Rupert Friend knows a thing or two about being treated like royalty. Since he first began dating Keira Knightley when they met on the set of the 2005 film Pride & Prejudice, the British press has covered the two as though they were a glamorous king and queen -- with all the scrutiny that entails.
He's one half of a different British supercouple in Jean-Marc Vallee's The Young Victoria, where he plays the young Prince Albert of Belgium, who married Queen Victoria (Emily Blunt) in the mid-1800's. In a chat with Movieline, the 28-year-old actor talked about the time travel aspects of moviemaking, the tyranny of British regionalism, and the Rolling Stones.
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At last night's Crazy Heart premiere where Jeff Bridges told us how to win a Subaru, Maggie Gyllenhaal forded the mammoth red carpet and stopped to discuss her favorite film moment of all time -- featuring one of the most believably insane characters in cinema. It has nothing to do with Josh Hartnett's chastity streak.
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Jesse Tyler Ferguson almost missed out on Modern Family, ABC's breakout mockumentary that is already being heralded by the Hollywood Reporter as one of the best series of the decade. Recovering from his experience on the critically savaged and quickly canceled Do Not Disturb, Ferguson told his managers that he was finished with television and moved to New York last year to headline the Broadway musical based on Elf. Fortunately for Ferguson, his managers soft-sold him Modern Family, which the actor read five times over and fell in love with. Now, Ferguson can be seen on Wednesday nights as Mitchell Pritchett, the hilariously straight-laced former figure skater who has since settled down with his flamboyant partner -- the hilarious Eric Stonestreet -- and their adopted Vietnamese daughter.
Last week, Movieline caught up with Ferguson to discuss his brush with Adam Lambert, the truth behind that Julie Bowen-Sofia Vergara rivalry and the upcoming storyline about Mitchell and his old-fashioned father, played by Ed O'Neill, that brought him to tears.
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At last night's chilly Los Angeles premiere of Crazy Heart, Jeff Bridges's ebullience was apparent and for good reason: The 60-year-old actor will almost certainly earn his fifth Oscar nomination for his role as Bad Blake, an alcoholic country musician who regains purpose after falling for a young journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal). For a man who was first nominated in 1971 for The Last Picture Show, the buzzy premiere reminded Bridges of his father's sage Oscar advice and the first director who guided him to gold.
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When the nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards were announced a few days ago, some of the names people expected to see in the Best Actor (like Michael Stuhlbarg for A Serious Man or Hal Holbrook for That Evening Sun) were left off the list, replaced instead by a name no one saw coming: Adam Scott, for playing an erudite misanthrope in Lee Toland Krieger's The Vicious Kind. Don't worry, though -- as Scott told Movieline, he's just as surprised as you are.
After playing roles in The Aviator, Step Brothers, and Tell Me You Love Me, the 36-year-old actor's had a great run of late. In addition to The Vicious Kind (which debuts this Friday), he's got the lead on the much buzzed-about comedy Party Down, and he also happens to figure into a popular Funny or Die short that premiered just last week. Is Adam Scott having a moment? He told me all about it.
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Ryan Bingham describes his existence touring the country with his backing outfit the Dead Horses as that of "just another band with a van." But the handsome, 28-year-old country rocker from New Mexico is about to see his profile catapulted onto a much broader stage with the release of Crazy Heart, the Jeff Bridges film about a faded bluegrass legend that features his wistful song, "The Weary Kind," as its main theme. Director Scott Cooper also put Ryan, who had never acted before, in a small but pivotal role as a local musician forced to rouse Bridges' character Bad Blake from his alcoholic stupor in a motel room. We caught up with Ryan -- every bit the humble, good-humored and soft-spoken cowboy -- about the craft of songwriting, all the Oscar talk, and the significance of the bold tattoos on his hands and arms. (Trust us -- it's a story you'll not want to miss.)
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Adam Yauch's Tribeca-based baby, Oscilloscope Laboratories, has had what any small, independently financed distribution company should consider a banner year. Since we last checked in with them in April, they managed not only to survive in a pretty devastating climate, but to flourish, putting out a steady stream of eclectic, always interesting indie releases. Now, Oscilloscope is trying something interesting: The Circle of Trust is their answer to the Dessert of the Month club, its $150 membership fee getting you one moist and delicious DVD per month, before they hit stores.
"It's just kind of an experiment we thought we'd try to see if people were interested in it," Yauch told Movieline today from Hawaii, where he's vacationing. "Basically, if you sign up you get the next 10 DVDs we're putting out, a week before the street date. Once people have signed up, they can buy our back catalogue for half-price."
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As the seemingly sure-of-herself Natalie in Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, Anna Kendrick strides into George Clooney's office and walks out with the whole picture. You could call it a breakout role, except the 24-year-old has quietly amassed a resume full of them: from a Tony nomination at age 12, to a bravura role in the Sundance hit Rocket Science, to a small part in a very big franchise, Twilight.
Kendrick's Up in the Air character makes her living by firing people, but in Movieline's extensive interview with her, I thought I'd explore the flipside. Over the next few pages, Kendrick takes you on an exploration of how she won every pivotal part in her career, and what each role meant to her as an actress. It's the story of one of Hollywood's brightest new talents.
