekly that Shriver would voice a character. (The project also includes a comic book, a video game and eventually a movie.)

"At the last minute, toward the end, we decided that we wouldn't be using his wife in the story, anyway," says Lee. "So (the couple's breakup) really won't affect anything at all except we can probably have a lot of girls having crushes on our hero as the story goes on — which we probably would have done anyway."

Still, the greater intrigue will likely follow Schwarzenegger on the big screen. Shooting of "Cry Macho" is to begin in September, with Brad Furman ("The Lincoln Lawyer") to direct the script based on the 1975 novel by N. Richard Nash.

Recent box office history suggests the market is quite good for aging action stars. "Red," which starred Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren, earned more than $90 million domestically last year. Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables" did even better, taking in $103 million domestically and an additional $171 million internationally.

Schwarzenegger made a cameo in "The Expendables," which assembled a cast of action stars in an '80s-style shoot-'em-up. Most of today's action films — which frequently star Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson or Vin Diesel — tend to be quite different in style than the movies Schwarzenegger used to star in.

"He was in a category all of his own," says Lee. "Nobody really has come along to fill the spot he was in. Even though he's a few years older now, he's still in great shape, he still looks terrific. He looks about the way he looked then. I think he's going to make quite an impact now. It's something he wants to do. He obviously loves acting. I think he'll do really well and I think the public will be eager to see him again."

The actor's most successful films were often sci-fi tales, including "Predator," "The Running Man," "Total Recall" and the "Terminator" movies. There were also comedies ("Twins," "Kindergarten Cop"), disappointments ("Last Action Hero") and missteps better forgotten (Mr. Freeze in "Batman & Robin").

Stallone is working on a sequel to "The Expendables," though Schwarzenegger is not yet attached. In 2009, "Terminator Salvation" continued the series without Schwarzenegger, instead casting Sam Worthington in the futuristic cyborg role. Hollywood trades have reported that Schwarzenegger's agents are shopping a sequel to the franchise, with Schwarzenegger returning to arguably his most famous character.

"The older action stars are still very, very bankable," says Dergarabedian. "As long as Arnold Schwarzenegger wants one, he can once again have a terrific movie career."

For now, Schwarzenegger's website features a photograph of him playing chess with a portentous message: "Stay tuned for my next move."

`Mike & Molly' star Gardell ready for standup tour

AP, LOS ANGELES, May 13: Billy Gardell plans a working summer, regardless of whether his sitcom "Mike & Molly" returns for a second year.

Gardell starts a national standup tour in June titled "Halftime," in support of his DVD of the same name.

The 41-year-old comedian said the title refers to the fact he's about midway through life. It was a "sloppy first half," he jokes, but now he's a father and has settled down.

"When I was younger I was crazy," he said. "Then you go from, `Yeah, I'll do another shot' to `How much sodium is in that?'"

His boy is proving a big influence on his work.

"My son is 7. A lot of material comes from hanging out with him. He and I are on the same intellectual level," Gardell joked.

His comedy tour will take him to theaters in Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio and other states. Gardell stars with Melissa McCarthy in "Mike & Molly" as a couple who found love at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.

Gardell said he has a "good feeling" CBS will renew "Mike & Molly" when the network announces its fall schedule next week.

Take 2: Retooled, lighter 'Spider-Man' unveiled

AP, NEW YORK, May 13: OK, let's try this again!

After close to 150 previews and a three-week hiatus, Broadway's troubled "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" unveiled its new, heavily retooled version Thursday — a show that harks back to a more familiar story line, transforms a major character, adds new songs and seriously lightens its mood with a bunch of one-liners.

Talk about turning off the dark — the comic touches even extended to a joke about the show's own bloated price tag, the largest in Broadway history by far. "I'm a $65 million circus tragedy," quipped the villainous Green Goblin. "Well, more like $75 million."

Producers were blunt about the extent of changes to the show as they took the stage for what they joked was not the 146th preview, but the "second first preview." (Opening night is scheduled for June 14.)

