Category Archives: Interviews

Shia LaBeouf Puts On Interview Face

Interviews, Musings

The kick off for this one — an interview with Shia LaBeouf from The Onion’s
A.V. Club on occasion of his starring role in this week’s Disturbia — isn’t mine, but it reminded me of a chat I had with LaBeouf
back when he was making the press rounds for Bobby last fall.

A ways into the Q&A, the interviewer points out LaBeouf’s
candidness and asks if he gets shit from his handlers; LaBeouf responds in the
affirmative, in breezily loquacious style: “Sure, picture this whole room full
of reiner-inners. That’s what their job is, and of course I understand that.
And there’s an aspect to me that sort of wants to do the same. Because if you
don’t rein it in, you start losing mystery and sometimes perception is almost
more important than the skill level of an actor. And if you give too much away,
you have nothing to take for yourself and put onscreen. If people feel like
they know you too well, they won’t be able to identify with the character you’re
trying to portray. Or they’ll feel that you’re just playing yourself, and then
you just become a personality actor. And that’s the death of any actor. So this
[gestures at himself] is a representative. This is far too important a conversation,
it’s far too important, for me to be real with you. It’s just too important to
my career, too important to the things that I love. So this right here is just
this representative I’ve created. And I can talk all day in this character, this
is just another form of acting. It’s closer to what I am, but what I am is too
much for any kind of selling of a project. There’s too much money riding on
this interview going well for me to be completely candid. So it’s just a
creation.”

LaBeouf is a mile-a-minute talker who has a way with shorthand
that seems flippant but really isn’t (on being cast in Bobby: “You’re 20 years old — do you wanna go play for the all-star
team? Sure…”), and he can segue between rat-tat-tat promotion (again on Bobby: “This
is not a liberal movie, it’s not specifically about politics, it’s about
ordinary people following extraordinary man. Here was a man with vision who was
a voice for those who were silenced. This was a great person, and that’s the
gist of what the film is about. It’s about relighting that fire in people that
they can have faith in other people — it’s not politic, it’s about hope”) and blunt
biographical distillation, as during one point in a roundtable chat when he described his dad, a
former roadie with the Doobie Brothers, as “a real-deal hippie who still lives
in a teepee in Montana — still.”

He’s a good interview, in other words — obviously preternaturally
bright, but still bristling with the restless discomfort of youth. The most interesting
moment that I had with him was riding up an elevator, on the way to a hotel
hospitality suite. Making a bit of small talk after our scheduled interview, I finally
asked LaBeouf, with a lolling smile, if he could get quite as excited selling a
movie that he didn’t care about as he was about Bobby. From a savvier veteran, one might expect a pithy parry, or
from a more automaton-like newcomer a wide-eyed exclamation along the lines of,
“I hope I never have to!”

LaBeouf’s immediate response, though, was telling, in that,
as in the above Onion piece, he copped to slipping into character for such interviews
— not a lesser representation of himself, or a totally insincere one, but one
tinged with boosterism, undeniably. He had to play-act as his own advocate. It’s the admission that a lot of actors won’t
(or can’t) make. Think what you will of his on-screen talent, but this acknowledgement
(which helps make him a good, always engaged talk show guest, for one) and LaBeouf’s
overall perspective confirm a pretty astonishing grasp, for someone of his age,
of the difficulties inherent in nurturing and maintaining a film career — and the
privilege of such an endeavor.

Sigourney Weaver on Avatar

Ephemera, Interviews

When most filmgoers last left James Cameron, he was
proclaiming himself king of the world, having seen his Titanic sweep up 11 Oscars to go alongside its record-setting box
office haul. Apart from the 2005 deep-sea documentary Aliens of the Deep and some other non-fiction work, Cameron
has been conspicuously absent from the feature film world, instead producing a few works and chiefly indulging
his own penchant for intellectual exploration.

All that’s about to change, of course, as Cameron has flung
himself into a pair of ambitious projects that — though they won’t hit screens
until 2009 — are naturally already drawing plenty of attention. The first of
these, Avatar, with Sam Worthington
and Zoe Saldana, is being described as a luxurious, futuristic love story on a verdant
foreign planet, set against a backdrop of cultural alienation.

