Will & Grace made Eric McCormack a star. In Alien Trespass, a Matinee-style homage to classically cheesy science-fiction flicks, he plays noted astronomer Ted Lewis, who gets possessed by Urp, an alien marshal trying to track down a rubbery, marauding blob in his custody after they crash-land on Earth. I spoke with McCormack recently about the touchstone inspiration of various old movies, whether people have stopped assuming he’s gay, the future of TNT’s Trust Me, and how kids — including his son — say the darnedest things. For the Q&A, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here.

As part of a stacked ensemble cast on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters,
Matthew Rhys plays a character, married gay lawyer Kevin Walker, who
has achieved a measure of stability and happiness in his personal life.
In John Maybury’s The Edge of Love,
Rhys plays much more of a spinning top — carousing Welsh poet Dylan
Thomas. Less a conventional biopic than a love trapezoid set against
the bohemian underworld of World War II-torn London and, later, the
Welsh countryside, the film costars Keira Knightley, Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller (below right). I spoke with
Rhys recently about tackling a national hero, Thomas’ melancholic
yearning for the past, and learning to embrace the “vagabond existence”
of an actor’s life. The conversation is excerpted below:

Brent Simon: Did you have any fear or trepidation in tackling a historical figure like Dylan Thomas?

Matthew Rhys: Oh, enormous! Wales is such a small country anyway that heroes are few and far between, and literary heroes are almost non-existent. There are two, so to take on, in my mind, the biggest was an enormous pressure, really, and compounded by others always saying, “Oh, he’s never been put on screen!” Even my dad said, “Don’t mess this one up.” I was like, “Oh, my God.” What’s ironic is that because there’s relatively little television footage of him, people have their own image or idea of who he is, and that tends to be quite strong and well defined, so in the run-up to the film I had all these people pitching in their takes on who Dylan was.

BS: Did you find that advice was conflicting, or at odds?

MR: Absolutely. [Dylan] was a real rogue, there were elements of him that were quite naughty. And some hold him in that golden hero esteem that he could do no wrong, whereas others said, “You can’t shy away from what he was and what he did.” That came from John Maybury in many senses, because he wanted a true depiction of who Dylan was, and [not] a chocolate box depiction. There were some very real, painful things that went on in his life, and I think we captured that in the film.

BS: What was at the heart of his roguish behavior, as you describe it? Was he truly emotionally troubled, or just living out the grand artistic cliché?

MR: What I learned of Dylan, in the research I did, was that he was an intensely complex man with a lot of demons. He desperately hankered for the golden years of innocence and youth — he writes about it in poems like “Fern Hill.” He always looks back, and he was deeply melancholic for the past, which I think is a Welsh trait — because somehow the past is always better. He was loved beyond belief by his mother, because his mother and father had a pretty bad relationship, so she poured all her love onto Dylan and spoiled him, treated him almost like a child his entire life. Therefore every woman he encountered, I think he wanted that kind of relationship — he wanted them to mother him, and love him unconditionally and intensely. And that’s what led to certain infantile behavior — the way that he regarded women, which was set up by his mother.

BS: The film revolves around a sort of love trapezoid, with no sides seeming quite equal all at once. Naturally, that means a lot of flirting and carousing with your on-screen female costars, so what was it like working with Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley?

MR: We had a tiny bit of time for rehearsal, but I knew both ladies a little socially. I think what helped was that we started our filming in a relatively remote part of Wales, where we were thrown together in a hotel and the early bonding happened there, really, because we had no choice. I think what also helped enormously was that all four of the main actors had a great love of the script and a healthy attitude toward what the film should be, so we were willing to throw ourselves in and pitch in as best we could to make it work.

BS: One of John’s other films, The Jacket, is partially about a veteran dealing with post-traumatic stress. In The Edge of Love, in the relationship between Dylan and William, Cillian’s character, there’s something interesting and not often addressed in movies — the tension between men who have served and seen horrors of war firsthand, and those who haven’t. …Perhaps this is an oversimplification, but do you think there was a lot of shame or self-disgust on Dylan’s part?

MR: That’s an interesting question. I can’t completely answer for Dylan, but I think deep down there may have been that, because he was unfit to join (the Army), he had bad lungs, and he despised machismo, and anything that resembled that. He does have that scene with William where he talks about warriors and says that if he could have his way he’d tell God to bring him back as a warrior because this way, being that sensitive, is too hard. I feel a bit unqualified to answer on his behalf because there are so many different angles. He sort of resented those men under the guise of them being macho, whereas it could have come from somewhere a lot deeper, as you suggest. And there as a longer scene taken out, which I was sad about, where Dylan plagues William with questions about what the war was like, but all the time making light of his serious answers. He almost can’t deal with it.

BS: He obviously has a very strong sense of what he wants visually, yet I don’t think many would describe John Maybury as a visual stylist, per se. How would you describe him as a director?

MR: It’s a perfect marriage, really, because having trained and been a very successful artist himself, his eye for composition is stunning. When he works with (cinematographer) Jonathan Freeman, the two of them feed off of each other’s passion. But he also has an artist’s ability to talk with actors about emotion and through-line, and he gives you everything you want. In my mind he marries both approaches very seamlessly.

BS: Where does Brothers & Sisters stand?

MR: We finish shooting our season finale tomorrow, and then we’re done until July… if we come back. We’ll find that out at the end of May.

BS: Is that ever weird as an actor — that sense of pervasive uncertainty with regards to work, and your next job?

MR: The sooner you embrace that, the easier that is for your sanity. The sooner you accept and learn to love your vagabond existence in life, the easier it is to deal with the randomness of it all.

BS: What first set you on a path to acting?

MR: Funnily enough, the Welsh specifically have these national festivals twice a year that are pretty ancient, and they encourage the youth to participate in folk singing, dancing, poetry recital and a whole host of traditions, so I think as a Welsh child you’re plunked on a stage from an early age, and it was the sort of thing that I became accustomed to. I discovered a love of theater, really, and it went from there — that’s what inspired me to apply for drama college in London.