"This is almost a brand-new show," said producer Michael Cohl.

And in many ways it was, from the ditching of the former Geek Chorus, a narration device; to the complete transformation of the character of Arachne, formerly a villainess, now a guiding angel; to the much-enhanced relationships between Peter Parker and girlfriend M.J., not to mention between Parker and his rival Green Goblin.

Also beefed up were the roles of Peter Parker's Uncle Ben and Aunt May, and the relationship between mad scientist Norman Osborn (who turns into Goblin) and his wife. And in a move sure to delight Spidey purists, an iconic Spider-Man line has been added: "With great power comes great responsibility."

A climactic aerial battle is now much later in the show, rather than in the first act — making it truly climactic — and some stunts have been added.

Yet much of the striking visuals and stagecraft is still the distinctive work of Julie Taymor, who was pushed aside in March and now is credited as the "original" director, as well as one of three script writers.

Actor Patrick Page, who as Green Goblin has an expanded role, paid tribute to Taymor during a stage-door interview.

"Julie Taymor is literally one of the world's greatest artists," he told The Associated Press. "Everything about `Spider-Man' came from her vision and her passion."

And actress T.V. Carpio, who plays Arachne, noted that "if this version succeeds, it is because of everyone, including Julie Taymor."

Taymor's ousting was soon followed by the three-week hiatus, an effort to save a show that was nearly defeated by a series of stunt accidents during its extended run in previews, and largely panned by critics who reviewed while still in previews.

The worst of the stunt accidents was the frightening fall of Christopher Tierney, who performs most of Spider-Man's aerial stunts and suffered a fractured skull, a fractured shoulder blade, four broken ribs and three broken vertebrae on Dec. 20 when he tumbled in front of a shocked audience after a safety harness failed.

He returned to the role Thursday and remarkably showed no signs of his injury.

"It was a 2 1/2-hour roller coaster ride," an exuberant Tierney said outside after the show. "I'm stronger coming back than I was before," he said. "Only a little soreness here and there." He also spoke of a huge rush of emotion among cast members — who indeed could be heard chanting with joy after the curtain calls.

Asked if the show was safe now for the actors, he laughed. "We are the safest show on Broadway, I'll tell you that much," Tierney said. "I actually think it's a little too much now."

The rest of the cast was equally exultant.

"It feels great," said Reeve Carney, who plays Peter Parker/Spider-Man. "This cast is so amazing and we're all feeding off of each other. It keeps us going." Carney said he especially enjoyed getting to tell jokes. And he confessed he didn't exactly mind when an audience member expressed her admiration. ("He's not THAT cute," a character said of Peter Parker. "Yes, he is!" the woman in the audience yelled out.)

Page, a veteran actor, called the performance "one of the greatest nights I've ever had in the theater." In perhaps the only slight mess-up, the actor had to ad-lib a bit when Carney, apparently missing his Spider-Man mask, was delayed in one entrance. "That Spider-Man is always tardy," Goblin quipped.

Page, who also has a new number by Bono and The Edge, said his favorite change to the show was the new focus on relationships, and "being able to tell the story straight through, without stops. That seems to engage the audience more."

Many theatergoers seemed happy with the results of the retooling. "I understand there were some continuity problems before," said Scot Robinson, visiting from Edmonton, Canada, during intermission. "But I really like it. The scale is wildly ambitious."

"Wow," said Jennelle Gilreath, 24, visiting New York from Chattanooga, Tenn. "If you want to be entertained for 2 1/2 hours, this is the show to go to!" She said she loved both the aerial choreography and that onstage dancing, but allowed that the dialogue was "kind of cheesy."

Thursday's show was crowded but not quite sold out. Rick Miramontez, a show spokesman, said tickets were selling briskly, though the show's own website indicated dozens of available seats for the next few days. Some ticket brokers were offering up to 40 percent off orchestra and balcony seats.

The new show expects to have about a month of previews before its June 14 opening. Producers are hoping the reaction to the reboot will be as typical as that of a 50-strong group of eighth-graders down from St. Joseph's school in Haverhill, Mass.

