That Stephan Elliott -- the Australian filmmaker who became an overnight sensation back in the mid-'90s with Priscilla, Queen of the Desert -- was able to talk to us at all is something of a miracle. After a couple post-Priscilla flops, Elliott dropped out of the game, and pursued his other passion, skiing. That led to a horrific accident that saw him tumbling off the ledge of a cliff in the French Alps. As he was air-lifted to the nearest hospital, hemorrhaging internally and the nearest life-saving transfusion simply too far away, a doctor told him to make his peace: He had ten minutes to live. He woke up five days later in a hospital.
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On a warm, sunny afternoon at the legendary Hotel du Cap, about 30 minutes outside Cannes, Willem Dafoe sat down to discuss Antchrist, the press, Lars von Trier, and why he didn't notice much acting in his latest film.
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Jessalyn Gilsig's first big break came in 1999, with a guest-starring role on The Practice. So impressed was creator David E. Kelley with the Canadian actress with the large, expressive eyes, he created a part specifically for her on high school drama Boston Public. Later came roles on some of television's most passionately followed series: shows like NYPD Blue, Prison Break, Friday Night Lights, and Heroes.
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It's time for another edition of The One-Page Screenplay, the feature in which Movieline approaches top Hollywood screenwriters and asks them to produce something that could conceivably be made for under $30 million. We're thrilled to have John Turman with us this week. He's the writer of such superhero blockbusters as Hulk and Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer; for us, though, he's created something a little different. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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Ever seen a striking new actor and wondered, "Who's that?" Now you'll know before you even have to ask. Welcome to The Verge, Movieline's weekly interview with up-and-comers on the verge of a serious career boost.
Is Shoshana Bush the next Anna Faris? The Wayans family sure hopes so -- after launching Faris to stardom with their Scary Movie series, the clan has plucked Bush to topline their newest spoof, Dance Flick (opening this Friday). I asked the California native to weigh in on her role, her debt to Faris, and the constantly growing Wayans family tree.
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It's entirely conceivable that you could enter a multiplex today and have a Clifton Collins Jr. marathon. Start things off on a sweet and low-key note with his role as Amy Adams' one-armed love interest in Sunshine Cleaning, kick them up a notch with his turn as a psychopathic gangster in Crank 2: High Voltage, and then end it with a galactic bang, watching him kick some Starfleet ass as Romulan heavy Ayel in the blockbuster Star Trek reboot. The versatile and hotly in-demand actor has lots more coming up -- including a ballsplosive turn in Mike Judge's Extract -- but he managed to carve out some time from his schedule to tell Movieline about how he never lets it get to his head.
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Prolific as The Girlfriend Experience director Steven Soderbergh might be, he'll probably never catch up with the resume of his film's 21-year-old star, Sasha Grey. Sure, Grey sort of cheated -- but 80+ movies is her advantage as one of the world's most in-demand porn actresses. And anyway, none of those carry the weight of Girlfriend, Grey's mainstream breakthrough coming to theaters next week.
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Ever seen a striking new actor and wondered, "Who's that?" Now you'll know before you even have to ask. Welcome to The Verge, Movieline's weekly interview with up-and-comers on the verge of a serious career boost.
As Liam on the rebooted 90210, 26-year-old Matt Lanter gives the series the bad boy it's long needed (and fulfills the franchise quota of late-twenties actors playing high schoolers -- bonus!). Tapping into that dark side isn't foreign to Lanter; he first gained notice when his football star assaulted Hayden Panettiere on Heroes, and he voices the ultimate fallen hero, Anakin Skywalker, on the Cartoon Network's Star Wars: The Clone Wars. "A lot of times, the stereotypical asshole jock looks like me," the self-effacing actor explained to Movieline as we grilled him on his dark roles (though we couldn't resist asking about his very first credit: Bravo's 2004 male model contest Manhunt).
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In the most recent segment of his 30-year acting career, Bruce Greenwood has played two U.S. presidents, Truman Capote's lover, and has squared off with no less a force than Will Smith. But the segment starting Friday may yet be the one that comes to define him: J.J. Abrams's Star Trek reboot features Greenwood as Capt. Christopher Pike, the man who plucks young James T. Kirk from his bar-brawling Iowa inertia on the way to intergalactic glory. Not to mention a massive Hollywood franchise with its own sprawling subculture. No pressure, right?
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As mentioned here before, the Movieline house was a popular place at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Among our many visitors with movies on the way, Alfonso and Carlos Cuaron were perhaps the only filmmaking brothers we hosted. Their collaboration (and Carlos's directorial debut) Rudo y Cursi opens this weekend; in a pair of exclusive video interviews after the jump, they talk about the inspiration, ambition and influences for the sibling soccer fable.
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You know Jared Harris. A gifted and highly malleable character actor who always adds something special to whatever he's in, the second-born of Richard Harris's three sons has appeared in over sixty film and TV projects. You've seen him get lost inside everything from Happiness's Slavic, cab-driving troubadour to the title role in I Shot Andy Warhol -- soup can for soup can, still the best depiction of the legend ever committed to film, as far as I'm concerned.
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In the comic melodrama Rudo y Cursi, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna (reunited onscreen for the first time since Y tu mamá también) play the titular soccer hero brothers -- and yes, Y tu mamá fans, that familial link means they don't get it on. The brotherly love in Rudo is much more competitive, a terrain that's familiar to longtime friends Bernal and Luna, not to mention Rudo director Carlos Cuaron (brother of Y tu mamá director Alfonso Cuaron). Over the course of a breezy interview with Movieline, both actors displayed a spirited sparring that was still very much in character, with Cuaron stepping in when necessary to play unconventional referee.
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By the time Cheryl Hines returned to the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, the worst of the jitters were behind her. But for a while there, the Curb Your Enthusiasm star and first-time filmmaker confessed, she couldn't be too sure. "I thought I was going to pass out," Hines told Movieline on her way back to the fest, where less than a week before, her feature directorial debut Serious Moonlight premiered to a warm, sold-out reception.
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Ever seen a striking new actor and wondered, "Who's that?" Now you'll know before you even have to ask. Welcome to The Verge, Movieline's weekly interview with up-and-comers on the verge of a serious career boost.
In the new Star Trek reboot, Chris Pine's James T. Kirk struggles to live up to the legacy his father has set at Starfleet -- and so, too, does the prologue involving that dead dad establish the whiz-bang tone the whole movie must follow. Australian actor Chris Hemsworth plays the elder Kirk, and as he tells Movieline, he understands the long shadow that family can cast. But what happens when he's competing with one of his brothers for a role in the newest Hollywood blockbuster?
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Duncan Jones's feature directorial debut Moon passed muster at Sundance '09 and received high marks as the inaugural film to face Movieline's Two-Minute Verdict. But when David Bowie showed up to last night's packed Tribeca premiere, one could hear the distinct thud of a gauntlet thrown down on the red carpet. After all, what would Ziggy Stardust make of this young director's vision of space, isolation and lunar dwelling? It was anyone's guess, though Jones appeared to hold a trump card: He's Bowie's son.
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