It's fairly standard policy for a publicist to request that the questions stay on topic to whatever is being promoted. In this case, with Craig Ferguson -- best known, of course, as the host of the Late Late Show on CBS -- this pretty much opens up every aspect of his life since his new Epix stand-up special, Does This Need To Be Said?, addresses subjects as diverse as his battle with alcoholism to David Letterman's sex scandal. Indeed, Ferguson admits, casual viewers might be shocked what the "nice man on TV" has to say when he's unfiltered.
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It is an exciting time for Alex Pettyfer. Based on the box office performance of his first big budget film, I Am Number Four -- which premieres tomorrow -- the 20-year-old English model-turned-thesp could join Robert Pattinson in the ranks of hunky, tortured heartthrobs. Like Pattinson's Twilight character, Pettyfer plays a sensitive-yet-inhuman high school student at once trying to fit in, overcome supernatural obstacles, and win the heart of his mortal crush (played by Pettyfer's real-life-girlfriend Dianna Agron). And with the sci-fi thriller's all-star pedigree -- D.J. Caruso directed while Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay produced -- I Am Number Four is indeed poised to carry the handsome Pettyfer from verge to vampire-level popularity.
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Anne Heche is happy. Or relatively happy. At least that's how she seems upon first meeting her -- a brimming, enthusiastic counterpoint to her well-documented less happy times that you know will come up at some point in your conversation. Indeed, talking about past choices and decisions, she refers to herself as an "unguided soul" and expresses hope that she's matured over the years. And while it's impossible, over the short time we had discussing the intricacies of her new comedy Cedar Rapids, to make any grand conclusions of maturity, there's definitely an energy level surrounding Heche that would be hard to simulate for a woman who wasn't totally at ease with who she is -- and who she was.
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Just eighteen months ago, you'd be hard pressed to pick Dianna Agron out of a line-up of beautiful blond actresses. But now, after the Georgia-born beauty achieved widespread recognition for playing former head Cheerio Quinn Fabray on Fox's hit series Glee, the actress is celebrating her first leading role in a feature film. In D.J. Caruso's I Am Number Four, a teen science fiction film premiering this Friday, Agron plays the shutterbug love interest of a super-powered alien trapped in the body of a hunky high school student (played by Agron's real-life love interest Alex Pettyfer). Although Agron is again playing the graceful, soft-spoken object of someone's affection, I Am Number Four -- which was produced by Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg -- contains explosions, violence and a serious lack of song and dance. Sorry, Gleeks.
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Who knows more about sex, dating, breaking up, and making bad decisions in the name of love than A-listers like Drew Barrymore, Johnny Depp and Charlie Sheen? This Valentine's Day take a trip into the Movieline Vault -- home of over 20 years of revealing, to-the-point celebrity interviews -- for lessons on first dates, inadvisable hook-ups, and more, straight from the mouths of Hollywood's brightest stars. Well, circa 1990.
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The startling beauty of Joel and Ethan Coen's Oscar-nominated True Grit -- and in most Coen brothers films, for that matter -- owes to frequent collaborator and award-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins, who's lensed all but one of their films since 1991's Barton Fink. But as much as the nostalgic Western serves as a throwback to simpler times, simpler heroes (and heroines), and a yearning to stick to one's principles in the face of obsolescence, True Grit could also mark a wistful point in Deakins career -- his last film shot on film.
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Having proved his facility bringing pop entertainment to a young, plugged-in audience with successes both theatrical (Step Up 2 & 3) and digital (The LXD), 31-year-old director Jon M. Chu was in many ways the perfect choice to helm a biopic of YouTube sensation-turned-pop phenom Justin Bieber. The resulting film, Never Say Never, is a generation-defining concert doc filled with rare peeks into the life of the 16-year-old performer. It's also got slo-mo hair tosses and shirtless scenes. Bieber Nation, prepare thyself.
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Channing Tatum may be the brawny face of this week's Roman period adventure The Eagle, but British actor Jamie Bell is its scrappy, spirited conscience. As Esca, a Scottish slave guiding Tatum's Roman centurion through hostile territory on a mission of honor, Bell flirts with an ominous ambiguity that easily makes him the most watchable performer on the screen. And when you're sharing said screen with Donald Sutherland, Mark Strong, and Channing Tatum's abs, that's really saying something.
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Ed Helms is noticeably more anxious than the last time we spoke. In 2009, Helms was promoting his supporting role in a little film The Hangover -- a film which you'll recall went on to become the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all-time. Back then, Helms was just a co-star; now he's both the lead and executive producer on Cedar Rapids, a Sundance favorite about a mild-mannered insurance man from Wisconsin who heads to Cedar Rapids and has more than a few life-changing experiences. As the saying goes, "What happens in Cedar Rapids, stays in Cedar Rapids."
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Emily Blunt is used to playing thorny characters who eventually endear audiences with fragility. Her newest role -- that of the lovestruck Juliet in the Shakespeare-twisting animated tale Gnomeo and Juliet -- is the opposite: an easygoing gal whose determination shines as the movie progresses. Yes, she's a computer-animated garden gnome in a movie about feuding garden gnome families (with an Elton John soundtrack), but she still bears the Capulet stubbornness that builds one scene at a time.
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Whatever you think you know about 90210 star Shenae Grimes probably doesn't tell the whole story. The 21-year-old actress -- who rose to fame in Canada as star of Degrassi: The Next Generation before being cast on The CW teen drama -- is more concerned with finding something that stimulates her intelligence than just the next paycheck role. That means she'll cameo in Scream 4, but balance that bit of mainstream pop with the indie film Sugar, about homeless kids in Los Angeles. That is, if she's not planning to direct her next short film or coming up with documentary ideas.
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It's rare that an Internet star and self-described theater junkie can be called "debonair," but 23-year-old Glee heartthrob Darren Criss fits the bill. The San Francisco native catapulted to offline fame with a suave rendition of Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" during Glee's "Never Been Kissed" episode, and two months later, he shares an EW cover with co-star Chris Colfer. Just shy of Glee's big post-Super Bowl episode this Sunday, we caught up with Criss to discuss his character Blaine, ambitions, and the movie scene he loves most.
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Best known for his character work on Deadwood and in the indie charmer Me and You and Everyone We Know, John Hawkes earned raves for his quietly menacing performance as the volatile, meth-addicted Teardrop in Debra Granik's Winter's Bone. In addition to nabbing Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay, the Ozarks noir notched an Oscar nod for Hawkes -- his first -- who will vie for Best Supporting Actor against the likes of Christian Bale, Geoffrey Rush, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner.
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In Mark Pellington's divisive Sundance entry I Melt With You, Jeremy Piven plays a hard-partying Ari Gold-type reuniting for one crazy weekend with three college besties (Thomas Jane, Christian McKay, and Rob Lowe). But Pellington's psychological thriller is much darker than its Hangover-esque premise suggests, and as it takes the turns that alienated many critics in Park City, Piven plumbs intensely complex emotional depths. He spoke with Movieline about the polarizing film, his anti-Ari Gold roots, and -- why not? -- Miley Cyrus.
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Of all the memorable elements of Lee Tamahori's unflinching drama The Devil's Double -- which roused Sundance with its portrait of brutal, debauched Uday Hussein and the Iraqi lieutenant enlisted to serve as his near-identical security detail -- few stirred more interest than Dominic Cooper's revelatory dual performance as both Hussein and title character Latif Yahia. While Movieline's Jen Yamato offered a bruising breakdown in a review last week, Elvis Mitchell sat down with Cooper to discuss playing multiple characters, laughing at lunacy and what happens to an actor when sympathy is not an option.
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