FilmMonthly » delgado.coco

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: BEAU BRIDGES ON THE DESCENDANTS

delgado.coco — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 15:16:45 +0000

Veteran actor Beau Bridges has plenty to smile about these days as we chat in a Beverly Hills hotel room. He is appearing alongside A-lister George Clooney in Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, which opened on Friday in New York and Los Angeles. “It’s nice to be here talking about something you’re genuinely proud of,” Bridges says right from the outset. High praise indeed for an actor who has appeared in over 400 films and television episodes spanning some six decades. A very youthful 69-year old Bridges plays cousin to George Clooney in the film, a character that has two vital scenes. Bridges says he was aware of making an impression from the beginning. “For me, always, the play’s the thing, as Shakespeare said, so I recognized this as a wonderful story, aptly told, and I saw as one of a fascinating bunch of characters. One of Alexander’s strengths is that all of the characters in all of his movies are very multi faceted and complex. As an audience member you think you understand them at first they do something totally surprising, much like life.”
Based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants follows self-titled ‘back-up’ father-of-two Matt King (Clooney) as he frantically tries to keep his family together following a boating accident, which has left his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) in a life-threatening coma. Faced with the proposition of single-handedly reigning in his wayward daughters – 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) – preparing his wife’s friends and relations for the worst and also finalizing a significant sale of prime Hawaiian real estate that could have far-reaching consequences for the entire community, Matt seemingly has it all to do.
Bridges plays cousin Hugh, a family patriarch desperate for Matt to make the family wealthy, without caring for the consequences. While Bridges only appears in two scenes, for the actor, the fun part was in figuring out who this guy is. As he explains it: “One of the fun things about doing any character, especially one who only has a couple of scenes in the movie, is to develop the whole back-story, so I started to talk to Alexander about that and then just got together with George and started to talk about who we are. I’ve probably known George’s character all his life. So we just started talking and maybe I figured I taught him to surf, and drew some parallels about my own nephews, now in their thirties whom I still think of as little kids. I wanted to bring that to this role.”
While this was not the first tome he had worked with star Clooney, he had never worked with Payne before and gives him genuine high marks. “He’s wonderful, very soft spoken, very economical in his use of words and the way he communicates. He’s very well prepared, has a real strong vision and his main focus in the beginning is to make sure you’re comfortable.”
There is a genuine sense of joy in Bridges’ approach to his work. An actor since childhood, Bridges loves the process of acting, loves to “figure out who the character is in the scheme of things. That remains my favorite part in the process. It’s a fascinating journey to create a part.” Asked if he plans to re-team with his Oscar winning brother in the future, Bridges smiles. “We keep pitching The Baker Boys go to Hawaii. We do love working together and we’re always throwing ideas around.”
In the meanwhile, the fabulous Bridges brother is heading to Broadway to take over in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Asked how he feels about appearing on Broadway, Bridges is succinct. “I’m scared shitless.”

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MATTHEW LILLARD ON THE DESCENDANTS

delgado.coco — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 01:56:22 +0000

It would be fair to say that Matthew Lillard has come a long way since bursting onto the Hollywood scene in the likes of Scream and the family hit Scooby Doo. The now 40-year old Michigan native plays a character integral to the journey of George Clooney’s Matt King in The Descendants. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, Clooney plays a Hawaiian lawyer whose wife is in a hospital, having suffered a severe head injury after a motorboat crash. As a result, King is forced to come to terms with his family life, which involves two daughters that he hasn’t connected with much and a marriage that has fallen even further into neglect. On top of that, King is involved in a massive property deal that will make millions for him and his cousins if he accepts one of many bids to transform the family plot from a rural idyll into a commercial holiday resort. His life takes an unexpected and obsessive turn, when he discovers that his comatose wife had an affair with real estate broker Lillard’s character Brian Speer. Lillard’s performance looms large as his character becomes a catalyst for Matt King’s subsequent journey.
As we chat in a Beverly Hills hotel room, the actor says, “For me, the challenge was there is such a build up to the character. They talk about him throughout the whole movie and he becomes this kind of central theme in the movie by this guy who’s on this journey. Then you have this big confrontation.” For Lillard, playing a character who appears in a few scenes towards the end of the movie “is about being prepared. You can only do what you can do and with the people involved with, you want to be in your best game. So as an actor you want to walk in and be as prepared as possible and available for whatever happens on that day. You can’t think about doing too much in a moment. As a young actor I tried to do as much as I could with whatever little time that I had, because I wanted to be special. I wanted every moment to shine. Then I realized as I’d gotten older I realized it’s the less we do sometimes that’s the more powerful.”
On his character in The Descendants, Lillard disagrees that he is one of the least sympathetic characters in the movie. “I actually feel bad for Brian. I think he’s a good guy who’s done a bad thing.” And rather than not judge him, as many actors tend to do, Lillard takes the opposite approach “by judging him on his positive attributes. Even Captain Hook has a good reason for why he’s right and everyone else is wrong. So you have to be your own advocate for the character you play. He’s just a guy who fell into a situation and made a bad choice.”
The Descendants comes at a time in Lillard’s own journey where he has evolved as a young movie star to an actor, director and even teacher. Lillard was born in Lansing, Michigan, but grew up in Tustin, California. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, California, with fellow actor Paul Rudd, and later, the theater school Circle in the Square in New York City.
While still in high school, he was co-host of a short-lived TV show titled SK8 TV. After high school, he was hired as an extra for Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College.
But his big break came in 1996, when Lillard was cast in the horror slasher, Scream as Billy Loomis’s friend, Stu Macher. Lillard was then cast as Shaggy Rogers in the 2002 live-action Scooby Doo film, a role he later reprised in the 2004 sequel Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. It has been quite the journey for the actor trying to work in a difficult, ever-changing industry. “It’s a difficult time in our industry,” Lillard says. “We’ve gone from 10 studios making 10 movies a year to maybe three studios making maybe three big tentpole movies that unless you’re number one and two actors, you’re only going to make scale 10, which is like $1500 before taxes, agents, managers and lawyers. So you’re clearing $500 a week and you have to raise kids. But like so many industries in this country, we’ve been decimated and it’s a really interesting time right now.”
So what does he do then to stand out from the pack? “I’m always going to stand out from the pack,” Lillard confesses. “I’m not like everybody else, inherently by who I am.” Yet Lillard is diversifying. “I’m teaching, I’ve directed my first movie and I’m back on the stage. You just have to reinvigorate and continually work on your craft.” At 41, Lillard has perspective on his career. “I now have a different sense of awareness. I think when I started out I wanted to be really famous and wanted to be huge. I’ve kind of given up on that and so it’s not my dream any more. I just want to be around, to act and do stuff I’m proud of.”
That includes his directorial debut, Fat Kid Rules the World, starring Billy Campbell. And Lillard teaches acting to many young hopefuls at the Vancouver Film School. Asked if Lillard gives his young students the kind of advice he wishes he would have received as a young actor, Lillard pauses. “When I teach about career or business, I teach about longevity, about the last year where I haven’t worked. I teach about getting through that and how do you get through that ebb and flow. And in my work, as an actor, you teach best what you love least, so I try to teach simplicity and connection. And I teach what I do well, which is bringing energy to a part.”
For Matthew Lillard, it seems his own journey is just beginning as audiences see him in a new light sharing the screen with George Clooney in The Descendants.

