When you publish a few hundred interviews in eight months -- as Movieline did in 2009 -- you're bound to run into some fascinating people with plenty to say. What follows is a cross-section of our favorites, along with the hopes of many more to come in the year ahead. Reminisce, and enjoy!
Emily Blunt (April 13)
On paparazzi: It's abusive. It's an assault. They are effectively stalkers with cameras--in fact, they are only one object away from being classified as stalkers. I don't really get it that badly, but it does happen. My sister told me she saw something on YouTube of me at this cafe and someone was filming me, and you can hear the camera guy say, "Get a shot between her legs." And I was like, "When the fuck did I turn into the crotch girl?" Those lenses, man! You can zoom in... Just to get a picture. You couldn't even print it. [...] I have no desire to have [a bodyguard]. It's as simple as making a choice to have that or not, for me. Because I'm away so much, I do get a bizarre joy out of going to buy my own loo roll. And I wonder, if you become insulated like that, does your curiosity cease to exist? That frightens me. I don't ever want to lose being curious. The world is a very beautiful place and you miss everything if you become like that.
Tilda Swinton (May 1)
On her monologue about movies in The Limits of Control: That was sort of taken, at Jim [Jarmusch]'s request, pretty well entirely from a piece of writing of mine. It was a piece called the "State of Cinema Address," which I delivered at the San Francisco Film Festival a few years ago. I wrote it as a letter to my son, which started with a question that my son -- who was 8 1/2 at the time -- asked me about cinema and dreams. He said, "Mama, what did people dream before cinema was invented?" Which seemed such an incredibly perceptive question about consciousness, but also so perceptive about cinema -- that he would imagine and accept absolutely the relationship between dreams and cinema. Jim was a big fan of this piece of writing, and he asked me to take a section out. And that dream that I mention about the bird flying through the room of sand is an experience I had when I was a student at Cambridge in the '80s. I saw Tarkovsky's Stalker, and there's a scene of that image -- of a bird flying through a room of sand. And I'd been having that dream my whole life, or probably since before I was 10. I've stopped having it since seeing that film, but it really blew my mind that someone else would have exactly the same image somehow and put it in a film. That really informed my relationship with cinema: the idea that it is what's unconscious.
Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna (May 5)
On the differences between sibling filmmakers Alfonso and Carlos Cuaron:
BERNAL: Well, I will say that if Alfonso had directed this film, he would have said things like, "OK, two minute warning!" in the soccer match. "Touchdown!"
LUNA: "And then you bring out your racquet..." Alfonso doesn't know anything about soccer, but he pretends to know, and that says a lot about them as directors. Carlos would not come to direct until he knows everything about the subject, you know? And Alfonso tells you everything you need to hear to be there. It's like, one thinks more as a writer, and the other thinks more as a director. And there's no rule on which way you have to be, but Carlos waited until everything was on the page and every answer was there. When there was confusion, he would say, "OK, let's go back to the script and the answer is there." Easy. [...] With Alfonso, he finds a lot in the moment. Also, I think Carlos is a guy who would hear everyone's opinion and decide where to go, versus Alfonso, who would shout if you even opened your mouth. [all laugh] Like, if I was the actor, Carlos would let me say anything I wanted, but with Alfonso, there's this feeling that either he's going to think you said something smart or you're going to be punished for the rest of the film!
Francis Ford Coppola (June 3)
On aging and failure: You know, I'm a very interesting figure, because arguably, I got more famous as I got older. I became more like an icon -- partly, because people need to have some old guys as icons. We don't have Ernest Hemingway around anymore, so whoever's old more or less could qualify! So I realize that on one hand, I'm considered this great old director, and on the other hand, it's like, "What's he done lately? He's washed up, I don't even care what movies he makes anymore." But in truth, my films were not successful in their time. I mean, The Godfather was, but... People say a lot of the time, "You could never compete with those successes...Apocalypse Now, and this and that." And I say, "Those movies weren't successes! They were failures, read the reviews!" So I'm used to films being slammed and then, twenty years later, turning out differently. It's all vague, nothing is definite. Criticism is often wrong, as we know through history. Carmen, which is now the most popular opera in the repertoire, was a tremendous flop [when it premiered]. Why did they hate it?
