ScreenCrave.com » Interviews

Interview: Kristen Bell Relates To Her Character In Big Miracle

Laura Aguirre — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:18:59 +0000

Kristen Bell can relate to her character in the new Ken Kwapis film Big Miracle. In this true tale about ‘Operation Breakthrough,’ in which three gray whales were trapped and then freed from the ice in Alaska, Bell plays a young journalist in search of the story that will make her career. Bell, who rose to fame when she starred on the hit TV show “Veronica Mars,” knows competition. Sure, she’s starred in a bunch of movies, and was even able to get on another show with Don Cheadle (“House of Lies”), but she’s aware that there’s always someone out waiting to take her job. We recently spoke to the actress, and she shared all sort of things. Did you know her dad was a newscaster? She told us that’s the reason she speaks in soundbites. See what else Kristen Bell had to say about working on Big Miracle below.

What was it that originally drew you to the script?

Kristen Bell: Initially, the fact that it was about animals. I thought, in simple terms, “Oh, I like animals.” Then upon reading it, the complexity of the story, it seemed almost unbelievable to me. I was like, “Oh really, a hundred and eighty journalists from different countries flew in and two million dollars was spent on this, really, and people got married who met talking about the whales? Give me a break Kwapis.” And he said that the most outrageous portions of the movie are the truth. I just felt like it was as story that needed to be told. The inspiration factor behind it was the most important thing to me. There’s so few times in history when everybody wakes up at the same time or everybody works together. We are so into having enemies as humans. We are so interested in the us and them of it all that it’s phenomenally rare to have everybody check their baggage at the door and work together and it is so powerful, I think.

Did you study different newscasters to really get your character right?

Kristen: A little bit. My dad is a news director so I had kind of grown up with it. I tend to speak in sound bites, because I’m trained by him. The reality of it is I did hang out at his news station a lot and I was excited because I knew the local celebrities who were the anchors and I played around with the teleprompter. When journalists would submit their tapes and he had to hire a new producer or on-camera person, I would watch them with him and I would be able to say “It makes me uncomfortable that the weatherman is in a sweater. Number one, he is too comfortable, I want a professional delivering my news. Number two; it makes me feel like it’s going to be cold and it’s not good news.” I felt like my dad was really open to my feedback in creating a good station.

He’s essentially a casting director?

Kristen: Exactly. And an editor because he picks the stories that make it on the air. I had a fair amount behind-the-curtain information. There’s so much news coverage on this story that I was able to watch a lot and how it traveled and it blows my mind that in the 80s when there were no journalistic entities all over the internet, there was your local news. That was it. And then there was the nightly news that was international. Everyone in the world was covering this one story. It doesn’t even happen now and there’s so much more news out there. That was fascinating and there was a lot for me to research for the piece.

You really owned the ‘80s look.

Kristen: I tried. Thank you very much. That was also exciting because I grew up in the ‘80s but that wasn’t like my prime. My prime was definitely like 95-96, I’m sure you’ve heard. I had older sisters and I definitely looked up to the way my mom dressed. There’s something about the first time I realized, “Oh look at these beautiful, stylish women in my life.” It was around that this story happened so in playing this character, it was really fun working with the costume designer to create all these amazing shoulder pads and cool pastels. Her hair obviously had to be big, so we did hot rollers every day, which was really fun, and then teased the crap out of it and I wore press-on nails because everyone had long pink fingernails in the ‘80s.

Did you talk to your dad at all about this film?

Kristen: I didn’t. I’m so embarrassed. Can you believe I didn’t? What I should have done and what I regret not doing is sitting him down and asking him specifics about what he remembered about this story. I’m very regretful that I didn’t do that. I think I was overwhelmed with the amount of information out there and the amount of tape, so I felt like I had a good handle on it. I can understand the competition. I know what Jill wanted and there were plenty of reporters for me to draw upon that covered the story. But, no, I didn’t sit him down and get his perspective, which could have been very useful for me. Sorry, dad.

Do you think partially because there weren’t as many outlets and varieties of news sources that it was able to draw such a big focus? It would almost be impossible now because there’s always something else to draw the attention away.

Kristen: Yeah, I think that too much stimulus can make you feel crazy. Nowadays, it’s harder to tell what is important because there is so much news on the table. In a way that is really good because we all feel a little bit more connected. The interesting thing about this piece for me was not only did everyone in the world seem to connect with the emotion behind this story and wanting to save the whales, but everyone also came on board and decided to drop all their differences and collectively work for a common goal, which almost never happens. There are very brief times in history where you can pinpoint that happening, where the entire world blinks at the same time. The degree of differences of people involved in this, it’s a polarizing issue between the cultures because you have the Americans going to Inupiat land saying, “We love whales, save them,” and you have the Inupiat’s going, “We’ve lived here for thousands of years, and how do you think we feed our children.” From an anthropological point of view, it’s not really appropriate, as much as you like whales to tell another culture that they shouldn’t do what they have been doing for thousands of years. For them to have abandoned what they do, and join the use was a hard decision which I think was portrayed accurately in the movie, and respectfully. Truth be told, they were the fundamental reason that the whales survived. Our bodies, from the lower 48, are not built to be in that cold for a severe 24-hours at a time. The Inupiat’s could handle it. There were so many things that interested me about this story.

Do you have any memory of the story?

Kristen: I have a brief memory of knowing that it happened but nothing that I could really draw upon so it seemed all completely new to me.

Many of the characters in this film are based on real people but your character is really a representation of the many journalists who covered the story. Is that more freeing in the sense that you’re not playing a real person, you’re just playing a character?

Kristen: It’s better and it’s worse at the same time. You don’t have anyone specific to draw on so you’re not sure that you are doing it right. But at the same time, I can certainly identify with the idea of competition. My existence is in a business where there is always someone better than you right around the corner. The idea of that competition and that hunger and that aggressive dedication I could identify with because I have wanted jobs so badly. I feel that Jill Gerard was just a mish-mash of all these journalists that thought that this was the story that would make or break them and that they had to do a great job. Her storyline is interesting because she loses herself a little bit, or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe you see what her two priorities are. She’s a little bit more selfish. She’s not really in it for the whales.

She has a moment there where she contemplates giving it up and going into teaching. Have you ever had a moment where the competition was too high and you thought about doing something else?

Kristen: Yeah like legitimately every five minutes. It’s something I’ve learned to deal with over the last couple of years. I find my sanity because I evaluate my self-esteem based on the integrity of my actions versus the jobs I get. There was a huge portion of my life where whatever job I was getting was who I was. Whatever job I had was my entire existence. It was my validity. It was whether I was legitimate or not, and whether I actually even existed. I think that since I’ve grown up I’ve realized that I’m a human being that likes acting a lot, but I love being a human being. So it’s a really delicate balance to stay sane and not think that that one job that you might attain could make or break your life.

What was it like filming in Alaska? And it’s a very male dominated cast with the exception of you and Drew, what was that like?

Kristen: Truth be told, the boys are pretty much sissies on this film and Drew and I are way stronger so that is how it breaks down. No, this cast got along really well because everyone is kind of a goofball. Ken Kwapis is like the most genuine sort of goofy guy ever, but he’s so sincere and his heart was so into this picture. It was mandatory for him that we have animatronic, really life-like whales so that we weren’t acting with a tennis ball, and so that the whole group was looking at the same thing. And so that between action and cut, we were able to feel something for this animal. No one in the cast or crew had friends or family in Alaska that I knew of, and no one could really travel because there were icy winds all the time, so we visited a lot of pizza joints. We saw a lot of movies; we played a lot of poker in each other’s rooms.

Who was the best poker player?

Kristen: Ted’s a pretty good poker player. Krasinski is a pretty good poker player. I can’t remember who won the most though. I don’t even think we were playing for real money. We were just playing for respect.

Would you say the strategy of the animatronic whales worked?

Kristen: For me, yeah. I’m kind of an idiot but when I was looking at those whales. I’ve been whale watching a few times and been in Capetown where the Southern White Whales come from. It’s extraordinary. You look into their eyes and you just feel something magical. I hate to say it but I kind of felt the same thing when I was looking at these animals. It was sad, visually how small the hole was for them to come up and when you see the three of them surface together, just the story that the picture told, kind of devastated you. I did connect to these animatronic toys, and they’d yell,”Cut!” and you’d see the New Zealander who built it with dip in his mouth, doing the joystick. It wasn’t real. I feel like it worked. And it was really important to Ken, which I think was lucky for all of us because it made our job a lot easier.

Do you consider yourself a nature lover, an outdoors person to begin with?

Kristen: A wood nymph? Yes! Yes, I do like being outdoors a lot. I hike a lot, and I’m a huge animal lover. So Alaska was a really wonderful location for me because we really got a chance on the weekends to explore its majesty and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s kind of hard to articulate, because it is so untouched. Like, we hiked to the top of Mt Alyeska, I mean there was a tram involved. It wasn’t like we hiked for two days. You are actually above the clouds and you are able to take pictures when you are on this peak and you are looking 200 feet down and there are the clouds. It’s extraordinary.

You have a few scenes with John. I was wondering how it was like to work with him?

Kristen: One of the best we’ve got is an easy way to describe it. I was friends with John before we started this movie, so it was great going in knowing that I would be comfortable and not have to get to know someone new. John’s a really giving actor. He’s very present, and he’s eager to work on the scenes. John loves what he does and he’s not over it by any stretch of the imagination. He’s also a really good writer and he thinks on his feet well so it’s a very fun aspect to have in a partner when you are struggling with something. His ego is not involved at all. He really is a story teller by nature. It was awesome. I loved working with John.

What was it like for you watching the movie as an audience member?

Kristen: I think it was everything I hoped it would be. I don’t know enough to read a script and go, I know how Ken is going to shoot this. I’m not that cocky, I don’t have the education as a filmmaker. It was more magical than I thought. We shot in Alaska but the area where we shot was right under water and at times, in the early fall when there wasn’t the snow that we needed, we would manufacture it and some of the elements were manufactured by man. We weren’t out in the complete arctic, but then when you saw it, I didn’t smell at all. It looked completely legitimate. Some of the most touching scenes that I wasn’t present for were the scenes between Malik and the whales. It’s was beautiful. It was like a snippet from a frontline that they are doing on the Inupiat culture or something. It helped that everyone involved was interested in telling the most accurate story possible.

Q: Is it safe to say that you would go back to Alaska again?

Kristen: I would yeah, I really would. I didn’t get to see the Northern Lights or go up to Fairbanks when I was there and a lot of the cast did. I drove down to Seward and saw the aquarium where they rescue or rehabilitate otters, seals, or damaged wildlife. I would definitely go back to Alaska. There is a harmony up there that is non-existent in LA.

That’s out interview with Kristen Bell. Big Miracle hits theaters Friday.

What did you think?

Interview: Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski Save The Whales

Laura Aguirre — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:24:18 +0000

John Krasinski and Drew Barrymore are two of the most charming people in Hollywood, and to top it off, they star in a new film about whales. Who doesn’t love whales? In Ken Kwapis‘ Big Miracle, Krasinski plays Adam Carlson, a small town news reporter, and Barrymore plays Rachel Kramer, an outspoken Animal lover based on real life Greenpeace advocate Cindy Lowry. In the film, Adam and Rachel work together to help a family of gray whales trapped underneath the Alaskan ice.

Recently, we got the chance to talk to the two stars about this based on real events movie. John Krasinski told us that he was skeptical at first about the film’s authenticity, only to be reassured that the most outrageous things in the film had actually happened. He also let us in on a new project he’s been working on with director Gus van Sant. And Drew Barrymore, well, she had nothing but nice things to say about her co-star and director. Check out the complete interview.

Were you guys aware of the story the film is based on before the script came together? Was it news to you or do you remember hearing it?