BS: Wales is famously grey, and windswept. Has California, and specifically what I call our big, dumb sun affected your favorite leisure time activities?

MR: In coming to California, I said to myself, “Well, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here.” So I’ve tried to do as much as I can, and enjoy all that the outdoors will offer. I did a dirt bike course in the Mojave not long ago, and went rafting on the Kern River. So that’s what I try to do — take advantage of my time here and do some things I wouldn’t be able to do back home. And if there’s one thing I always seem to enjoy doing, it’s horse riding.

Over at Come to Your Senses, Todd Gilchrist has an extended, bomb-ass interview with Garret Dillahunt, of The Last House on the Left. Naturally, it touches on the movie’s nasty rape scene, among other topics. Well worth a read. And who is it that Dillahunt reminds me of, in passing — Peter Krause and… who else?

From the Los Angeles Times, a nice thumbnail read on mPRm’s co-president Mark Pogachefsky — old as all get out, relatively speaking, but a recent tip from mPRm’s Twitter feed, so there you have it…

More random, digital-age brush-clearing, this time in the form of Seth Green‘s thoughts on voiceover work in general and Family Guy specifically. “I put the same type of intent and emotion behind anything I’m performing, whether it’s comedy or drama, or on-camera or voiceover,” says Green. “I find that the sincerity of performance is recognizable especially in voiceover, where you really only have your voice to rely on. So the more truthful I can be, the potentially funnier it will be.”

“I have no idea what’s going on Family Guy, though, I don’t read the scripts,” he continues. “This is the greatest job I’ve ever had, simply because I don’t have to read the material in advance. I can go into the booth, with (Seth) McFarlane on the other side of the glass, and say, ‘What’s going on here?’ And then I get to watch the show as a fan, and have no idea what’s happening. It’s just so funny to watch that way. Family Guy is a job that I thank God for all the time. I can’t believe how lucky I am, because I actually love that show. When I first read the pilot script I hoped and wished that I could get that job, because it was something that I wanted to be a part of.”

It didn’t make the final cut for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar
nominations, but Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah, the Grand Prix winner at
the Cannes Film Festival last year, drew favorable comparisons to
plenty of trailblazing American cinema for its Altman-esque juggling of
disparate, thematically intertwined storylines. A gritty ensemble drama about the tidal pull of
despair and entrapment that Italian organized crime wreaks, the movie
interweaves a half dozen sprawling, bird’s-eye story strands; its characters include a family
involved in shady waste management dealings, a haute couture tailor who
accepts under-the-table work from cut-rate Chinese competitors, and two
stray-dog teens (below) with unruly criminal impulses but no order to their
schemes. I spoke with Garrone before the final Oscar selections,
and he talked about Gomorrah‘s theatrical success in his homeland, the state of the
Italian government’s war on the mafia, and what Oliver Stone thought about his film. The interview is excerpted below.

Brent Simon: Was Roberto Saviano’s novel something you were familiar with prior to signing on to the movie?

Matteo Garrone: I started to work on this project before it became a bestseller. It had just been published two weeks prior when producer Domenico Procacci got the rights. So I talked to Roberto about the idea of making a movie, and at that time he was under [police] protection. But I never had any hesitation to make this movie, because I thought it was a very important book and also a great opportunity for me as a filmmaker.

BS: Was the actual production of the film dangerous?

MG: Yes, we changed the title of the movie when we were shooting, but we discovered that people love cinema so much that they were happy anyway to work on an artistic project. Fortunately, we found great collaboration from the people that live in that territory, where we shot. We found the help of the people valuable because we wanted to tell a story about the Camorra (or mafia) from the inside, from the bottom up, from the point-of-view of people involved in these conflicts every day, and just trying to survive. We didn’t want to make a movie just against Camorra, or to show how bad things are. It’s a movie about Camorra more than just against them.

BS: How long was the shoot?

MG: Three months, with three months of preparation. So I spent about six months living in that area, and for me it was very surprising to find out that in Italy in 2008 there was a territory in the middle of a war. But you also talk with people who are happy to live like that, and you can meet people who you feel are really not aware about their condition, because if you grow up there, you know no different.

BS: The film has six credited screenwriters, which is an awful lot. What was that collaboration like?

MG: We gathered and wrote in Rome, but there was rewriting. Even after editing, we wrote some more scenes and [went] back to shoot again. It was a long process. Every writer handled a specific part of the screenplay. Saviano came, but he started to have more and more problems with the Camorra, so he started to come more rarely, and with police protection. We worked for four months on the script, and the writers came to the set during shooting to give their advice. My way of working is that everyone helps one another — the editor helps the screenwriter, and the screenwriter helps the set designer, you know? We are all friends.

BS: You’ve said that you filmed Gomorrah in a very straightforward fashion to reproduce the feelings that you were having while shooting. Is that approach different than your other movies?

MG: In this case the material was so strong that it was very important not to make any comment on it, because there’s the risk of banalizing what you’re working on. It was important and advisable to be very simple. I come from painting, so I’m a very visual director — there is always composition of the frame. But sometimes I shoot like something was happening just in the moment, like reportage in a war. We wanted to give this idea to the audience — to [put them] there, on the inside.

BS: So had you shot any of your other films in this manner?

MG: Not in this way. There is always a relation with documentary, but in a different way. For me it’s always very important to go [on location], and talk with people, know the detail of every part of the reality that I’m talking about. Then I try to make an interpretation of that reality — not an imitation. Those are very different. I’m not interested in the latter.

BS: I’ve seen a number of documentaries on the Camorra, but I wasn’t aware of the toxic dumping, and how big an issue that is, how long it’s been going on. Is that matter well known and reported on in Italy?

MG: To be honest, I didn’t know about it, and that’s why we decided to develop those characters and that story, and also to talk about the environment. I went to the real territory and saw the place where they used to dump this toxic waste… it’s amazing. Cancer there is 20 percent higher, and it’s incredible because the first people who died are the ones that weren’t making enough money through agriculture, so they rented the area to make more money.

