She’s already played some famous women — Margaret Thatcher and Wallis Simpson among them, the latter in Madonna’s W.E. — but British-born actress Andrea Riseborough has remained, Stateside at least, something of an unknown. After stealing scenes from Tom Cruise in this spring’s Oblivion, however, that will remain difficult.

Her latest film is director James Marsh‘s Shadow Dancer, based upon Tom Bradby’s same-named novel. In it, Riseborough plays Collette McVeigh, a single mother in 1990s Belfast who, after getting nabbed in an aborted IRA bomb plot, is given a choice by a steely MI5 officer (Clive Owen): lose everything and go to prison for 25 years, or spy and provide information on her hardliner brothers and other IRA members. Recently, I had a chance to speak with Riseborough one-on-one, about her movie, her curious past in avant-garde music, what she enjoys about life in “terrifyingly Republican” Idaho, and what’s next professionally. The chat is excerpted over at Yahoo Movies, so click here for the fun read.

Most sequels are born of financial consequence, Hollywood studio calculation/desperation, movie star/producer hubris, or some combination thereof. That’s certainly not the case with Before Midnight, which again, like its predecessor, ranks as one of the more charming, and unlikely, cinematic follow-ups of the modern era.

In 1995’s Before Sunrise, director Richard Linklater cast Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as Jesse and Celine, a pair of young kids who cross paths on a European train and decide to kill 14 hours in Vienna before the former is due to catch a plane back home. He’s American, she’s French, and their cross-cultural, philosophically-tinged, flirty back-and-forth served as a heady cinematic stand-in for all the swollen romantic possibility of young adulthood. With its 2004 follow-up, Before Sunset, Hawke and Delpy expanded on their roles as performers in the original talky tête-à-tête, taking co-writing credits with Linklater in telling the story of a chance encounter some years later in Paris.

Thus, the first two movies in this series — neither of which is an absolute viewing requirement to submit to the charms of this offering — were very much stories where the journey was the point of the ride; they were fun, literate, thought-provoking cynic-romantic measuring sticks about tantalizing roads considered if not fully taken. Much more than its predecessors, then (and necessarily, given its characters’ ages), Before Midnight is a film that unfolds in the shadow of consequences. Life choices have been made, and Jesse and Celine must grapple with all the additional baggage that comes with any accrued wisdom in age. It’s a movie about adult romance that doesn’t pull punches about the difficulties of trying to carve a path through life to walk two-astride in good faith and keenness. For more from a recent discussion with Hawke, Delpy and Linklater about the film, click here to trip on over to ShockYa.

The rare sort of actor who can swing between Harold Hill-type independent film character work and credible, B-list leading man action hero, Aaron Eckhart has, in his latter incarnation, matched wits with aliens, terrorists and the disastrous effects of climate change. So it makes perfect sense that he’d want to tackle a chance to go full-on Jason Bourne. In Erased, he plays ex-CIA agent Ben Logan, who discovers that his high-tech security job in Brussels has been a sham. Marked for termination, Ben escapes with his teenage daughter Amy (Liana Liberato), and tries to stay one step ahead of his dangerous adversaries while also unraveling a wide-ranging international conspiracy that may trace back to an old agency colleague (Olga Kurylenko). I recently had a chance to speak to Eckhart one-on-one, about Erased, his love for his iPhone, his next projects, and the Filipino art of stick-fighting he’s mastered. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Some actresses work their way into the public consciousness as much through tabloid shenanigans as any of their actual on-screen performances. Only 17 years old, Liana Liberato is opting for hard work, thank you very much. In director David Schwimmer‘s underrated Trust, she delivered a stunning turn as an innocent 14-year-old suburban girl lured into a sexual liaison via online chatting — an act with ruinous consequences for her and her parents (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener). In her new film, the Bourne-inflected Erased, she co-stars as Amy, the crafty daughter of ex-CIA agent Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart); the two try to escape a contract rub-out and outsmart their hunters as part of a wide-reaching international conspiracy. I recently had a chance to talk to Liberato one-on-one, about Erased, technology, international travel and life after high school. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