Sundance Film Festival Report

delgado.coco — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:29:27 +0000

SUNDANCE CLOSES AS ‘DIVERSE FILMS WIN MAJOR PRIZES

PARK CITY, UTAH. After another frenetic and diverse Sundance, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival closed with its annual award night.
The 2009 Sundance Film Festival Juries consisted of:
U.S. Dramatic Competition:, Virginia Madsen, Scott McGehee, Maud Nadler, Mike White and Boaz Yakin; U.S. Documentary Competition: Patrick Creadon, Carl Deal, Andrea Meditch, Sam Pollard and Marina Zenovich; World Dramatic Competition: Colin Brown (U.S.), Christine Jeffs (New Zealand) and Vibeke Windeløv (Denmark); World Documentary Competition: Gillian Armstrong (Australia), Thom Powers (U.S.); Hubert Sauper (France); Shorts Competition: Gerardo Naranjo, Lou Taylor Pucci and Sharon Swart; The Alfred P. Sloan Prize: Fran Bagenal, Rodney Brooks, Raymond Gesteland, Jeffrey Nachmanoff and Alex Rivera.
For the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, 118 feature-length films were selected including 91 world premieres, 16 North American premieres, and 5 U.S. premieres representing 21 countries with 42 first-time filmmakers, including 28 in competition. These films were selected from 3,661 feature- length film submissions composed of 1,905 U.S. and 1,756 international feature-length films.
Here are the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Award Winners:
The Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Documentary was presented to We Live in Public,directed by Ondi Timoner.
The Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Dramatic was presented to Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire, directed by Lee Daniels and written by Damien Paul.
The World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to Rough Aunties, directed by Kim Longinotto.
The World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to The Maid (La Nana), directed by Sebastián Silva.
The Audience Award for U.S. Documentary was presented to The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos.
The Audience Award for: U.S. Dramatic was presented to Push:
The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary was presented to Afghan Star, directed by Havana Marking.
The World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic was presented to An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by Nick Hornby.
Directing Awards recognize excellence in directing for dramatic and documentary features.
The Directing Award: U.S. Documentary was presented to El General and director Natalia Almada.
The Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic was presented to Sin Nombre, written and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga..
The World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary was presented to Afghan Star, directed by Havana Marking.
The World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic was presented to Five Minutes of Heaven, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a screenplay by Guy Hibbert.
The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award was presented to Nicholas Jasenovec and Charlyne Yi for Paper Heart.
The World Cinema Screenwriting Award was presented to Five Minutes of Heaven, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a screenplay by Guy Hibbert.
The U.S. Documentary Editing Award was presented to Sergio. Directed by Greg Barker and edited by Karen Schmeer.
The World Cinema Documentary Editing Award was presented to Burma VJ. Directed by Anders Østergaard and edited by Janus Billeskov.
The Excellence in Cinematography Award: U.S. Documentary was presented to The September Issue.
The Excellence in Cinematography Award: U.S. Dramatic was presented to Sin Nombre, written and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga.
The World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary was presented to Big River Man.
The World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic was presented to An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by Nick Hornby.
A World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Originality was presented to Louise-Michel, directed by Benoit Delépine and Gustave de Kervern.
A World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to Tibet in Song directed by Ngawang Choephel..
A World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Acting was presented to Catalina Saavedra for her portrayal of a bitter and introverted maid in The Maid (La Nana). Chile
A Special Jury Prize: U.S. Documentary was presented to Good Hair, directed by Jeff Stilson, in which comedian Chris Rock travels the world to examine the culture of African-American hair and hairstyles.
A Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Independence was presented to Humpday, Lynn Shelton’s farcical comedy about straight male bonding gone a little too far.
A Special Jury Prize for Acting was presented to Mo’Nique for her portrayal of a mentally ill mother who both emotionally and physically imprisons her daughter in Push:
Finally, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Alfred P. Sloan Prize was presented to Adam, directed by Max Mayer.
DAY 5
On the last day that this journalist is saw films at Sundance [tomorrow it’s interviews back to back] the theme for today seemed to be relationships, all depicted vastly differently. John Krasinski, best known as the laid-back Jim from The Office, makes his directorial debut on Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, based on the cult novel by the late David Foster Wallace. The film’s protagonist is grad student Sara Quinn who, after her boyfriend [played by Krasinski] mysteriously leaves her with little explanation, she is left looking for answers as to what went wrong. Directing all her energies into her anthropological dissertation, Sara conducts a series of interviews with men in an effort to uncover the secret thoughts that drive their behavior. As she records the astonishing and disquieting experiences of various subjects, Sara discovers much more about men and herself than she bargained for.
This is the kind of film one needs to mull over for several hours. I must confess, my instinctive reaction was that the film is too anti-male, overly verbose and requires too much thought, in particular seeing the film at about 9am. Yet, when one begins to think about it, one realizes that it’s far more ingenious a philosophical treatise than one realizes, and writer/director Krasinski has made a very intelligent, brilliantly acted cinema verite piece, that goes in some unexpected directions. Yes, there is some male bashing, but that is really being far too simplistic an examination of a film that deeply and courageously explores the male psyche. There are harsh truths spelled out by some of Sara’s ‘subjects’ and some characters are intensely misogynistic, but Krasinski is deftly non-judgmental and that is why the film works so well. It is a very dialogue centric piece, requiring the audience to think and analyze, but cinema is often superficial and mundane, so a film like Brief Interviews comes as a refreshing change. Krasinski’s direction is simple, not cinematic, which is in keeping with the style of the piece, and his own performance that closes the film, in which he delivers an emotive monologue offering his reasons for leaving, is simply stunning. As to what the audience is for the film, is a different matter. It may be better served on an HBO, but either way, this is a bold and audacious work that is provocative and intellectually stimulating which deserves an equally wide and intelligent audience.
On the other hand, Australian director Gregor Jordan’s ode to the 80s, The Informers, seems so out of place at this festival. Sure it’s a guilty pleasure film full of copious amounts of sex and nudity, which is not objectionable per se, but a script helps, and actors who can solidly interpret characters. Based on author Bret Easton Ellis’ rambling tales of 1980s Los Angeles, The Informers is a multi-strand narrative set in 1984 Los Angeles, centered on an array of characters who represent both the top of the heap (a Hollywood dream merchant, a dissolute rock star, an aging newscaster) and the bottom (a voyeuristic doorman, an amoral ex-con). Connecting the intertwining strands are a group of beautiful, blonde young men and women who sleep all day and party all night, doing drugs — and one another –with abandon, never realizing that they are dancing on the edge of a volcano. I get what Ellis was doing, commenting on the sexual excesses of the 80s when AIDS was first coming into being, and the disease is certainly part of the film. But the screenplay, co-written by first-timer Nicholas Jarecki, along with novelist Ellis, has no depth whatsoever, but a meaningless series of unsympathetic caricatures, brought to life by a bevy of attractive, soulless actors. None of this is the fault of director Jordan, an accomplished filmmaker who can only shoot the material available to him. He has a fluid, visual style, and the film certainly looks stylish and perfectly captures the period. With the exception of pros Billy Bob Thornton and a striking Kim Basinger, The Informers has very little to offer, apart from numerous sex scenes, drug-taking and the weirdest, out of place character played by Mickey Rourke who needs to think about the choices he makes. This film about perpetual self-destruction is an unnecessary addition to Sundance, and it is likely given the film’s bad reviews, that a theatrical release is an unlikely event, but rather relegated to cable and DVD. As a huge admirer of Gregor’s work, it is unfortunate that he opted to do something this shallow and narratively incohesive, but then you’re only as good as your source material and therein lay the problem.
Relationship movies are a dime a dozen at Sundance, and some work, others are bold failures. Jay DiPietro’s Peter and Vandy falls under the latter category. The film is a love story told out of order about a couple that is out of order, juxtaposing Peter and Vandy’s romantic beginnings with the twisted-manipulative-regular couple they become. It is a bold idea, but the idea of completely confusing your audience by telling a story out of order, where scenes are juxtaposed, doesn’t quite work. A good film, a good relationship film, needs carefully delineated characters in order for the viewer to be invested in the relationship, so by mixing up scenes and moments, by showing the destruction of the relationship at one point, followed by love confessions, the two characters are never allowed to grow. In addition, the film becomes very confusing, and for a relationship film, that is inexcusable. On the plus side, the film is beautifully shot in New York and feels like a rich love letter to that city. The acting is terrific. Jason Ritter is an explosive talent who goes from romantic to angry character with effortless brilliance, and the beautiful Jess Weixler of Teeth fame, has a luminous expressive quality. The film’s flaws are structural, a lack of character development and narrative problems, and one questions its ability to find theatrical distribution.
DAY 4
From Jim Carrey as a gay con man to a whimsical love story between a children’s author and a young man with Asperger’s Syndrome, such is the rich diversity of Sundance as one tirelessly ploughs through a fourth day of screenings and interviews.
Jim Carrey is quite capable of being comedically charming and goofy in mainstream Hollywood, as he was, successfully, in last month’s Yes Man, but it is equally apparent that there is so much more to the comic actor than meets the eye, as is evident by watching him dazzle us in the remarkable I Love You Phillip Morris, surprisingly based on a true story.
Jim Carrey plays Steven Russell, a man who lives a secret life as a gay man, while coming home to a loving wife. After a car accident, he decides he’s had it with the lies. Once he’s out of the hospital, Steven ditches his wife and starts to live a gay life with all of its wealth and flamboyancy, and to afford such a lifestyle he becomes a con man.
He eventually lands in jail, over and over and over again, where he finally meets and falls in love with Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor), a quiet, sensitive gay man who believes anything Steven tells him. When circumstances separate them, Steven uses his powers of deception to get them back together. Sometimes that means posing as a lawyer, sometimes it means bribing other inmates for a hooker outfit to use in one of his many prison escapes. There is no doubt that I Love you Phillip Morris is a deliciously entertaining film, part con artist caper flick and part love story. Though based on actual events, Carrey takes this character and makes him fun and vividly intoxicating. The actor relishes the character and manages to deliver a performance that is both wildly hilarious and quite moving. It’s a film that never quite knows in which direction to go, and offers lacks a succinct, narrative through-line. McGregor is less interesting as Morris, and in fact his rather standoffish performance is in such stark contrast with Carrey, one never really understands the attraction. I Love You Phillip Morris is very likely to have news of a distributor prior to the end of Sundance, and Carrey’s fan base may allow it to succeed, but it’s a harder sell than I think people realize, and is not helped by a stubborn refusal of the film’s cast to do press for the film here, rather than one ridiculous press conference. However, Carrey certainly gives a full-throttle, bravura performance in a highly entertaining cinematic journey. But in these economic tough times, selling Carrey in this particular role may be easier said than done. Only time will tell.
One may not necessarily associate Chris Rock with Sundance, but he is front and centre of a wonderfully funny and perceptive documentary on the relationship between hair and the Black American psyche. Rock is terrifically funny here as he conducts interviews with a plethora of actors, writers and politicians, from Maya Angelou to Ice T, rapper Eve, actress Nia Long and many others. His journey takes him to India, North Carolina and Beverly Hills; from barbershops to factories in his pursuit of why it is Black women are more than a tad obsessed by their hair. There are many wonderfully funny moments in this wise and sharp film, as we, as a society, are observed commenting on sexuality and hair, hairstyle competitions, and a variety of such in-depth discussions. A film that explores the nature of individuality and self-expression, the film attempts to define good hair and comes up with many responses by Rock’s eclectic subjects. It is Ice T that finally has the last say, and what he says, sums up this film to a tee. No matter what your ethnic origin, or you’re your position on the role of women’s hair in particular, Good Hair is a superb, sharply observed and well crafted comic documentary. HBO will screen the film in the first half of the year, and it’s a film to watch out for.
Love stories that work and are original are rare to find, though they seem to succeed more in the Indie world than mainstream Hollywood. What I adored about Max Mayer’s exquisitely crafted Adam, was its extraordinary honesty and its ability to develop the film’s central relationship with painstaking truth. In a magnificent performance, Hugh Dancy stars as Adam, a fiercely intelligent man who lives alone in his New York apartment, has a job creating computer chips for toys, falls in love with his new neighbour, and, oh yes, has Asperger’s Syndrome, which effects his ability to form meaningful social relationships. Adam of course says what he means and means what he says, yet his neighbour, Beth [Rose Byrne] finds something within him, a soulful innocent perhaps, that draws her to him and they begin a tentative, awkward relationship, while Beth is dealing with her own parental problems. This is the least likely of romantic dramas, yet not being mainstream Hollywood, is not full of pap happily-ever-afters, but more hopeful optimism when it comes to these intricately drawn characters. Max Mayey’s direction is thoughtful and has created a poetic, lyrical and charming film that really explores the nature of communication within all of us. It’s a beautiful, Joyful work richly layered and gorgeous to watch. Hugh Dancy is a revelation in this film, not overdoing the character or reducing him to self-pity. He is magnificent, as is the luminous and breathtaking Rose Byrne, who lights up the screen, and gives plenty of depth to this fascinating and equally lonely character. Adam is very much a Sundance film, and in a good way: honest, reflective, full of richly drawn characters and a beautiful script that add up to cinematic perfection.
DAY 3

