You might not look at Kali Hawk's performance as the childish Trudy in Couples Retreat and think, "Michelle Obama," but according to the up-and-comer, that's exactly what the minds behind Saturday Night Live saw in her when they offered her a test deal. She turned down that opportunity but has picked up several since; in addition to playing Faizon Love's girlfriend in this weekend's number-one movie, she also landed a small role in the upcoming, Judd Apatow-produced movie Get Him to the Greek.
A free-spirited improviser on screen, Hawk is just as energetic and candid in real life, and when she called me from the backseat of a New York taxicab, she was willing to dish on just about anything, be it SNL, the actresses she beat for her Couples role, or the time she hurled insult after insult at Mariah Carey.
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It's about as unlikely a Hollywood discover story as you'll hear: One second, you're a tousled, twentysomething singer-songwriter paying your dues in Nashville; the next, you're hand-selected by Drew Barrymore from a pool of hundreds to play Ellen Page's love interest in her first new film since Juno. If you're Landon Pigg, it could -- and did -- happen to you. No stranger to the ups and downs of making a career in show business, we caught up with Pigg in L.A. shortly before Whip It's opening weekend, as he readied himself to get back in a van and head out on a very no-frills cross-country tour.
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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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If you're a struggling actor, you might not be pleased with the luck Asher Book has had, and he knows it. At age six, he auditioned almost as a lark for Broadway's Beauty and the Beast and landed the role, and when he debated whether to bring a life of performing to a close in college, he was plucked from his studies to lead the boy band VFactory. It's at that point that Book decided to cut back on his acting auditions to focus on music; naturally, he got his first feature film lead in Fame within the year.
It may all sound a little too easy, and as Book told Movieline, it was -- until now.
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Amid the roar of hype, gossip and Michael Bay takedowns surrounding Jennifer's Body, listen for the sound of a star being born. Or maybe not "born"; Johnny Simmons is 22, after all, and has already played the son of Steve Carell (Evan Almighty) and Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan (The Greatest) in the four years since he moved to Hollywood from his hometown of Dallas. But those and his other major parts in Hotel for Dogs and The Spirit didn't quite prepare him for the spotlight that is Jennifer's Body. He co-stars as Chip Dove, the boyfriend of Needy Lesnicky (Amanda Seyfried) and putative prey of Needy's demon-possessed BFF Jennifer Check (Megan Fox).
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In Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself, Taraji P. Hinson's character isn't by herself for long. After some prodding from Madea, she takes in her sister's troubled children, including Jennifer, played by newcomer Hope Olaide Wilson. Wilson's own story could teach a Perry heroine a thing or two about overcoming adversity: She grew up between England and Nigeria and sold eggs to help her family stay afloat until a green card lottery gave them all the opportunity to move to the United States. Compounding the culture shock was Wilson's graduation from high school at age 15 and subsequent decision to move to California to pursue acting, but as she told Movieline last week, neither of those events seem as scary as watching herself perform on a 40-foot-high movie screen.
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Logan Lerman may be the next Daniel Radcliffe, but unlike his predecessor, he won't have come out of nowhere. Lerman is the lead in February's fantasy adventure Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (directed by Chris Columbus, who helmed the first two Harry Potter films), but he first gained notice five years ago as one of the titular brothers in the WB drama Jack & Bobby. Now, Lerman's got two different films hitting theaters: My One and Only, where he plays a young George Hamilton opposite Renée Zellweger, and Gamer, an action movie from Crank masterminds Neveldine/Taylor.
Movieline talked to the 17-year-old up-and-comer about The Goonies, the idea of casting Uma Thurman as Percy Jackson's hideous villain, and his plans for weathering potential Potter-like fame.
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Audiences who caught Inglourious Basterds this weekend must surely be curious about the velvet-voiced British actor who steals the film's midsection from Brad Pitt. Turns out he's not a Brit at all -- he's Irish actor Michael Fassbender, and Hollywood's got big plans for him. After first gaining notice for his harrowing work in last year's Hunger (which he lost 40 pounds for), Fassbender's gone on to land meaty parts in Jonah Hex and Joel Schumacher's Town Creek, and he was shortlisted for superhero stardom as one of the contenders for the title role in The Green Lantern.