BS: Marco and Zero, the two young boys in the film, have a preoccupation with Scarface —

MG: (interrupting, smiling broadly) Well, that’s an idea to talk about the confusion between reality and fiction. They are like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in a modern way, you know? But it could be Scarface, it could be anything.

BS: That’s interesting, because Scarface seems to have a pan-cultural appeal, as well as a lot of currency in the African-American hip hop culture…

MG: That is interesting. Actually, yesterday evening there was a screening with (Scarface screenwriter) Oliver Stone there, and I wished I could have asked him about that. All what makes me curious.

BS: What was his reaction to Gomorrah?

MG: He said liked it a lot.

BS: The film has set box office records in Italy. Was that surprising to you, given the subject matter?

MG: Well, we expected success, because the book was very popular, but we couldn’t expect such big success because the movie is quite different, and the structure mixes many stories. There isn’t a hero that fights against the bad people. It’s a gangster movie, but a gangster movie without a character at the top — there’s no [evil] boss. Instead of the emperor, it’s more like we see all the slaves. And when it came out in Italy it came out with subtitles, because the dialect was so strict that no one could understand. Only people from that region, and maybe the center of Naples, could understand. That was another [commercial] risk, but fortunately the audience [embraced] discovering such reality, without any filter.

BS: The end of the film makes mention of the mob’s 200,000 supporters, and you also mentioned Roberto Saviano needing police protection, so what does the modern war on the Camorra look like?

MG: Well, the book and the movie are complementary, and together became explosive, because now all the world knows about the Camorra — the government couldn’t ignore that, they had to do something. They declared war against Camorra and brought the army into Naples. That’s the situation. For sure, it’s good, but the army is not enough if you don’t start to solve the problem from inside. It’s important to understand why it’s so strong, and why people don’t trust in governmental institutions, which is the real problem.

No, Bill Murray fans aren’t experiencing deja vu — 1993’s Groundhog Day has come to home video before. Exclusive to its recent Blu-ray debut, however, is a special intermittent picture-in-picture bonus track narrated by Stephen Tobolowsky, who memorably plays Ned Ryerson, an enthusiastically deranged insurance salesman and old high school classmate of Murray’s sardonic, stuck-in-a-time-loop weatherman. The good-natured, 57-year-old character actor pops up in character throughout the film and narrates “weatherman style,” offering up trivia tidbits and quizzing viewers on their own knowledge of the film. Tobolowsky didn’t need much prodding on the reminiscences, either, as he shares in this interview tidbit from H Magazine. Groundhog Day on Blu-ray is currently available via Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for a SRP of $28.95.

A rogue asteroid helps turn Reese Witherspoon‘s Susan Murphy into Ginormica in Monsters vs. Aliens, the latest big 3-D animated feature lurking on the release horizon. Excerpts from a specially convened press conference last December, where Witherspoon and other cast members talked about the making of the film.

Question: How did you get your head around doing the voice for an animation film?

Reese Witherspoon: It’s sort of an interesting process. I went in to meet Jeffrey Katzenberg as just a general thought, an idea, once I started seeing some of the DreamWorks Animation movies over and over again at my house with my children. We had a meeting and he walked me though the process of what they do and I ended up seeing the storyboards for this movie and I got very excited. It seemed like such a good idea. It all revolved around this great image of my character sitting on the roof of the gas station, which was really cool. So we signed on and, I guess, about a year later, I started doing recording, which I like to call “actor in a box.” (laughs) It was great. I’d never really done voiceover work before, so it was really helpful to have Rob and Conrad there to walk me through everything because it’s so stop-and-go, and you pick up scenes here and there, and then you double back and get them again.

Q: You’re a gorgeous, petite woman so how did it feel to play a 49-foot-and-three-quarter-inch tall woman? How did you act that?

RW: They sort of walked me through the process of her as she was growing and growing, and what it was like. And they had to constantly give me the perspective too, because Insectosaurus is much bigger than me and then the alien robots are even bigger. (laughs) So it was constantly like, “Look up, and there it is!” or “Project further.” And she gets her strength and really enjoys having that super power. She gets stronger and more deeply involved with the voice work.

Q: Do you have any favorite ’50s B-movies?

RW: Yeah, my dad used to watch those Roger Corman movies late at night. He’s obsessed with Corman. Apparently he found out some way you can intern for Corman if you just give him $5,000 so he’s in the queue. He’s waiting for his opportunity, for his number to be pulled.

Q: Do you have any childhood memories of 3-D?

RW: I just remember being really nearsighted when I was little. I had those giant glasses so I had to put the 3-D glasses over the glasses, and that makes it kind of difficult and a little bit confusing. But we took care of all that. It’s not going to be like that anymore.

Q: What was most challenging about playing Ginormica?

RW: Just the running — there’s so much action in the movie that they had to run through, so the directors would be like (breathless voice), “Okay, now you’re running, now you’re being chased by a giant, alien robot! Now he’s over your left shoulder. No! He’s over your right shoulder! Now you’re on your giant roller skates, which are really cars strapped to your feet!” So I had to do all that, and I guess that was kind of a funny thing. To get really good energy, I’d always have to eat an entire pack of M&Ms.

Q: You’re a great role model, but who do you look up to?

RW: I admire a lot of people who manage to have great careers and a family life, and have managed to keep their feet on the ground; Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were a great inspiration. Also people who do great things with their celebrity, and manage to create opportunities for other people who really need it. I think that’s a great thing.

With his latest film, writer-director James Gray steps somewhat outside his comfort zone, and the criminal-familial narrative preoccupations that informed the informal trilogy of his first three movies — Little Odessa, The Yards and We Own the Night. The acutely sketched love-triangle drama Two Lovers stars Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw, and opens in limited release February 13. Gray spoke to a small roundtable group of reporters last week, and excerpts from the conversation follow below:

James Gray: (looking at recorders) Wow, I remember when I started making movies they were these huge things, you know, with tape cassettes. Now all of a sudden they’re these tiny little things. Pretty soon you’ll be all like putting like a little dot in the middle [of the table], then after a while you’re not going to put anything down, you’re just going to go, “Oh no, it’s implanted in my ear.”
 