John Krasinski: I remember hearing about it. I remember definitely knowing something about it, probably was too young to be at all involved in it and wasn’t necessarily the most current events guy at age whatever-I-was…uh nine, I guess? Ten? But no, I mean, when you read the script I remember I read the script and I thought it was really great, I thought it was really sweet. My concern was that it was like – I said to Ken [Kwapis], “Yeah, it’s really good, but we have to cut back a little bit of this stuff. Some of this stuff is a little unbelievable.” And he’s like, “Nah, it’s all true.” And I was like, “Alright, Ken. I don’t know how long you’ve been in Hollywood, but none of this is real.” And he was like, “No, these people got married and…

What part seemed the most unbelievable to you?

JK: I think that the press secretary and the national guard pilot falling in love and getting married after being so adversarial on the phone was insane. That was insane! And then when you see the picture at the end of the movie it’s so moving. I think it’s just a great, great movie, especially at this point in time to believe in the power of unity and getting together for a cause or really for anything, especially with social media. I think this is the time where not only can you have a voice, but your voice can be the catalyst for something massive.

Both of you have had previous experience working with Ken Kwapis, but this movie is obviously very different from anything you’ve done previously. From your perspective, how did his approach change for this project?

JK: He was, in a good way, very stressed, and I say in a good way because I think he understood the difference in the level he was trying to achieve in this movie versus the movie that I did with him and the movie you [Drew] did with him and certainly The Office. That’s a little more low-rent than this movie. So I think he wanted to make it really, really fantastic and I think he knew immediately that the visual spectacle would be an essential part of the movie. I think, he’s very aware that he, at this point, wasn’t necessarily known as the visual spectacle guy and he knew he could do it and he wanted to do it right. And I remember his shot selection and his preparation and going over the script, he was so dedicated and it was amazing to see him do it because the movie I had done and especially on The Office, he’s so performance-based, and he still was on this movie, but to see him be able to be performance-based and do these incredible crane shots, I was just so incredibly proud of him.

Ted Danson was saying that while you were shooting Shell was trying to drill, did you get at all involved with that? He went…

JK: Yeah, I remember that night when he went. He was nervous. He said, “Those guys are real.”

Drew Barrymore: I think it was great for him because he was playing J.W. who is this oil man, but no, that was really his cause.

The way he explained it was that night it almost seemed like your character, Drew, in the beginning of the movie. There’s like a correlation between the two.

DB: I just think that sort of seeing this story and living in it, you just appreciate that everybody kind of put their agendas aside for a second to work on the same thing and sort of peeling away the layers of maybe… I liked when I got to say to his character in the film, “You’re not as hard to hate as I thought.” I always just liked that moment and thought what it would actually be like if you were stuck and got to know the people that you thought you were so different from or really had fundamentally different morals and beliefs. And yeah, I think galvanizing or trying to fight for something that you believe in is always inspiring. So I’m glad it inspired him. He’s the best.

Did you work with or speak with people at Greenpeace at all?

DB: I did! I met with the head of Greenpeace and spent some time with him. They’re actually coming in DC to the screening. And I went and studied whales up in Seattle with Paul Watson, who did Whale Wars. And then I spent a lot of time with Cindy Lowry, who is the woman that I play in the film. And she’s just rad and a total badass and super cool and fun. We actually connected, which is the way you hope it will be, but maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But we were like two peas in a pod, it was great.

The two of you share a great scene when you, John, are recording her in the studio, and you’re like, “Stop being so formal and rigid.” Can you talk about filming that scene?

DB: I think it’s also making it very personal rather than just soapbox-y, which I think this film is, I hope it achieves or is as good at in that way. It’s amazing how it touches on so many things that could be different today if they were different back then, but it doesn’t do it in a preachy, in your face kind of way. So I think the more you do speak from the heart, rather than thumping the agenda, I just think that’s what people listen or relate or open themselves up to more. That’s one of the things I really loved about that scene.

JK: Yeah, and I think that you did such a great job in that scene too, because I think that agenda-based movements in any sort of way, though incredibly powerful and worthy, I think that sometimes you get lost in the white noise of people’s anger and being super adamant on one side or the other and what fails to happen is that you actually aren’t disseminating the information that you want to get across to these people, which is whether it be any sort of major issue, what you fail to do is tell them the basics and the details of how long these whales need to live and how this is scary and all that very human, emotional stuff that will connect with people rather than having them at home feeling like, “Oh, this is too big an issue, I can’t get involved, I don’t know how to get involved, there’s no way to get involved, someone else will take care of this…” And when you bring it to a small level and sort of make it easy to access, which you did, I think it’s the most powerful part of the movie.

Your character, John, stands in for the regular person because everybody still does have a lot of agendas going on throughout the movie, but you’re the kind of person that’s allowed to be…

JK: I get stepped on early on in the movie [laughs]. No, no I totally agree as far as the media thing. His whole thing is that he wanted the glamour of being in the national news spotlight and as soon as people came they sort of pushed him aside so he had to become, really, an assistant to get his voice back with these people. I also love the idea that, I’ve always loved those movies where somebody thinks they want something and then they realize that the thing they really want is right in front of them, and that glamorous life of what it is to be a news man or be in the lower 48 or in New York or whatever it is, I love that he discovers the real truth of life, which is as long as you’re doing what you love and you’re around people that you love you’re doing something right. So I think that was sort of the undertone of my character was kind of keeping that thing in check versus all of the other people who had a specific political agenda.

What did each of you appreciate about working with the other?

JK: I really appreciated – and she’s going to say “No” and blush and all that stuff – but I really appreciated how professional she was. I don’t think anybody really fully understands what it’s like to be at the level that she’s at and the amount of responsibility that it is, and I think that I’m one of the people that feels really, really lucky to be there, but I’ve only been doing it for a certain amount of time, she’s been doing it for longer and achieving so much more than any of us could even hope to do and to stay so incredibly positive and so incredibly normal. You’d be surprised how much the sway of the day really wants to go to the negative, whether it’s too cold or lunch wasn’t good or whatever it is, there’s always a reason to be grumpy, and the entire crew will go with whatever the vibe is. And they all look to one person and usually it’s the biggest head-honcho on set and that was usually her and she was always so positive and it set the tone for the whole rest of the shoot.

DB: Thank you, thank you. I was so excited because Ken told me that maybe this could happen, there was a schedule conflict with The Office, which was a little bit terrifying, it may or may not happen. He called me in the San Francisco airport and I started running up and down the halls I was so happy and so excited, because I really…

JK: She was like, “Steve Carell’s going to be in our movie!?” [laughs]

DB: I do love him, but I was so excited about you! I was! And I was like, “Oh good, I just think that Adam and Rachel…” I just hoped that they would be just these certain kinds of people while he was struggling with where he wanted to his life to and she was doing the things that she wanted to do, I just wanted them to be good people and exude a good energy. And so I was so excited about doing this with John because I love his acting and I just think that he’s a good person, and you believe in that. And it’s true. So I was like, “Oh please, this is ideal. This is how this film would be, that this story could get told.”

JK: I just have to get over that kicking puppies habit and I’d be…

DB: Oh no! [laughs] We both had our dogs up there too, and our dogs love each other, it’s so cute.

Drew, John mentioned your positivity on set, can you talk about not getting jaded with this whole Hollywood system?

JK: Yeah, how do you not do that? I’m already jaded [laughs].

DB: I mean, it’s just a choice, I suppose. I don’t know. I think that if you feel lucky all the time and you don’t take things for granted – and I’ve also experienced in life that it really can all go away, so that was a really wonderful thing to experience, because then you really do appreciate what you have and so I’ve experienced a bit of both, which is really such a blessing and it always confirms to you that you really are lucky to have what you have and you have to work to keep it going, but you really need to appreciate it as much as work for it. The two work hand in hand. So I feel really lucky, I genuinely do. It’s no B.S.

Did you bond with the young actor, Ahmaogak Sweeney, as well?

JK: He’s so good though, isn’t he? He’s so good. Mal is definitely one of the coolest kids. If they ever did like an MTV or something on him they would be like, “Oh my god, this is like the coolest kid ever.” He’s like this handsome, cool, fun, really funny kid. He brought a couple of his friends from school and they were blown away, more blown away that he got to miss school for this [laughs]. But it was really, really fun and he’s so good and it’s one of those things that it’s frustrating to see how natural it was to him. He wasn’t sitting in his trailer really figuring out the scene. He was like, “Yeah, I get it,” and he just understood the whole thing, it was pretty amazing.

Did the Walkman freak him out? Was he like, this is a weird iPod?

JK: “What’s that, grandpa?” [laughs] It was pretty wild, that whole thing with batteries, and he played that so well! Especially a kid who I think had a Wii and an Xbox and all that stuff. And he was like, “Wow, a Walkman!” And I was like, “That’s pretty good acting, because these things are ancient.”

Did you have to explain the bands to him or did he know Guns ‘N Roses and all of them?

JK: He did know Guns ‘N Roses and he really liked Guns ‘N Roses. I think when we got into Def Leppard and stuff he was like, “All right there.” He was really fantastic and a great energy to have on set. He was always really excited to be there and, you know, those scenes where I am alone with him are really amazing. I feel like one of the great relationships in the movie is mine and his relationship only because it bonds the Iñupiat tribe with the outside world and to be the only guy that understands his grandfather when even he is like, “My grandfather doesn’t understand anything that’s going on.” It was just really nice to be the character that sort of pulled everybody together and sort of really fun because I got to work with everybody, which was fun. I got to be in a scene with everybody.

John, can you talk about the project that you were working on with Matt Damon and now Gus Van Sant is going to direct it.

JK: Absolutely, as far as my brain has been able to process it. It’s a pretty incredibly exciting thing. Yeah, I had this idea for a script and I worked on it with David Eggers, who came up with the story and actually came up with a first draft of a script with me, and I brought it to Matt who wanted to direct immediately. The script sort of fell apart because of an issue that was happening at the time, which wasn’t sort of going to be a strong enough issue later on. So we had to rewrite the script and he’s been an incredible friend and collaborator on the whole thing, and then, just before Christmas, he realized that it’s very similar to doing three or four movies over five years and then having them all come out in the same year. Everyone believes that you shot them all last year, and it’s the same thing with booking movies. I would assume that I’ve never been that in demand, but with Matt Damon it’s like a lot of things that he had agreed to all of a sudden everybody was calling him and saying, “The only time we can do it is here and the only time we can do this…” and all of a sudden he looked at his schedule and there was just no way to do everything. And he’s a very, very talented guy and incredibly smart guy, and he didn’t want his first opportunity to direct, he takes it very seriously, and he didn’t want to be hindered in any way, shape or form, and so it really was purely scheduling. He’s doing Liberace in June so he would have had to shoot our movie, go shoot another movie, and then go back and edit, and that’s just not the way you want to do your first movie. And so I was incredibly bummed, to say the least. It was a very hard night, he called me around 7:30 and I remember at 1:30 the next day he called again and said, “So, Gus Van Sant’s doing your movie?” And I flipped out. I think that Gus is one of the most talented directors there is or ever has been. He’s an incredible storyteller and for our movie in particular he’s going to be unbelievable. So I’m thrilled. I’m really, really thrilled and to be able to, you know, it’s my first script – my first original script, I adapted a screenplay, which is very, very different because that was all David Foster Wallace – but this is the first script, so to have this experience, I should just call it quits after this.

How soon will that go?

JK: It’s going to go in April.

DB: I’m so happy for you! It’s exciting.

John, would you be interested in directing again?