Sundance continues as one becomes acutely aware that the economic crisis extends to this festival, with fewer journalists, publicists and a slightly diminished audience. How all this will effect sales of films remains to be seen, but the prognosis is pessimistic to say the least. Still the quality of the films screened this year remains impressive, at least the ones I have managed to see.
Duncan Jones’ sci-fi thriller Moon is an entertaining and fascinating film with a compelling performance, but a film that is more great entertainment than great cinema. The film’s protagonist is Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) who is nearing the end of his contract with Lunar. He’s been a faithful employee for 3 long years where his home has been Sarang, a moon base where he has spent his days alone, mining Helium 3. The precious gas holds the key to reversing the Earth’s energy crisis.
Isolated, determined and steadfast, Sam has followed the rulebook obediently and his time on the moon has been enlightening, but uneventful. The solitude has given him time to reflect on the mistakes of his past and work on his raging temper. He does his job mechanically, and spends most of his available time dreaming of his imminent return to Earth, to his wife, young daughter and an early retirement. His only companion to speak of, is a very advanced robot [voiced by Kevin Spacey].
But 2 weeks shy of his departure from Sarang, Sam starts seeing things, hearing things and feeling strange and when a routine extraction goes horribly wrong, he discovers that Lunar have their own plans for replacing him and the new recruit is eerily familiar.
What makes Moon work so effectively is the astounding performance of Rockwell, whose scenes of isolation are mesmerizing but he ends up delivering a multi-faceted performance that comes alive in unexpected ways in the film’s second half. It’s fascinating to watch Rockwell, but without revealing too much, it is astonishing what the actor does. The film is imaginatively crafted by director Duncan Jones’ who, on a small budget, has been able to visually replicate asspectes of the moon’s surface and the interior of Sarang, stylishly and with a visual depth one generally sees on higher budget studio films. Jones, production designer Tony Noble and cinematographer Gary Shaw give the audience a visual impression of depth that manages to make Sarang an integral character in the film. Sharply edited, the film sustains an atmosphere of dread throughout its climatic third act, further enhanced by Rockwell’s nuanced performance. The film has been pre-sold to Sony, but as yet it is unclear what division of the studio will release it, but it has strong commercial possibilities in particular with the lack of smart science fiction in the market place. Moon is an unusual Sundance film as it is very traditionally structured, but it is a vivid look at some pertinent issues in the United States, and remains an entertaining, well-made drama featuring a great central performance.
Sometimes, films at Sundance suffer from, adequate writing but rise above mediocrity because of strong performances or a great idea. It is rare to find a first feature from a writer/director making his début in both departments, that is flawless in both the writing and direction. Such is the case of the brilliant and deliciously quirky Arlen Faber. The film stars Jeff Daniels as the title character, an author of a popular spiritual self-help book “Me and God” who has remained in hiding for 20 years. On the eve of the 20th Anniversary, Arlen, suffering from severe back pain meets single mother and back healer Elizabeth (Lauren Graham) who might just be the salvation he needs. In addition he meets a struggling bookseller fresh out of rehab (Lou Taylor Pucci), looking for the answers he thinks think only Arlen can provide. Writer/director John Hindman has written a succinct, razor-sharp, funny and optimistic romantic comedy that is masterful in its conception and final execution. It is a witty, profound film about spirituality, cynicism, love and the search for answers, packaged in this taut script that he so beautifully directed. A Woody Allenesque comedy without his often neurotic self-indulgence, the film also boasts two formidable performances that are breathtaking. Jeff Daniels has evolved as an actor who can play any character, and his Arlen is both cynically bitter and ultimately deeply human. This is a performance that runs the gamut and the actor pulls out all the stops from sheer wit and hilarity, to vulnerable and human. It’s a rich, beautiful performance full of intricate layers. One can’t speak highly enough of the sublime and intoxicating Lauren Graham, whose penchant for witty comedy was evident in Gilmore Girls but is far more defined here. She delivers her best big-screen performance, and looks luminous in the process. Arlen Faber should be picked up at Sundance and a commercial shelf date is likely, given the film’s wonderful sense of romantic optimism, and if ever we needed a film like this, it is now.
The award for the most original and oddest film so far is the strangely irresistible Cold Souls, from writer-director Sophie Barthes, which has elements of similarly odd films such as Being John Malkovich. Paul Giamatti stars as, well, Paul Giamatti who begins the film rehearsing the title role in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, which is taking its toll as he plunges into intense Russian angst. Giamatti’s agent tips him to an article in The New Yorker, profiling a new service called “Soul Storage,” where you can have your souls extracted by one Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn) and held in a kind of escrow so they can live less complicated lives. Giamatti, wondering if having less soul would help him better play the part and get through the day, goes to Flintstein’s office to get the details, but after his soul is extracted, he finds life not as fulfilling, so he decides to ‘borrow’ an anonymous soul that once belonged to a Russian poet. At the end, of course, Giamatti realizes he needs his own soul in order to save his marriage and career, except it appears his soul has been stolen by a mule and sent to Russia. If the plot of Cold Souls sounds confusing, then it is, but yet, as the film progresses, it entices one into this bizarre and comically soulful world. The film is at times hilarious, and yet it is surprisingly melancholy. Giamatti is an astounding actor, as anyone would know who saw his recent portrayal of John Adams, and he here gives a sterling performance, one that is ferociously comic and anarchic, as an exaggeration of his own persona. While Cold Souls lacks the depth of Being John Malkovich, it nonetheless is an audacious and darkly funny piece, beautifully shot and exquisitely entertaining, featuring a performance by Giamatti that is original and hypnotic. Hopefully, a smaller arthouse distributor will take it on, because cinema needs original voices, and writer-director Sophie Barthes is a voice to watch out for.
DAY 2

Day 2 at Sundance was not stressful. I spoke to Parker Posey about Spring Breakdown, and the actress mentioned she was heading to LA shortly after our interview to meet on the contemporary adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels. She also told me about a VH1 TV journalist who interviewed her the day before and whose first question to her was: Is this your first time at Sundance? Oh, and the second one was about how much swag she was getting. Has Sundance and the media really come to this? I then caught up with Emma Roberts for a 1:1 about two films she has at Sundance, and neither of which is Hotel for Dogs by the way. She did admit, as she approaches her 18th birthday, that she might be retiring from family films. Based on her performance in Lymelife, screening here, that sounds like a plan.
While the VH1 reporter may not know an Indie film if she stumbled onto it, for me, Sundance is still about the movies and the sheer diversity reflects what this festival is all about. Today I saw films from a psycho thriller, to a documentary on fashion, to a human drama exploring grief and family. They don’t get more diverse than that.
Jonathan Liebesman’s The Killing Room is an interesting, entertaining diversion but lacks originality and is an odd film to have attracted the cast it did. The film revolves around four individuals who sign up for a psychological research study only to discover that they are now subjects of a brutal, classified government program in which there can only be one survivor. Perhaps slightly smarter than the recent Saw films and minus the extraneous violence, one wonders why someone as talented as Chloe Sevigny, for instance, would even bother to play an underwritten character who spends much of the film observing the killing room in question. Even at close to 100 minutes, the film seems overly long, full of its own silly self-importance, and not the kind of film suited to this kind of festival. The script by Gus Krieger and Ann Peacock is so derivative of the likes of Saw and Cube, that begs the question: What were the Sundance programmers thinking? Commercial possibilities for this are limited more to DVD and other ancillary markets, as director Jonathan Liebesman has a very unimaginative visual style. His last film, by the way, was the awful Texas Chainsaw prequel that did modest business at the box office. This film is often sluggish and pretentious, with little heightened suspense and a rather inexplicable narrative. Horror fans will be disappointed in this very ordinary, grim work.
Documentaries are often more exciting to watch than the narrative features at Sundance, and The September Issue proves that. The title refers to the September issue of the iconic fashion magazine, Vogue. The September 2007 issue of Vogue weighed nearly five pounds, and was the single largest issue of a magazine ever published. With unprecedented access, this film tells the story of legendary Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and her larger-than-life team of editors creating the issue and ruling the world of fashion. Directed with gusto by the brilliant R.J. Cutler, the film is an inside look at this rather strange, flamboyant, stressful and egomaniacal world of fashion, ruled with a forceful steely-eyed intensity by the formidable Wintour. Yet Cutler’s film is a very sympathetic account of a woman with a difficult reputation. She is seen with her daughter, she talks about her British father, a well respected journalist, she is both tough and determined but at times surprisingly human. And through it all, we see the creation of this century old magazine and its impact on all facets of the industry. As a piece of cinema, what I loved about this remarkable work was the way in which Cutler used a cinema verite approach to present the world of Vogue in its more insular environment, yet when he films shoots in Paris and Rome, the film becomes more cinematic, rich in the colors that saturate these cities, Paris in particular which looks gorgeous through the lens of cinematographer Robert Richman. As exciting, alluring, funny and compelling as any narrative feature, The September Issue deserves a theatrical release and should do strong business in the right arthouse cinemas if marketed properly. It is an exhilarating and fascinating film.
One of the reasons I love coming to Sundance is that a film comes along that you truly love, such as The Greatest, featuring the best performance by Pierce Brosnan in his career, which marks the auspicious directorial debut by writer/director Shana Feste. The film tells of a family still coping with the death of their son when their son’s girlfriend reveals that she is carrying his child. Each family member is dealing with grief in his or her own way, while at the same time coming to terms with this girl who enters their lives. The Greatest is a film that explores the complexity of emotion, and how grief can either set about destroying us or making us seem stronger. This is a film about family, yet it is not about dysfunction, but the realities of coping with our feelings under such tragic circumstances. It is also a film about memory, trying to hang onto a past that often fills us with emptiness. The Greatest is an emotive, eloquent, lyrical masterwork, yet it refuses to merely wear its heart on its sleeves, thanks to a sincere, richly evocative script by Feste, who has created a collage of deeply delineated characters, played to perfection by a flawless cast. We have seen the light side of Pierce Brosnan more recently in Mama Mia, but here, he plays a mathematics professor obsessed with numbers unable to express the kinds of emotions he needs for catharsis. This is a side of the actor one misses, and he gives the performance of his career, simply magnificent and controlled. Yet there are times when you can see the anguish written on every pore of a broken visage. He’s exquisite. Sarandon is spellbinding as his tormented, grief-stricken wife, desperately searching for answers, a search that has the potential to destroy her marriage. The actress is sublime in this film. British newcomer Carey Mulligan deserves a special mention as Rose, the 18-year old who fell in love with a boy only to have never gotten to know him before his tragic death. This is a ferociously talented actress to watch for. Under the fluid and meticulous direction of Feste, The Greatest has strong commercial possibilities, and is a luminous, exquisite piece of cinema that is heartbreakingly honest and Brosnan fans will be in awe of his complex, thoughtful and extraordinary performance.
DAY 1