Betty White (June 15)
On how Hollywood has changed during her career: When we started in television, there was that magic box in the corner of the room, and "Oh my gosh -- look what it's doing!" But as the years went on, the audience has become very jaded. They've heard every joke, they've seen every story line, they know where you're going before you even start to get there. And that's a hard audience to keep interested, and that's why I think so much of the shows now try to throw language, or situations, or sex -- anything to get the audience's attention. I think it's hard to go back and find that innocence. You can't. Once it's gone, it's gone. [...] You used to watch something and be so focused. Now it's running in the background, or they've got it on iPod, or they're Twittering each other.
Judd Apatow (July 29)
On allegations of sexism in his films: For me, whenever anyone talks about the issues of how men or women are portrayed in my movies, I think, I want to show women being just as awful as the men are being. In Knocked Up, there's an earthquake, and Seth Rogen saves his bong before his pregnant girlfriend. So I don't think that men are being portrayed as perfect people and women aren't. I think it's more about how there are so many miscommunications that make messes, and I'm trying to show that it takes hard work for people to work through those things and not bail on each other. [...] I actually think if anything, I'm a pussy. I'd go the other way with it -- I don't think I'm a sexist, I think I'm just whipped!
Jim Parsons (Sept. 4)
On Big Bang Theory's ping-pong obsessives: The people who win, like major wins, you wouldn't know necessarily. The on-camera people that win, Kaley [Cuoco] does pretty well. Kaley does very well. She used to play professional tennis though, so that's not fair. [...] Kunal [Nayyar] is very good. And Simon [Helberg] is pretty good. Johnny [Galecki] doesn't play at all. It's literally not his thing at all. I love it and I'm very competitive and I don't do very well. Sometimes, I have mad skills and get a couple of points. And then I'm screwed. [...] As soon as you see the stage manager start looking at his watch about the break, people start going, "Dibs!" Literally. And there's running, you run. I'm not kidding at all. I'm not making any of this up.
Willem Dafoe (Sept. 9)
On how he selects projects: I think it's all gut instinct. In a simple way, it's like, "Do I want to do these things? Does this excite me?" That's really it. Sometime I read scripts very quickly, I react on a gut level, and then I have to read them again to really see what the story is. But I really think it's just, "Do I want to do these things?" [Laughs] It sounds moronically simple. I don't ask myself what they mean, or necessarily who's going to see it, or if I'm going to see it. I really don't. It's more like, "Is this a good invitation to an adventure?"
Bill Hader (Sept. 16)
On his accidental first role: Collateral Damage, yeah. The actor was stuck in traffic, and they had to shoot the scene. So they put me [a P.A.] in as the pilot in this uniform. I wasn't supposed to have a line, but my bosses, the first A.D. and second A.D., though it was so funny that I was in there that they said, "Well, maybe we should have him tell Arnold Schwarzenegger this..." And the director, Andrew Davis, was like, "Yeahyeahyeah, you say this..." So they were laughing behind the camera because they thought they were going to get me a line. And they did! I got Taft-Hartley on the show. If you rent Collateral Damage, there's a scene that takes place on a plane, and I'm the pilot. My line is, "Three or four hours, depending on the weather." Which we came up with on the spot.
Jesse Eisenberg (Sept. 30)
On his insecurities as an actor: [T]hat's why I'm in therapy now. I talk about it every week. How to "make peace with the craft." That seems so nebulous. It's like, people who don't study it can get into movies and plays, and people who do study it quite often can't. Friends of mine went to Juilliard and can't get an off-Broadway play, let alone to get a lead role in a movie, and I haven't studied at Juilliard. I mean, it's a very kind of disconcerting profession. If you went to Harvard Medical School, chances are you'll be a doctor at some place. There's a career trajectory. Acting, there's nothing. It's constantly trying to procure jobs -- it's very disconcerting. [...] It's frightening. It's really frightening. I always feel like I'm five minutes away from getting kicked out of the hotel room that Sony paid for and having them clear out the minibar because I'm not allowed to take anything else.