"I am really excited," said 14-year-old Connor Manning, before entering the theater. "I'm sure they've taken all the precautions they need to prevent more accidents. I'm expecting great things!" 

Bill Roedy reflects on military and MTV in new book

Reuters, NEW YORK, May 13: As the former head of MTV Networks International, Bill Roedy drew on his military career to build a youth entertainment business across 165 countries with an audience of millions -- and he had fun along the way.

He says there have many highlights during his 22-years at MTV -- which he left in January -- including: "Singing with Bono and Bob Geldof in a Tokyo karaoke bar at 5 a.m., me dressed as a policeman and Bono dressed as a nurse."

Roedy reflects on his career building what he described as arguably the most distributed brand in the world, owned by Viacom Inc, in his new memoir "What Makes Business Rock," which was published this month by Wiley.

"I worked very hard to respect and reflect local cultures, which means every channel is different and that was quite unusual back then and it still is," he told Reuters of creating 175 channels from Australia to China to Germany to Brazil.

"Everything was sensitized to the local audience and that was really the key factor I think to our success," he said. "We play rap in the Middle East ... but the lyrics are not angry street culture, they're more about, I love my mother."

In the Middle East, Pakistan and Indonesia MTV airs the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. On the other hand, Roedy says he has also enjoyed "bringing 'Beavis and Butthead' to Russia and 'Jersey Shore' to Italy."

Roedy spent 11 years in the U.S. military, serving in the Vietnam War and several years at NATO nuclear missile bases in Italy, before attending Harvard Business School and then discovering his passion for television working at a local Boston station. He moved on to HBO before joining MTV.

"I designed the (MTV Networks International) organization from lessons really learned in the military which is, even though we got big, keep the units small and close to the enemy, in this case the competition," he said.

Along with celebrities, Roedy has also met dozens of heads of states, including former Cuban President Fidel Castro, former South African President Nelson Mandela, former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

He has negotiated in dozens of languages in various political systems and through an array of government regulations -- a job he says was made a little easier with MTV's charitable work, primarily fighting the spread of HIV.

"The bottom line is that for the bottom line, doing good in the world is good for business," Roedy wrote in his book. "I have little doubt that in many countries MTV's proven record of engagement without pushing a political agenda made it a lot easier for us to receive government approval."

Roedy plans to continue his HIV/AIDS work with groups including the Staying Alive Foundation, which educates youth, amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

"Using the knowledge and experiences I've acquired in 30 years of working in global media, I will continue to speak for those with less voice and less opportunity," he wrote.

Film "Too Big To Fail" is a financial horror flick

Reuters, NEW YORK, May 13: To the producers of the film "Too Big To Fail," the story plays like a horror movie.

It covers the period between the failure of investment bank Bear Stearns and the passage of the U.S. bank bailout program, and it depicts a relentless series of mishaps where every problem is succeeded by the emergence of a new problem.

"You keep thinking you've got a handle on it, and then the knock comes on the door, and there's a boogeyman again," said Len Amato, president of HBO Films.

That scary-movie quality reflects the reality of the events of 2008: the financial system was close to breaking down and every day brought a new calamity.

In the book "Too Big to Fail" by the New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin, the horrors are in abundance.

Then-Lehman Brothers Chief Executive Dick Fuld does not try very hard to negotiate with billionaire Warren Buffett for a capital injection just months before the bank goes under.

American International Group Chief Executive Robert Willumstad struggles to answer bankers' basic questions about the company's capital and credit after Lehman failed.

Morgan Stanley Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher admits to his board that the bank could run out of cash by the middle of the week.

"People tell me that when they finish the book they feel tired and anxiety stricken," Sorkin said. "That's what the story was."

The trick for the makers of "Too Big To Fail" was cramming 500 pages of financial meltdown into 98 minutes.