On the first full day at Sundance, it was time to check out three very diverse and eclectic films at the Festival, beginning with Humpday, part of the official Dramatic Competition here at Sundance. The film revolves around Andrew (Joshua Leonard) who unexpectedly shows up on Ben’s doorstep late one night, at which point the two old college friends immediately fall into their old dynamic of heterosexual one-upmanship. To save Ben from domestication, Andrew invites Ben to a party at a sex-positive commune. Everyone plans on making erotic art films for the local amateur porn festival and Andrew wants in. They run out of booze and ideas, save for one: Andrew should have sex with Ben, on camera. It’s not gay; it’s beyond gay. It’s not porn; it’s an art project. The next day, they find themselves unable to back down from the dare. And there’s nothing standing in their way – except Ben’s wife Anna, heterosexuality, and certain mechanical questions. Humpday is the quintessential Sundance film, ferociously independent, audacious, often self-mocking and visually raw and cinematically unobtrusive. This is a sharp, hilarious, fascinating film that explores the ritualistic games men play in this often-abrasive view of male bonding at its most extreme. Largely unscripted, director Lynn Shelton has created a funny, sometimes uncomfortable exploration of manliness, friendship and relationships, but it also has moments of clumsy awkwardness in the first act. Commercial possibilities seem limited to the arthouse circuit in major centers, with its unknown cast and its views of the male psyche, but it is a very entertaining, clever piece, featuring a superb performance by Leonard, whose loser character is ultimately a pitiful, melancholy figure. Humpday is an overall impressive and fascinating film.
Emily Abt’s emotionally powerful feature film, Toe to Toe, tells the story of a love/hate relationship between lacrosse mates Tosha and Jesse, two senior girls at a competitive Washington, D.C., prep school. Tosha is a fiercely determined African American scholarship student from Anacostia, one of Washington’s poorest areas, while Jesse is a privileged, but troubled, white girl from Bethesda, who deals with promiscuous tendencies that pull her toward self-destruction. Abt’s film, which takes a detailed look at class, sexuality and social inequality, could have opted for a clichéd view of teenage girls dealing with their own individual issues and demons. But there is no such clichéd approach to the material present. A beautifully textured, multi-layered and confident film, Toe to Toe takes on issues of race and class, but you never feel that you’re being hammered over the head with it. This is a powerfully, emotive, visually lush and superbly made film featuring some extraordinary performances, but the standout is Louisa Krause, who gives a passionate, intense, brave, magnificent performance as a complex young woman. She is someone to watch. Newcomer Sonequa Martin is also impressive as the fiercely academic Tosha, determined to break away from her working class roots. Under the beautiful direction of Abt, Toe to Toe has strop commercial possibilities and deserves to be seen for the passionate, glorious film it is.
It was appropriate to see Ryan Shiraki’s joyous Spring Breakdown at midnight. This poor film has been sitting around for quite some time, having fallen victim to the demise of Warner Independent. The real tragedy is, that Warner Premier is releasing it on DVD and so far, no indication as to whether it will open theatrically. How can it not? This raucous, deliciously satiric comedy celebrates the luminous and comedic qualities of an ensemble of brilliant women. The film revolves around three thirtysomething friends who break the monotony of their uninspired lives by vacationing on an island that’s a popular spring break getaway for college co-eds. There’s Gayle O’Brien [Amy Poehler], Judi Joskow [Rachel Dratch] and Becky St. Germaine [Parker Posey]. Becky works for a powerful senator [the formidable Jane Lynch] whose daughter Ashley [Amber Tamblyn] is one of those co-eds, only she’s as geeky as her chaperone. Director Shiraki co-wrote this cheekily funny script with actress Dratch, as a tribute, one suspects, to those awful teen films of the 80s that all had ‘Spring’ in their title. Spring Breakdown takes the genre, turns it on its head, and gives a film that is not a laugh-out-loud comedy, but a film that has something to say about who we are and remaining true to oneself. This trio of women are sublime. Poehler is a gifted actress with a razor sharp comic sensibility, Posey is beautiful and astutely understated in a brilliantly observed way, while Dratch is a comic actress with top notch timing and emotional range. These women are magnificent and their co-stars shine just as bright, including Australia’s Sophie Monk as the leader of a group of seven brainless vixens who trample on those that don’t follow their lead. Spring Breakdown gives one hope that smart comedy is alive and well, and one can only hope that audiences will laugh until they cry at a multiplex near you. If not, then see it on DVD but with a large group of appreciated friends.
OPENING NIGHT

It is hard to believe that the 2009 Sundance Film Festival is 25 years old, and for me, this is my 12th festival. Massive in scope and scale, this Festival nestled within the confines of the snow-capped mountains of Park City, Sundance is defined as the centrepiece of independent film. While the mainstream industry flocks here in the hope of acquiring the next Little Miss Sunshine, and BlackBerries and Iphones illuminate the hallowed halls of makeshift cinemas, audiences flock to this festival because they have a love of film, and hoping that they, like myself, get to saviour a cinematic treasure that leads to discussion and the hope of commercial distribution.
This year’s Sundance’s official opening night film truly defined the nature of both this festival and independent film, though some may see it as an odd choice for an opening night film. Mary & Max is a claymated feature film from Adam Elliot, director of the Academy Award winning short animation Harvie Krumpet, It is a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, a chubby lonely eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horovitz, a 44 year old, severely obese, Jewish man with Aspergers Syndrome living in the chaos of New York. Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max’s friendship survives much more than the average diet of life’s ups and downs. Animation this might be, but beyond the extraordinary visual look of the film, Mary and Max is a deeply rich and human work that takes the audience on an emotional journey that is both sardonically witty and yet deeply tragic and heartbreaking. Here is a film that explores, with an aching sense of reality, loneliness, friendship, life, love and death. It is a film about those flawed bumps in the road we all traverse in our lives and for many of us, there are elements of these intricate characters somewhere buried in our subconscious. Writer/director Elliott has not only a sense of profound humanity, but also his capturing of both the Australian and New York Jewish character are sublime. Toni Collette and in particular the magnificent Phillip Seymour Hoffman, vocally create exquisite, funny and painfully human characters who leap out of the screen longing to be loved and appreciated for who they are. It’s wonderful acting work, with Barry Humphries as the film’s narrator adding a classy, eloquent tone to the piece. But the real star of Mary and Max is its extraordinary director, who has not only a memorable and unique visual style but an equally distinctive voice, one that is highly original. This is a masterpiece that is rich in character, deft humor and emotional complexity, and is a film that deserves to be seen around the world. Hopefully a US distributor will have the courage to take on a film that has something honest to say about humanity. If Sundance continues on this level, there is much to be excited about in the days ahead.