Thomas Jane (Oct. 9)
On how his Hung character's endowment affects his ego: Thank God I'm married. Some of my single friends are envious. Personally I'm very happily married to one of the most beautiful women on the planet, Patricia Arquette. We've been together almost eight years and she still turns me on, and I couldn't be happier. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, to tell you the truth. People stare at my crotch and I have to tell them I'm up here. It becomes something of a "meat" object. Before this Hung thing, I was very comfortable. I love my penis, and I always have. When you strap a label on yourself, you can never really live up to it. I swear to God I feel like I've gotten smaller since then.
Tobin Bell (Oct. 16)
On his experience as an extra: [A]ctors have talked to me, actors I respected, and they said, "What did you do today?" And I'd say, "I went up and worked on Manhattan, the new Woody Allen film that's shooting." "You are? What are you doing?" "Well, I'm leaning up against a building as they go by." And they said, "You mean, you were doing extra work?" "Yeah." "Oh, well I could never do that. I really can do more than that. I'm better than that, and I'm waiting to be the main guy." I really understood where they were coming from, this place of ego, that they'd be minimizing their talent by doing something less than what they were capable of. I never viewed it that way, though. I viewed it as an opportunity to make $150 a day doing something that I cared a great deal about, where I could learn. They were gonna pay me to learn and reaffirm in me what I thought I could do?
Hal Holbrook (Nov. 19)
On his role in Into the Wild: I've been fighting images all my life. Honest to God. This business can drive you crazy. You can exhaust yourself trying to overcome the image the create for you in Hollywood. It's so frustrating because I love doing different kinds of parts, you know? On the stage I can do it. I get choices. But naturally everybody's stuck with that, and this has been the most exciting breakaway for me. I just did a film about an old man who has Alzheimer's. I'm doing a cook in a diner next. After that I'm doing a wrestling coach. None of these roles would ever have come if it hadn't been for Sean (Penn) giving me that role. How in the name of the Lord in Heaven Sean decided I could do this, I don't know. But to the end of my life, I'll never be finished thanking him.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Dec. 9)
On Modern Family's handling of homosexuality: There's this great episode that actually really hit close to the heart for me. We deal with my dad's uncomfortability with my character's sexuality. Ed O'Neill's character ends up introducing Cameron to his friends as "a friend of my son, Mitchell's." And I get really upset about it, naturally and say, "You would never introduce Phil as a friend of Claire's." It kind of opens up this can of worms between him and me and how much support he really offers me. It ends up being very moving and very touching. Obviously, through the eyes of Chris Lloyd and Steve Levitan and the writer of that episode, it is handled with such care and humor. It actually made me tear up when I read it. Especially in this era of marriage equality, it gave a simple, clear voice to a father and his son. And by the end of the episode, I think it might take a step towards changing a lot of people's minds on marriage and equality and how they view people that are different from them.
Jeff Bridges (Dec. 9)
On fatherly Oscar advice: My father, during my first Oscar nomination, my father came up to me -- and I was quite anxious. He said, 'Jeff, may I talk to you in private?' And I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'I want you to know that if you ride to the Oscars, a whole family in a Subaru, that they'll give you the Subaru free.' So I said, 'OK. I will do that. But I'm going to tape the entire thing with a video camera.' So we got in the Subaru, and it was like clowns, you know, getting out of a car. I taped the whole thing. God knows where that thing is, but that memory will always be stuck in my head."
Michael Haneke (Dec. 2)
On directing actors: First of all you have to win the trust of these people to give them the confidence. The moment you jeopardize this confidence, perhaps by saying something stupid to your actor, then you destroy this confidence. Because they smell it; they know it. It's a question of relation. [...] Every person is singular, so you have to feel where he is. My students ask me how to do it -- the biggest fear with students are the actors. They have no fear with the cameras, but when they confront an actor, they have no idea what to do or say. You have to have a good ear, in my opinion. When I worked in theater, I had a lot of little discussions with actors who complained, "You don't look at me!" Because I was sitting turned away and listening. And I said, "It's because I see you better that way." You just feel immediately if it's wrong. The most important thing for a director is a good ear.