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Entries in Actors on Actors (40)

Wednesday
Dec072011

Vamp Glenn, Crook Michael, and Killer Viola!

If The Film Experience were its own media empire the first thing we would do is some sort of annual gallery of celebrities a la Vanity Fair or the New York Times. For this year's New York Times video gallery ["Vamps, Crooks and Killers" (photos) "Touch of Evil" (video)] the Times has famous actors playing famous film baddies or villainous archetypes. We've mentioned we love this actors as actors business muchly before. It always thrills. 

Here's Glenn Close as Theda Bara the vamp and Viola Davis as Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) for appetizers.


The Close image reminds us that Glenn has always been thisclose to being a cartoon character who just happens to be made of flesh and blood. That's how most iconic film stars and characters come across... at least after decades in the pop cultural air, though it didn't take Close that long to achieve it.

Doesn't the Nurse Viola Davis Ratched immediately make you want to see her in a villainous role? It hadn't even occurred to me before but it'd be super scary to watch her soulfulness curdle in some choice role. I bet she'd be great. On her performance in this video she says...

I tried to channel all the parts of myself that are probably not pretty. That are not necessarily nice."

Rooney Mara, Michael Shannon, Kirsten Dunst, Brad Pitt and Mia Wasikowska, after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Nov272011

Interview: "Rampart"'s Ben Foster. He's Dying for a Musical Comedy

Ben Foster photographed at Sundance in January.Ben Foster doesn't like to talk about himself.  This becomes clear immediately after we've begun talking about Ben Foster, though he won't admit it until we're wrapping up.

"Press is very difficult for me," He explains fifteen into our conversation. Some actors do like talking about themselves, I remind him, amiably. "That must be nice for them," Foster quips back sarcastically. On the subject of Rampart and its leading man Woody Harrelson, though, he is much more effusive. "It's so easy to talk about him." the actor says with relief, combining his roles as co-star, friend and first time producer.

"I'm absolutely amazed by the work he did," he offers when the subject of Woody's acclaimed and Oscar buzzing performance as a corrupt cop pops up. "He dropped 30 lbs, he was living the cop lifestyle, he disappeared on set - it was disturbing quite often to see your friend coming unglued. We all know that it's for a movie but there are those moments where you get a bit concerned... that's just a tribute to what a brilliant actor Woody is." 

The two actors co-starred previously in Oren Moverman's The Messenger (2008) which netted both Moverman and Harrelson Oscar nominations. They've since formed a production company with more projects currently in development. 

Foster as "General Terry" informs for corrupt cop "David Brown" (Woody Harrelson) in Rampart

What's it like to wear a new hat suddenly as a producer? Foster likens it to "going into the boiler room" to understand the whole mechanism operates.  "I've been doing this for 18 years so to be let in on all the almost disasters that come up every single day was actually thrilling. Actors are so insulated and spoiled on set. It's amazing how much they're protected... and need to be to some degree."

Foster was on set nearly every day but for the week preparing for his small role in the film. He praises Moverman's sets for being collaborative, creative and safe for the actors. The Rampart screenplay was initially much broader, closer to co-writer James Ellroy's traditional pulp noir before Moverman's rewrites. And there's no rehearsal -- some actors don't even meet before the first take.

'No rehearsal?' I ask in disbelief considering the nuanced work Moverman pulls from actors in both Rampart and The Messenger. How else do you get a scene like my favorite in The Messenger, one long continuous shot were Foster and the newly widowed army wife played by Samantha Morton (Foster calls her "an exquisite actor and beautiful human being")  become emotionally intimate in her kitchen; Moverman used their first take.

"Well, rehearsal is a big word," Foster clarifies, explaining that they don't do much in the way of the traditional theatrical approach of hitting your marks hard. On Moverman's set there are handheld cameras and  actors are encouraged to drop lines if they feel they should or move around as they wish, even free to leave the room. All of this adds to an environment that demands that the actors really listen to each other while performing. The rehearsal, such as it is, is not the traditional kind. "Oren does extensive work with each actor building the characters, their past where they're going, who they are, what they do and then sitting them up with a specialist -- someone who has a job similar to that and who has lived a life similar to the character -- and then you [as an actor] do your homework. That's kind of the miracle of good casting that these people know how to listen and know how to play."

Woody & Ben at the Academy's Governor's Ball earlier this month.On the subject of casting, he sounds a bit like a producer already. So one has to wonder what he thinks of his own typecasting these days. If filmmakers are looking for a dark, twisted, maybe violent character, Foster's name always seems to crop up. Why is that? His succinct answer: 

I don't know. I don't know. I'm dying for a musical comedy right about now!"

Musical comedy is actually where it began for Foster, though that seems radically against type for the actor as we know him now. He was doing middle school musicals in Iowa when his father taped him just "just being a goof" Disney got a hold off the tape and the next thing he knew he was in California auditioning and moving to Toronto to star in a television series. "I didn't even know what a mark was." Foster recalls, confessing that he learned everything on the job.