LIEV SCHREIBER DEFIANTLY TAKES ON TOUGH ROLE

delgado.coco — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:14:11 +0000

Live Schreiber is an actor who rarely plays the same character more than once. Whether he’s on stage or screen, the quietly spoken intelligent actor immerses himself in each character he plays, from the Jewish partisan brother in Defiance, to the antagonist in next year’s Wolverine. He spoke candidly about both films as well as his next production – baby number 2 with partner Naomi Watts.
QUESTION: Did your Jewishness at all help to define your performance in a different way than perhaps if you were not Jewish? Did you approach the role any differently? And have also made a film yourself that dealt with the Jewish experience.
SCHREIBER: Perhaps. You know? If anything, I would say that it had less to do with being Jewish than it had to do with being of Eastern European heritage. For me, I felt that there were cultural things that I had been afforded more time with, perhaps, than some of the other actors. Because of my family, and also because of the films I’d worked on in the past. But I don’t know that any of those really mattered.
QUESTION: Did you have a firsthand knowledge of Holocaust experiences that you could defer back to, that you knew about?
SCHREIBER: No. Only that I’d worked on Holocaust films, and I’d researched Holocaust films in the past. I grew up in the Lower East Side of New York, and I’m half-Jewish and anything that has resonance for me about my family history, because I don’t know much about it, I’m drawn to. So I think I choose projects like this, less because I’m right for them, but because I want to know if I’m right for them.
QUESTION: Did you feel any similarity to Everything is Illuminated, where you’re sort of exploring a lesser-known history, on a bigger scale this time?
SCHREIBER: For me, yeah. I think Defiance was a continuation of something that I’ve been interested in a long time, which is – well, let me go back to the beginning here. When I began researching Everything is Illuminated and some other Holocaust films that I did, in speaking to survivors, I found that most of them were really reticent about talking about what had happened to them. And that led me to a really wonderful documentary by a guy named Menachem Daum, called Hiding and Seeking. I won’t go into that at any great depth. But basically, it’s about a guy who takes his children to meet the Polish woman who hid his parents during the Holocaust, to prove to his rather conservative rabbinical sons that there were good goyim in the world. What I discovered in that film, and in talking to a lot of the people that I talked to, that every year when we memorialize all of these people who died in the Holocaust, in a sense we’re forgetting about the ones who survived. And some very – hurtful things obviously happened to those people. And I think because they haven’t had an opportunity to deal with it, it brought a tremendous amount of rage, insularism, self-inflicted anti-Semitism. For whatever reason, in order to survive, those people had done truly horrible things. And so that was what I was interested in in Illuminated. The grandfather character. Is that somehow at the core of that survivor’s guilt was the person who believed that they had no right to be alive. That if, in fact, they were honest with everyone and themselves, death was the only conclusion, that they felt that they had deserved to die, and for one reason or another, escaped it by generally doing something bad. And when I started to read Textbook and The Bielski Brothers, the other book, and I started to realize what these guys had done, I realized why this story isn’t more well-known, because the Bielski brothers didn’t want anyone to know it. And that fell in line with my understanding of what surviving the Holocaust cost people.
QUESTION: Is it a combination of sort of self-loathing for some of the things they did, and also just not wanting to be back in that place mentally? Like, just to talk – like, “I just want a normal life, and to pretend that that didn’t happen.”
SCHREIBER: That’s right. There’s no reason for them to remember it. Why should they recall that horror? I’m sure they’ve had to recall it for 50 years now. Why should they recall it to you, so you can make a film? [LAUGHTER] Hardly a good enough reason, to them. If you think about it. You know, we’re all in the movie business, so we think, “Well, why not?” Well, no! [LAUGHTER]
QUESTION: Ultimately in making this film, there’s got to be some satisfaction in telling a story that people need to know.
SCHREIBER: Absolutely. But I guess my perspective on it as an actor is that it has to cost something to the character, or it’s not going to be evocative in the way that it should, which is that – it’s not that they can’t simply be heroic, do you know what I mean? Or – there has to be conflict.
QUESTION: But that conflict doesn’t have to be lurid.
SCHREIBER: I think sometimes it does, to get you to understand – to me, I believe that. I believe in that, personally. Because I think then you can understand – then you can understand that it isn’t black and white. That emotionally, those people are living with things that cost them a great deal each and every day. Like, I – there’s a lot of heroic things they do in the film. They – you know, killing other people, so that these people can survive. But if you try to imagine, realistically – and to a degree, this is the actor’s job. Try to imagine doing those things. It’s – it becomes a different kind of story. For instance, the American GI’s had a term called an Bielski enema. And this was – they would take a potato masher grenade, put it in a German soldier’s rectum, and let it go off. Which was something that the Bielski’s did. Another thing that they did is that people who collaborated with the local police, the Polish police, they were decapitated. And the heads were left in the center of the town with a sign that said, “This is what happens to collaborators.”
QUESTION: That’s not in the movie.
SCHREIBER: No, it’s not in the movie, but if I can own it a little bit as an actor, as a character – if you don’t – if you feel a bit of distance from the character initially, and you’re struggling with the character’s actions, rather than just being asked to adore the character, you have more perspective. And I guess my point in telling you that is that – these were brutal men. And they were brutal men before the Nazis invaded. Now, the real horror is not just that these people were attacked by the Germans. The real horror is that in war, it’s these kinds of people that have to rise to the top. That will thrive. When the Nazis invaded Belarusse, and began to speak the language of fear and terror, there was a group of men in that particular town who spoke the same language. And they responded. And that’s – you know, I think if you break that down, it’s not just about individuals. It’s about society. [LAUGHTER] Societies and cultures. And I think you look in Darfur, you see that this tribal thing is endless, because of how people feel they are supposed to respond. Violence is a language.
QUESTION: So, as an actor, are you drawn to something like this because of the nature of history, because of the nature of who these characters are?
SCHREIBER: I think it’s who they are. And that’s what I like about what Ed does as a filmmaker. Is that he takes these historical events, and he tries to make them personal. Because I think that that’s an easier way to help people understand history. So for me, it’s about who these characters are, and not what they’ve done.
QUESTION: Did you ever think you’d be doing a comic book movie like Wolverine?
SCHREIBER: There’s a switch. [LAUGHTER] No, I didn’t.
QUESTION: There’s brutality in that as well.
SCHREIBER: It was a sort of natural graduation from Defiance, actually. It’s true. It was a natural next step.
QUESTION: It is an interesting counterpoint. Did Hugh have any advice for doing that kind of movie for you?
SCHREIBER: Lift weights. [LAUGHTER]
QUESTION: And did you?
SCHREIBER: I did. I lift weights, and I ate an army of chickens.
QUESTION: Was it fun for you to be working in Australia on that?
SCHREIBER: It was fantastic. It was really nice to be in Australia and have a life. To not – you know, sort of be visiting. It was great. It’s a great lifestyle there. You know, you wake up at six in the morning and walk along the coast walk along Bondi and Tamarama, and the best coffee in the world, and have a swim, and then go to work. It’s really just cushy.
QUESTION: So, what can you say about that film, just to touch on it a little, as a character.
SCHREIBER: I’m very excited about it. I’ve seen some footage, and I think it’s going to be really very good.
QUESTION: How bad-ass do you look?
SCHREIBER: It’s hard for me to say. But I’m really looking forward to people seeing it.
QUESTION: Is it fun doing a movie like that, that is such a release from a picture like this, which is so much more intense, and so much more serious, I guess?
SCHREIBER: I found it to be really intense. The character I play is incredibly brutal and feral, has blood lust unlike any other character I’ve ever played, much, much more than Zus. Zus is basically a lover. This guy is a real killer.
QUESTION: Why did you want to do Wolverine? What was the attraction?
SCHREIBER: I hope I’m not blowing anyone’s cover here, but I don’t think men really mature intellectually and emotionally beyond 22. Your bodies evolve, but nothing else, really. And so why should I stop wanting to be in a comic book movie?
QUESTION: What was your point of entry? Were you familiar with your character from the comic books at all?
SCHREIBER: I was a fan of the comic books. I just loved the character of Wolverine. I always have. That sort of deeply ironic and very urban sensibility in a superhero was something that I thought was really groundbreaking. And the style of writing was – particularly the very sort of editorial style. I just always loved it. And I think that we were able to capture some of that darkness in this movie, so I’m very proud of it.
QUESTION: Did you enjoy working with Hugh?
SCHREIBER: I love Hugh. I mean, Hugh is the reason I did it. We’d been friends for a long time and it’s just so much fun to work with him. To do fight scenes with Hugh was really terrific, because as a dancer, he has that kind of discipline and choreography. And I always studied to be a fight choreographer, and always wanted to be a dancer too, but didn’t quite have the feet for it. But we had some remarkable fight scenes together, and I’m looking forward to people seeing those.
QUESTION: In Defiance you have to speak in Russian? How was that experience, working with the language? And how did you establish the brotherhood, especially Daniel’s character? You guys really were brothers in this film.
SCHREIBER: Thank you. The language meant everything to me. I really loved it when Ed called me and said, you know, “I want you guys to speak some Russian in these scenes.” And I got together about three months before we started with a UCLA student here who’s a linguist. A guy named Stanislav Srabin, who’s a wonderful teacher, who started to teach me Russian. And that was really useful to me. Because I felt that there are a lot of things culturally in the language, that were terrific clues into the character. It’s a very masculine language, it’s a very direct language. And it – I enjoyed it. I also think if you’re going to do a dialect, at least spend a month trying to learn the language. You’ll get the dialect that much better. As far as getting to know Daniel – we were in the middle of the woods in Lithuania. And it was – I was just so impressed with the fact that this major motion picture star wasn’t going back to his trailer. You know, in between takes. It was freezing out.
QUESTION: They said it was a 30-minute hike to the trailors.
SCHREIBER: Well, that could have been part of it. But he was out there – you know, some of those set-ups took an hour and a half, two hours to accomplish. And he’s out there the whole time. He could have – it wasn’t quite a 30-minute hike. They might have been exaggerating a little bit. But we were out there. We were out there with nothing to do but sort of spend time with each other. Telling stories, and – you know, having snowball fights, and kind of re-creating the – we were very childish. There was a lot of goofiness. And I think that was about us recreating the childhood that we hadn’t spent together.
QUESTION: Does a movie like this – I think you can’t look at the circumstance of the characters, and wonder, “What would I do?” Did you do that kind of self-evaluation? And how did you measure up in your own eyes? How would you deal with that?
SCHREIBER: You know, I did do it when there was a scene that I wasn’t in. But in the scene where Daniel goes and speaks to the elders of the ghetto, about taking the people out of the ghetto. That was a scene where I thought, “Would I leave the comfort of this structural building, to go and live in the woods with these nuts, in this mass exodus of the ghetto, which anyone could be shot from?” And I thought, “Certainly not.” As far as the other stuff, in terms of trying to imagine having lost my own family, and the kind of vengeful rage that might create – I can’t even begin to imagine. So, yeah. It’s possible.
QUESTION: What’s next for you, do you know? Do you plan on returning to the stage any time soon?
SCHREIBER: What’s next for me is a production that Naomi and I have been working on for approximately nine months, that – is coming out any day now.
QUESTION: When is that happening?
SCHREIBER: It’s imminent.
QUESTION: For the holidays, what sort of gifts are you giving, considering these economic times we’re in?
SCHREIBER: I can’t give that away before. She’ll hear it.
QUESTION: Will you go back to Australia for the birth of your child?
SCHREIBER: Of course, yeah.
QUESTION: Are you guys both here right now?
SCHREIBER: No. She’s in New York, I’m here.
QUESTION: So you’re on red alert, in case?
SCHREIBER: I’m on red alert.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JULIA ORMOND?