JK: Yeah, at some point. I had the best time, but I was also surrounded by the most amazing people. John Bailey, who actually shot this movie, shot my movie. He did a couple tiny movies like Ordinary People and he won the Oscar for As Good As It Gets. So when you have a great team around you to make you look really, really good, if I could ever assemble that group of people and harness that sort of courage that would be fantastic, but it’s a little like walking down a street with landmines and then at the end of it people are like, “You know there are landmines all down that,” and you’re like “What?!” And now that I’ve seen it I’ll be looking out for them and that’s a lot more difficult than just blindly running down the street thinking that it’s really, really…not easy in any way, but it was really, really fun. I had a blast directing…

You might have scared off Damon.

JK: Yeah, exactly. I told him it was the worst decision of his career. Ha, no. But I want this one [points to Drew] to direct really soon. Whip It was amazing.

DB: Thank you!

JK: I hope she does it again soon.

That’s out interview. Big Miracle opens Friday.

Will you be watching Big Miracle this weekend?

Interview: Director Roland Emmerich for Anonymous

Mali Elfman — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:30:57 +0000

The man behind the CGI curtain, reveals a new side to his filmmaking — director Roland Emmerich, known for his amazing special effects, is soon to be thought of for his heart and knowledge of Shakespeare. Anonymous, his up and coming film is a sexy way of giving people a possible history lesson, that somehow manages to also hold a great deal of meaning.

He took his time making this film, earning his stripes as a director over the past decades with numerous big budget hits. This is a risky film in a number of ways, one that I’m sure needed convincing, but something that Emmerich has quite obviously wanted to make for some time and believed in. He was right to take his time, because in doing so he was able to make this film in the right way, get the right script, with the right cast, be in a position to make bold calls and have people listen, and in the end, he was able to deliver the right message.

Roland Emmerich film in terms of look and scale, but with an extraordinary amount of heart, how do you start with all this?

Roland Emmerich: You start with a great script. We worked very hard on the script for 3-4 years and there were many, many tries and many, many revisions, until we came to this script. And then you try to find the best possible actors and I was very fortunate, that everyone was in agreement that it should be an all English cast. It was very nice to be very free with everything from casting who was best for these characters.

It certainly seems like you have a cast of all “first choices”!

RE: Yes, though it’s also about schedules. Most of these actors they work out of the theater, so you have to figure out how to manage all that.

Well Vanessa Redgrave is a legend and rightfully so, and both her and her younger counterpart Joely Richardson were just amazing. How did you work that parallel?

RE: They’re both amazing actors and that’s what counts in this kind fo story. Especially Vanessa, she has to be convinced of what she plays. She’s not only acting she has to understand and be able to breath what the script says which is quite challenging because this film is a very extreme view and she wanted to have an even more extreme point of view, she believed very much in it.

That must be such a joy to work with, and great actors can make anything real, even green screen!

RE: Yes, everyone asks me, “is it hard to shoot in front of green screen” and I always say “not at all” good actors make you forget that there is even a green screen there!

Where did the inspiration for the prologue come from?

RE: For the longest time it was not there. We would send out send the script out for people to read it, we always gave them 1-2 pages of facts about William Shakespeare of Stratford, and at one point this is not going to fly. It was important that people got this piece of paper because if they didn’t, they were always asking “What is true? What is not true? I didn’t even know that there was a problem!” I knew that we had to do something and I was editing in England, and I was walking in my house in Knightsbridge to Soho where our editing room was, and where the theater district also is, and I was walking past these theaters and then one day it suddenly hit me — open in the theater! Pretend this is all a theater play! It’s a very Shakespearen device to have a prologue, which he did for his plays, so it was a very appropriate device to have.

There are a number of theories behind Shakespeare’s plays, how did you settle on this theory?

RE: Well the script, which inspired me, but now, after about 10 years of reading about it all, I would say that Oxford is the most likely. He was a theater man himself, an actor, he was a collaborator, he was all these thing, and did many of the things Shakespeare must have done. And there are a lot of things in his life that just match the plays. But Stratfordians don’t want to see that, “why a noble man”? And I would say, wasn’t Shakespeare the biggest snob of them all? He wrote only about kings and queens, even his comedies mostly took place in a court setting. It’s not the point of view of a commoner. Walt Whitman said that, all of Shakespeare’s works are from the point of view of an Aristocrat.

This is definitely a sexy, history lesson for people to get at the theaters!

RE: Exactly! I just hope that the people have an open mind about these things because it gives you a different version of William Shakespeare and a different version of the way that his plays were performed and written. For me, the theme that “the pen is mightier than the sword” is for me, the most important message of all. I think in general for our day and time, people are battling with that. And all the politics, everyone always thinks that politicians are benign, they can’t be benign otherwise they wouldn’t be successful, it was important for politicians especially in that time to be working with every possible tool.

See Emmerich’s film, Anonymous in theaters starting October 28th!

Interview: Rowan Atkinson and Director Oliver Parker on Johnny English Reborn

Laura Aguirre — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 19:57:22 +0000

Rowan Atkinson has one of the best and most memorable faces out there. With a slight change of expression he can go from serious to goofy, from Mr. Bean to Johnny English. Eight years ago, Atkinson gave life to Johnny English, a spy parodying, as Atkinson would say, Roger Moore‘s James Bond. English director Oliver Parker, whose credits include An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest and Dorian Gray, took on the task of reinventing this outrageous character by adding a cast that he imagined would actually be cast in a Bond film. We got to talk to both Atkinson and Parker about Johnny English’s humor style, the film’s tone and more. Check it out.

What is it about your brand and style of humor that transcends different cultures?

Rowan Atkinson: [Mr. Bean] is a relatively easy sell on the international stage because he doesn’t say much. There’s very little verbal dimension to what he says and does. Johnny English is a little more complicated because he’s a bit more verbal but there’s still very strong visual elements to him. I think the tone of the comedy is very similar, it’s very simple, it’s very accessible. It’s not very sophisticated, occasionally it’s slightly sophisticated, but not very much. And it’s clean. It’s family comedy. Johnny English movies are that rare thing. It’s a family comedy which isn’t animated. In this day and age, there aren’t many of those. So much comedy in the last 5-8 years has been far more adult – American Pie, Hangover. We’re definitely not in that tradition.

Does Rowan’s comedy style mesh with your own idea of what’s funny?

Oliver Parker: Yes, he’s extremely rigorous mind, Rowan. He trained as an engineer at Oxford and was apparently a superstar at it. Really superior being in terms of the intellect. He could analyze anything, he was fascinated in the mechanics of anything, whether it’s a car or a joke. He really likes to break it all down. When I took the job, one of the things was the script and then meeting Rowan and seeing his absolute relentless pursuit of trying to raise the standard of every joke that he’s doing. It’s quite fascinating. In some ways, he’d been surfing a comedy wave for decades in the U.K., he’s been up there playing different characters, not many of them, but he keeps at them and keeps refining them. In some ways I think he’s honed a particular approach to it. There’s never really any improvisation for him. Occasionally I would try to sneak a few frames without him watching. He would do a lot of improv in the writing process because Hamish, Rowan and I would sit around an try to different things and start all over again. Sometimes it would just be him playing, things would come out and Hamish would jot it down, we did quite a lot of work there and that’s always fun.

I think one of his golden moments was “Blackadder” when he was working with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. I think that collegiate environment was something that completely suited him where people were bouncing ideas off one another. He really enjoyed that. I think he had a good time, as much as he allows himself to be a good time. He’s got a puritan ethic in terms of really focusing on the work. He has a great sense of responsibility to achieve what is his best. He has to carry so much of this stuff. People sometimes think, “Is he a humorless guy?” No, he’s not humorless at all. Take him out of that environment, he can be extremely witty and very dry, but when he’s working he’s pretty serious. There are times when you want to try different ways around it and I think you can get that once you nail the bit as he’s perceived it or imagined it. Then there’s a little room to play a bit more. Dominic West is an extremely free actor, very loose and open and spontaneous. It’s very exciting putting those two together. Rowan likes to nail it and Dominic would just be, “Throw it at me, and I’ll come up with something else.” That might not work, but they were really good and respectful towards each other.

Rowan, you’re funny in your movies even when you’re serious, what about in real life, are you funny?

RA: No, I’m not a naturally funny man. I find I can only be funny if I become somebody else, that’s what I need to do. I need to act a part and then I can be funny. I can reasonably funny, reasonably lighthearted when I’m in the company of good friends, but I’m not a Jokesmith. I tend to be quite serious.

When you’re playing Johnny English, do you get a sense of being that spy, being that guy?

RA: You’re bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It’s not something you often do in comedy because one’s characterizations or the situations that you’re presented with are fairly facile or silly or shallow or fun. If you’re a serious actor, it’s when you know you’re going to die tomorrow which is when you really start to feel it – You’re bound to feel the dilemma of the character that you play. If you don’t feel it then you’re probably not acting the part as well as you might. He’s an enjoyable character to play. He’s fun and rather human. He’s rather realistic, perhaps a more realistic and believable character, in many ways, than James Bond because James Bond is just Superman. It’s rather fun to play someone with more faults than foibles.

Can you talk about working with Daniel Kaluuya and developing that dynamic between your characters, and what was it about his humor as Tucker that was the perfect compliment to yours?

RA: It’s a very difficult role to play, the sidekick. It’s not an enviable role and yet it’s terribly important. The role of straight man, in many ways, is as difficult if not more difficult than the role of funny man because you’re dancing around a situation – Tucker has to make his relationship with Johnny English believable and yet he’s got to have a character of his own. He can’t just be a sap, a ‘yes’ man, he’s got to have a personality of his own, which Daniel has in spades. We auditioned 40 or 50, 20-something male actors, for the part, and he was the only who was absolutely right. He’s got a fantastic face. He himself is naturally very funny and very able, but also tremendously empathetic. My only regret is that we didn’t do more with him. I don’t think his character is well introduced. There were a couple of scenes at the beginning of Hong Kong that were cut for the usual reasons (the movie just felt too long), but the regret was that that meant that Daniel didn’t get off to the strongest start as he would’ve done if we would’ve had those scenes in. But by the end of the movie, he establishes himself extremely well and that was gratifying.

What was it like to work with Gillian Anderson? What did you think of her English accent? Was there ever any thought of hiring a U.K. actress to play her part?

RA: We didn’t think of her as not being English. I think maybe she was born in Britain and then moved to the U.S. I think that’s what she did. She has a very good English accent and she does a very good American accent as well. I thought it was funny when we went to Australia for the premiere, sometimes when she was talking to Australians or Americans, she was talking to them in an American accent and when she was talking to English people she was talking to them in an English accent. It was quite extraordinary how she tended to adapt. We all tend to do that is adapt to our way of speaking to those with whom we’re speaking. But it was great to have her. She was very good, very strong. One of the reasons why we wanted to cast her because she’s strong, but also a very attractive woman.

There was a scene, ironically from the movie, at the end when Johnny English first walks into her office at the beginning of the movie, and his old sidekick from the first movie (Buff) is in the room and he assumes that it’s his office and Gillian is his secretary, so he comes on to the secretary. And says, “Oh what are you doing for dinner tonight?” and not knowing that she’s actually the head of MI7. Then it’s all revealed. It was funny, but yet again we felt it was holding up the story so it was cut – but like Dominic West and Rosamund Pike her challenge, like any challenge of a serious, proper actor coming into a comedy movie is how much are they going to be lent on to provide the comedy. It’s sometimes very difficult. Are they suppose to be funny? Are they suppose to be obviously funny? Are their lines funny? Are they not funny? They look straight and serious as they read them and you have to convince them that even though it is a comedy, we hope it’s a truthful character story comedy… All you have to do is play the part straight and serious.

Also, you’ve got to fit in with the story. You can’t appear to be too detached from Johnny English. You can’t pretend he’s not there or pretend that he’s not doing what he’s doing. You’ve go to find your own reality. They all did it extremely well. One of our ambitious was to cast the movie as if we were casting a James Bond movie and I think all those people, including Rosamund who was cast in a James Bond movie, would do extremely well in James Bond movies. I always believe that the more serious and believable our British Secret Service world, the funnier Johnny English’s mistakes would appear in contrast to them.