Question: So you’re known as a New York filmmaker. What is it about New York on film that you think speaks not just to you but to audiences in general?

JG: Well, it’s hard to say what speaks for audiences in general; I wish I knew. If I did, I’d be in different shape. I can only say the one thing you’re really striving for I think — at least that I am — is to bring a certain emotional authenticity to the work. And I guess the best avenue I have is to make it as personal and as autobiographical as I can. I grew up in a semi-attached row house in Queens in New York, with my family. And my grandparents and my father are from Brooklyn, so you’re essentially an outer boroughs kid, growing up. You’re trying to view the world really through rose-colored glasses. It’s difficult because Manhattan is so fantastic and it’s nine miles away and all these cool rich people live there and have great lives, and you live in a semi-attached row house in Queens. I suppose that you try to steal from your past and try and make it as personal as you can. So that’s part of who I am, and I suppose that’s why it’s made its way into movies. And New York is very different from anywhere else in the country. You know, New York was settled mostly by the Dutch so the cultural tradition, I think, of New York — they say it’s an island off the coast of the United States or something. And I think the reason for that is really because the rest of the country, or at least certainly New England, was founded by the Puritans and has an English background. I think that New York itself feels different. I hope this makes some sense, you know? But it feels very different from Boston for example. Boston has an almost patrician, puritanical [feeling], while New York is a very different place. So all of this interests me, and winds up making its way into the movies.

Q: Well, there’s also certain relationships that can only happen in New York, because you can just happen upon people, and be shouting across the way from people. That just wouldn’t exist in L.A.

JG: That’s so true. I have two young children and it’s always very… upsetting is the wrong word, but it concerns me that they grow up here because a very good way of experiencing life, a very important aspect of human development and imagination is the ability and the idea of [making creative] connections. So if I’m walking down the street with my son in New York — he’s three years old — and all of a sudden there’s a zydeco band playing in Lincoln Center, which has happened, and he says, “Daddy, what’s that music?” Now I have Zydeco music at home but I’d have to think about it beforehand, take it out of the CD rack, put it in and play him zydeco music. In New York he can discover zydeco music without me having to bring it up. Or I’ll walk down the street and in the window there will be a book about the sculpture of Barnett Newman or something that I never thought about. I have a book, but I’d have to look it up. In other words, there’s a constant flow of ideas in New York. Los Angeles has everything you want, the opera in Los Angeles is excellent. It’s not as big as the Met, obviously, and they do like nine [concerts] a year or whatever as opposed to 25 but they’re great. You just have to know about them, get in your car, drive, park, get out, go — as opposed to walking down the street in New York, and you see a poster and say, “Oh, that’s at the Met this week,” and you can get out and see it. So I think you’re quite right. It’s a wonderful and very earthy way to experience living. It’s funny because people have said to me, “Oh, the movie has a very acoustic feel, it’s like a ’50s movie — people are yelling out of windows across the way.” I’m thinking, I went home to see my dad who lives in the same house, and he opens the window and says, “Seymour, Seymour!” He’s yelling down the street to a neighbor, life hasn’t changed. It’s changed for a bunch of people who live in Manhattan and make $700,000 a year or whatever, but that’s not most people. So yes, I think there’s a very earthy thing about living in New York, which is true in some metropolises, but certainly not this one obviously. Los Angeles is a very different culture.

Q: But not even just New York vs. L.A. — a suburb in middle America is still isolated in the way people meet.

JG: Oh, I meant New York as opposed to anywhere else. Obviously if you’re living in a suburb in Winesburg, Ohio, you know, obviously life is a very strange and different experience. I think the automobile all of a sudden kind of becomes a major factor [in life and social interaction], and where I live I don’t even have sidewalks. I live up Laurel Canyon, and if I want to walk with my son I have to drive to the park, which is so insane to me.

Q: You should live in Little Armenia where I live, you can walk around everywhere.

JG: I like Little Armenia. I love Marousch. Have you ever been to Marousch? I love Marousch. My wife doesn’t like Marousch because I reek of garlic for seven years after eating it, but it’s great.

Q: Does it inform you aesthetically too? Obviously, I mean there’s probably some New York films that you love…

JG: Oh I love New York movies, but New York movies inform my aesthetic less. I try not to read very much about myself, for a variety of reasons — not least of which is I always come off sounding like an idiot, as my own fault — but what little I’ve sort of come across they usually [refer to] Coppola, Lumet, Scorsese [in describing my work]. I love Coppola, and he and Scorsese are obviously formative in the movies I love, but I think about them, consciously anyway, much less than you might think. I mean, what I really am in love with is trying to reproduce the kind of expressive direct emotions of ’50s movies from Europe, particularly Italy, which is really what I love. So I don’t know how much it’s informed by aesthetic. Certainly copying from reality, my father opening the window and going “Seymour!” calling down the street, that of course informs what you do, but I think in terms of the New York movies, which I do love, consciously they don’t inform them as much as I guess people have said.

Q: Joaquin’s character is also a photographer in the movie, too.

JG: Well, he is [an aspirant] photographer. That’s sort of a quasi-autobiographical thing. I mean, it’s close to painting, it’s close to cinema. I had wanted someone who had some measure of art
istic dream, which I thought was important.

Q: So you’ve worked with Joaquin in three movies. What was your reaction when he announced his retirement?

JG: I was befuddled. I mean… look, he’s been doing it for much longer than most people think. He’s been acting literally for 30 years, so at a certain point you have to respect entirely the person’s wishes, but for totally selfish reasons I was very disappointed. He and I get along very well together on the set. Actually, I shouldn’t say that because we fight a lot, but in a good way. We have a wonderful working relationship, and he and I have very similar tastes so it’s very upsetting. You don’t really find that that often where you feel totally sympathetic and empathetic with another actor, so if he’s quitting that bums me out a lot. I also think he’s just really great. The world’s not filled with actors who are wonderful so, for the sake of movies, I hope he’s lying.