With the enormous success of the Twilight series, vampires are arguably as hot as they’ve ever been. And as the progeny of a famous filmmaking tandem, actor-director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands, Xan Cassavetes has a ready-made stamp of auteur authenticity. Her narrative feature debut as writer-director, however, is far from some shrewd, market-strike genre capitalization. An artfully muted exploration of amorous longing and existential crisis, Kiss of the Damned, which premiered at the SXSW Festival, hits theaters this week following a VOD bow. In it, lonely vampire Djuna (Josephine de la Baume) gives in to the advances of human screenwriter Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia), and bites him, but soon has to contend with a series of expanding consequences following the unexpected arrival of her troublemaking sister, Mimi (Roxanne Mesquida). Recently, I spoke one-on-one with Cassavetes, about the enduring nature of vampire stories and the origins of her unique name. The conversation is excerpted over at Yahoo Movies, so click here for the engaging read.

I exchanged words with Rob Zombie recently, in occasion of The Lords of Salem, and not all of the exchange made the edit. Ergo, a few more questions and answers, below:

Brent Simon: Your film touches on the Salem Witch trials, which always felt like the dirty part of history for me, like sneaking a glance in a porn mag, because there might be one or two lines about it in the officially approved school textbooks, but then you had to go off to the library and find some dusty old book to get more information. What was your first contact with the history as a kid?

Rob Zombie: I think for me I probably took it a little more for granted, because being from Massachusetts I remember going to Salem when I was really young. And funnily enough, the main thing that I remembered about Salem was that that was where the Milton Bradley factory was. I’d see the logo and be like, “Oh my God, that’s where they make all the toys!” We’d go there on school field trips; they used to do a thing where they’d re-enact the witch trials, and there’s a witch museum. I probably thought, “Does everybody have a witch museum in their town?”

BS: Heidi (the main character of your movie) is the co-host of a very voluble “morning zoo” radio show, so I have to admit I was amused by the idea of you selling this movie on exactly those types of radio shows, because it felt like a social statement.

RZ: That’s so funny. Yeah, the king of that is Howard Stern, who’s a genius of radio. But around the time that Howard really blew up gigantic, when Private Parts came out, it seemed like every deejay was just a tenth-rate crappy Stern knock-off. So when I would have to do radio interviews, it was almost literally unbearable to do those shows. They’re not really like that anymore. People have moved off that a little bit. But then it was like every show was hosted by Fart Man and Dog Breath! There’s one episode of Family Guy where Brian and Stewie have a radio show, and that’s exactly what it was like. So in the movie, I wanted to make them really, really annoying.

For the rest of the interview, click here to check it out over on Yahoo Movies.

When you take zombie as a surname, you might seem to be limiting your career options, not unlike getting a face tattoo. Yet Rob Zombie, who burst onto the scene as frontman for the theatrical hard rock act White Zombie in the late 1980s and early ’90s, has carved out not only a successful but a varied entertainment career as a musician, multimedia producer, filmmaker and graphic novel impresario.

His latest film as writer-director, however, The Lords of Salem, is a horror offering right in his experiential wheelhouse. When Massachusetts radio deejay Heidi Hawthorne (wife Sheri Moon Zombie) receives a package with mysterious music, it triggers headaches, hypnosis and visions of her town’s violent past. Is Heidi, a recovering addict and trauma survivor, slipping back into madness, or is something even more sinister afoot? Recently, I had a chance to speak with Zombie one-on-one, and while I didn’t ask him about his studded iPhone case we did chat about his movie, what hell is to him (hint: in involves drunk strippers), and what’s next professionally. The conversation is excerpted over at Yahoo, so click here for the read.