Despite his urge to mix things up with something lighter, Foster admits that he "takes great pleasure in the intense and disturbed". Even his fall back term of endearment fits with his dark persona; the word "beast" keeps peppering his conversation. He uses it to describe talented actors and director's he'd like to work with: David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Gaspar Noe... "Lars von Trier for sure. There's some real beasts out there." He'd just seen Melancholia before our conversation. Did he always know that his Get Over It (2001) co-star Kirsten Dunst had this kind of work in her?

Ben Foster and Kirsten Dunst in "Get Over It" (2001)

"Oh she is a beast of an actor, always has been." he says, suddenly animated, always happier to praise other actors and avoid the Ben Foster topic. "It's just about the stars aligning for her to really show what she's got. There's so much more to come with her. I'm absolutely a silly fan of Kirsten's."

Before our conversation wraps up he describes Melancholia as a knockout. "Few films have made me happier than Melancholia" he adds with endearing absurd sincerity. It's a beast of a movie, we heartily agree, but apocalypse-induced euphoria might not be the best thing to admit while searching for a good musical comedy.

Related Posts
Interview Kirsten Dunst | TIFF Rampart Review | Rampart After Party | Best Actor Oscar Race | Take Three: Ben Foster

Thursday
Oct132011

"The Age of Scorsese" Photos

Editorial photoshoots that recreate old movies are always good for both smiles and grimaces. The latest in this long chain of stars playing other stars (a motif we've discussed before) involves the films of Martin Scorsese in Harper's Bazaar "The Age of Scorsese" photographed by Jason Schmidt. 

I was thrilled to see two underappreciated actors (and real life marrieds) Alessandro Nivola & Emily Mortimer in The Aviator parts that brought Leo & Cate Oscar attention. For what it's worth, Mortimer has a sweet small role in Scorsese's Hugo (see previous post) as a flower shop girl to follow her sick small role in Shutter Island.

As you'd rightly expect they're adorable while discussing the shoot in the accompanying videos.

Emily: We were worried about not having chemistry in our shot. It's a still frozen in time from a movie so it's a different thing trying to... and also our faces at those angles don't necessearily look as good as Cate Blanchett and...
Allesandro: Speak for yourself.
Emily: Well, you're much more handsome than Leonardo DiCaprio. Obviously.  

Love.

Meanwhile, can we please declare a moratorium on using Jodie Foster's Taxi Driver underage hooker as a iconic look for child stars? It's like a rite of passage for them but you'd think people would get tired of tarting them up by now! So here's Chloe Moretz as. Keanu Reeves gets the DeNiro role. 

There's a few more over at Harper's Bazaar involving Goodfellas,  Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Emily Blunt) and Gangs of New York (Christina Hendricks and Jack Huston... Christina is a definite improvement over the original but, then, it's kind of Cameron Diaz's worst performance.) 

Finally, Kate Bosworth attempts to channel La Pfeiffer (the guy playing DDL is uncredited) from The Age of Innocence.

Anyone pretending to be Michelle Pfeiffer is going to be a problem for me but ..Bosworth? Hmmm. To her credit in the video that accompanies the article, Kate echoes Elizabeth Olsen's recent confession calling LaPfeiffer "one of my favorite actresses of all time" so I guess we'll forgive her for treading on hallowed frizzy-haired ground.

 

Thursday
Oct062011

Yes, No, Maybe So: "My Week With Marilyn"

Visual information was a long time coming with My Week With Marilyn, but now at last the trailer for the film has arrived giving us a peek at Michelle Williams as Hollywood's most famous blonde bombshell and the story of a diversion with a reporter during the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl.

Dougray Scott and Michelle Williams as Mr & Mrs Arthur Miller

In the trailer we see lots of Michelle as Marilyn and a pissy Sir Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier. Judi Dench seems starstruck, Dominic Cooper annoyed, and Eddie Redmayne appropriately in over his head as the young man she takes up with.  Let's break it down. Do we wanna see it and why?

Breakdown and full trailer after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Sep252011

Olsen ♥ Pfeiffer

Thanks to Marcus to alerting me to this.

Olsen's fond memory: meeting Michelle Pfeiffer on the set of "I Am Sam"Seems that Elizabeth Olsen, currently Oscar buzzing for her performance as a cult member in Martha Marcy May Marlene, shares not one but two favorite movie stars with The Film Experience. In this recent interview with THR's Scott Feinberg she's asked about favorite films and her idols growing up. Her response:

When it came to the first actors I idolized it was Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. The first actress that I really loved when I was probably ten was Michelle Pfeiffer. I was completely in love with her and I actually got to meet her on the set of I Am Sam.

She wouldn't have remembered that but I was -- it was my first time I remember being speechless as a kid because always I was speaking. A girlfriend in my class --- her uncle did her hair for I Am Sam. That was exciting. 

Ahhh, Kelly and Pfeiffer? She has good taste, she does. Can't wait to see Martha Marcy May Marlene. Very soon my hungry eyes will gobble it up at the NYFF screening.

Should you care to see the whole interview you can do so after the jump

Click to read more ...