How did the casting of the other characters contribute to the tone of the film?

OP: When I read the script I saw that Hamish was trying to do something perhaps a little more ambitious [than the first one]. Trying to create an authenticity to the environment which would put genuine pressure on the character and hopefully allow small varieties to the responses so that we root for him at certain moments. We want him to do well rather than slip on the banana skin occasionally to duck it and then run into the wall. You give a little more surprise. It seemed more and more important really that we had to construct a world where we believed this secret service worked. Gillian Anderson who isn’t actually a Brit but we’ve adopted her and Rosamund Pike had been a Bond girl herself, but all these characters, in particular Dominic West playing Agent Ambrose, you feel like he could’ve have a shot at Bond at a certain point. All of these characters create a world where in some sense there is genuine pressure exerted on the main character. I think with that there’s more chance for us to feel for him, as well. Hamish had a phrase, “Make sure we’re not nibbling on the comedy cake.” It’s quite hard to act with Rowan unless you’re secure in your performance because you’re thinking, “This is a comedy film, am I meant to be funny here, what do I do?” In fact, the discipline I was trying to place on it was that no, you don’t have to be funny. Comedy comes into the response to what he’s doing and how you have to move on despite what’s going on in the corner of the room with the cat going out the window or whatever it might be. It felt like the only one who had a little room for that was Tucker because he seems to breathe the same air as Johnny. On the whole, the intention was to keep this as credible environment as possible.

Can you tell us about the process of casting old Chinese woman?

OP: She lives in Shropshire, England, a very pleasant county. We looked in different directions for that character. There was a time when I thought there was quite a lot of physicality so do we have a physical actress who has done a lot of physical comedy or circus. How much do we give her to do? We met various people, but when I came across her, I liked the slightly exotic feel married to the sweet old lady that she was. I think this was the last question I asked her because you’re talking to a lovely older woman and how you’re going to take this on, the acting was good, but I thought she’s got to throw herself around so just as she was leaving I said, “Quick jump on my back!” And I turned away and she ran after me and jumped on my back. I thought, “Okay, she’s up for it.” That nailed it really.

Rowan, which Bond character is your favorite and do you take anything from them?

RA: My favorite Bonds are Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, but the character from which I think Johnny English takes more is probably Roger Moore. There’s something about Roger Moore’s Bond which is that slightly smarmier, more eye-brow raising, just more smug character that I think is more Roger Moore. I always felt that first Johnny English movie was a bit like the Roger Moore James Bond movie with more jokes. What interesting, what’s happened in the last eight years since the first Johnny English movie, the spy genre has moved on a bit. Jason Bourne movies have come and established a different style. We were going to do something a little more Jason Bourne at one stage and then we decided not to. Jason Bourne is a different character, more of an American character, less of a British character. Also a lot of the distinguishing features of Jason Bourne is the editing and the shooting style which is very energized, very dramatic. I never thought that that would suit comedy. Comedy, I think, needs oxygen, needs space and time. A wider shooting style and less cutting… We had all sorts of ideas of parodying Jason Bourne but we kind of abandoned them. Jason Bourne has also moved Bond into a more serious realm. The new James Bond movies are more serious in tone, which I think was a good decision for them, but what it’s also quite good for us because it’s left the arena of more lighthearted espionage to us. We can have more fun because so few other people are being funny or even witty with the spy genre.

When did you finally decide that you were going to make Johnny English more based on Bond than Bourne?

OP: I’m not sure we ever really decided, let’s just go for Bond. We just went for Johnny English. Bond was always there. I think it’s in our grain really, but the Bond reference was a little more contemporary in style, some of the action sequences have a little bit more of that green grass feel. His character is much more connected to the classic English spy.

Was there a lot of improvisation?

RA: Unless Oliver Parker remembers it differently, [there was] very little improvisation on the floor of the studio actually. There was improvisation in the writing meetings. Most of the writing took place with myself and the writer and Oliver Parker, and the three of us threw around ideas, deciding on the funniest bits and trying to put them into a story. Sometime you started with the story and tried to find some funny bits to go with the story. On the studio floor, not much improvisation – The only thing I feel sorry for Oliver for, and he was fantastically patient and brilliant as a director, in my opinion because he was so tolerant of me and my peccadilloes, the wost once being is that [I'm] never happy with what I do. Whenever I did anything I wanted another take. I wasn’t sure whether it was good enough. It’s very difficult for a director who can see when something working well and the actor just says, “No.” He was very patient with that particular challenge.

Which gag exceeded your expectations?

OP: The chair scene certainly does. We spent a lot of time trying to get the plot right. Nobody listens to the bloody plot at all when we get to that scene. You know it’s a good idea you just don’t know if it’s going to pay off, not until you’re actually shooting it do you get a sense of that. Rowan was quite surprised on the day we had this lovely moment where you’re asking if you’ve got it. The first take of it on a relatively wide three-shot. Rowan was working with absolute typical dedication to the moment and we worked very hard in getting the layout, this chair had to be drilled into the ground. At the end of the take, the other actors hadn’t scene any of it, just burst into hysterics. Rowan was quite taken back, he had no idea. He was saying, “Was that funny then?” He was so involved in keeping it absolutely authentic to the moment, which is what his real approach is, you have to buy that the pressure is on the character. He’s always conscious of comedy, he’s not conscious of the comedy in the room, that was a huge bonus. It surprised Rowan too. There were several. I think beating up granny was always fun. There was a moment of electricity when we set about that scene and suddenly, although Rowan does most of his own stunts, there’s a particular jump that the stuntman does, and it launched the room into a kind of chaos, “Can he do that to granny?” We didn’t say cut once or twice just to see how far they would take us. That added an exhilaration to it. There is an element of magic in the shooting which does take it further off the page than you imagine.

What’s the risk of cracking up?

RA: Not me, I don’t have any trouble at all, sadly, which is why whenever they are trying to produce a bloopers reel for movies that I’m involved with they have a lot of difficulty because I never really laugh at anything on set. I’m like that I’m afraid. But there are some, they scraped together a few lighthearted moments for the bloopers stuff which will be on the DVD. Others do. Sometimes I couldn’t understand what they were laughing at and then I saw that they were laughing at what we were doing, at what I was doing. But yes, not much of that for me.

OP: I found [Rowan] fascinating to work with. You can’t help but admire that inexhaustible energy in turning over every stone in pursuit of another little joke or one other little nuance. It really is astonishing. More dedication that any other actor that I’ve ever worked with, in that respect… He would keep going at the same thing, wanting to try another few takes and sometimes we’re all thinking we’ve got this. Sometimes he would go, “Okay, let’s move on,” but other times he would come up with something which none of us could see or sense. It’s snuffling for truffles occasionally. It’s lovely when it happens. It’s undoubtedly hard work because that level of rigor is taxing on a lot of people. It’s very rewarding though.

Johnny English Reborn opens in theaters October 21.

Interview: Harry Connick Jr. on Dolphin Tale and Being a Working Actor

Mali Elfman — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:21:35 +0000

It’s never a bad day when you get to sit down with Harry Connick Jr., there is quite possibly not a more humble, sweet and charming actor to interview. We had the privilege of being able to pick Mr. Connick’s brain on his upcoming release Dolphin Tale and a number of other topics such as his up and coming role on Broadway and his greatest fears. Connick comes off like an open book, ready to talk about everything from the joy of working on a film with a happy ending to the hard times in his career when he was searching for answers in the never-ending struggle as an artist…

When did you fall in love with Winter?

Harry Connick Jr.: When I found out she was real. I read the script and I thought it was great. It looked like a project I really wanted to do and it was relatively far into the process that I realized it was a true story. At least her part was true. I just couldn’t get over that, I just couldn’t believe it. And then I came down here and I met her and I just found that so fascinating. I thought it was so cool because with human amputees, for the most part, if they are a certain age, they have – there’s some kind of interaction, I think it’s some kind of therapy – psychotherapy that they could go through to help deal, interaction with other people. With Winter this is what we’re going to do to you and if you live that’s great and if not, we really tried. The fact that she survived that and she was so young and to see how she interacts with people is really incredible to see.

Do you think she could more easily bond with humans at this point?

HCJ: I think so, in a way, only because she’s been so socialized with humans, but on the other hand I’m a loud person, I’m a physical person and we couldn’t do any of that around her. We had to ask permission before we went into the pool, we had to ask permission before we excited the pool. When we were around her we had to speak like this. In some ways she was very sensitive to us in a way that we had to change out behavior, but when you were in the pool with her you really got the sense that she was human-like in some ways. That sounds crazy, right? But it’s true, it really is true.

Sounds like she taught you a few things?

HCJ: Well she taught me how to be quite, which my wife was thrilled about.

You said you had to ask permission, how did you do that?

HCJ: Oh, we would go to the staff.

It sounded like you had to ask her.

HCJ: No, no. The staff. We would go out to the staff and say, “May I go into the pool?” And she would be exhibiting some behavior that was evident to them, that we were not privy to and we’d be – there was a platform like two or three feet down so the water would be say up to your waist and the scene would be over and I want to get out of the pool and I would turn to put my foot on the latter and Abby or Elena, one of the staffers, would tell me not yet.

Did you get to learn some of the cues that you needed to watch for?

HCJ: No. I didn’t learn any of that. They were there all the time. I got nervous when we had to apply the prosthetic to her, and given the guy that I was doing that in real life, I wanted to make it real and there’s a certain amount of force that you have to use, but on the other hand it’s hard to imagine how sensitive she is and her stump. There’s a little caution that you have – like a human amputee, they say put your hand on my knee and there’s no lower leg there, you’d be a little sensitive to that. It’s the same thing with her, we don’t really want to touch her, but they taught us how to manipulate the gel and to put the prosthetic on. It’s like being around a horse when you’re putting the saddle on him, you kind of have to trust what they tell you and trust that it’s going to be cool because she was a big animal.

Did working with the actual people change your performance?

HCJ: Oh yeah. These people don’t seem to get wound up about much, they don’t get really upset, the get profoundly upset about the condition that the animal is in, but they are very calm people. I saw the movie with my wife and there were a couple of scenes when I thought I could have been a bit more explosive and a bit more outwardly emotional, and I thought my performance was borderline boring a couple of times and she said, “No, that’s the way this type of people is.” When you’re around them they are very very calm. You would have to be. I think about these folks and every day, since I’ve been gone I’ve done another movie and I’ve done this and that, their still with that dolphin every single day. It’s incredible the calm that they have so there’s that. That definitely changed my approach. They get the job done without being too emotional about it.

The part when you play the saxophone, was that in the script or did you just do that?

HCJ: That came after, Charlie (Martin Smith), our director, said, what do you think about playing the saxophone? I said, “I don’t know how to play man.” He said there’s a song “Everything Happens To Me.” It’s a great song. “I can play a game of golf and you can bet your life it rains. I tried to throw a party and the guy upstairs complains. I guess I go through life just catching colds and missing trains. Everything happens to me.” It’s exactly what this guy is going through and Charlie asked me to play it on the tenor so fortunately I know a few good musicians, and I called my friend Brandford and said I needed a tenor and her got me hooked up with this tenor and I just practiced and practiced and practiced so I could play a little bit. I didn’t think they would use my playing, but they did. I was flattered, but when Brandford goes to see the movie I don’t think he’s going to be too happy about my performance.

You said you were worried whether you were boring or not. Are you still pretty self-critical of yourself?

HCJ: I’m critical about music. I hear myself on piano recordings and it’s like how many times do you have to go down that road before you realize not to do it anymore. You still make the same mistakes and you think, “Why did I do that?” I was watching some football game, what’s the Denver’s quarterback’s name? Kyle Orton. He put his hand back and the ball just fell out of his hand and you think, this is an NFL quarterback, that’s a mistake that I would make and I see myself on film and I hear myself singing and I think, you idiot. It’s like it never ends.