Movieline talked to the 32-year-old up-and-comer about purple dildos, his superhero competition, and the Basterds role he really wanted.
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The new Alexis Bledel comedy Post Grad explores that tricky period when a young person is on the precipice of major change, and it couldn't be a more timely subject matter for Bledel's costar, Zach Gilford. He'll soon be heading to Austin to shoot his final season of Friday Night Lights, after which he hopes to graduate to a big-screen career. Post Grad's release this Friday represents the opening salvo of Gilford's senior year, but he'll also be seen in the upcoming Dare, where he plays a confused jock pulled into the sexual orbit of a drama student (Emmy Rossum) and her male best friend (Ashley Springer).
Movieline talked to the 27-year-old about his upcoming projects, the novel experience of shooting Post-Grad during the writer's strike, and his burning to desire to substitute teach.
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In Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Daniel Brühl plays a Nazi war hero who's become a huge German movie star, and while the role of an S.S. soldier might be foreign to Brühl (in fact, he objected to and then declined the obligatory military service asked of every German adult), playing a movie star surely isn't. In reality, Brühl is one of Europe's hottest actors, a position he cemented with his leading role in 2003's wondrous Good Bye Lenin! Since then, Brühl's become a fixture in both German and Spanish cinema, and though he's acted in English language films (including a small role in The Bourne Ultimatum), the romantic Nazi he plays in Basterds is likely to augur his American coming-out party.
I talked to the 31-year-old actor about his eccentric Basterds audition, the reaction to the film in Germany, and his upcoming reunion with Lenin director Wolfgang Becker.
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After impressing in 2007's Bridge to Terabithia, Josh Hutcherson has navigated his teen years with aplomb. He can currently be seen in the ensemble drama Fragments (formerly Winged Creatures) opposite Dakota Fanning and Forest Whitaker, and he'll star in Paul Weitz's The Vampire's Assistant in October, but he's got two big roles ready for 2010: playing son to Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids are All Right, and fighting off the Chinese in the remake of Red Dawn. We talked to the sixteen-year-old Hutcherson about cool names, the notorious Oakwood apartments, and his old co-star Kristen Stewart.
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Though his character on Friday Night Lights made it out of high school a while back, Scott Porter's still got a little ways to go. In a few weeks, he'll be seen as a complicated underclassman opposite Vanessa Hudgens and Aly Michalka in Bandslam, but next year, he'll play closer to his age as Channing Tatum's foil in Lasse Hallström's romantic drama Dear John. On the verge of a milestone birthday, I spoke to the up-and-coming actor about age, Austin, and auditioning against his old castmates.
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There's a certain art to playing the best friend in a romantic comedy, and Bree Turner has inhabited enough of them to prompt comparisons to the master, Judy Greer. "That's a huge compliment," Turner says. "I love Judy." Now, as she prepares for her highest-profile second banana yet -- Katherine Heigl's BFF in The Ugly Truth -- we talked to Turner about being an onscreen bestie and the wild screen credits that led her there.
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There are all sorts of entrées into Hollywood stardom (be they model, waiter, or producer's nephew), but Robert Hoffman went his own way: He moved to LA to pursue work as a dancer. Slowly but surely, his physical talents landed him lead roles in She's the Man and Step Up 2, and viral videos he conceived in his spare time (like Urban Ninja and the irresistibly bizarre YES Dance) earned him a sketch comedy show in development at MTV. We talked with the actor last week about his eclectic resume and his role in the upcoming Aliens in the Attic, but first, he had to overcome a minor tragedy.
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For audiences who've already slept off The Hangover, might we suggest Humpday? The indie comedy has a premise that sounds like it could have fueled a high-concept Adam Sandler movie -- two straight guys let their friendly one-upmanship escalate to the point where they find themselves locked into a dare to have sex with each other on film -- but it's deftly explored without any of the usual gay panic jokes that stud other summer non-romcoms.
Credit the film's two leading men, Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard, for navigating the heavily improvised film over that hump. Duplass is no stranger to no-budget indies -- as a director, he and his brother have helmed mumblecore classics like The Puffy Chair -- and Leonard's acting career was launched by one of the biggest improv sensations ever, The Blair Witch Project. Movieline took both guys out for ice cream to talk about how this little comedy could put them under a big summer spotlight.
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