Cameron’s Aliens
leading lady, Sigourney Weaver, has a key supporting role, and took some time
recently during an interview session for Jake Kasdan’s The TV Set to discuss Avatar
as well. “I have a very juicy part,” she says. “It’s not the lead but it’s the
second lead. I’m not one of the two young people in love, but I’m the older
person in love.” Just because the movie re-teams her with Cameron, though, don’t
necessarily start drawing comparisons to the character that launched her to superstardom.
“It’s a very different role, I’m not playing anyone remotely like Ripley,” she
says.

Offering up teasing insinuations that only “sometimes” will her
character, a botanist named Grace, look like her, Weaver is high on Avatar’s visual style. “They’re
transforming the way this kind of movie is being made, I’ll tell you that,” she
says. “Jim has invented different cameras to capture this world.”

Responding to Michael Biehn’s assertion at the recent Grindhouse
premiere that Avatar was essentially “Lawrence of Arabia in space,” meanwhile,
Weaver laughs. “Well, I think scope-wise it probably is, but I think Lawrence of Arabia might be slightly nobler
than our (film). Ours is big entertainment — it’s a big, lush, old-fashioned
romantic adventure the likes of which no one has ever seen. I’m reading this
thing just going, ‘How are you going to do that?’ I mean, if anyone can do it,
Jim can. But it’s incredibly ambitious. And at the same time, it’s all these
wonderful characters that you care about, and it’s a very topical script in the
sense that it is about the environment and, you know, the forces of sort of good
and evil.”

On Governmental Distrust

Ephemera, Interviews, Musings

Not exactly breaking news, but if there’s any doubt that
George W. Bush is increasingly seen as both an instigator of more worldwide
peril than a quelling force, it should be noted that more and more celebrities
aren’t even bothering to speak in vagaries and deeply coded niceties about political parallels and
allusions in entertainment product.

“There’s just something about shadow governments and
conspiracy and patriotism gone wrong that feels very contemporary, and strikes
a nerve,” says Shooter
director Antoine Fuqua in the EPK materials for the project. “We may be talking
about a cover-up in a small foreign village that has some small but extractive
wealth,” adds costars Danny Glover. “These people refuse to move, and they’re
dealt with. But it’s a pattern that happens. These things happen all the time
these days.”

Tyler Bates on Halloween

Interviews

I had a chance to speak with composer Tyler Bates recently, about his work on 300, and the subject of Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboot — for which Bates is also providing the music — came up. Bates has worked with Zombie before, and had some interesting things to say about their working style, his take on the script and tackling such an iconic score.

“Rob came to me when I believe the Weinsteins first tapped
him to see if he would be interested in making a Halloween movie,” says Bates. “Rob gave me his idea for the script and he asked
my opinion of it, which I appreciated, and then asked if I would mock up our
version of the theme for a presentation to the studio. So we had a dialogue
going, and through The Devil’s Rejects
we had definitely creatively bonded immediately. Rob pretty much leaves me to
my own devices, musically. He doesn’t really speak in musical terms to me about
anything. And that’s probably because as an artist and a musician himself he
knows it would be horrible to have your A&R guy saying, ‘Yeah, write
another one like “Living Dead Girl.”’ You know that’s not going to be so good.”

“Going into Halloween
I’ve had the opportunity to develop a palette of sounds that are going to be
applicable to the film, texturally,” Bates adds. “And being very familiar with Rob’s filming
style, and the script, and having taken a look at a couple of examples of
cinematography that reflect the attitude he wants to capture for the film, it’s
given me a lot of info. He’s in his third week of filming right now. I imagine
that I’ll start looking at an assembly of dailies next week. Rob lives pretty
close by, and so we’ll have a chance to get together and talk. Rob’s visual
style is so intense that the music really has to become part of the film
itself. It can’t accompany the film, it has to become part of the fiber of the film itself. That’s the challenge.”