That’s a good thing, because I know – my friend Winton, we were talking about – this is too heavy for a press junket about Dolphin Tale and we probably don’t need to go into this, but I’ll just give you a quick little thing – I was depressed artistically I was at a place like in a plateau which most artists go, most humans go through that. I said, “Well what should I do?” he said, “You need to think of yourself as an older man and as an old man and how you want to be perceived,” and he mentioned two musical artists, the one who he doesn’t respect (I won’t mention his name), he said, “Look at Willy Nelson, he’s constantly trying to change and struggling with his artistic process. This other guy, he’s just repeating the same stuff. How do you want to be?” I wanted to be 80 and constantly be dissatisfied with my work, maybe occasionaly have something that you’re really proud of but constantly struggling. I feel it all the time.

Speaking of Willy Nelson, what was it like working with Kris Kristofferson?

HCJ: You know what’s really weird? Kris Kristofferson played my dad in this movie and two months later I did this movie and Kris Kristofferson played my dad again. What the hell is going on here? It was really weird. I started to think he was my dad. Kris is just incredible. It’s very humbling being around him. He’s a helicopter pilot, he’s a road scholar, he’s a boxer, he’s a songwriter, he’s an actor. He’s incredible to be around. That’s cool, when you see a guy who’s really, really rich and he drives around a crappy car, that’s what Kris is like intellectually. You talk to the guy and he makes you feel so at ease but he’s so brilliant and he has so much experience it’s really cool being around him. Those were great days.

What was the second movie?

HCJ: It’s called When Angels Sing. It’s a Christmas movie, I don’t think it’s coming out this Christmas, maybe next Christmas. That was really weird though. They tell me, “Guess who’s playing your dad?” “Who?” “It’s Kris Kristofferson.” “What? He just played my dad.”

And what point in your film career, did you feel like this is something you could spend a lot of time with, it’s not just going to be an occasional thing, I can actually devote a lot of time and still continue the music career?

HCJ: I did my first movie when I was like 20, and it took three months and I loved it. I thought it was similar to the artistic decisions I was making on the bandstand. I thought it was the same type of artistic challenge. I thought I could do both. Why not? Do a sitcom or Broadway show? I’m an entertainer. I think of it like that.

It works the same muscles?

HCJ: I think so. Maybe that’s prevented me from making better decisions sometimes but it’s just feels very natural to do these things. I don’t feel like a musician when I’m on set. Like when I was doing Dolphin Tale, I didn’t think about that at all. I really love the process. When I go to bed at night, I feel the same fulfillment and exhaustion after any other type of en-devour.

How do you get any sense of satisfaction? When you walk offstage, are you happy then?

HCJ: I think hindsight is what gives you the prospective of being not satisfied. In the moment, I’ve never said, that wasn’t a full-on effort. I’ve tried 100% every single time. Sometimes that effort is more subtle than other times. When I’m onstage it’s a physical emotion. If I’m shooting a scene with Winter and I have to put on a prosthetic, it’s a different kind of intensity, but I never finish the day saying, I didn’t try. When you go back and you look at the project, you think, if I had that chance now I would do that differently. The day I wake up when I say, that was a brilliant record, that record I did five years ago, it’s not going to get better than that. That’s when I think I’ll panic because I want to, got to keep growing.

Is it nice to do a movie that is about kind humans and has a happy ending?

HCJ: It’s really great. I was so honored so be around people at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. I really was. They make you examine your own existence. And you think, what am I doing, and I don’t want to come across like I hate myself. I’m a really happy guy. I’m really proud. And by the way, coming off stage like at the Hollywood Bowl, and I say this as objectively as I can, I think, okay you try it. To anybody, you come and follow that. I change you to come follow that. There’s huge amounts of ego and confidence that go into it. I think it’s balanced out by the desire to get better. I got to pat myself on the back a little bit. It’s great when you think about these folks and how dedicated they are. It makes you examine, in my eyes, am I that dedicated to what I do, can I possibly have an effect on people that would be positive like that? It was a great project to be a part of.

What’s coming up next for you? You mentioned the Kris thing.

HCJ: I have a Broadway show that I’m doing. I start next month. It’s called “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever”. I’m really excited about that. A little tense getting ready for it only because it’s a lot of work. That’s a whole different animal, Broadway.

Who’s your leading lady?

HCJ: Oh man, I’m so excited about this lady. Her name is Jesse Muller. Never heard of her before. She came from Chicago. She’s 27. She’s never done anything in New York and we auditioned a bunch of people. They were all extraordinary but she came in and we were ford by her.

She sings a great part.

It’s a great part. Our show’s very different. It’s very different than the original so the girl that Barbra Streisand played in the movie, that the doctor hypnotizes in the movie , is now a gay guy and he channels – it’s taken a very different approach. I think there were a lot of problems in the original script and I think they’ve been resolved here. They did a good job.

What about dancing? If it’s a musical, you have to dance.

HCJ: I would do what they told me to do. I love to sing and I’m singing all the time. Dancing is something that I need to be taught to be. I don’t dance in the way that its usually presented in musicals. I’m very physical and I dance a certain way onstage, but that’s street thing. Like for this play, “On a Clear Day”, it’s choreographed.

Do you think this role will get casting directors to hire you for a future movie musical?

HCJ: Not really. Only because I did it before and nothing happened. That’s okay. I’m okay with that. I was talking to Harvey Weinstein and I said, “Dude I’m a singer and an actor, why don’t you ever call me to be in a musical?” And it’s tongue-in-cheek, he’s a friend and I don’t really mean it because I’m okay with my life, I’ve been really lucky and I’m very satisfied, but he’s said, You have to stay on Broadway, you have to let these people come and see that’s what you do.” I’m like, I’m not going to do a show for five years, there’s just too much other stuff I want to do. So if a casting director happens to come in that six months window, man that’d be great, but if not, I’m all good to go. And I’m actually very content. [laughs]

Check out Dolphin Tale in theaters September 23rd!

Interview: Director Charles Martin Smith for A Dolphin’s Tale

Mali Elfman — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 18:50:58 +0000

This week in theaters the extraordinary tale of “Winter” the dolphin who lost her tail and with the help of some beautiful people was able to learn how to swim again and inspire an entire new kind of invention for prosthetics for dolphins and humans comes to theaters in A Dolphin’s Tale. Director Charles Martin Smith who started as an actor and then moved behind the camera, found out about this story and felt it was his time to help bring attention to this amazing story. The idea has managed to snare a number of top tier talent into the project, Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr. Ashley Judd, as well as new-comers Nathan Gamble and Cozi Nuehlsdorff. Find out what it took to make below…

What was it like working with the two children on screen Nathan and Cozi?

Charles Martin Smith: You should sit in the cutting room and look at these kids daily and just see that from shot to shot, take after take, scene after scene, they’re really solid. They are the real thing and Cozy (Zuehlsdorff) had never done anything. A little theater, productions of Annie in Orange County but she’d never done anything but community theater. I’m telling you those kids are one in a million gifted.

How many kids did you see for the role?

CMS: Probably saw about 100 kids for each role.

Did they stand out?

CMS: There was a final three for each, but really in my mind there was a final one for each. One of the things with Nathan (Gamble) he’s got that real blond hair it was really long, it was kind of into the eyes and I kept thinking, I know there’s something going on in this kids eyes but I can’t see them. And you can see that he’s a really good actor. He’s quite accomplished, he’s done a lot of stuff. He’s quite experienced.

So when we had the final screen test and I was presenting them to the producers, to Andrew A. Kosove and Richard Ingber and all those guys, I kept telling him to pull his hair back. And finally I took my baseball cap and put it on his head and told him to do the scene again. Let me pull your hair out of your eyes. So what I did was I darkened his hair for the movie so that his eyes would stand out. Cut it, darkened it and then we actually darkened his eyebrows a little bit and gave him a little bit of eyeliner just to bring his eyes out. It makes him look quite different. He has so much going on in his eyes.

How was it working with the animals in the film?

CMS: I’ve done movies with animals before and kids, and non-actors. I did a film in the Arctic called The Snow Walker that, my female lead was a 19-year-old Inuit girl who had never done anything and I had caribou and geese and an owl, squirrels. And I did Air Bud who had a dog as a lead too, and a kid. They were great. These kids were great and Winter (dolphin) was great. She’s a really amazing – have you met her? She’s a sweetie, she really is.

The first thing that I did when I started on the project because they had been working on it for a while now when I came in. I came here and went to Clearwater Marine Hospital and watched her for three days just to see what she does, watched her behavior and wanted to create a character based on what she does. I didn’t want to come in and impose on a dolphin what to do. I wanted the dolphin to do what she does.

She had this blue mattress that she loves to float around on and I said, “Great, put that in.” She likes to play with toys and she’s got these rings, she puts her rostrum through these kind of rubber rings. We made a special toy, we had a little rubber duck on it, we’ll do like the iconic rubber duck and that will be cute. She makes this tweedy bird sound all the time. The trainers call it, “Oh she’s doing her tweedy bird.” And I said we had to write that in. I ended up adding in all kinds of things to make her be her and bring her unto the screen. It’s the only way to do it with animals. I don’t think you could force them into being something they’re not. You have to, more or less, shoot a documentary on their terms.

What was the inspiration for Rufus?

CMS: I did a lot of things. The earlier draft of the script didn’t have the magic in it, I wanted to put more, slight, little magical-ness to the movie. I wanted the inside of the aquarium to be this wondrous place when the boy first walks in and have this crazy Rufus thing around there as a kind of slightly hyper magical pelican to be in there. I wrote in that she lives on a houseboat and she had this crows’ nest and so on to give Hazel this kind of interesting life and that the boy flies helicopters. All of this, I was trying to bring a slightly heightened sense of fantasy to it, just a little bit. That was the whole thing behind Rufus, and of course I had to add the scene where he goes after Lorraine and I had to have him watching people. I had to put the kids on the mattresses, you know the show where they are floating on the mattresses. I had to add Rufus too. And that mattress shot too, all those things, I’m trying to bring a slight fantasy, magicalness to the proceedings .

What were the challenges of filming under water?

CMS: Yeah, filming under water was a challenge. I wanted the audience to feel like they were under water also, swimming with Winter and bringing them into that world. We got a wonderful underwater cameraman named Peter Zuccarini who does lots of big films and he was terrific. I could put him underwater and he could chase the dolphin and the kid around and again, this sort of documentary idea that I had, I told Pete, you just got to be there, you got to find them, do what they do. After the time, Winter was so interested in the camera that she’d swim right over to it and he be trying to film her, but she’d be coming around behind him and he’s trying to chase her because she was trying to see what he was doing back there. That was a challenge.

With your experience as an actor, does that give you an advantage working with younger actors?

CMS: I think so. I hope so. I think so. I remember what it was like when I was that age. With Cozi, because I knew she’d never done any film but she’d done theater, I talked to her in theater terms when I was directing her a lot of time. The idea of hitting a mark and playing to the camera was something I didn’t want her to learn or to know about or to care about. I would talk to her about being upstage or downstage. I would use different terminology for her. I told all the camera people that I wasn’t going to ask these kids to repeat the same thing take after take, I’m not going to ask them to be careful about their marks, I’m just going to have to follow them. I want them to be spontaneous and real. I know that an inexperienced actor like that, you start putting too much on them they start to get in their heads too much.

What was your relationship with the two trainers like?