The winner of Best Narrative Feature at last year’s SXSW Festival, writer-director Adam Leon’s Gimme the Loot takes a premise seemingly made for dark twists and turns — over the course of two summer days a pair of Bronx graffiti artist teenagers, Malcolm and Sofia, try to scrape together and possibly steal $500 to pull off a big stunt that will humiliate their rivals — and turns it into a keenly observed, vibrant, livewire work coursing with adolescent energy. As a result, the young director has been rewarded with attention as one of the top up-and-coming filmmakers of the under-30 set. I recently had a chance to speak with Leon one-on-one, about race, class and taking his little movie around the world. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

In 2004, writer-director Pablo Berger delivered an unlikely yet charming little Spanish-Danish comedic hybrid, Torremolinos 73, about an exasperated encyclopedia salesman who, along with his wife, accidentally trips into a career directing pornographic movies for import to Northern European countries. It took more than eight years to realize the dream of his totally different but equally unique follow-up, Blancanieves, the winner of 10 Goya Awards, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. In a case of good news/bad news, though, Berger’s movie — a black-and-white silent film that re-imagines the tale of Snow White through the prism of bullfighting, while also serving as a homage to European silent movies of yore — comes on the heels of the Oscar-winning The Artist. Ergo, two of its most distinctive qualities risk looking, bizarrely, derivative. I recently had a chance to speak to Berger one-on-one, about the joint pain and opportunity that presents, as well as his decades-old inspirations for the movie. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

With a healthy list of credits spanning studio fare (Mona Lisa Smile, Stealth), television (Damages, HBO’s John Adams) and the independent arena (Higher Ground, Lola Versus), Ebon Moss-Bachrach is a quintessential talented character actor — able to swing effortlessly and, more importantly, believably from genre to genre. In the unusual new horror film Come Out and Play, alongside Vinessa Shaw, he plays one half of a happy couple who go to Mexico for a romantic getaway, and end up stranded on an island full of murderous children.

It’s based on an old Spanish film, but the parallel story of the movie’s production may be just as strange as Come Out and Play, since it’s directed by Makinov, an anonymous, foreign-born filmmaker who wears a bunch of masks to “enforce a personal vision of cinema that detaches itself from the ego-driven model of the director,” according to his biography. I recently had a chance to speak to Moss-Bachrach one-on-one, about the actor’s unusual experiences with the, ahem, quirky Makinov, and how the latter prefers his tequila. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the entertaining read.

The new action thriller Snitch, based on real events and starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a father who goes to bat working undercover for authorities when his teenage son is looking at a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence on an erroneous drug charge, is receiving fairly solid marks for its action, grounded relatability and exposing some of the hypocrisy of the United States’ war on drugs. Those facts might be less surprising if more people had seen Felon, director Ric Roman Waugh’s low-budget prison tale, which had both a certain gritty style and a clear aim to delve into grey morality.

A veteran stuntman and second unit director who, like David Ellis before him, pivoted into life behind the camera, Waugh isn’t shy about what drives him and his ambition to meld and shape his considerable experience with storytelling rooted in real-life stories. I recently had a chance to speak to Waugh one-on-one about his career, Snitch, some of his other forthcoming projects, and what to do when faced with a giant fireball rushing at one’s face. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

If the Super Bowl can spawn takeoffs like the Puppy Bowl and the Lingerie Bowl, why doesn’t the Oscars have a dedicated parody equivalent? (And no, the Razzies, with their flip-side “honorifics,” doesn’t really count.) Well, they do, actually — in the form of the Toscars, an annual event/contest in which short films spoofing some of the year’s most critically lauded motion pictures are showcased. Sponsored by Brits in LA — one of the largest British ex-pats groups in the world, with close to 5,000 members living and working in the City of Angels — the Toscars consists of entries which must be produced in only three weeks, starting the day the Academy Award nominations are announced. It then has a black-tie awards ceremony, which this year will be held February 19 at the Egyptian Theatre, where judges Eric Roberts, Janina Gavankar and Rex Lee will bestow tongue-in-cheek prizes, including “Best Whactor,” “Best Whactress” and more.