“As far as the Halloween
aspect goes, first off I think he’s written a great script,” continues Bates. “He’s telling the
story, in my opinion, in a way that fans are really going to love. …And one of
the pleasures of getting a chance to do this movie is getting a chance to do
the John Carpenter theme, but kind of get back to the way that Carpenter did
it — at least that attitude. There’s not going to be a sweeping, orchestral
version of the theme happening. This is hopefully going to be the most
disturbing version ever created. That’s our objective, to really get into the
darkest corners of your mind, and I feel that Rob is definitely going to
accomplish that, in a really classic way. I think you’re going to see this
movie as something that really delivers on a psychological level and a dramatic
level. It’s probably going to be violent as hell, I’m sure, but that’s not his
main point.”

Fantastic Four Sequel Gets Weekend Polish

Ephemera, Interviews

It seems Ioan Gruffudd (above, second from left) got in trouble with 20th Century Fox a while back for saying that Galactus wasn’t part of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the sequel to 2005’s $330 million-grossing worldwide comic book superhero hit.

Since then, however, director Tim Story has more or less confirmed that the appearance of fan favorite Galactus would come in the third act, feeding into a storyline for a potential third film in the series. Still, during interviews for the forthcoming The TV Set, from writer-director Jake Kasdan, the charming, easygoing Gruffudd isn’t taking too many chances, and he’s clearly having to fight the impulse of sharing more. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says with a smile, responding to the scenario as laid out above. “And I’ll add that whatever Tim says is correct.”

Gruffudd does offer that the cast is doing two or three days of re-shoots on the film this weekend, but it’s less work than on the first movie, which he says is “a good sign. And in this film I’m more masculine and in control… I’m not floundering about.”

And are the re-shoots in Los Angeles or do they involve outdoor location work up north in Vancouver? Gruffudd almost answers, then catches himself, and shakes a finger disapprovingly. “You’ll be there with your bloody camera, won’t you, looking for Galactus!”

Mark Wahlberg Shoots to Thrill

Interviews

Hollywood prides itself on reinvention. After all, it has plenty of experience in
neatly packaging such tales of underdog uplift, personal transformation
and professional rebirth, selling them to the public in compact,
pre-formed celluloid patties 12 months a year.

The career trajectory of
Mark Wahlberg, though, has been a particularly unusual one, and a
lesson in the art of the makeover. From successful if unlikely Bahs-ton-born hip-hop musician to roughneck (and allegedly homophobic) Calvin Klein underwear model to hipster Entourage
producer and, now, Oscar nominee, Wahlberg’s acting career might best
be described as a blue-collar shooting star. It’s been characterized by
a solemn, hard-edged determination, commitment to professionalism and
incremental betterment. So it’s no surprise that
Shooter, his latest film, finds him playing an idealistic ex-military man who has to take matters into his own hands. Whether in Boogie Nights, Rock Star, Four Brothers or I Heart Huckabees, Wahlberg is at his best when he’s able to showcase his convictions, to convey the depth and strength of his beliefs. For the full interview feature, from FilmStew, click here.

Filmgoers Not Sure They Love Chris Rock

Interviews, Musings

Sporting a thin, black, cashmere sweater pulled over a dress shirt,
Chris Rock — chatting in a Beverly Hills hotel suite a week before his new movie’s release — is every bit the picture of buttoned-up domesticity that he chafes
against in I Think I Love My Wife, based loosely on French auteur Eric Rohmer’s Chloe in the Afternoon, but also given a suburban pinch of Woody Allen’s angsty New York flavoring.

The film, Rock’s second directorial outing, is a small and somewhat personal one, and what might be considered a tough sell to most of his fans. Less than two weeks into its wide release, it’s made just over $10 million. As to the question of whether fans of Rock’s forcefully delivered stand-up comedy want to see him bottled up in a swallowed dramedy of temptation, the answer appears to be no, mostly not.

More interesting, though, is the question of how does one break the news to their mate that they’re “artistically exploring” infidelity and/or desertion — or, in the
extreme case of rapper Eminem and his hit single “Stan,” outright homicide — in proactive, creative form? “As a comedian, I can’t think about everything I say,” Rock says with a shrug. “I’m
out of the concern business. I just do what I do. I’m not Picasso, but
I’m sure he didn’t worry about getting the floor dirty, [going] ‘I need
a drop-cloth!’”

