All hail Juliette Lewis -- Hollywood's most inscrutably eccentric Queen of Cool, inside of whom pounds the beating heart of a born rock-and-roller. Whether suiting up to play Iron Maven, the reigning badass of the Whip It roller derby, or fronting her own rock outfit, which she started just six years ago and is now touring with the likes of Cat Power and The Pretenders, Lewis will knock the wind right out of you. We caught up with her at a hotel in West Hollywood shortly before Whip It's L.A. premiere, where she riffed on her music, her movies, and getting inside the mind of the Maven.
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A movie mashup like Zombieland could only be made by a man with credits as eclectic as the film's many influences, and it found its perfect helmer in first-time feature director Ruben Fleischer. The 34-year-old cut his teeth on low-budget music videos before moving onto bigger artists like M.I.A. and Dizzee Rascal, then found success directing commercials, producing the MTV series Rob & Big, and helming episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Now, after a quick shoot and post-production schedule, Fleischer's found himself shepherding one of the most anticipated films of the fall into release tomorrow.
The day after he turned in his final cut, I traveled to Fleischer's office on the Sony lot to get the scoop on Woody Harrelson's casting, the Jonah Hill film he'd first tried to direct, and the perils of luring actresses to a movie called Zombieland.
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Justin Long, the affable star of Jeepers Creepers, Drag Me to Hell, and He's Just Not That Into You, breezed down the carpet at this week's premiere of Whip It, but he stopped to speak with Movieline about his favorite scene in film history. Plus, he had the obsessive impersonation skills to back up his choice. His beacon of '80s goodness is revealed after the jump.
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If you had any doubts that ABC is positioning FlashForward as the next Lost, the introduction of Dominic Monaghan as a regular cast member in tonight's episode should indicate that the network isn't playing around. Still, as Monaghan told Movieline, his FlashForward character is as different as could be from Lost's Charlie -- and that was completely by design.
Don't worry, though: Over the course of a wide-ranging interview, Monaghan did talk Lost (addressing both his character's death and the rumors he'll be returning this season) and even touched on the impending shoot of The Hobbit, revealing the one big regret he has for accepting the role of Merry in Lord of the Rings.
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Since bursting onto the indie scene in 2002's Rodger Dodger, Jesse Eisenberg has cornered the market on vulnerable adolescent males. He's boldly navigated the treacherous terrains of divorce in The Squid and the Whale, campus bullydom in The Education of Charlie Banks, and teen midway love in Adventureland. But his most formidable foe was yet to come: In the audience-pleasing Zombieland, Eisenberg battles an army of the undead alongside Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin and Emma Stone. We met Eisenberg recently, before it was announced that he'd landed the coveted role of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher's The Social Network. As you'll see from our candid interview, no one could have been more shocked about his good fortune than Eisenberg himself.
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At a "special L.A. screening" of Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It last night, well-costumed, actual derby girls raced on skates back and forth across the black carpet. Posters of Ellen Page strapped into a green helmet cluttered the press line. Beneath the crush of lights, the occasion seemed fit to reflect on the best, most ferocious female protagonists in cinematic history -- with none other than the man who has most imbued leading ladies with near-mythic, gladiatorial power, Quentin Tarantino.
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It's hard to recall a recent studio comedy that David Koechner didn't pop up in. From Extract to The 40 Year Old Virgin to Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgandy, the character actor has made a career out of scene-stealing cameos aided by his drooped lip delivery and his ability to usurp laughs from his co-stars, including former Saturday Night Live co-star Will Ferrell.
Although Koechner has over 50 guest-star credits on popular television shows, the Second City veteran will mark his first role as a sitcom regular with tonight's premiere of Hank on ABC. Movieline shared some appetizers with Koechner this summer at the Television Critics Association festival, where he talked frankly to us about Kelsey Grammer, life as a working actor, and the possibility of an Anchorman sequel.
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"Annie smiles too much!" "She's too much of a goody-goody!" "She always has the least interesting storylines!" When 90210 premiered last year to enormous expectations, actress Shenae Grimes saw her lead character come in for a whole lot of criticism, but there was one thing her detractors didn't know: Secretly, Grimes agreed with them.
In a candid, exclusive interview with Movieline, the 19-year-old Toronto native detailed her frustration with last season's storylines and praised new showrunner Rebecca Sinclair for taking Annie down a dark path at the same time as the show itself gets a necessary infusion of California sunshine. Whether we were talking about screen time, the firing of Dustin Milligan, or the rap ascent of her former Degrassi costar Aubrey Graham, the rejuvenated Grimes had plenty to say.