CMS: They were with the aquarium. They are Winter’s mothers and they have raised her. Abby and Elena. They were there all the time. They were constantly with me and all of our shooting days were arranged around Winter, what she felt like and when she didn’t feel like. If they came to me and told me that Winter wasn’t feeling into it today, we’d go shoot something else. They were there all the time. In fact, they’re in the movie. I used a very clever device. I dressed both of them as volunteers and used them as extras so in some of these scenes when they’re putting the tail on, you’ll see one of the volunteers kind of helping, that’s actually Abby. So if Winter, anytime during the scene was uncomfortable, Abbey is sitting two feet away from her on camera. She could jump right in.

What’s Winter’s attention span? How long can you shoot at one time?

CMS: It would depend on the day. Some days she’d feel like it, some days she’d feel like it less. But she normally felt like it. She’s a very funny animal. She’s got a lot of energy, she’s a kid basically. She’s about the equivalent about a human 10-year-old, she’s not a baby but she’s not a grownup either. She has a kind of child-like way about her. She’s got a lot of energy, she’s noisy as hell. She’s this tweedy bird. I made part of the story. She does that all the time. On other actor’s dialogue. I’m constantly trying to get this tweeting thing out of there. We’d be shooting a scene that she wasn’t in, she’d still come over to the edge of the pool, be watching and tweeting, as if to say, “Wait a minute, this movie’s about me, what are you guy’s doing? Come back!”

She seemed to really enjoy it. The marine hospital has said that that was one of Winter’s happiest times and she really thrived in that whole experience, the attention. Dolphins are so bright, I presume, they get bored. That’s a lot of what they do. They give her toys, they give her things to play with, activities, challenges because their mind’s have to be constantly worked. That’s one of the things that we did for Winter.

What kind of activities are involved in your creative process? Like singing in the shower, but you’re thinking about the movie?

CMS: I get great ideas in the shower, something about hot water in the back of your neck, I think is great thinking. Music. I like to sit and just play the piano for a while. It helps me think. When I was writing, I was in Vancouver for about 6 months, just at home. I’ve taken long walks on the beach and out in the woods. That’s really, really helpful for me.

Can you talk about the importance of the message of hope and what that means? It seems to me that you’re a filmmaker that doesn’t just like to entertain, but also leave people with something that they could feel good walking out of the theater.

CMS: Thank you. I hope so. It’s too hard to make a movie to make an empty one. I want to make a movie that somebody stays with them and that people will take something away from the film and maybe it’ll stay with them for days, weeks, years, one could only hope. I look for that and just how you construct a story and how you go about doing it.

Is that important to your voice as a filmmaker?

CMS: Absolutely. It is. I want to bring something positive into this world. My mother use to say to me, “The whole idea is to try to leave the world a slightly better place than you found it.” And that really is important to me. To put something positive out there without being preachy. We want to make an entertaining thing and something moving on a personal level, but that’s what attracted me to the story in the first place, was how much of a positive message it is without beating people over the head.

You really did give into it like a documentary, but there’s some 3D. Did you resist the CGI or 3D at all? Or was that something you wanted to add into the ‘documentary meets this new technology’?

CMS: Exactly. I wanted to combine those things. CGI was essential. There is no way around it because a lot of things you couldn’t get Winter to do. The electronic too. When the boy rescues her off the beach, we can’t get a real dolphin and plop her down, wrap her up in rope. That was an electronic with CG enhancement to make the eyes look right. The 3D was, I thought, what would be cool about it was to use it to draw the audience into this underwater world. I was really trying to contrast two worlds. The underwater world which I wanted to make kind of a paradise, design this whole opening sequence where, the credits, where we meet her tail.

I wanted that to be 3D to really bring the audience in and then in the middle when the boy and the dolphin swim together, and what I call a night-ballet, that 3D will really bring you in and you really feel like they are swimming with the dolphin, but yet kind of shot like a documentary as well. I thought it would be cool to try and combine those two things. It wasn’t easy. The 3D cameras were huge, they are like the size of small cars. They are massive. It’s not like a documentary, where you just grab the camera and go and shoot that although I kept trying. I kept saying, “Oh over there, look what the dolphin is doing.” This big camera, but we did the best we could.

See the A Dolphin’s Tale in theaters now!

Interview: Nathan Gamble and Cozi Zuehlsdorff – The Adorable Dolphin Tale Duo

Mali Elfman — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:40:52 +0000

This week in theaters, the heartwarming story of Winter, the dolphin with no tail and the two children who stood by her no matter what, comes to theaters with DolphinTale. The film boosts an impressive cast including big names like Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., and Ashley Judd, but undoubtedly the characters that will win you over (aside from Winter) are the adorably charming, child-acting duo, Nathan Gamble and Cozi Zuehlsdorff. The actors come from completely different backgrounds, but they they both share a strong passion for acting, a love for Winter, and were able to speak about the film better than many of the adult actors I’ve spoken to. Find out what they had to say below…

When do you first meet Winter?

Nathan: I first met Winter on my audition, actually. They flew me in from LA to audition with her and to make sure that we could have that kind of bond.

Was it important that you and Winter bonded?

Nathan: It was very important, yeah. I thought I was going to be doing scenes and stuff, but they just wanted to see if we connected.

When you’re working with Winter or any of the other animals, does it get to be a point where they’ll say, “No more takes!”

Nathan: Yeah, the whole set sort of revolved around Winter. If she was happy, we were happy and if she was angry, we were angry.

Cozi: There was one time where she got really stressed out and what dolphins do is swim jaggedly around the pool. They’ll blow their blowholes and you can see that they’re angry. The trainers are very protective of her and will step in and say, “She doesn’t want to hang out right now.” They’re like mama dolphins. They’ll say, “Winter doesn’t want to do anymore” and everyone would step off. If anyone dropped a big piece of machinery, it was like, “What are you doing?!?

One time, they were doing stretcher training, which is to get her used to getting into a stretcher in case she ever becomes injured or has a stomach problem or anything. One of the workers came by and accidentally dropped a huge pole right as they were blowing the whistle. Suddenly, she thinks that whenever she goes into her stretcher, a huge pole is going to drop and she’s going to hear a loud noise. It’s hard to unlearn something when you’re a dolphin. There are definitely a lot of precautions that are taken.

And Cozi, what was your experience like meeting Winter for the first time?

Cozi: It was really interesting because they take such good care of her that it’s so quiet all around her. They make sure that she’s not stressed out in any way. It was a nice, still day and it was sunny and her little eye looks up at you. You can tell that she’s thinking and that she’s bright and intuitive and is forming an opinion about you. An opinion is formed in the first ten seconds when you meet someone and you can tell that Winter was doing that, too.

Did Winter have any doubles?

Nathan: Yeah. It was called “Plan B”. It was a blow-up dolphin. In fact, they gave me, for my birthday, “Plan B”, which everybody signed. It was so cool. The whole crew signed it. I thought it was really neat.

Was it hard to leave her when the filming was done?

Nathan: I definitely think so. After spending three months with this magnificent creature, you just want to spend more time. But we had to go.

Cozi: I was really sad. And I got to spend a lot of time with all the animals for the first two weeks. I was chopping fish and I was feeding the otters and turtles and everything. It was really hard to leave all of them. They all kind of looked up at me and were like, “Goodbye!”

What kind of things did they tell you before meeting Winter to help prepare you?

Cozi: The wanted us to be calm.

Nathan: No sudden movements.

Cozi: You’re not supposed to shout or anything. It’s very quiet.

Can you talk about the two of you meeting for the first time and what that experience was like?

Nathan: I thought she was kind of a diva (laughs). No, Cozi was just an absolute blast to work with. You would never be able to tell that this was her first movie because she was just so professional and an absolute blast to work with.

Cozi: It was great to meet Nathan as well. The scenes worked really well. We both had the same kind of timing. The lines came pretty naturally and it was really fun to audition. I had never really done that, where you go to an audition and you read the lines with someone who is really your age and someone is the right character. It was fun to feel like Hazel for the first time.

Nathan, did you ever offer Cozi any advice?

Nathan: You know, when I worked with her, I honestly didn’t feel like she needed any advice. I was just really impressed. She said it was her first movie and I was like, “You’re kidding, right?” She was really just professional to work with.

Cozi, this was your first film job, but you had done theater before, right?

Cozi: I had done a lot of theater, yeah. That helped me considerably. There were a couple times where I had to mellow out a bit more because I’m used to projecting and using so much body language. In a movie, the camera is right there and you don’t to go (emphatic:) “Hello everyone!”. That and just getting to learn my marks because you have be able to look down just a little bit and see your mark.

What have you done in theater?

Cozi: I did Annie in “Annie”. Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”. I was Charlie in “Willy Wonka”, which was really fun. I had a bob at the time, so I just threw it up. I’ve done a lot of shows. I was Jo-Jo recently in “Suessical”. What a show! You’re surrounded by animals. That was really fun. I’ve done a LOT of theater.

Are your characters based on real people at all?

Nathan: No, actually.

Cozi: Winter is true. And Morgan Freeman’s character is, too, kind of. There was a doctor who gave Winter a prosthetic tale. It’s not like one of those movies that ends with “Hazel now lives…” But there are a lot of neat, real pictures at the end of the movie that show how Winter still lives and has touched the lives of many children with prosthetics.

One of the fun things about it is that it’s kind of made for kids and is told from a kid’s perspective. Was that something that was encouraged on-set, for it to be told from your point of view?

Cozi: I guess so, in some ways. Charles, the director, wouldn’t give us much direction on how to say our lines. Of course, if there was something a little bit off in what we were doing, he’d correct us. But mostly he’d let us use our body language or whatever to make sure that he’s not over-directing us and having us do something that our character wouldn’t do. It’s more like whatever I would do naturally and whatever Nathan would do.

Can you both talk a little about working with the adult cast?

Nathan: I absolutely loved working with Harry. I was so nervous, thinking, “Okay, I’m gonna meet Harry Connick Jr. now”. But when I first got there and talked with him, I just said, “Wow, this guy is the best.” He’s funny and a great person to act with. He just makes the set real comfortable and stuff. I became really good friends with him. I think we both did.

Cozi: I remember meeting him about an hour before Nathan did and we went into food prep, which is all the fish stuff. I knew he was a really nice guy because he was immediately like, “Call me Harry” because I was calling him Mr. Connick and all that stuff. He was just really great and really warm. I remember him meeting Nathan and them shaking hands and he whispered to me, “I don’t like him!”

What about Morgan Freeman?

Nathan: He was great, too. I remember one time that it was November or December and it started to get a little cold, which is like 60 or 70 degrees here. We were in the water and my lips started to turn blue and I was shivering. He told the crew, “Hey, we’ve gotta get this kid out of here. He’s gonna freeze.” I thought it was really cool that he stepped up and did that.

Can you talk a little about Rufus, the bird?

Cozi: I was so scared of Rufus. He had a hook on the end of his beak. When it hits you in the face, it’s like snap! I liked the real Rufus better than the puppet Rufus because with the puppet Rufus, the guys would just get right in there and just clap on your head and stuff. It was like, “There’s a bubble, okay!” But Rufus was especially into cold fish and ice and stuff. I guess he wasn’t warm and fuzzy.

Nathan: I loved Rufus. I thought he was the funniest looking thing I had ever seen. When I had scene with him downstairs with the underwater tanks and stuff, he would grab the fish and the ice and shift through. It was really weird, but it was really cool.

Cozi: He would go [munch, munch, munch] and the ice would fall out of his mouth.

What kind of experiences would you tell your friends about when you came back from shooting?

Cozi: I would tell them about the blender scene. Roasted red pepper, milk, bread and hotdogs. Nathan had to go step out after that one.

Nathan: There were hotdogs in my hair!

Cozi: They were going to use milk and raw squid and I said, “Do you mind if we use stuff that’s cooked?” So they used the other stuff, but the smell in that place! It was not pretty.

Nathan: My experience was that I got so used to being around Winter and she got so used to being around me that whenever Abby or Elena would pull me back, Winter would push Abby off and circle around me because she felt like she owned me or something. That was really cool.