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Adored, reviled, emulated and microanalyzed, Michael Haneke is everything an auteur should be. The Munich-born, Viennese-raised filmmaker won his first Palme d'Or with this year's The White Ribbon (opening in the U.S., finally, on Dec. 30). Something of a departure for the man preoccupied with the intersection of technology and senseless violence in movies like Benny's Video, Caché and both sadistic versions of his Funny Games, Ribbon sheds the director's favored, blueish palette for monochromatic black-and-white, and dials the clocks back to 1913, where a series of bizarre mishaps and cruel, gruesome pranks befall a German agrarian town. As the braided narratives draw to a close and the Great War begins, we've borne witness to numerous brutalities and acts of violence. But what surprises are the frequent, deftly staged moments that come in between -- displays of what some might consider sheer sentimentality: a child grappling with the concept of death; a boy pleading with his strict father to nurse an injured bird back to health; a school teacher asking for his beloved's hand in marriage. Has Haneke at last betrayed his soft side? Movieline met with the director on a recent visit to Los Angeles, where we spoke of the perils of authoritarianism, the label of "provocateur," and the ambiguity of art.
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Sam Rockwell began 2009 in Sundance's best one-man show, and he'll end it this week in one of Hollywood's higher-octane holiday ensembles. Everybody's Fine features Rockwell as the son of Frank Poole (Robert De Niro), a retired widower who hits the road to visit his grown children scattered throughout the United States. Among them are his married ad-exec daughter in Chicago (Kate Beckinsale), his youngest girl in Vegas (Drew Barrymore), and his musician son (Rockwell) in Denver. By bus, train and plane, Frank reconnects with his kids in a series of surprise visits that brings every last family secret -- some more dire than others -- around for reckoning. (Director Kirk Jones adapted the story from Giuseppe Tornatore's 1990 film Stanno Tutti Bene.) Talking to Movieline recently in New York, Rockwell discussed his Deer Hunter powwow with De Niro, the do's and dont's of acting in a remake and the diminishing returns of text messaging.
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Terry Gilliam often likes to shoot his actors using a fisheye lens, but with new find Lily Cole, that embellishment is hardly needed. Cole's wide-set features and exotic beauty landed her high-profile modeling work on the pages of Vogue and the runways of Chanel and Versace, but Cole says her biggest career challenge was playing the ingenue Valentina opposite Heath Ledger and Christopher Plummer in Gilliam's upcoming fantasy The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Earlier this month, I spoke to the 21-year-old about her transition from model to actress, the tragedy of Ledger's death while filming, and the challenge of suddenly acting opposite the new actors (Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp, and Jude Law) called in to finish out Ledger's role.
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Though Miramax scuttled his next project, Liars (A to E), it's not hard to imagine Richard Linklater will bounce back -- the tricky part is picturing just what he'll do next. Over his career, the Austin-based filmmaker has thrown his audience a few laid-back curveballs, moving from low-budget films like Slacker and Dazed and Confused to studio comedies like School of Rock and Bad News Bears. Linklater's newest film is Me and Orson Welles, and it may be his most unlikely yet: a period comedy starring Zac Efron, Claire Danes, and new find Christian McKay as Welles.
Still, despite Efron's star wattage, Linklater admits that getting the film into theaters was no easy task. In an interview Movieline conducted with the director last week, he opened up about those difficulties and talked extensively about an even more challenging project: the secretive drama he's been filming every year for the last eight years.
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Think of the look of any Johnny Depp character from the Tim Burton universe -- from Edward Scissorhands' bondage buckles to Ed Wood's angora sweaters to the breeches and waistcoasts of Sleepy Hollow's Ichabod Crane -- and Colleen Atwood was the woman who envisioned and executed it. One of the most sought-after and gifted costume designers working in Hollywood today, Atwood has been nominated for an astounding eight Academy Awards, of which she's won two -- for Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha. Just reading about her 2009 slate is enough to render you exhausted: good thing she had Depp's measurements seared into her memory when work began on Michael Mann's Public Enemies (which comes out on Blu-ray and DVD Dec. 8th); then there was the business of putting all those other Oscar winners into revealing outfits for Nine; and let's not forget Mr. Burton, who called upon Colleen to reconceive the look of every character -- some real, some entirely virtual -- for his much-anticipated, 3-D take on Alice in Wonderland. We talked to Colleen about changing the chameleon Depp's colors, what surprises are in store for Alice, and her thoughts on Tim Gunn and his standby dismissal, "Too costumey."
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In Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Alan Arkin's plays Herb, a retiring Lothario who woos a beautiful wild child (played at two ages by Blake Lively and Robin Wright), then stands idly by as she becomes domesticized (and anesthetized) in an attempt to please him. It's the juiciest part he's had in quite a while, and as Arkin freely admits, he didn't want it. The 75-year-old is as prolific as he's ever been since winning the Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine, but he's also choosy, and he's got a very particular set of criteria for picking roles that Miller had to adapt to in order to win him over.
In a wry interview with Movieline, Arkin expanded on that criteria and also provided unexpected, helpful tips for bloodstain removal. Who says his range has to be saved for the screen?
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"The key to Christian McKay," says Richard Linklater, "is that he is that four-year-old who was told he was a genius." Perhaps that's how McKay (who studied to be a world-class pianist before making the switch into acting) was able to embody Orson Welles so fully in Linklater's upcoming Me and Orson Welles, and perhaps it's also why McKay is eager to return the favor by doling out similar compliments to virtually everyone he meets. On a recent day in Los Angeles spent promoting the film, McKay was so determined to flatter everyone who crossed his path (to a CBS reporter who preceded me, he exclaimed, "I must call my parents to tell them I spoke to CBS News! You have made my day!") that he left most reporters swooning.
In between blandishments, I talked to the breakout actor about his vocal technique, the line in the film he concedes is badly-acted, and the unexpected perks of playing one of history's greatest filmmakers.
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