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In the early '90s, Johnny Galecki began his sitcom career on the Chuck Lorre-produced Roseanne as the intelligent, super-sensitive boyfriend of Darlene Conner, played by Sara Gilbert. Over a decade later, Galecki stars on the Chuck Lorre-created Big Bang Theory as an intelligent, socially unaware Caltech physicist, where once more he occasionally finds himself onscreen with Sara Gilbert. It could be luck, divine intervention or Chuck Lorre's loyalty that brought Galecki back into the fold of America's favorite sitcoms, but the Belgian-born actor credits his fans entirely.
Movieline shared a drink with Galecki a while back at the Television Critics Association event for CBS, where he discussed Big Bang's incredible viewer support, the learning curve of a TV physicist and why he still hasn't visited Caltech.
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A night of excessive drinking can lead to hangovers or worse for most people, but for actress Ari Graynor, it's brought nothing but a wealth of career opportunities. After playing the ultimate drunk girl in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Graynor's been booking gigs left and right, including a role as the blond bombshell Eva Destruction in Drew Barrymore's Whip It and a multi-episode arc on Fox's Fringe. Graynor's fall season was originally supposed to get even more crowded with the release of the Michael Cera comedy Youth in Revolt (where she plays the young, bikini-clad girlfriend of Steve Buscemi), but that film's since been bumped to 2010, a year Graynor already has four other films set to bow in.
Finding time to talk to the busy 26-year-old wasn't easy, but Graynor managed to squeeze in some time between shoots to dish with Movieline about tormenting Ellen Page, making out with Steve Buscemi, and attaching herself to the most outlandish plots Hollywood has to offer.
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While MGM's Fame reboot isn't exactly sending the critics, it does have its supporters (The A.V. Club says it "respects the original" and is a "raw, uplifting love letter to creativity in every possible form," and the NY Times says, "[While it] suffers from a surfeit of flash, it nonetheless offers the undeniable power of young performers pursuing art at peak dexterity."). We talked with its first-time feature director, Kevin Tancharoen -- a choreographer and music video director who staged Britney Spears's Onyx Hotel Tour and the video for "Me Against the Music," her duet with Madonna -- about his inspirations in reviving the 1980 musical relic, and our increasingly fame-obsessed and talent-show-oriented culture.
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Now that ABC's picked up a new sitcom from them, what better time to check in with (500) Days of Summer screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber? Since the film's release, (500) Days of Summer gone on to be one of the year's biggest indie hits, and though there's been plenty of praise for the script's unique jumps in chronology, there's also been criticism that love interest Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is little more than a cipher. Movieline wanted to get Neustadter and Weber's take on that argument, as well as discuss the film's unlikeliest lost scene, their writing credit on The Pink Panther 2, and the British newspaper that opened a whole new can of worms for the real Summer.
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The hype surrounding Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is staggering considering it doesn't see national release until November. Mo'nique, who plays the abusive mother of a tortured teenager, is already being singled out for an Oscar nomination following stellar reception at Sundance and Toronto, and the film itself seems destined for a bouquet of noms. Star Paula Patton thinks both Mo'nique and Precious will see academy recognition, and, as she told Movieline, her comparatively glamorous character Ms. Rain was cut no slack from director Lee Daniels.
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Jessica Capshaw's newly regularized role on Grey's Anatomy comes at just the right time: Seattle Grace Hospital is enduring huge loss and tumult, setting the stage for her character Dr. Arizona Robbins's to get quickly caught up in the show's torrid web. Movieline caught up with Capshaw to discuss her character's arc on this season, premiering tonight on ABC, and working opposite the ferocious Sara Ramirez.
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While popcult junkies may say her legacy is defined by abduction theories and well-publicized relationships of varied success, Anne Heche is also -- and this deserves emphasis -- hilarious. The 40-year-old actress has graduated from bookending the world's most famous lesbian couple (at the time) to being an eminently watchable loose cannon and television star. Since the demise of her series Men in Trees in May 2008, she and boyfriend James Tupper, who co-starred on Trees with her, have won roles on two different series: HBO's Hung for Heche, and NBC's Mercy for Tupper. Movieline caught up with Heche to discuss their newly separated careers and whether she regrets calling her ex Coley Lafoon "a lazy ass" during that very special sit-down with Letterman.
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