Q: Did you get a sense from him while you were shooting that he was kind of burned out on acting?

JG: I did, at that end. People don’t realize. It sounds like you’ve heard this before, [about] people like Daniel Day-Lewis and other actors who get so into character that they begin to disappear as people, and Joaquin is really one of those guys. I mean he does a tremendous amount of work. I would come to set at 6:00 a.m., and the actor doesn’t have to be there until 9, and Joaquin would be there sitting on set in the corner with tears rolling down his cheeks. And I’d say, “What’s the matter?” And he say, “No, I’m preparing for the day.” And at the end of the shoot I remember sort of saying, “What kind of thing do you want to explore next?” And he just said, “Man, I’m tired. I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to do it anymore. I’m tired of it. I can’t take it.”

Q: And then your film goes down in history as his last.

JG: Yeah, but then it’s like being Woody Allen in Manhattan, where Meryl Streep then has become, like, a lesbian. You’re like the person who made Meryl Streep go away from being heterosexual.

Q: Are you bothered at all by the fact that easily 80 percent of the press so far for this movie has been about Joaquin’s retirement, his hip-hop career and, oh yeah, then that he’s also in a movie called Two Lovers?

JG: It doesn’t bother me really because… I hope this doesn’t offend you guys, because I do have a real awareness of how important press is for a movie, but this is my fourth movie, and at a certain point you realize that the life of the film is a marathon and not a sprint. What’s written today about a movie is not really the story of the movie. I mean, you don’t know how much money — maybe you do, I would be very impressed if you did — how much money Chinatown grossed or something, or what the original reviews are for Klute. At a certain point all that stuff goes away and if I focused [only] on that aspect I would be very depressed. Being totally candid, on my first two movies I would read the clippings that the publicist would send, and I would get ultimately very thrilled and incredibly depressed when people said the movie sucks or whatever. Or that they say it’s about this when you meant it to be about that or whatever. At a certain point it gets very wearying, but then what you find is it’s not really ultimately what it is in the end. So with Joaquin’s, as my mother would have called it years ago, mishegoss, I have to respect whatever it is that he wants to do, and I must just say the film is what it wanted to be. It doesn’t mean that I think I’m super deluxe genius or that it’s perfect or anything. I just mean that it’s what I wanted to make. And at a certain point you can’t be unhappy about that. If the film is what it wants to be then in a way I’m much more at peace now than I’ve ever been. So I’ve tried to be a little bit zen about it, and after The Yards, We Own the Night and this, I haven’t read any reviews or press or anything. I try to ward myself off. I hope that answers your question.

Q: Well, but in the short term, and for the careers of everyone involved, it’s obviously better if the movie makes more money. So do you think that all this mishegoss, as you say, has helped bring more attention to Two Lovers, or is it the wrong kind of attention?

JG: I don’t know. I don’t know. I think it’s probably brought more attention. It’s a small film, you know? And it doesn’t have a print and advertising budget that Spider-Man 3 does, or whatever. So any attention it can get is fine. I know that’s not why he’s doing it. And would I be thrilled if the attention were all about the film? Sure, that would be wonderful, but whatever it can get is great and there are a whole host of other small wonderful movies that don’t get half the attention.

Q: Well let me just ask you one more thing along these lines, because obviously Joaquin raps a bit in the movie. So did he come to you with this idea and say this is something that I want to go into long-term, or was this just a random improv?

JG: No, that was an improv thing. Well, sort of improv. We talked about it before shooting. In the character of Leonard, we had wanted not the traditional nerd, we had wanted a person who actually was appealing and probably 10 to 12 years before might have been considered a hip dude. There was a certain element of his that might have been cool in school, but that he had lost that and heartbreak had kind of ruined him in a way. And that’s based on a person that I know, actually. So we were trying to come up with ways (to convey that), and he says, “I had a crew, I had a crew. This is what we used to do.” And then the break-dance routine that he does in the club, which is sort of kind of good but not great. It’s sort of imperfect and it’s simultaneously embarrassing, but you can see why the girls might like it. We did this in the spirit of a person who used to be happening but is now damaged. So whether he used that as a springboard for his current escapade, I have no idea. What I can say is that it felt authentic to that character.

Q: Did he just make up the rhyme off the top of his head or…?

JG: We worked on it a little bit. He sort of made it up and then we….there’s literally about 20 minutes of film on that and so I chose what I felt was best, [when he says] “I’ll blow up your face like Louis Armstrong” — like, totally absurd! So I picked and chose what I liked best about it.

Q: And now you’re also attached to a film called The Legend of Z?

JG: Oh, The Lost City of Z. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With Brad Pitt [attached], yeah. It’s totally different from anything I’ve done. It’s of unbelievable ambition, and I love Brad for that reason — he does not lack for ambition. He had sent me the article from The New Yorker by a guy named David Graham, about a guy named Percy Fawcett who was sent to South America to. The history of the mapping of the world is recent history — the last hundred years or so, or at least the accurate map
ping of the world obviously. So, the British had sent this man down to South America to mediate a border dispute between Bolivia and Brazil because the rubber trade was huge back then, 1905 to 1906, because of B.F. Goodrich and the advent of the automobile. So the borders were not clearly delineated and they needed somebody, a third party, to chart the borders correctly so that Bolivia and Brazil wouldn’t argue anymore about who had what. So he went down there and rather quickly lost his appetite for mapping, which he did with wonderful success. But he quickly became aware of the possible existence of El Dorado, the city of gold, and a lost civilization in the jungle. And he became obsessed with archeological issues, and to be direct about it went quite mad. The story is quite sprawling. He went back to fight in World War I, where he was injured in the Battle of the Somme. Basically he was attacked with chlorine gas and eventually went back to the Amazon and brought his son with him to finish the exploration and find this lost city. They disappeared. They were never seen again. It’s a fantastic story. I mean, it’s unbelievable. And I think it has the potential to be something really quite powerful. I’m about three-fourths of the way through the fist draft of the script now and I’m going to give it to Brad when I’m done, in probably about another two months I’d say.