For the full feature piece, from FilmStew, click here.

Screenwriter Talks Shooter Adds, Trims

Ephemera, Interviews

This one isn’t mine, but rather from the Writers Guild of America site: Shooter screenwriter Jonathan Lemkin talks to writer Peter Rader (Waterworld) about why he wrote seven different endings for his adaptation of Stephen Hunter’s novel Point of Impact, as well as how Ned Beatty’s character inadvertently turned into Vice President Dick Cheney (without quite blasting an old guy in the face with buckshot). Some interesting stuff, particularly about Paramount excitedly pumping money into the project, but how that begat even more changes. For the audio file of the chat, click here.

Composer Tyler Bates Talks 300

Interviews

300 — a stirring, violent and visually audacious tale of battlefield sacrifice — has focused on cinematographer Larry Fong’s rotoscoped, consistently evocative camerawork. And rightly so — the movie’s saturated frames and rich shadows look and feel like a comic panel come to life, and feed its brawny, heightened tone. Composer Tyler Bates‘ driving, aggressive music, though, reflects the characters’ physical vigor as well as their steadfast dedication to principle.

I had the chance recently to speak with Bates about his second collaboration with Dawn of the Dead director Snyder, his overall career path and the challenges of tackling iconic properties. For the full interview feature, from Rotten Tomatoes, click here. To visit Bates’ eponymous website, meanwhile, click here.

Bow Wow Looks To Unseat Will Smith

Interviews

Hip-hop artist, actor, mini-mogul-in-training — Bow Wow doesn’t
need anyone to throw him a bone. In honor of his 20th birthday, then, here’s a slightly redacted reposting of an interview done from the fall of 2005, on occasion of the theatrical release of Roll Bounce. To wit:

There used to be a day when actors wanted only to be actors.
That day is no more. There used to be a day when singers wanted only to be
singers. That day is no more. There used to be a day when actor-singers wanted
merely to be actor-singers. That day is no more.

And there used to be a day when performers who formerly, and
formally, had the designation “Lil’” in front of their name would be happy to
escape adolescence with a trust fund intact. That day, too, is no more. Yes, in an interview in advance of his new
period skate movie Roll Bounce, Bow
Wow is telling me that he wants to put Will Smith out of business. And he’s not
entirely kidding.

In breathless fashion, multimedia army-of-one Bow Wow
relates anecdotes about his recently completed music tour, his upcoming film
projects, various endorsement deals, the self-starring reality show he’d like
to launch on his own terms (“I think if I had mine it’d be crazy, you’d never
see nothing like this”) and, yes, plans for
his own clothing line. Probably one of the most preternaturally confident —
cocky? — of the under-drinking age set in Hollywood
today, Bow Wow is a relentless talker and self-promoter, and unnervingly on
point. (If none of his entertainment ventures stick, he could in a decade segue
into politics, where his cult of personality would find welcome reception.)

Yet Bow Wow has a unique
combination of experience and basic insight that could serve him well, and
together give him just as much of a puncher’s chance as anyone else looking to
rapaciously climb the Hollywood ladder. Ask him why rappers today feel the need
to brand themselves with such a wide variety of lifestyle accoutrements, and
he’ll launch into a soliloquy about the genre’s high relatability amongst
today’s kids and how fans therefore want to also feel like they own a piece of
their favorite hip-hop stars — or even athletes — outside of music or off the
court. It’s a bit broad strokes but nonetheless perceptive. Bow Wow is no dum
dum, in other words.

Bow Wow first came to fame as the preteen protégé of
rapper-producer Jermaine Dupri, who continues to serve as his musical mentor. His
debut album, Beware of Dog, sold over
three million copies and spawned the hit “Bounce With Me,” which touched number
one on both the rap and R&B charts. He then made his feature film debut in Like Mike, and was most recently seen
opposite Cedric the Entertainer in Johnson
Family Vacation.

