Get Low's Felix Bush is one of those once-in-a-lifetime roles that all actors crave. Except for Robert Duvall, perhaps -- a true legend of the craft for whom "once in a lifetime" might as well be synonymous with "all in a day's work."
In the sense that Kevin Kline's legendary range avails viewers to a succession of diverse, unusual roles, The Extra Man is pretty much a typical Kevin Kline film. Surprising, poignant and funny, the adaptation of Jonathan Ames's novel features the Oscar-winner as Henry Harrison, a downmarket Upper East Side dandy whose key to securing affluence is to offer himself as a date to older, wealthy society women. Enter Louis Ives (Paul Dano) a would-be Fitzgerald whom Henry takes into his apartment and under his wing -- with reliably unpredictable and uncouth consequences.
Zac Efron is at the next stage of his career, and he knows it. Though he's ceded his teen dream status to Taylor Lautner, the 22-year-old Efron is nothing if not savvy about picking his next wave of projects: Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles proved that Efron could go indie for a respected director, while the new romantic drama Charlie St. Cloud courts the female audience who's grown up with him, yet gives Efron his first meaty, adult role. Where will he go from here? As he told Movieline, that's the question at the forefront of his mind.
Last time Chris Hemsworth talked to Movieline, it was the week before his second audition for Kenneth Branagh's Thor, and one of his main rivals for the part was his younger brother Liam. Chris went on to clinch the role, though Liam recovered nicely (you may know him from The Last Song or his high-profile romance with costar Miley Cyrus). Last night, I had the opportunity to ask Chris how that all played out within the Hemsworth family.
Michel Gondry is an eccentric choice to direct a superhero movie like the Seth Rogen starrer The Green Hornet, but perhaps the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind helmer can use his left-field sensibility to mine something new in a very crowded genre. In a chat this afternoon with Movieline at Comic-Con, Gondry sounded off on working with Rogen (and his frequent collaborator, Charlie Kaufman), Nicolas Cage's brief flirtation with the film, and why Hornet's post-production conversion to 3D is no gimmick.
Karl Urban isn't just a featured actor in fanboy classics like Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, but a fanboy himself -- in fact, when I chatted with him just now about his Con movies Priest and Red, he got enthusiastically sidetracked for a minute to rave about The Expendables ("I feel like I'm promoting someone else's movie!"). Still, there was nothing he was more psyched to talk about than Judge Dredd, the comic book reboot he's negotiating to topline, and he spilled the beans on some of the film's brand-new details to Movieline.
Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. Today we hear from Valerie Plame Wilson about the new documentary Countdown to Zero, which features the famed ex-CIA operative as a key subject and opens Friday in limited release.
A few months shy of his 40th birthday, Nicolas Winding Refn has already directed a trilogy (the Pusher series), a biopic of England's most violent criminal (Bronson), and has flirted with Hollywood projects featuring A-listers including Harrison Ford and Keanu Reeves. He is preparing to shoot the mainstream thriller Drive with Ryan Gosling, and he famously wants to make a megabudget adaptation of Wonder Woman. So with all this going for him, what is it about his gritty, nasty, surreal new Viking film Valhalla Rising that makes it the prolific Refn's personal favorite?
Liz Phair has spent 17 years in the recording industry as a saint and a "sellout," a cavalier grandmaster of articulation whose monotone delivery and Stones-y dispassion on Exile in Guyville, her breakout 1993 album, inspired countless confessional female singer-songwriters. Now, after being declared a pop misfit with her self-titled album in 2003, Phair returns to her fringe roots with Funstyle, a record she released online herself July 3. In it, she discusses her new gig, one that's already garnered her an ASCAP award: television composer.
Now that RuPaul's Drag Race has injected charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent into the lagging art of reality competition shows, Logo will debut Drag Race's first spinoff series tonight, RuPaul's Drag U, where queens from the original series return to assist everyday women upgrade to more confident, arguably fabulous versions of themselves. And who better to talk to about "fabulous" than season two's second runner-up JuJubee and season one's runner-up Nina Flowers?
He's only appeared in two episodes so far, but as the werewolf Alcide, Joe Manganiello has made quite an impression on True Blood this season -- and it isn't just because at 6'5", he towers over costar Anna Paquin. As he told Movieline last week, sometimes even that positively dashing height can be a drawback.
In The Kids are All Right, lesbian moms Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) and their teenage children (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) have to withstand a lot upheaval when the kids' feckless sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo) comes back into their lives. For director Lisa Cholodenko, making the movie was just as complicated.
Hot in Cleveland's Wendie Malick knows the art of the sitcom forwards and backwards, but that doesn't mean she overlooks the inspirational perks of working with a bunch of TV veterans. We grill her about playing washed-up actress Victoria Chase, remembering Just Shoot Me, and what she's learned from Betty White.
Characters matter as much as the slickly maneuvered capers and gorgeous Manhattan townhouses in USA's White Collar, which returns tonight for its second season. In the comedy-drama, Tim DeKay stars as brilliant FBI agent Peter Burke, who's responsible for convincing Matthew Bomer's con man character Neal Caffrey to continually use his forging knowledge for good, not evil. Throughout the process, the cop and criminal inevitably learn a lot about themselves, and as DeKay told Movieline last week, he's learned plenty from his cable experience, too -- including a new eye for interior decoration.
DeKay rang us up to discuss the pleasures of guest star work (including his character "Bizarro Jerry" on Seinfeld), his role on the sexually charged Tell Me You Love Me, and the one intimate scene he'd love to share with Matthew Bomer.
Like Pink's Hot Dogs, Pauly Shore is a Los Angeles institution that can attract long lines (Encino Man, Son in Law and Jury Duty), has been accused of questionable taste (Bio-Dome, Junket Whore) and never claims to be good for anyone's health. Two decades after he debuted on MTV as a spacey VJ, the actor and comedian -- whose legendary family founded and continues to run the Comedy Store -- is reinventing himself with Adopted, a mockumentary about adopting an African child, while also working on a new MTV project and a film about a "slut vigilante."
Last week, while waiting for a call from Quentin Tarantino, Shore phoned Movieline to discuss his latest film, his "Bill Murray Strategy" and the Weez's newfound maturity.
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