Q: When Brad came to you, did you have to kind of stop and figure out what you visually could bring to it because it’s so different from what you’ve done previously?

JG: I didn’t, because the story meant a lot to me. I’m very interested in history and I’m very interested in an economic approach to history… I don’t want to say Marxist because obviously Marxism is absurd as a way to organize the world. It’s ridiculous. But in the way of looking at the world as a form as historical analysis, it bears some scrutiny. I mean, it’s certainly interesting. And the idea itself of civilization, the civilized world, is almost ridiculous, [as well as] the idea that everyone had called the indigenous population — I almost don’t want to use the word Indian because of what that really means — of the Amazon savages. Well, they’re basically savages because the Spanish and the English and everybody else went down there and essentially forced them into slave trade and treated them horribly. So when they saw a white man they quite reasonably had a violent response. It’s self-preservation. And the only time that this man really got injured was in the Battle of the Somme. I don’t know if you know about this. It’s literally like the end of the civilized world. It’s the thing that made the Geneva Convention, because the British had brought two regiments of Indian troops from India on horseback, and they would fit gas masks on the heads of the horses to gallop out of the trenches and get machine-gunned. It was insanity! So what interested me was not even the visual aspect at first. What interested me entirely was a narrative idea about a person who was on a certain quest about a lost civilization fueled, at least in part, with his disappointment about what his civilization had produced — a certain obsession with class distinction anyway. So I loved the story. The story itself was great, and the visual aspect of it, that comes for me second or even third. It’s not the primary thing I think about — which is maybe a flaw, I don’t know. What I think about initially — because I feel like if you want to be a narrative filmmaker, which is my dream — is the narrative muscle needs to be engaged first, the storytelling. I think that story is a wonderful and lost art. In fact, somebody told me last night that MIT was literally creating a program to teach story because they thought respect for story had become degraded, which I found really interesting and weird. “I’m majoring in story.” What does that mean? But story is transformative and quite beautiful and so the story itself is what drove me, and kind of the Oepedial, bizarre twist that he brought his 18-year-old son with him in the end. And they were never seen again.

Q: It sounds like you’re thinking about a real-world history approach.

JG: That’s what I’m trying to do. You know, Indiana Jones was based him. Of course it’s a totally different, Republic, B-serial approach to the character, and doesn’t bear any resemblance finally, but that’s who he sort of was — the basis for Indiana Jones. And the stuff in the book is unbelievable — like falling off a raft and starting to get eaten by piranhas. And he literally was the first person in western civilization to discover the Anaconda. They didn’t believe him. He said, “I saw a 30-foot snake that was eating deer.” People thought he was making it up.

Q: Sounds a bit like Herzog…

JG: The Wrath of God, yeah. You know wandering through the desert, or the jungle, and all of a sudden hearing opera and thinking you’ve gone mad, and guess what — you’ve reached the clearing and there’s a fucking opera house in the middle of the jungle that the Portuguese have built 150 years before. I mean, it’s madness but it’s great. Aguirre is a masterpiece I think, and I’m going to try my hardest not to rip it off. It is really hard because it is a masterpiece. And I don’t think I will rip it off because it involves a lot of European history as well in a way that is not really connected to Aguirre. Aguirre is, in its enclosed, oneric, beautiful way, quite different. I mean, a big set piece in this movie about two-thirds of the way through will be the Battle of the Somme, which I’m hoping I can do in a way that other people have not. I don’t know, I’ve been doing research on it. It’s just like hell on Earth. It’s awful.

Q: So I assume Brad will be disfigured for part of this film too, right?

JG: No, he was not disfigured. What happened was he was a crazy person. He was put in charge of 700 men and the generals came, and he was almost like Forrest Gump — Winston Churchill he came in contact with, and Archduke Ferdinand he was in contact with in Sri Lanka. Percy Fawcett was one of those guys who was always connected somehow to major figures. Churchill came down to the trenches and said, “A major problem — all of you have your hands in your pockets, and as soldiers you should be behaving for the king.” And everybody’s like, “What are you talking about? We’re getting mustard gas dumped on us.” So anyway, Percy finally was ordered not to try to take a particular territory. He said, “Fuck it, I’m going to be brave,” and he led these 700 guys into battle, but he wasn’t directly, physically injured except that he inhaled chlorine gas, which scarred his lungs. And then he began to have this horrible cough which became progressively worse.

Two Lovers opens February 13. For an interview with Joaquin Phoenix, click here. For an interview with Vinessa Shaw, click here.

On Tuesday I was part of a small roundtable group of journalists who chatted with Vinessa Shaw (pictured below in Garden Party) about Two Lovers, in which she stars opposite Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow. A Brooklyn-set drama about Leonard, a thirtysomething, live-at-home, bi-polar wallflower who finds himself torn between two women, neither of whom may ultimately be right for him, writer-director James Gray‘s movie marks the third collaboration between filmmaker and male star, but is currently getting lots of pub as Phoenix’s last film, now that he’s announced a retirement from acting, and the launch of a rap career. Shaw, who plays Sandra, a sweet-natured woman whose father might be buying the dry-cleaning business of Leonard’s pop, talks about her work with Phoenix, as well as the film as a whole. The conversation is excerpted below, with a few slight story spoilers when the conversation dips into the movie most specifically:

Question: Have you ever had anyone, especially parents, try to set you up with anyone?

Vinessa Shaw: No, I never have. I think I’ve always made my own choices, but at the same time there’s always some date that end up going on to please someone else. But I’m not very good at dating. I’m very decisive. If I like someone then they’re my boyfriend, it’s pretty straightforward.

Q: What was it like filming on location in New York?