delgado.coco — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:06:22 +0000

A decade and a half ago, Julia Ormond had the world at her feet. She was Hollywood’s ‘it’ girl, with films opposite the biggest stars, including Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford and Richard Gere. As quickly as she succeeded, she disappeared, but now she’s back in another Brad Pitt film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But this time there are no scenes with the superstar, as she really stars with a heavily made up Cate Blanchett, as the once true love of Benjamin Button whose story is told through a journal read by Ormond’s character. In this exclusive interview, Ormond talks about Button and her reasons for fleeing Hollywood all those years ago.
QUESTION: I suppose the obvious question to start with is that, even though you don’t work with him, this is the first time you’ve appeared in a Brad Pitt movie since
Legends of the Fall.
JULIA ORMOND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Did you sense the irony of that when you signed on to do this? And were you disappointed that you not only didn’t end up doing any scenes together?
JULIA ORMOND: I would have loved to have been in something where we got to do scenes together. I guess the way that I’ve been talking about the role is that I’m Daisy’s daughter, because I feel that to start with that, it’s – kind of pre-empts what happens. But, it was just rather – it was just rather nice. But what I have found professionally, is, now it’s rare that I go on a movie and I don’t find someone in it that I’ve worked with before. And it makes you feel like you’re part of a professional family.
QUESTION: Did David see you in anything earlier, that wanted him to cast you?
JULIA ORMOND: I don’t know. I mean, I think his casting process is very much to see what people do in the audition. And I think he took it – I think he took it from that.
QUESTION: It’s a very strange kind of part, really, because it’s kind of detached from everything else
and it’s very much you reading and reacting to a heavily made-up Cate, and reading materials. What kinds of choices did you make as an actor, to play a character like that, in the way that it was presented in this movie, in this bookended way?
JULIA ORMOND: What I really loved about it was the sparseness of – at the end of someone’s life, very often for a lot of people, it happens in a room. It’s a painful, claustrophobic few days of whatever the myriad journey someone has gone on, and all the experiences they’ve had. It comes down to a sort of no-frills ending. And so that, for me, fed into trying – just trying to get the temperature of it right. And not have it be sentimental. We sort of discussed whether or not there was – there’s kind of a tension in their relationship. To a certain degree. And I talked to a lot of people about their experience of losing a parent, or seeing someone to the point of death. And that was very moving. It was kind of amazing, the way people opened up and shared those stories. And for me, there was this challenge of, how do you make that live, when you haven’t got the backdrop of amazing sets and costumes, and being able to move around a lot? And – thank goodness it was with somebody like Fincher, who was able to film for two weeks, and find set-ups that changed it, and all the rest of it.
QUESTION: He deliberately avoids sentiment in the entire movie, really. Do you think that was a good thing, that the film avoided sentiment?
JULIA ORMOND: Yeah. When I read the script, I was really intrigued by the fact that David was the one who was directing it. Because so much of his stuff had been – I loved his previous work. But so much of it was dark and violent, and thriller-oriented, or crime-oriented. And it was such an interesting choice, for something that I think in other hands could have taken a very sentimental leaning. And I think he – by not having it be sentimental, he actually ends up with something that’s more resonant for more people. And from my perspective of seeing it, what I love about the movie is, it kind of accumulates, like a life accumulates, in terms of the experiences. And there’s very often – there are choices made that mean the big climactic scene is actually not played. It’s – for me, it works and it has more resonance, because of the stuff that isn’t in. In my journey, there I am with my mother as she’s dying, but I’m not there when she dies. You don’t get to see that moment. And you don’t need it.
QUESTION: Is there a distinction between unsentimental and unemotional?
JULIA ORMOND: I think what he wanted to go for was real. And that’s kind of risky. I always remember Sydney Pollock talking about the fact that, when you hear that someone has died, that it’s more real to him that you don’t burst into tears, and instantly start grieving. It’s more of a – you’re more taking it in, and it’s more shock. So, I like it. I love the choices that he made with it. There’s a moment in it when Brad is leaving Cate, or when Benjamin is leaving Daisy, and he’s stealing out at night, and looks at her in the bed. And she’s looking right back at him, and nothing is said. And I think that’s the – I think it’s a dangerous choice, and I think it works, and I think it’s somehow more painful than anything that could have been said. I like those moments when he’s made those choices.
QUESTION: You’ve had a very interesting career. It began with a bang and then the world lost you for so long after that. That period, where there were so many high expectations, and you were this “It” girl, you were this extraordinarily beautiful woman who was in these films that got savagely-treated by the press. [LAUGHTER] Do you have regrets, and did you think that you, looking back, maybe would have made different choices? Maybe would not have had some of the things that you did and didn’t, and did you treat – do you feel you were burnt by those experiences?
JULIA ORMOND: I think I got burnt out, because essentially, what happened was, I felt – when the hype hit, part of it was that so many movies came on at once. Work that had been done over a period of – I don’t know, 2 ½ years or something, suddenly all came out in the same year. And I think all of us, I would say as a team – agents, publicists, or whatever – I think all of us were highly aware of the fact that that was really set up to backfire, because it’s like, what do you do next? And I think for me it was that – I don’t really feel like I ever bought into it. I think that’s something that, you just work as an actor. You focus on the work, you focus on your craft. You do your thing. And that other stuff kind of goes on as – outside of you. I’ve never felt like I – I think Ralph Fiennes said to me at one point that you don’t believe the really positive stuff, and you also don’t believe the really nasty, negative stuff. You’re sort of somewhere in the middle. It’s really nice when people are saying really great things. But I think you have to take it with a pinch of salt, and just get on with your job. And I think what happened to me professionally was that I had three big Hollywood movies, and then chose to do Smilla. As you do big Hollywood movies that are a success, the amount of money that you can bring to a budget of a movie goes up and it’s like being dealt a terrific hand in poker, that you then spend, you cash in, on being able to do these more risky European films. I feel like I spent it on Smilla and Barber of Siberia. Barber of Siberia was a long, long film that was in Russia and I think I came out of that experience just so creatively spent. It was hard to look at another script. And I felt somewhat lost, in terms of – I felt like I got into a rut. There was me thinking I was making – even with Legends and Sabrina and First Knight, three very different movies. Yet the press would always come and say, “So, here you are again. You’re the romantic lead, and you’ve got two men around you,” or three men. And I somehow got into this rut.
So I really wanted to break that, and do something different and then got creatively spent. At that point, when you decide to take a step back and pull out and – and re-think, you do it consciously knowing that – okay, that means either you don’t come back in, or it’s going to be a really hard struggle to come back.
QUESTION: How do you feel about the fact that it took so long for you to get back in, in a way?
JULIA ORMOND: Now, I feel really good about it.
QUESTION: Do you think you’re a better actress now?
JULIA ORMOND: Yeah.
QUESTION: As well as a better human being?
JULIA ORMOND: No, I think I am. I think the whole experience of – of the up and the down, has really helped me, because during the time that I was out, I developed a lot of projects, and got to see how hard it was to get a movie off the ground. To put something together. I got to see it more from the producer’s side of it. I got to – you learn a lot from the struggle. And – yeah, there were – there was a – there was a period that was a painful period of feeling like – I’d meet people in the profession, and it was like you had a lurgey. You could feel it in the handshake, that they were sort of like – “Don’t touch that.” Because there was this feeling that some disaster had happened, by this person being hyped up and then not delivering. And you just have to – you learn that you just have to let people have that. And I think also it was a combination of other stuff. I reached a point where I was in that kind of – I was too old to play the ingénue still, and too young for them to put me into the mother role. And I sort of feel, even just with the passing of time, it makes more sense for me to be playing different roles now. And I feel as if the last – in the last two years, I’ve really looked for roles that are really different.
QUESTION: What have you done recently? You did something since Sundance?
JULIA ORMOND: The first piece that I did that actually got distribution after a while was working with David Lynch. Which was in Inland Empire and that was completely. Different. So doing that at Inland Empire was great. Then I worked with Soderbergh on Che.
QUESTION: What was that experience like?
JULIA ORMOND: It was wonderful, because I’ve always really admired Benicio. I’ve always really admired Steven. And it was so interesting to go from working with David Lynch, who was working on mini-DV, and the camera was here, and he would do all of his coverage in about 20 minutes. He would cover the whole scene, give you direction. It was such an interesting and fascinating approach. And then Steven is so gifted, and knows so much about film. Is his own cinematographer, is his own cameraman, does the whole thing. Doesn’t want – keeps the momentum going to a very high degree. So, you are kind of almost always in character on set. Because you know you could turn around and he’s filming you, No down time. And you’d sort of watch art department in certain places, the lighting crew suddenly would go into a panic and say, “He’s filming, he’s filming.” and sort of scrambling. But he’s ready to go, so he just goes.
QUESTION: Were you in Toronto?
JULIA ORMOND: I wasn’t in Toronto, but I was in Cannes. So we did some press for Cannes. I have a very small role in it. But what was really fun for me was that Steven let me go completely out on a limb. And whether you’re playing a character that has two lines and is in one scene, it’s the same amount of work to build the – to fully flesh a character. And actually, for me, the preparation and the choices and the detail – all of the work that goes into creating a character, I really, really love. And sometimes the execution of it can be laborious and painful. So to do all the preparation that you love, and then get it over and done with in a week, or whatever – I actually really like.
QUESTION: What are you doing next?
JULIA ORMOND: The next thing to come out is Surveillance. And at the moment, I’m filming a few episodes on CSI: New York. And having a blast on that. And other than that, I don’t know.
QUESTION: Do you live here?
JULIA ORMOND: I live in Los Angeles. Yeah. So, I do feel that – not even so much because of the up and the down, professionally. And feeling a kind of – feeling a kind of shame that you hadn’t delivered for somehow – there’s a certain amount of sort of professional shame that you feel. And then you kind of think, “ let it go. Just – just focus on the work, and focus on trying to do stuff that’s good.”
QUESTION: Do you get tired of people asking you questions about, “What ever happened to,” questions? Because you’re going to get that a lot.
JULIA ORMOND: No, because I think it’s understandable. I think people kind of want to know what happened. And I think I just got too creatively exhausted. I got disoriented, as to what I was doing. And I went away and did a bunch of other stuff. And worked with Harold Pinter.
QUESTION: You had a Web site that you were talking to me about at Sundance. What was that?
JULIA ORMOND: Well, I think what we talked about a lot at Sundance was Filmaid.
QUESTION: That’s right.
JULIA ORMOND: I started Filmaid with Caroline Barron.
QUESTION: Is it still happening?
JULIA ORMOND: Yeah. Yeah. I’m not as involved with it as I was. I kind of got it to a certain point, and then I pulled back, and now I’m working a lot more on slavery and trafficking. [LAUGHTER] Another cheerful little one.
QUESTION: Why slavery and trafficking?
JULIA ORMOND: Well, part of it, it has an overlap with refugees, but I really got into it because I’d worked so much in eastern Europe, and I’d worked a lot in Russia, and seen what was going on with the women. And have – I have a kind of strong passion for the Russian people, and what they’ve actually gone through. I’ve worked there in times that were so hard for them. And working with local crew, and local Russians. And it was just so heartbreaking, what was going on. And wanted to do something. And I think because Barber of Siberia was – is the biggest film they’ve ever – is the most successful film ever in Russia, I felt like I could have more weight as a spokesperson doing work in Russia. And then it has taken me, as Goodwill Ambassador to the UN, around the world to look at different situations of slavery and trafficking. And now I have an NGO called Asset, which is the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking. It’s www.Assetcampaign.org. So if you’re interested in helping do something against slavery and trafficking, you can go onto that site. It’s really important for me to feel like I’m doing something.
QUESTION: Where did that passion come from?
JULIA ORMOND: I think part of it is just the way I was brought up. And I think part of it comes from not feeling comfortable with self-centered – there is something about the – about being an actor that feels so much – it’s all about me.
QUESTION: And what about ego, too?
JULIA ORMOND: Yeah. It just slightly sort of turns the stomach. And I think when you realize, as somebody who is constantly presented with the chance to do media, that you can use that voice to kind of swing it in a different direction, and – I’m quite sure if I wasn’t an actor, I would be doing something. But I honestly believe it gives me more sanity. It helps me when I pick up the newspaper, or hear the news, and it’s all so devastating and awful, to feel – “Okay, it’s awful. But let’s try and do something to make it less awful.”
QUESTION: So busy as you are, can you balance your personal life and your professional life?
JULIA ORMOND: No, I’m not very good at that. I try! It’s a constant, constant, constant, struggle.
QUESTION: You do have a personal life, right?
JULIA ORMOND: I do, yeah. But I’m constantly trying to bring – every day is trying to do the balance. And be there for the long haul as well, and not get burnt out on the stuff that, really, when you work on this kind of stuff, it’s so devastating, and it can suck you in, in a way that burns you out. And ultimately, you know you have to be there for the long haul.