And this year, even as Academy Award nominees complete their spray tans… err, final laps of preparation before the February 24 event, the Toscars will have at least one person with an immediate connection to both ceremonies. Actress Tehmina Sunny (above), who had a small role in Best Picture Oscar nominee Argo, is headlining its parody, Stargo. For a chat with her, head on over to ShockYa by clicking here.

Liam Aiken made his screen debut playing Parker Posey’s son at age seven in 1997’s Henry Fool, and then kept working as a kid, in movies like Stepmom, Sweet November, Road to Perdition and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Transitioning to young adulthood, he’s dabbled in music, but kept working in movies, like Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me. His latest film is writer-director Austin Chick’s Girls Against Boys, in which Aiken portrays Tyler, a guileless college student whose burgeoning relationship with the troubled Shae (Danielle Panabaker) upsets the balance of the latter’s relationship with the even more troubled Lu (Nicole LaLiberte). I recently had a chance to speak to Aiken one-on-one, about the movie and transitioning from being a child actor to a young adult still in the business. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, with a minor potential spoiler in only the second question-and-answer exchange, so click here for the read.

Danielle Panabaker is no stranger to big-screen gnarliness, having co-starred in horror fare like Friday the 13th, The Ward, The Crazies and even Piranha 3DD, in all its goofy, gory glory. In her new film, though, writer-director Austin Chick’s Girls Against Boys, Panabaker is on several occasions the one wielding weapons rather than being terrorized. She stars as Shae, a naïve college student who, after getting dumped by her married older lover and victimized by a scuzzy guy she meets at a party, gets drawn into a brutal and sprawling revenge plot by her coworker Lu (Nicole LaLiberte). I had a chance to speak to Panabaker one-on-one this week, about her take on the twisty movie, and why she’s probably done for good with Captain Crunch cereal. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Certain second-generation actors or celebrities have a breezy charm and a well-grounded self-awareness about the benefits and drawbacks of show business life, while others wear bequeathed crowns of entitlement that can come across as unattractive. Zelda Williams, the 23-year-old daughter of Robin Williams and Marsha Garces, is just finding her way professionally, but already exhibits plenty of signs of the former. One of the highlights of the new road trip/videogame competition movie Noobz, Williams co-stars opposite writer-director Blake Freeman, among others, playing an enchanting but wisecracking gamer who’s the romantic interest of Jason Mewes’ character. I recently had a chance to chat with Williams one-on-one, about the movie, her unique name, videogames, her famous father and her screenwriting aspirations. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Australian and British actresses benefit from a common primary language in their crossover to American films, and over the past decade-plus a number of French- and Spanish-speaking actresses in particular — including Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek — have made great professional inroads, winning acclaim and achieving significant box office successes in roles in both English and their native languages. There hasn’t really been a German actress to break through in the same fashion, however, unless one stretches the definition generously to include Franka Potente, who parlayed the international arthouse sensation Run Lola Run into a role as Matt Damon‘s imperiled love interest in The Bourne Identity and (briefly) its sequel.

Nina Hoss, however, might be on the precipice of changing that. Barbara, her fifth collaboration with writer-director Christian Petzold, is another stunning showcase for the actress’ uncommon intelligence and chameleonic beauty. I recently had a chance to speak to Hoss one-on-one, about the film, her work with the up-and-coming Petzold, the state of German filmmaking and her surprising affinity for a certain American cable TV series. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Having already rung up $100 million in domestic theatrical receipts to go along with its certified fresh 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Wreck-It Ralph looks well on its way to staking out a claim as the next hip new animated franchise. I had a chance recently to speak to director Rich Moore one-on-one, about some of the unusual flights of fancy in cracking the narrative spine of the fun little film, the differences between small screen and big screen animation, and all the exotic research trips he didn’t get to take. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Actress, author, stand-up comedian and Emmy-winning writer and performer — Sarah Silverman is such a jack-of-all-trades comedienne that it’s hard to believe she hasn’t yet laid claim to a huge animated movie character, given the highly recognizable sing-song sardonicism of her voice. That all changes with this weekend’s arrival of Wreck-It Ralph, a fresh and funny romp that stands poised to introduce a new collection of soon-to-be-beloved characters to family film audiences and animation fans alike. For the full feature interview, over at ShockYa, click here.