VS: I think New York is perfect for this film because of the intimacy between characters, and I really feel we couldn’t have done it anywhere else. Plus, James is from New York and has a special place in his heart for the city and the surrounding burroughs. I feel like if we used L.A. for New York it wouldn’t have been the same, especially in his heart.

Q: Which leads to part two — did James take you guys out [to specific places] to get everyone ready?

VS: No. (laughs) I think he was there with his family, living in Tribeca, and was really focusing on the work we had to do. And the film went [off] pretty fast after we got all the actors together for each character, we just started filming. So I think he just went scouting and that was it. You kind of had to create in your mind what the scenarios would be for each character, and where their families lived and the specificity of it.

Q: Why wouldn’t this movie be the same if it was set in L.A.?

VS: As we know, so many romantic movies are set in New York, and I think the city itself romances people’s hearts. I think it can be a very lonely city and also a very comforting city depending on how happy or miserable you are. So I think we see both sides of that, and especially for my character, being from Brighton Beach, it’s a very homey kind of familial neighborhood, contrasted to the awe of New York City, which James does so well when Leonard goes into [Manhattan] and there’s that beautiful, serenading music. The city can be very intoxicating in that way, and that’s what’s happening to him with Michelle. He’s being intoxicated by her mysterious ways.

Q: The love scenes in this film are much more realistic than we see in many movies. Were there any differences in other movie love scenes?

VS: (laughs) I think all movie love scenes are hard, because you can’t truly be as intimate as you would be with anyone you’re truly with, and everyone’s watching you. But I think especially for the love scene between [Sandra and Leonard], it’s in his parent’s house, and James really wanted it to be messy — not just shooting on my face and then his face. I think you got the reality of the characters. Even in the end, when we’re post-coital, Sandra’s holding him instead of him holding her. It’s very much the nature of their characters, so I think he really got the correct mood of the scene — very passionate, but still kind of imbalanced in how she essentially views their relationship.

Q: Joaquin and James have worked together a lot — did you notice a shorthand between them?

VS: For sure. I went in, and the first day I had to do the scene in the café, and it’s the first day that I’ve even met Joaquin and was supposed to be doing the actual climax of our characters’ relationship, having dated for a few months, and with things going a little bumpy. And so going into Joaquin’s trailer, with James there, it was very much like they already knew what was going on and I had to catch up a little. But it’s really nice, it’s a very brotherly kind of care that they have for each other, so in that sense, even though I didn’t know the terminology or shorthand that they were using, I still caught up to it because of their care for each other, and I was welcomed into that circle.

Q: Some filmmakers do a lot of takes — how was it on this film?

VS: James was running the show, and he really wanted us to run the gamut of all the possibilities that the characters would go through. He wanted my character, especially, for instance, the scene in the café, he ran it a couple times with me not saying anything, and then a couple times with a full-out argument. And so what you get on film is something in between. So I think he just wants to play a lot. And that would drive me crazy sometimes, because I didn’t know where we were going and what would be on screen, but it was exciting nonetheless.

Q: I’d be interested in your take on Sandra, because she’s willing to take a lot of absence from Leonard, she’s willing to accept him not showing up to the birthday party, or showing up [late] to the New Year’s Eve party. Who is she — is she a sad person, or is she just so in love with him that she [acts this way]?

VS: I think that her life, from what I could see, was very straightforward, and I think perhaps she’s been in many relationships where she’s been set up with people — guys that are very safe and stable, and probably have good futures, a good doctor or something. [Sandra], I think, has an adventurous streak in her, even though she’s not crazy like Michelle. In her perspective, she has this rebellious side, [wanting] somebody who’s more dangerous and unpredictable. I think she seeks that out in [Leonard]. She wants to be the one who can do something or help someone. She works at Pfizer in the city, so she’s definitely a caretaker in nature, but I think she maybe has too much faith in Leonard, and really feels his potential is something she could seek out, and he could be someone in the future who is really ready for her. But right now she doesn’t see that. Maybe she’s way more patient than any woman could ever be in seeing what exists for him in the future, so she doesn’t make a stink about him [missing the parties]. Either that or she’s completely in love, and blinded by that, I don’t know. I kind of decided to have her be someone who’s just simple, and sees his potential, and lives in that moment of potentiality rather than what’s going on.

Q: There’s an ambiguity at the end of the film. Do you think they have a chance at working out?

VS: I think it’s a mystery, for me. I hope that they work out. You can tell that he’s stepping into the bright future that he wants to live, but you never know. She could just as easily get fed up if he doesn’t reach the place that she wants him to be. So I hope the best for them.

Q: You’re saying it would be fine for them until she found out about the ring (a gif
t originally purchased for Michelle), and then the shit would hit the fan.

VS: Maybe, maybe. But even so, she’s an extremely understanding woman — more than any of us could be — and she’s extremely compassionate. I think that perhaps she’s been through a lot in her past, to the point where nothing phases her. Maybe that’s why they do have hope in the end, or there is at least a possibility of them succeeding.

Q: Are you part of this documentary Casey Affleck is doing about Joaquin?

VS: No, no.

Q: What do you think about [his announced retirement], and the hip hop career?

VS: You know, I hope he enjoys what he’s doing. I think that he’s a fantastic actor, and I hope that whatever he does makes him happy. I’m sure that whatever Joaquin chooses to do will bring success in his life, because he’s obviously very talented.

Q: Are you bummed that he’s quitting acting?

VS: Yeah, I would love to work with him again, but such is life. People have to do what they want to do.

Q: When getting involved with this project, was it hearing that Joaquin and James were making another movie that made you want to get involved, or were you sent the script?

VS: Well, I had been given the script and apparently James had seen 3:10 to Yuma, the movie I did with Russell Crowe, and was at the premiere. It’s so funny, because I realized that I’d seen him there, kind of staring at me. A few days, maybe even less than a week later I got the script and I heard that Joaquin and Gwyneth were attached. I loved the script, and felt like it was so real, and that the story unfolded so naturally, and that he was a great writer. I just thought, “Why not?”