SCHRADER PUTS NEW TWIST INTO HOLOCAUST

delgado.coco — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:02:25 +0000

Paul Schrader is one of Hollywood’s most interesting filmmakers, beginning as a writer on the likes of Taxi Driver. Although his name is often linked to that of the ‘movie brat’ generation (Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, Lucas, De Palma, etc.) Paul Schrader’s background couldn’t have been more different. Schrader’s strict Calvinist parents refused to allow him to see a film until he was eighteen. Although he more than made up for lost time when studying at Calvin College, Columbia University and UCLA’s graduate film program, his influences were far removed from those of his contemporaries – Bresson, Ozu and Dreyer (about whom he wrote a book, “Transcendental Style in Film”) rather than Saturday morning serials. After a period as a film critic (and protégé of Pauline Kael), he began writing screenplays, hitting the jackpot when he and his brother, Leonard Schrader (a Japanese expert), were paid the then-record sum of $325,000, thus establishing his reputation as one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters – which was consolidated when Martin Scorsese filmed Schrader’s script Taxi Driver (1976), written in the early 1970s during a bout of drinking and depression. The success of the film allowed Schrader to start directing his own films, which have been notable for their willingness to take stylistic and thematic risks while still working squarely within the Hollywood system. His directorial debut was Blue Collar, followed by the acclaimed Hardcore, American gigolo and Cat People. The most original of his films (which he and many others regard as his best) was the Japanese co-production Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985).
His most recent film is Adam Resurrected, the story of a Jewish cabaret performer, played by Jeff Goldblum, in Hitler’s Germany, and a subsequent, but decidedly odd, Holocaust survivor. This is hardly the stuff of mainstream Hollywood, but this director doesn’t seem to mind.
QUESTION: So, you’re obviously not a director that decides to select straightforward, easy individual projects. What was it about this book that really attracted you as a filmmaker?
PAUL SCHRADER: Let’s see. I mean, you know, I get bored quite easily. And I find most movies kind of boring. And I said to myself, you know, “How is this film worth making?” And so I would not have thought of myself to do this. I’m not Jewish. I think there’s been plenty of Holocaust movies, and the world doesn’t need me to make another. So I didn’t think I would respond to this. But as soon as I get that – about the man, the boy, and the dog, I was hooked. I thought, “This is really fresh. This is really a terrific kind of dynamic.” And it was that that I always responded to. And in fact, I always described the film as a story of a man that once was a dog, who meets a dog who once was a boy. And so that appealed to me.
QUESTION: Was it the book or the screenplay that–interested you?
PAUL SCHRADER: I read the screenplay. The book was – I didn’t write the screenplay.
QUESTION: I know. But did you go back to read the book?
PAUL SCHRADER: Oh, yes. Yeah. And it’s a great novel, but it’s also a very experimental novel. It’s not an easy adaptation. It’s full of magic realism, and experimental writing. So in fact, the film is much more conventional than the book.
QUESTION: In fact, structurally the book is obviously is very different. How different is it to the screenplay?
PAUL SCHRADER: You know – well, I mean, the story ends, in the book, about 2/3 of the way through the book, in the final scene. And it’s full of odd sort of tropes. You know, a lot of first-person stream of consciousness, and then Yoram Kaniuk, the novelist, will change the person without telling the reader. And you’re reading along, and you’re saying, “Wait, this doesn’t sound like Adam.” And you realize, “Oh, now, we’re in somebody else’s mind now.” So, it’s not – it wasn’t an easy book to adapt.
QUESTION: Does being non-Jewish give you a very different perspective when you’re making a movie like this?
PAUL SCHRADER: I didn’t have that sort of sense of obligation to my family and my race and my background that I would have had if I were Jewish. But it also kind of freed me to concentrate on this whole thing with the man, the boy, and the dog. Because I was getting so hung up on the reverential nature of most of these Holocaust films. These – films about the Holocaust tend to be two things. One is, they tend to be factual. This actually happened. And two, they tend to be reverential. And this was neither. This never happened. There never was a hospital like this. There never was a Commandant and a prisoner relationship like this. And it’s – the book, even more so than the film, is far from reverential. And so it’s a kind of transgressive taboo-breaking book. And in fact, the producer had sent it to a number of the usual suspects, the sort of A-list Hollywood Jewish directors, and they turned it down. They had problems with it. And then my name came up.
QUESTION: Let me ask about the casting of this. Was Jeff Goldblum on top of your list to play Adam? It’s an interesting choice.
PAUL SCHRADER: I was reading the script for the very first time, and I was probably about halfway through it. And my wife walked in the room – and she’s an actress. And I said to her, “You know, I’m reading a script that Jeff Goldblum was born to play.” And I just had that hit, the very first time I read it. I said, you know, “Jeff Goldblum has spent his whole career preparing to play this role.” And I didn’t know Jeff.
QUESTION: Why did you think that?
PAUL SCHRADER: I don’t know. You know, he’s a kind of a ham. And he’s just – he’s sort of a Jewish prince. He’s sort of tall, and his kind of bearing is kind of a great entertainer. And he’s very much a chameleon. He can be different things. I just – I just felt this was the guy.
QUESTION: What were the challenges, in terms of sitting on location for this? What were you looking for, and what did you come up with?
PAUL SCHRADER: Well, we built the interior of the hospital on stage in Bucharest. And then we shot for about a week in Israel. But, you know, the truth is that wherever you are in the world – a movie crew is a movie crew. And they’re all sort of the same.
QUESTION: Did you enjoy shooting and Israel?
PAUL SCHRADER: Yeah, I did. I did. We were out in the desert, and it was about – I don’t know, about 130 degrees. So it was kind of hot. But it was – I enjoyed it.
QUESTION: You said you get bored very easily. So, what challenges you as a filmmaker? You’ve been involved in some fairly important and intellectual films over the last three decades. What are you looking for as a filmmaker?
PAUL SCHRADER: If it’s a problem that – you know, that I haven’t figured out how to solve before. You know, how do you make a guy like Bob Crane interesting? You know, how do you make a film about somebody who’s kidnapped in a closet? You know, those kinds of things. The fact that you’ve not seen this done before, you’ve got to figure out how to do it. That really makes it exciting.
QUESTION: Has the industry changed for the better or for the worse since you started out?
PAUL SCHRADER: Oh, well – much for the worse. I mean, basically, movies are dying now. And they’re becoming something else, and we don’t know what they are. And so we’re in a kind of a transition phase. And so when I began, we were in the late-‘50s, early ‘70s. There was a crisis of content. You know, we didn’t really know what movie were – were about. And we changed the kind of antagonists we had. We changed the themes of the movies. And out of that came ten or 15 years of interesting films. But now we have an equal crisis, only now it’s a crisis of form. Which isn’t nearly as interesting. We don’t know what movies are any more. We do know that what they used to be is going away. And we don’t know what they’re going to become.
QUESTION: Do you have any idea how you’re going to fit into this new medium?
PAUL SCHRADER: I don’t know. I think about it a lot. And I’m perfectly willing to adapt. You know, I’ve been thinking now about doing a Bollywood film.
QUESTION: Really?
PAUL SCHRADER: Yeah. That might be interesting. I’m writing one right now. I made a deal with some people in India to write a script.
QUESTION: Are you a fan of the Bollywood industry?
PAUL SCHRADER: I’m becoming one more and more, as I research it. And it just seems like a very interesting kind of way to go to try something fresh.
QUESTION: Would it be a romantic musical?
PAUL SCHRADER: It would be a cross-cultural thriller with song and dance. And, you know, you can always strip off the song and dance numbers, or do them just locally, too, if you want.
QUESTION: When will you look to finish the script?
PAUL SCHRADER: I’m writing it right now. I’m about halfway through it.
QUESTION: And you’d go into production within the next 12 months?
PAUL SCHRADER: Well, it’s a star vehicle. And one of the problems with Bollywood is that they don’t have enough stars. They have, really, about eight male stars, and they make 600 films a year. So, you know – and this would require a star. So you just don’t know.

Everyone’s Mad About ‘Mad Man’ Hamm

delgado.coco — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:11:00 +0000

Two years ago Jon Hamm was another struggling actor finding his way through the treacherous waters of Hollywood. Then along comes a little known TV series aired on a small cable network about a bunch of often philandering, chain-smoking ad executives in the ’60s called Mad Men, and life for John Hamm changed as he knew it. Now, as he greets the press prior to the opening of his first major Hollywood movie, the remake of Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, the actor is circumspect about he got here. “The last couple of years have been bizarre to say the least,” Hamm says, offering a slight smile in the process. “It’s still kind of a weird thing to wake up and come to this and talk about things like this, so it’s new, weird terrifying and all of that stuff, but still very exciting and as an opportunity to do something that I wanted to do since I was a little kid. To get to do something like this and work with not just Jennifer, Keanu and Scott but I think David Tattersall, the director of photography, who shot Star Wars. is cool and pretty nice. So it’s fun which is I think the overriding feeling of what this career should be at the end of the day, is an opportunity to have fun and do cool stuff and this is pretty cool.”
Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Hamm attended John Burroughs School in Ladue, Missouri and the University of Missouri on a scholarship to study acting. During this period he worked as a day care teacher and went on to teach high school at John Burroughs before moving to Hollywood. Hamm made his professional acting debut in 2000 with an appearance on The Hughleys and that same year played a small role in Space Cowboys, followed by Kissing Jessica Stein and We Were Soldiers. He had recurring roles on television in Providence, The Division, What About Brian and The Unit prior to his starring role in Mad Men. Hamm also appeared in the film The Boy in the Box, scheduled for release in 2008. He will also star in the 2009 horror film Heart, but in the meantime will be seen as a scientist in Day the Earth Stood Still, a film on which he signed after wrapping the first season of his critically acclaimed show, Mad Men. “I came on relatively late to the project. It was already going and I came into the scene where I basically explain what’s about to happen, sort of a three-page-long monologue about astronomy and trajectories and things that I basically got off a plane, got fitted, and thrown onto the set, which was a little bit nerve-wracking.” The modest actor seems genuinely surprised that his career has taken off the way it has. “Just the opportunity to be involved in something like this is amazing for me. I’m still relatively new to all of this.”
Yet through it all, it was Mad Men that has become part of American popular culture, which Hamm says is more than just a show about chain smoking ad men. “I think one of the big themes of the show is change and that’s been kind of a significant watch word in recent culture as well. I think that when you’re looking at a time where there’s a huge kind of paradigm shift in the social vibe that was the 1960s, we explored kind of the beginning of that, we’re now moving through the rest of that, and there are a lot of parallels for right now. So it’s not lost on some of the themes of this film too. It’s sort of like look, take a look at where we are and what we’re doing. Maybe there’s a better way to figure it out so I think those things resonate in the culture. Yeah, it’s a small cable show that nobody really watches but yet it resonates larger than what it is and I think that’s why the show has struck a chord.”
As to what we can expect in season three, Hamm has no idea and is itching to get back to work, once current negotiations are sorted out. Yet it seems life for Jon Hamm will never quite be the same again.