See Nathan, Cozi and Winter in Dolphin Tale starting this weekend, September 23rd!

Interview: Director Mike Flanagan and Actress Courtney Bell for Indie Horror ‘Absentia’

Mali Elfman — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:18:05 +0000

You start your day, take care of the family, drive to your day job, read the review written on you by Variety at lunch, go back to work, drive home, submit to more film festivals and then get ready for work the next day — just the average day for an independent filmmaker. The difference between the ones who make it and the ones who don’t, are the ones who never give up. Take Mike Flanagan and his work and life partner, Courtney Bell, they were able to gather a team of aspiring filmmakers and a mere $75 to make their feature film, Absentia which has now been praised by numerous film sites like Ain’t It Cool News, DreadCentral and Variety, been released by Phase 4 Filmsand has officially set them on their way as filmmakers…

Absentia was made with a small cast and crew, including Flanagan’s girlfriend Courtney Bell who didn’t only play the main role in the film, but also served as line producer and head of props while off the screen (and all while being several months pregnant).

Flanagan goal for this film, was to not only prove himself as a feature film writer/director but also to create something that would involve his group of talented friends that he had around him, with the hopes that eventually they could all create something that would kick-start their careers together. And it worked. He penned a horror story about a woman whose husband goes missing in a mysterious tunnel. The film isn’t you typical horror film, it’s driven by its characters and their fears of the unknown, making the audiences imagination their greatest enemy.

We had a chance to sit down and talk to Mike Flanagan and Courtney Bell recently to talk to them about how they put the film together, how they cast Doug Jones, what it takes to make a truly indie film and more importantly, their personal advice as indie filmmakers…

Absentia was released on VOD not along ago through Phase 4 Films and you can find it online now! The film is also still appearing at multiple festivals and you can find out more about where you can see it and the project itself at AbsentiaMovie.com. Let this film be an inspiration for your own project. They are living proof that hard work comes a long way.

Absentia was written and directed by Mike Flanagan and produced by Joe Wicker, Justin Gordon, Morgan Peter Brown. The film’s cast include Courtney Bell, Katie Parker, Dave Levine, Doug Jones, James Flanagan and Justin Gordon.

You can also check out our interview with producer/actor Justin Gordon.

Video Edited By: Laura Aguirre

Interview: Justin Gordon Actor/Producer for Indie Horror ‘Absentia’

Mali Elfman — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:15:01 +0000

Recently ScreenCrave sat down with independent filmmaker, Justin Gordon, the producer and on of the actors in director Mike Flanagan’s recently released horror/thriller Absentia. We talked to him about what it takes to take a small independent film from an idea to being highly regarded and distributed movie. Their story is one of many, a group of filmmakers who wanted to make a film, they all had some experience, but no one has made a feature film. What sets them apart from the rest? The fact that they did it, and did it well.

The film was shot in June, 2010, in 15 days in Los Angeles, and Orange County, with a minimal budget raised with the help of Kickstarter and private investors. With a mere $75k and 15 days to shoot, they set off trying to make a film that was horrifying and entertaining, and yet smart and thought-provoking. How the hell they succeeded in creating such a solid piece of work is even more mysterious than the premise of the film itself…

With not enough time, money, or access, the team pulled together their talents and experiences to make the film happen, sometimes shooting upwards of 50 shots and a day. They managed to attach the much loved actor, Doug Jones, who many of us know as Guillermo del Toro’s right hand man… arm, tree, or whatever creation del Toro may be needing. And how did they do so? By asking nicely.

Making a project like this, you have all the odds stacked against you, the only way to make it happen is to believe in your project wholeheartedly and much like Producer Justin Gordon says below, you have to be damn good at multi-tasking. Watch our interview with him now…

You can find Absentia online now being released through Phase 4 Films! You can also follow it and find out more about what’s going on with it at AbsentiaMovie.com. With the help of 375 backers on Kickstarter and a whole lot of gumption, these guys are living proof that if you want something bad enough, and work at it long enough, anything is possible.

Absentia was directed by Mike Flanagan, produced by Joe Wicker, Justin Gordon, Mike Flanagan, Morgan Peter Brown with performances by Katie Parker, Courtney Bell, Dave Levine, Doug Jones, James Flanagan and Justin Gordon.

Check back soon with our interview with the director of the film Mike Flanagan and the star and line producer, Courtney Bell!

Video Edited By: Jessica Rudolph

Interview 1-1: Ruben Fleischer Talks 30 Minutes or Less

Mali Elfman — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:55:48 +0000

One of my favorite films of the summer is on it’s way into theaters with a bang. 30 Minutes or Less starring Jesse Eisenberg is a fast-paced, easy-to-watch, extremely funny comedy with some fine performances and a storyline that won’t leave you hanging. Though we were able to speak to the film Ruben Fleischer while he was on the set of the film (read interview), I also had the chance to catch up with him recently for a one on one to find out more now that the film is all said and done and what he has going on in the future (it’s really cool!)…

I was one of the people who came on the set visit and it feels like so long ago, is that what it feels for for you? Is your head in a completely different space? Or are you still deeply attached to this film?

Ruben Fleischer: Maybe somewhere in between, I had to live with this until about April. So the shooting of it feels like a lifetime ago, but the process of bringing the film to completion ended relativity recently, but I’m now I’m in pre-production of another film, so it’s all kind of a blur, to be honest.

So you have two loves right now?

RF: Yes. What’s exciting is I have, I’ve been able to put the film aside for a couple of months and it’s been getting really exciting getting to talk to people about it for the first time again and hearing all of these reactions to it just because this is what I’m being interviewed about, but it’s nice. People have been really positive in their reactions to it, so far.

Yeah, well I’m one of those people with the positive reaction.

RF: That’s awesome. It just makes me feel so good because I haven’t watched it in a while so it’s nice. I guess I have to talk a little bit about how much I love it.

One of the things I love about this is the short-run time. There’s something about a comedy that I want to go in, I want to laugh, I want to have a good time and I want to get out. I don’t want to be there for so long.

RF: I’m with you 100 percent. I’m the type of guy that loves a short runtime so if it’s longer than 90 minutes, I have to really question how much I want to see it. I think that often comedies could be a lot funnier if they used restrain, cut stuff out. I feel like they are self-indulgent sometimes, but me and my editor are very ruthless. We’ve cut so many things that we loved and that were really funny out of this film because unless it was a really huge laugh or a big important story point, we didn’t feel like it belonged. So, it’s a lean movie. What I think helps is the feeling of urgency through Jesse Eisenberg’s character because there’s no time to waste. He’s got to get that bomb off of him and I feel like if you let scenes languish a little longer or put in scenes that don’t really need to be there, it would’ve taken away from the pressure and to the momentum that I think the film has in a very positive way.

It seems like you’re very conscious of your viewers and making sure that they have a good time. How do you get there?

RF: We do tons of test screenings. We rely very heavily on the audience’s reaction. If people aren’t laughing or it just feels like it’s stagnant or not as funny as it could be, I won’t allow it. My obligation is to provide the audience with the most satisfying, entertaining film that I can possibly make. I don’t have the arrogance to say that I’m making the film for myself. I’m making the film very clearly for the audience. I want to make sure that they are satisfied.

What is your favorite part about watching a comedy?

RF: Is there any other answer than just to be able to laugh a lot? For watching comedy, you want to just take your mind off of things for a little bit. Enjoy and laugh. I respond to the actors in comedies. To me the actors trump the story in most films. That’s why I love the cast off 30 Minutes or Less because we have four of the finest people in the world. That’s part of it, to me at least, it makes me laugh so much.

I think you have more than four because Michael Pena, has some of my favorite lines?

RF: I was including him and not Jesse, but don’t tell Jesse. I’m just kidding! We have five. I think everyone in the movie is terrific. I think Bianca Kajlich is great as Juicy. She was great. I think the cast is exceptional and Pena was a complete and total revelation to me. He just blew me away at every opportunity. He’s so funny.

One of my big issues with films is that nobody acts like they are in the real world and this film for however crazy, feels like you treat the matter realistically, which is why it’s so funny. Can you talk about the importance of keeping it real, and why it makes a comedy so much stronger?

RF: That to me was why I cast Jesse because you need somebody who can ground the film and make the audience invest in the stakes that are truly life or death. If you don’t have that then the film doesn’t work and Jesse is so talented and he’s able to play that reality where he can die at any moment. It’s not overbearing or at the detriment of the comedy. He’s able to draw a line where he plays the reality of it but he’s also able to laugh at the same time. That’s an extraordinary challenging thing to do, and he did it exceptionally well.

The comedies I always relate to are not the high concept comedies where it’s like “what happens if that animal starts talking?” To me, my favorite comedies are the ones that are based on characters and like investing in these real characters… It’s like in Beverly Hills Cop, you really believe the Axel is a cop from Detroit who moved to Beverly Hills and it’s like the movie is funny because you are seeing it through this monitor ties of this streetwise Detroit cop who’s having to deal with the insanity of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills and all its silliness. At the same time, Eddie Murphy is one of the funniest people there is on the screen. He’s able to enhance those scenes with his comedy.

I think ours is similar in that we play with the reality of these burned out people in Michigan who make bombs in their garages and blow up watermelons. We play an authentic reality, but then Danny [McBride] and Nick [Swardson] are just so funny in and of themselves that they take it to a whole other level.

Do you think that’s why your films are R-rated?

RF: Yeah, this film is exceptionally R-rated. We really pushed the boundaries and took it to the limit. With Zombieland, I didn’t feel like that needed to be an R-rated movie and in fact, the only thing that made it R-rated was that we shot zombies in the head and if you shoot somebody in the head, it has to be R. So once we were told we had to have an R-rating because of the violence of the film, you know you can’t kill a zombie any other way, so we put some f-words. If we were already R-rated. I honestly feel Zombieland would have worked really well as a PG-13 movie. I’m not the type of person who would say, I must make films R-rated in order to try to portray life in its authenticity or something. That’s not the case. I feel like you can make a very satisfying enjoyable film that’s PG-13 and isn’t phony or watered down.

Do you miss shooting Michigan at all or are you glad to be out of these?

RF: What I really appreciated about Michigan was the sense of summer. Living in Los Angeles, where it all just blends together and you don’t have a sense of season. Grand Rapids we were exactly at this time last year and since their winters are so miserable they really enjoy the summer and it’s something I appreciated.

Did you have to do post-production there as well?

RF: I was there for about four in a half months.

Could you tell me about your future project? You’re working on Gangster Squad, is that your new project?

RF: It’s a really cool, serious, gangster movie set in 1949 Los Angeles about this mobster, Micky Cohen, in the police squad that has to take him down and they work outside the law to fight the gangsters on their own terms. Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling are the two lead cops of the gangster squad and Sean Penn is playing Micky Cohen. For me it’s a huge opportunity to try new genres. It’s not a comedy, whatsoever, if anything it’s an action movie, but its just a classic, genre, gangster movie.

That sounds like so much fun. I want to see it already.

RF: It’s super, super cool. Yeah and Michael Pena is going to be in it. Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackey. It’s going to be good. The script is really great. Hopefully it’ll just be all of us aspiring to make a movie that will last through the ages.

Check out Ruben Fleicher’s new film, 30 Minutes or Less, in theaters starting August 12th!

Interview 1-1: Jesse Eisenberg Talks Serious Comedy

Mali Elfman — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:05:24 +0000

This week in theaters, Jesse Eisenberg, one of the most serious actor working in comedies, impresses audience once again with his keen wit and layered performance, as he reunites with director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) once again in the fast-paced, easy to watch comedy 30 Minutes or Less. A short while ago we published our interview with him from the set of the film, now that he’s had some distance, an Oscar nod, and some time to reflect, find out what he loves about comedy, how he stays true to his indie roots, and how appreciative he is of everything that he’s worked for…

Two parts I didn’t get, they are in bold. One’s at 5:15. The other at 9:23.