Q: I found the film interesting because with respect to your character it’s a portrait of a woman who’s desperately loving someone who’s maybe wrong for her. And you don’t usually see that. She’s complicated, she’s not just a doormat.

VS: The thing I responded to the most was that she’s so honest. The exchange between her and Leonard was so beautiful, because it was real and awkward and kind of dorky. It was kind of sweet; they didn’t have everything together, and all the cool lines to say to hit on each other. So I felt it was sweet, and I think she really brings out his sweetness. I love when he has opera playing in his house, and she says she’s never been to the opera, but she’s been to The Nutcracker. She’s a very simple girl — never had more than seeing The Nutcracker. And I’m sure there’s not any other ballet that she’s seen. So I felt immediate compassion when I read her character, because I felt that she’s someone who’s pure in her love. And so she’s not manipulative, and doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. That’s different than being a doormat. It’s pure kindness and pure love. She’s not seeking anything in return. And I think you become a doormat when you start thinking that you don’t deserve the love you receive. She’s just different, she just knows that Leonard will love her and come around and become the kind of person that she knows he can be. It was a different kind of character, because she’s so warm and kind and has nothing but respect for him and her family. She’s just a good girl.

Q: Did you have to audition with James?

VS: It was one of those highly unusual circumstances in Hollywood, where it was just a meeting and an offer. I had not auditioned for him, he was very confident based on what he saw in 3:10 to Yuma, and Donna Gigliotti, who produced the film, said she saw it a few weeks earlier and told him, “I found your girl.” And he went and saw the movie and said that was it. So it was kind of fate that way.

Q: Have you gotten other gigs from other roles?

VS: Once before, and it’s funny because they’re friends. James is friends with Kathryn Bigelow, and she saw Eyes Wide Shut and cast me in Weight of Water based on just a meeting.

Q: Do you have anything coming up? Of those rumored projects, do you have something starting in March?

VS: There are things in the mix, but there’s so much that the business is suffering right now, but I think there will be something very soon. Most of the things that I’ve been involved in [have just had issues] with financing and stuff like that. (laughs) Hopefully that stuff will go [soon], hopefully for all of us.

Q: In the meantime, what do you do, take on a play or just enjoy the nice time off?

VS: I’m very active, I’m not just an actor. I have other things going on. I’m a Buddhist and active in my Buddhist’s Association, and I’m actually a National Young Women’s representative for the organization, so I travel a lot helping young women who are practicing Buddhism. And I have my family, and this is a wonderful time to have some [free] time. But at the same time, I’m definitely ready to go to work again as well. I’m going to be honest.

Q: Do you consider it to be a position of honor to be Joaquin’s potential final leading lady?

VS: Of course! Of course. And he’s very fantastic in this movie. If it really is the last role that he does, and he doesn’t come back for sure, then it’s a great one, because he’s so different than any of the characters that he’s played before. He’s so sweet, and he’s kind of funny in this too, very funny and charming. I think these are things that we haven’t seen from Joaquin Phoenix before.

Q: Have you tried to take him aside and say, “You can’t be serious!”?

VS: (laughs) I haven’t really, because I haven’t seen him since he decided to [retire], so… yeah.

Q: Wrapping up, you talked about being cast in this movie off of a meeting, but are auditions something you feel a level of comfort and ease with, given your theatrical background?

VS: Yes, I have ease and comfort because I’ve been doing it a long time, but auditioning is never an easy thing — I think you’re always feeling judged and feeling like you have to prove something. It’s such an awkward, strange thing that was concocted, to have auditions. Back in the old days you’d just have a screen test and they’d say, “Oh, you seem natural in front of the camera,” and you’d just go do 10 pictures for Paramount or whatever. So this auditioning process is very new to the business, and I think a lot of people can find reasons to not like your performance because of the specificity of that room at that time, and the takes that you do. But I’ve learned to live with it, like every other actor, and it’s still fun, because you get to say that you’ve worked that way, when you go on an audition.

Q: Do you have any memorable worst ones?

VS: Oh God… I don’t remember, probably thankfully. I just remember being sick on some of them. I auditioned for Moulin Rouge and had a fever and everything, and was trying to sing. I just remember being loopy. But nothing very bad, to the point where [I’ve been] completely embarrassed.

French director Laurent Cantet is interested in the human condition, and the fragility of relationships. His latest movie — the winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, and a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee — aims to capture both the tumult of the adolescent educational experience and, more esoterically, the binding power yet forever extant vagaries and separations of language. Born of a collaboration with novelist/teacher Francois Bégaudeau and a group of teenage non-actors, The Class is a quietly observed drama about one year at a high school in a tough neighborhood (Bégaudeau plays the teacher) in which clashing cultures and attitudes — a microcosm of contemporary urban life — slowly reveal societal fissures. In advance of its wide release, I recently spoke with Cantet about the film’s English language title change, its evocation of multiple social divides, and how France trusts its teenagers more than America. For the full interview chat, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here.

Sure, we know they can blow up ships with their nose-strap detonators and knife Vietcong frogmen, but can dolphins really commit suicide? Yes, they can, according to Richard O’Barry, the activist subject of Louie Psihoyo’s buzz-y dolphin-slaughterhouse documentary The Cove, premiering this weekend at Sundance.

New York-born Chazz Palminteri wrote his own ticket into Hollywood — literally. A stage actor and bit-player in wiseguy parts when he was pushing 40, he mounted a one-man show called A Bronx Tale, and parlayed its acclaim into a film adaptation alongside Robert De Niro. A year after that, Palminteri was Oscar-nominated for his supporting turn in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway. Part dice scam ensemble, part family drama, his latest film is Yonkers Joe, about an aging, gruff, analog-type cardsharp who’s forced
to take in his Down’s Syndrome-stricken son (Tom Guiry), then heads west to
Las Vegas for a score, where he finally learns a few things about
fatherhood. In advance of the film’s release, I recently spoke with Palminteri about the benefits of adult-onset fame, turning down big
money to find the right fit for his big break, and his love for New
York sports teams. For the full Q&A, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here.