Setting one’s sights on Will Smith, though, requires a bit
broader palette, and so Bow Wow began looking for something with a bit more
heft to it. It was then that he heard of Roll
Bounce, a script by television writer Norman Vance (Beauty Shop) that Malcolm Lee (Undercover
Brother, The Best Man) had
expressed an interest in directing. “What attracted me to the film was the
storyline,” says Bow Wow, “and especially that is was something completely
different than anything I’ve done before. I really wanted to broaden my career
as an actor, and this role was a great way to take it further.”

The film’s story, set in a music-cued 1970s, centers around
Xavier “X” Smith (Bow Wow). At a time when rollerskating was a way of life, X
and his pals ruled supreme. When their local rink closes, however, it sends
these decidedly downtown kids into terra
unfamilia — an uptown rink known as Sweetwater — where they face off
against a collection of flamboyant over-the-top skaters. Along the way, there’s
a budding romance with the sweet Naomi (Meagan Good) and a therapeutic healing
in X’s relationship with his father Curtis (Chi McBride).

“I’ve been skating for years so this wasn’t really anything
new to me,” says Bow Wow. “I’ve been skating since I was around six years old.
I used to waste my mother’s money all the time, just playing games at the
arcade. And then she was like, ‘Nah, get on out there.’ So it was cool, it
brought back some memories.”

“The routines and the choreography were really the only
thing that I had to learn,” Bow Wow continues. “That took a few weeks. A lot of
us, we’re not dancers, a lot of us don’t have rhythm, so it was cool to get
everybody together and just try to do it. People were falling, some folks
couldn’t get it, some could. But we had to wait, and work together, because we
were a team and we had to move as a unit.”

While the nostalgic underpinnings and familial drama of Roll Bounce make it almost as much of a
“glance-back” movie for adults as a funky comedy of choreographed good times, the
assortment of supporting player cameos (Nick Cannon, Charlie Murphy, Mike Epps,
DMX, Wayne Brady) adds further color and flair. Bow Wow also asserts that young
and old can appreciate the artistic showmanship of rollerskating. He acknowledges
the ascendancy of rollerblades, but points out the existence of Los Angeles’ World
on Wheels and other local skating rinks, saying there’s still a healthy
underground appetite for the type of “jam skating” on display in Roll Bounce. “Rollerblades are
definitely used for exercise and things like that,” says Bow Wow. “But when
it’s time for you to skate and really show off what you’ve got, then it’s four
wheels.”

Bow Wow will soon get a chance to get to know other types of
four-wheel modes of transportation as well, as he and Lucas Black (Sling Blade, Friday Night Lights) are set to co-star in the third installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise,
set in Tokyo. Shooting commences on
location in October — “I’ve never been [to Japan], so that’ll be all new,
different,” he says — and though Bow Wow is as of yet uncertain as to what, if
any, sort of driving school training he’ll have, don’t be too surprised if you soon
see his endorsement of an auto body professional. Or a tire company, or a rim
specialist…

Jim Carrey: Kismet Detective

Interviews

Jim Carrey is nothing if not dogged in his pursuit of well-roundedness.
While plenty of actors have been only too happy to trade on the
well-fed contentedness of their big screen personalities, and merely
flip their careers into cruise control (a certain Dreamgirls Oscar nominee comes to mind), Carrey has for more than a decade shown a penchant for
dancing on the razor’s edge. Broad comedies are his forte, but he
clearly yearns for embrace — commercially as much as critically — in
dramatic fare as well, as The Truman Show, The Majestic, Man on the Moon and now his choice to headline the recent The Number 23 all illustrate.

“I really have always thought of myself as somebody who lives in the
middle of the wheel, and is able to go to the extreme, to the outside
of the wheel, in any direction,” says Carrey. “The best case scenario for me is to
be able to be centered and then go out. You can be zany
and funny or you can do something that really has some depth to it and
is serious …I would
hate to get trapped in one little thing. I always feel like funny is an
appendage, but it is not my whole body.” For the full feature interview, from FilmStew, click here.