From Mean Girls to Cloverfield, Lizzy Caplan delivered a string of sharp big screen performances over the last 10 years that rendered her recognizable and appreciated, if not quite an immediately known name and commodity to the average filmgoer. Equally well received episodic work on True Blood, Party Down and New Girl helped change that, by degrees. Now, just on the heels of the raucous Bachelorette, Caplan seems on the verge of shedding the label of “critics’ darling” and achieving a wider fame. In her new film, 3,2,1… Frankie Go Boom, she plays Lassie, a wound-up gal who becomes the unwitting partner of the equally unwitting title character (Charlie Hunnam) in a sex tape that goes viral, courtesy of Frankie’s manipulative, boundary-free brother (Chris O’Dowd). I recently had a chance to talk to Caplan one-on-one over an afternoon summer ale, about Frankie, auditioning, acting drunk, VOD, and her next film as well. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Did I get a chance to craft a story about Martin Landau, his work with Tim Burton on Frankenweenie, and how he crafted his character’s accent? Yes, yes I did.

Charlie Hunnam is perhaps best known to American audiences as Jax Teller in FX’s rough-and-tumble Sons of Anarchy. In fact, he’s so convincing in that gritty biker serial that a lot of folks don’t even know that in real life he’s a considerably accented Brit. In his new film, however, Hunnam tosses another curveball — returning to comedy for the first time in many years, in writer-director Jordan Roberts’ 3,2,1… Frankie Go Boom. In it, Hunnam plays the perpetually beleaguered title character, whose newly sober, would-be filmmaker brother, Bruce (Chris O’Dowd, of Bridesmaids), throws his life into further disarray by posting online a sex tape of Frank’s with the lovely but complicated Lassie (Lizzy Caplan). I recently had the chance to talk to the amiable Hunnam one-on-one, about Frankie, Internet piracy, his gangster friends and sharing some decidedly wild scenes with his Anarchy co-star Ron Perlman. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

There are plenty of actors who’ve made their living playing tough guys. But Ron Perlman is different than that. With his booming voice and imposing physicality, he simply has a larger-than-life quality that he’s sometimes put to use playing heavies and villains, but as often as not (Beauty and the Beast, the Hellboy movies) utilized against type in roles defined by their innate sensitivity. He does not, however, have what one might call feminine features. He exudes masculinity. So it’s more than a bit of a shock to see Perlman in his latest role, in writer-director Jordan Roberts’ 3,2,1… Frankie Go Boom, in which he plays Phyllis, a web-savvy, post-operative transsexual who assists the beleaguered title character (his Sons of Anarchy co-star Charlie Hunnam) in taking down a very private video his newly sober brother (Chris O’Dowd) has posted to the Internet. I had a chance recently to speak to the 62-year-old actor one-on-one, about Frankie, how he looks as a woman, sex tapes, and his thoughts on Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming, highly anticipated Pacific Rim. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Tim Burton may now be considered a filmmaking visionary, and one of a fairly small number of directors working inside the Hollywood studio system to still legitimately be called an auteur, but his unique genius wasn’t always embraced and celebrated. When Burton first conceived of the idea for Frankenweenie, based on a dog he loved during his childhood, he envisioned it as a full-length stop motion-animated movie. Owing to budget constraints and a lack of enthusiasm for that form on the part of his employer Disney, however, Burton instead made drawings of how he imagined the characters and directed it as a live-action short in 1984, starring Shelley Duvall and Daniel Stern. The plan was for the film to debut theatrically pegged to a re-release of Pinocchio, but Disney fired Burton before the movie was completed — feeling the project was too scary and weird — and for years it was shelved. Flash forward almost three decades later, and Burton is now set to debut the full realization of one of his first and most personal filmmaking visions — and to do so for Disney. For the full feature piece, over at ShockYa, click here.