Sally Hawkins Has a Reason to Be Happy-Go-Lucky

delgado.coco — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:21:34 +0000

In a hotel room in Toronto, a slightly injured but perpetually smiling Sally Hawkins is genuinely surprised by the Oscar buzz surrounding her portrayal of Londoner Poppy who sees optimism all around hert in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky. “It seems so outrageous,” Hawkins says laughingly when the subject of a possible Oscar nomination is brought up. “But to be even talked about in that way, you just think, ‘God, that’s insane and that doesn’t really happen–that is movie-world.’ But it’s kind of gobsmacky to even be thought of in that way, yet absolutely lovely. But I’m kind of not thinking in those terms at all, because obviously if you begin to go there It’s just insane but lovely.”
Having seen how effortlessly Hawkins plays the perennially chirpy Poppy, one wonders what it was about the British actress that convinced director Mike Leigh that she was a natural fit for the part. “I don’t know. I mean, what’s great about Mike is, he has an ability to see things in people that you would never expect to be there, such as when I was working with him on All or Nothing, that character was such a gift for me. I’d never worked on film. I was playing this real cow, sort of the local slut, really. But it was great fun, because up until that point, people never saw me like that or put me in that role.” As for playing the very distinct role of Poppy, Leigh clearly thought it would be “great to do something very exciting, and very different. I think he was quite interested in creating a character that has a spark, has that positivity, that love of life, and that ability to see light in all of life as as make her interesting and make her somebody you want to care about, and fall in love with.”
In helping to create the character from the ground up, Hawkins describes the process as “extraordinary, like it always is with Mike, because you’ve got six months rehearsal, you go so many places, you explore so many different areas and you go in such depth. It’s a real luxury of time, to explore, to make mistakes, to try things and to put on certain things and discard other things that don’t work. You’re creating a whole world from birth, so it’s incredibly hard work, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. When you’re working with Mike, you feel extraordinarily alive and creative, because you’re creating another life.”
Hawkins said it was easy in a way to retain that sort of girlish buoyant sense of optimism that Poppy has, even though “she’s definitely on an extreme level. But actually there’s some days when you’re more sleepy, you’re a bit tired, or when life gets you down but she did sort of bounce you back up.” The actress admits she based Poppy on a combination of people she knows. “I do know people like that, but obviously not quite as extreme. She had different elements of different people, and then just wound up at such a level with dashes of other things put in.” As to whether the actress is as optimistic as Poppy, she says she is, “In different ways, but there’s nobody quite like Poppy.”
A relative newcomer to movies, the 32-year-old is the daughter of well known authors and illustrators of children’s books, Jacqui and Colin Hawkins, and was raised in Dulwich, south-east London where she attended James Allen’s Girls’ School (JAGS) graduating in 1994. Hawkins then went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), graduating in 1998.
Her theatre appearances include Much Ado About Nothing (2000), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2000), Misconceptions (2001), Country Music (2004) and as Adela in David Hare’s version of Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba in 2005. Hawkins made her first notable big screen performance as Samantha in Mike Leigh’s, All or Nothing in 2002. She also appeared as Slasher in the 2004 production of Layer Cake. Her first major television role came in 2005 when she played Susan Trinder in the BAFTA-nominated BBC drama Fingersmith, an adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel of the same name; she co-starred with Imelda Staunton, as she had in Vera Drake. Since then she has gone on to star in another BBC adaptation, Patrick Hamilton’s Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky. In 2006, Hawkins returned to the theatre, appearing at the Royal Court Theatre in Jez Butterworth’s play The Winterling.
Asked what has surprised her the most about the acting profession, Hawkins pauses slightly. “It’s continually surprising, constantly. I suppose what I love about it is that you’re constantly meeting different people, and going different places, metaphorically as well as physically. You have an opportunity to explore different things if you wish, so I suppose it brings up different challenges all the time, for you as an actor, but for you personally, as well. It makes you look at certain aspects of yourself, if you’re willing, If you’re open enough to let it and there are lessons to be learned, I suppose. So, I think I’m constantly surprised, and constantly challenged by it.” After Poppy, one wonders how Hawkins will find a character as uniquely challenging as that. “I know. God, you’ll make me upset. But I hope so. I think every character has a potential to be as rich as you make it, so I think it’s up to you, obviously.”
When we spoke, Hawkins was shooting a new Irish comedy, Happy Ever After, another happy film she says, laughingly. “I’m cornering a market. I play a girl in an arranged marriage, who’s helping this guy get a Visa. It’s about two weddings, and they sort of cross over, one’s an unhappy wedding, and they’re in an unhappy relationship and then the protagonist they quite fancy each other.” And to prove she is more than a cinematic optimist, Hawkins has Desert Flowe coming out. “It’s about Somalian model, Waris Dirie, who wrote a book about her life, and her journey from Somalia. She’s an amazing woman and her book was quite well-known, actually. I mean, she’s now a supermodel, or was and it’s about female castration. I play a girl called Marilyn, who Waris befriends when she’s in London, homeless on the streets. Marilyn works in Top Shop, and she’s quite the character, because she’s got these mad red lips, she’s quite Gothic, and quite in your face in a completely different way from Poppy.”
With Oscar buzz surrounding her Hawkins has a lot to look forward to, including walking those interminable red carpets from one award show to the next. “Oh, God. Well I hope so. and I’ll hold you to that,” she says laughingly.

Rumer Has It – Willis Offspring Heading for Stardom

delgado.coco — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In her first major film role, the bubbly comedy The House Bunny, Rumer Willis–daughter of Bruce and ex-wife Demi Moore–plays something of an outsider in a sorority that caters for the outsider until an ex-Playboy bunny shows up and teaches them how to evolve. For Willis, there was always a sense of inevitability that she would follow in her famous parents’ footsteps, she says in one of her first major press interviews. “I wanted to do it as soon as I got on a movie set, and I kind of grew up on them, so being able to do so myself has been really amazing,” the actress explains. “I’ve felt really lucky to do the few things that I have. It is a very different experience, because there is a shift in your mindset when you go from being the accessory to being the one who’s actually in front of the camera, so it has been a different kind of ride or journey.” Asked to explain why she considered herself an “accessory,” Willis means “an accessory just in terms of having grown up around sets when I was younger, but I was never necessarily in the movies. But I would sit in the trailer and hang out, so it is a different level. Then, when you grow up at a certain level, and you see people who have already worked very hard in their careers and already gotten to a certain point–I’m kind of at the very beginning. I’ve had exposure to the media, but in terms of actual work I’ve done, it’s very little in terms of that, so it is just a different experience to actually be the one who is at the press junket. I’ve been to press junkets, but I’ve never actually been the one sitting behind the table, so it is a different experience.”
Willis admits that her high-powered parents “are very supportive. I don’t think I could ask for anything else, because you kind of just take the support and I think that is the only thing any parent can do for a kid.”
And she is genuinely excited being part of the comically ensemble cast in The House Bunny. “I’m fortunate and lucky, because I got to work with Anna Faris. I mean, c’mon. It was really cool. It’s been very different and I have to say, probably the biggest learning experience I’ve ever had, just to be able to do it and all the responsibility is on you. I felt very grateful to be a part of it.”
Willis says it was easy to identify with the outsider facet of her character. “I was a dork, a computer nerd, had braces and glasses. I wasn’t necessarily too active in getting in the social crowd, so I definitely understand entirely not fitting in, but I think everyone has their own version of feeling a bit out of place and one of the great things I think that we have the ability to do is show that it’s alright. You can have that awkward phase, so it’s not about whether you’re the popular girl or the nerdy one but just about feeling confident and comfortable with kind of where you fit and who you are and accessing that and making that your own.”
Willis has also been attacked by a core group of bloggers, and she remains philosophical on the subject. “Everybody has an opinion and we live in America, so you’re allowed to. But the thing about it is, the media is an interesting outlet, because it allows people to see who they think you are, an idea of you, but it might not be who you really are and as long as you are comfortable with who you know you really are and remain true to your friends and the people around you, that’s all that really matters.”

Anna Plays House Bunny

delgado.coco — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Anna Faris jokingly says that she prepared to play a Playboy bunny by having “slept with Hef, but I’ll dispel that rumor right now.” The bubbly actress has been on Hollywood’s comic periphery now for almost a decade, since breaking out in the Scary Movie series. These days, the confident actress felt it about time she took matters into her own hands and develop a project specifically for her. This has resulted in The House Bunny, in which she stars as an ex-Playboy bunny who is suddenly kicked out of the mansion and finds herself a house mother to a bunch of women about to lose their sorority. “About three years ago, I was thinking about what happens when it’s time for the next phase of life for some of these girls who have lived in the Playboy mansion and how do you sort of reenter the real world? I pitched the character to two writers and, together, they wrote a script and, together, we produced it,” Faris explains. “The next thing you know, we’re shooting at the Playboy mansion.” The actress laughingly admits, “I did very little to emotionally prepare to play Shelly Darlington, because I guess she’s always been in there somewhere, but I did work out. I got some hair extensions, a lot of padded bras, and, I guess, that’s the extent of my prep.”
Asked if, like the characters in the film, she ever felt like an outsider, the actress does that admit that “I definitely still feel incredibly awkward, and I never quite get used to this stuff, but I’m really proud I made a movie, because I feel in my movie experience, I’ve definitely given up a sense of vanity, so it was kind of nice actually to play the pretty girl.” While the film has many thematic levels, she doesn’t see the film as a comment of any sort of empowerment that women may have with a publication like Playboy. “I don’t think it’s a stand against not being a model. I think Shelly will always be a little vain, love her wardrobe and her curves or whatever, but I think it’s more about finding her real family and that she realized that she doesn’t belong in that world anymore. I don’t think it’s necessarily a judgment against that world.”
Faris admits that her journey from generating what began as a simple idea to finished film was, to her, “amazing, very inspiring, empowering and also eye-opening, because I had no idea how difficult it was to make a movie and to put all the pieces together. Without my writers, I would still be twiddling my thumbs, thinking, ‘Where would that Playboy bunny go?’ And then, of course, the support of Happy Madison was incredible, because they were able to push our movie through so quickly, and Sony was amazing. I keep thinking I am really naïve to think that anything ever goes that smoothly, but, you know, I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t getting a chance to play the roles that I really wanted to and so this felt like, ‘Oh, so maybe I can do this and maybe I can continue to do this,’ which would be amazing.”