This movie rides on the fact that you believe that you might die at any minute. Why is it important for you to believe that? Why is it important to play serious in a comedy?

Jesse Eisenberg: You just described exactly how I felt of my job. If I take my character’s fright seriously, the movie will end up being funnier because it won’t just be a wacky sketch about a guy with a crazy thing around his body but it will be a story that moves from point to point and progresses and ultimately has a resolution. All that stuff is important for a full story. But I’m not aware of that. I’m aware of playing my role realistically which the only way I know how to do it, I wouldn’t know the sillier version of my character would be. I don’t know how to think of my character’s fright and act in a way that would be more broad comedically, I’m so fortunate to have been asked to be in this movie. I know it’s funny and fast paced and has a unique plot and the attitude to play my role realistically. Often times actors, good actors, trained actors, are asked to compromise what to do, in order to stir a story that’s silly. I wasn’t asked to do that in this movie.

Is that part of working with Ruben and why you think you would keep working with him in the future because he gives you that freedom and challenges you that way?

JE: Yeah that’s exactly right. We did a movie two years ago, Zombieland and it was the same thing. The script was similar to this in that it was framed as a comedy, the characters were funny, but I auditioned for the movie a few times and I just played it dramatically like somebody who was experiencing this real feelings even in the context. I was frankly a bit surprised that they selected me. For this, I auditioned a few times and I played it honestly and surprised again when they hired me. Ruben is such a great director. He’s able to make the movie really funny and fast paced and visually interesting without ever compromising what the actors like to do and that’s rarer in a movie like this.

Are you always surprised when you’re hired or is it in the comedy roles that you’re not expecting?

JE: I’m frequently surprised because the experience an actor has in a role is often not in accordance with the way it’s perceived by an audience. In this movie my character is a much dramatic situation of his life. He’s questioning his own mortality every minute. These are things that would be high stakes in a dramatic movie. The movie plays comedically, so my personal experience with it is not reflected in the final product in the same way I felt it. That’s why I don’t really watch the movies I’ve been in because it’s never reflective on the experience I had.

Did you ever expect coming up that you would be known for being in these comedy films and having that edge as a comedian?

JE: Well my job doesn’t really change. I’m not acting in a different way that I would act in another kind of movie, and the other part of it is, a lot of the dramas that I read don’t feature characters that are as interesting as this one. In this movie the character I play, he thinks of himself as a rogue ascetic but actually he’s just a guy with no friends. He has this delusion of grandeur of being somebody who’s the traditional norm by not getting the job and by not having health care and by smoking weed and doing all this stuff that is actually an embarrassed reaction to not being responsible. That’s an interesting character and I get to do that. And it’s in a movie that’s really funny. Whereas I read these independent dramas that should feature characters above all else because that’s all they have going for them because there are no car chases and they have just cliched independent drama characters. I think a good character will transcend any genre or budget level.

I imagine with The Social Network has opened a lot of doors for you. How do you pick your roles now? Is it an interesting character? Or working with directors? Or what really drives you to make the choices that you make at this point in your career?

JE: Only if I can have an emotional experience that will be satisfying to me, that’s the only thing I consider. I have no idea what directors do technically so to me it doesn’t make a difference who is there. My only interest if the experience will give me an emotional catharsis that will remain interesting over the course of the two months it’s filming. I just finished doing a movie last week and it was a million dollar movie, and it was the only movie I’ve been flagged down to do in the last two years that I remained hung to to because it gave me an emotional experience that was good for me to have. It sounds like so pretentious but the truth is, I could do my job better if I’m in that circumstance.

And what is that film called?

JE: That’s call Predisposed. It’s a mother-son story and it was cathartic in a good way and the more indulgent I’m allowed to be, the better I’ll do.

Is that just once of those films that personally spoke to you and that’s why you personally remained attached to it?

JE: Yeah. I don’t know that it will come out at all in time or ever, but you do it for personal reasons that’s the difference between treating the profession like a job and treating it like I’m some kind of craft or some kind of creative expression.

So now you’re faced with having to make these professional decisions but still look after your craft?

JE: Yeah. The other side of it is that it was able to get mad because I was in things that were popular so you have to be a little bit savvy and not to precious about it because the only way those things can get done, that somebody with two million dollars would give that to make that kind of movie, it only happens because the people in it have been in things that teenagers go to.

Do you feel that you career choices have been influenced by people around you? Or has it been luck, talent, how do you get to where you get at this stage of the game?

JE: I just want to do what I like and then the rest that I would say is luck or the people around you because I didn’t do any kind of better acting job in The Social Network than in any other film but I’m surrounded by a director who’s a masterful director. Same thing with 30 Minutes or Less, the director is really creative at what he’s doing. It brings that attention to me that is not necessarily earned in terms of the amount of effort that I put into it.

What is the thing that you find more at ease when you’re making a film?

JE: The thing I crave most is everyone taking it seriously. Even in a movie like this that is supposed to play comedically, all the actors take it very seriously. The end result is funny, but actually everyone is working hard to make sure that happens. Occasionally, the misconception with a movie like this or with other movies that are kind of pop-y movies is that “it was just a blast to shoot.” Obviously I’m using that kind of sarcastically. But anything that shows up as really fun or as fast-paced or casual, probably takes a lot of work. It’s the stuff that is boring to watch that was easier to do. So you want to be ed people who are taking it as seriously as you want to take it.

What is it about film-making that you can’t live without? What is that keeps you coming back and keeps that love going?

JE: For me, I have a lot of misplaced anxiety and acting can provide a very healthy and creative way to express personal anxieties. This movie that I just finished, I was on set crying every day and emoting in this extreme way, and at the end of the day you feel just weight-lifted you just feel that kind of catharsis. It’s in a kind of safe, prescribed environment.

Check out Jesse Eisenberg in 30 Minutes or Less which hits theaters August 12th.

Interview: Bellflower Filmmaker Evan Glodell on Making the Impossible, Possible

Mali Elfman — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:05:41 +0000

Another Sundance film hits theaters this weekend, and trust me, this is no indie darling, this bad boy has teeth. Bellflower is a flow of raw emotions with honest performances set in some of the most realistically, imaginative circumstances. I grant you that sentence is confusing, but it’s hard to describe a film that literally emotes from the screen. This film is not just about telling a story, but expressing the struggles and feelings of the filmmaker himself — which apparently consisted of a frustration, anger, fear and of course a bit of love.

Evan Glodell, the films writer, director, editor, actor and probably a little bit of everything else, started with an idea and the conviction to get his career started no matter how many challenges arouse. He never gave in, he was determined to finish the film with absolutely no help from any real investors…

What gave you the strength to finish this film?

Evan Glodell: I’ve seen some people who work on a feature and drop off…

It’s soul-crushing.

EB: Yeah it is! Because from the time I started working on it full time, for about two years, people, even my family was calling me and saying “alright Evan, go get a job. Move out of your friends garage. This isn’t working out.” And not that they meant that in a bad way… You just have to have faith I guess. I think that’s the only reason I got through.

This meant more to you than just the one film.

EB: Yeah, I started the project because I knew that there was nothing else to look forward to in my life, this was my dream to make movies, and it has not worked out. I’ve made short films and worked on productions and I’ve had a script forever and no one was helping me. I knew that I had to do this thing, to try and make my life move forward. So at some point it wasn’t even like I believe in the film, but I thought “this is going to be your only chance. You have to do this. You’ll never know unless you finish.”

So it was never a matter of “can I?” Or “should I?”

EB: No, because if I would have asked those questions I would have stopped. And it got close a couple of times!

After the pain and suffering of making a film for $17k, over 8 years, with funds coming from the cast and crew themselves, the film was finalized and he was ready for it to be over and get a job… but there was still an important $100 fee ahead. The Sundance application fee, which the crew filled out mainly on a lark. But then the dream came true….

What was it like when you finally got to see you film at Sundance?

Evan Glodell: It was a huge relief. It’s funny, someone just recently showed me some pictures from Sundance that I’d never seen before, they were just taking pictures of us in the car when we were driving to the screening, and we were all looked like ghosts! Just solemn. Because I didn’t know if anyone was going to like it! I thought there was a chance that people would watch the movie and be like “fuck you!”

Why?

EB: Just because it was too personal I think, for me. I felt like every time I got an idea, I would think “that’s too weird” and then I would go “no, no, you’re going to put it in because you’re not going to hold back!”

And yet it’s those personal touches that kept me invested in the characters even as the film starts to go a bit mad…

EB: The second half of the movie was me trying to visually express what I emotionally had gone through. But unless people actually care… the first half of the move is incredibly different, and would people go with that.

What did getting into Sundance mean to you?

EB: That was the moment of judgment. After about two years of working on it and trying to get help, all the way to when we were almost three years in and we had the exact version that is done now, and we were showing people, and none of us knew anyone in LA to help us get to the next step. We thought, “there must be a Producer, Distributor or someone who would see potential” and we didn’t even know that the festival circuit was an option! Someone convinced me to submit into Sundance, and it’s the only festival I’ve ever submitted a movie to. So I just did that online. So then, when we actually got in we all thought, “this is our big break!” So when the day came to screen it, we were all terrified because if it went bad it would just be more of the same and more struggling for years. Afterwards, someone came up and hugged me that I didn’t know and it was like “holy shit!”

The film and the filmmakers are enough to inspire any aspiring filmmakers, and prove that the impossible dream of “making it” does happen and Sundance films do still make it into the festival from a single person in a garage if they have enough intrigue to get an audience excited. The thing about Evan that makes me know that we’ll be seeing more of him is that at heart, he’s a filmmaker with a realistic view of what “making it” means for him…

Filmmakers dream of winning Oscars, receiving accolades, working with big budgets… What is your dream for your film-making future?

EB: Being able to find a way to make the next one… To find a way to do this as a living. Our highest aspiration for this movie is that ONE DAY, it would show up on Netflix. Even if there was a never an ad for it anywhere or an article about it. If it just showed up and someone could watch it! That someone would care enough to take the time to do what it takes to do all that. We joked around, because I heard about indie films that would come out in LA at the Nuart and in NY, and now it’s out and we’re booking a bunch of cities and we’re just like, that’s fucking crazy!

That my friends is an important goal for any filmmaker who isn’t just trying to reach for the stars but to make filmmaking their world and to have a career and not just 15 minutes… and normally the ones that go on to take risk and make great films.

I for one can’t wait to see Bellflower (which will be in theaters this weekend starting August 5th) go out into the world and see what Evan will come up with next!

ScreenCrave.com » Interviews

Interview: Kristen Bell Relates To Her Character In Big Miracle

Related Posts

Interview: Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski Save The Whales

Related Posts

Interview: Director Roland Emmerich for Anonymous

Related Posts

Interview: Rowan Atkinson and Director Oliver Parker on Johnny English Reborn

Related Posts

Interview: Harry Connick Jr. on Dolphin Tale and Being a Working Actor

Related Posts

Interview: Director Charles Martin Smith for A Dolphin’s Tale

Related Posts

Interview: Nathan Gamble and Cozi Zuehlsdorff – The Adorable Dolphin Tale Duo

Related Posts

Interview: Director Mike Flanagan and Actress Courtney Bell for Indie Horror ‘Absentia’

Related Posts

Interview: Justin Gordon Actor/Producer for Indie Horror ‘Absentia’

Related Posts

Interview 1-1: Ruben Fleischer Talks 30 Minutes or Less

Related Posts

Interview 1-1: Jesse Eisenberg Talks Serious Comedy

Related Posts

Interview: Bellflower Filmmaker Evan Glodell on Making the Impossible, Possible

Related Posts