A lot of nuance is lost along the way. In the book, Fuld and his chief financial officer Erin Callan call Warren Buffett and ask if he would be interested in investing. Buffett makes an offhand proposal for a $3 billion to $5 billion deal.

Buffett then looks at Lehman's public financial filings and finds enough red flags to scare him off. When Fuld calls back, there is an awkward misunderstanding about Buffett's original proposal, and the deal collapses.

Later, a news story about Lehman being swindled out of $355 million in Japan hits the wires, and Buffett wonders why Fuld never mentioned the episode as he was trying to raise money.

In the movie, produced for HBO and directed by "L.A. Confidential" director Curtis Hanson, discussions between Lehman and Buffett happen off-camera. Callan, played by Amy Carlson, later asks Fuld, played by James Woods, about his reaction to Buffett's offer. Fuld says, "Screw Warren Buffett."

Time is sped up in the movie, so events that took weeks to unfold are telescoped into days or hours.

"It comes with the territory of making a movie, you're looking at a six month time frame, and movies have this relentless forward-moving structure," Amato said. "And it's a convention of making a film that a certain dramatic license is acceptable."

Mary Tyler Moore to undergo brain surgery

Reuters, NEW YORK, May 13: Beloved actress Mary Tyler Moore will undergo brain surgery to remove a benign tumor, a representative for the 74-year-old actress said on Thursday.

"Mary Tyler Moore went in for an elective surgery to remove a meningioma, which is a benign tumor of the lining tissue of the brain (not a brain tumor)," her spokeswoman Alla Plotkin said in a statement.

"At the recommendation of her neurologist, who has been monitoring this for years, and a neurosurgeon, Mary decided to proceed with this fairly routine procedure," Plotkin said. She did not say where the surgery would take place.

Moore is best known her role as the perky 1960s housewife of comedian Dick Van Dyke in "The Dick Van Dyke" show, and the liberated single working woman in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the 1970s.

She was also Oscar-nominated for her performance as an icy mother struggling to connect with her son in the 1980 movie "Ordinary People".

Moore has suffered from diabetes for many years and raises funds and awareness of the debilitating disease.

Coincidentally, she was seen on Thursday on the daytime TV talk show "Rachel Ray" in a pre-taped appearance, chatting and laughing with Van Dyke who is promoting his recent autobiography.

Meningioma is a tumor that arises in the membranes surrounding the brain and are usually non-cancerous, according to the Mayo Clinic. They occur mostly in older women and can exist for years without showing significant symptoms.

Mos Def joins "Dexter" as hardened crook

Reuters, LOS ANGELES, May 13: Actor/hip-hop star Mos Def artist will play a recurring role in the sixth season of "Dexter," which begins production in June with an eye toward a fall bow.

Mos Def will play a hardened ex-con who claims to have found religion yet finds himself surrounded by violence. Michael C. Hall's Dexter, a blood-spatter analyst who dispatches deserving criminals in his spare time, will reveal the truth of who he really is.

He joins Colin Hanks -- who will appear in all 12 episodes -- as one of the upcoming season's villains. Hanks will play Travis, Dexter's main nemesis and a highly intelligent ancient artifacts expert who is linked to a series of grisly murders in Miami.

At this point it is unclear in how many episodes Mos Def will appear. But he is one of multiple recurring characters who will populate the show in place of Season 5 guest stars including Jonny Lee Miller, Julia Stiles and Peter Weller.

Mos Def, whose real name is Dante Smith, has built an eclectic career in theater, TV and film. His feature credits include "Be Kind Rewind" and "The Italian Job." He has served as the host, music supervisor and co-executive producer for the HBO series "Def Poetry." He made his Broadway debut in the Tony-nominated, Pulitzer-winning "Topdog/Underdog" and he just completed a run of "A Free Man of Color" at New York's Lincoln Center opposite Jeffrey Wright.

"Dexter's" fifth season was its most-watched to date averaging over 5 million viewers a week (in linear and on-demand plays). The season finale rivaled Season 4's dramatic closer, pulling in 2.5 million viewers on its first airing.