Befitting a comedienne of her talents, Catherine O’Hara is many different things to fans of different generations. To most in her peer set and perhaps six or seven years in either direction, she’s best known as an award-winning writer and performer on SCTV, the influential sketch comedy show which started north of the border and eventually migrated to NBC. To plenty of younger fans, she’s Kate McCallister, the beleaguered matriarch of the Home Alone films. Urban cineastes and others probably know her best, meanwhile, from her four ensemble collaborations with multi-hyphenate Christopher Guest. And then, of course, family film fans will recognize her distinctive voice, from animated movies like Chicken Little, Over the Hedge, Monster House and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

That last title is also related to another thread or ribbon running through O’Hara’s filmography — her relationship with Tim Burton. She first worked with him on 1988’s groundbreaking Beetlejuice (and also met her husband, production designer Bo Welch, on the project), and then Nightmare, which was produced by Burton. Now, in Burton’s new stop motion-animated Frankenweenie, about a misunderstood boy who uses his love of science to re-animate his beloved, recently deceased dog, O’Hara voices three different characters. I recently had the chance to speak to the Canadian-born actress one-on-one, about Burton, Beetlejuice, Frankenweenie, how she muffed an audition to play Robert De Niro’s wife and, yes, even her thoughts on health care. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Honed from his successful start in sketch comedy, Martin Short wields a wide array of voices and postures, which have served him well in crafting a career largely built around comedic personas. It’s not a huge surprise, then, that in Tim Burton’s new stop motion-animated movie, Frankenweenie, Short voices not one but three characters — unusual student Nassor, stern neighbor Mr. Burgemeister and the kindly Mr. Frankenstein, father to Victor (voiced by Charlie Tahan), a sensitive young boy who harnesses the power of science to bring back his beloved dog, Sparky, from the dead. I recently had a chance to speak to the 62-year-old actor one-on-one, about building characters through voice, the secret to auditioning, bad directors, and more. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Screenwriter John August first made a name for himself with 1999’s hyperkinetic Go, which hop-scotched back and forth in time in colorfully detailing intertwining stories surrounding a drug deal gone bad. Plenty of other high-profile work followed, including a series of lucrative polishes on studio flicks, but August has become most synonymous with director Tim Burton, working with him on five films over the past decade. Their latest collaboration is the 3-D, stop motion-animated Frankenweenie, a delightful little curio about a boy, Victor, who endeavors to bring his beloved dog Sparky back to life following his untimely death. I recently had the chance to speak to August one-on-one, about Frankenweenie, his history of collaboration with Burton, his eponymous website, and his years of work on the book for the stage musical version of Big Fish. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Probably the most unnerving presentation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Compliance provides a chilling snapshot of the blurred line between personal reason and obsequious consent to authority — a story all the more unsettling because of its rooting in fact. In writer-director Craig Zobel’s movie, Sandra (Ann Dowd), the high-strung manager at a small town fast food restaurant, finds her Friday rush further complicated when a man, Officer Daniels (Pat Healy), phones to tell her that a pretty young employee, Becky (Dreama Walker), has stolen money from a customer. Convinced she’s doing what’s right, Sandra commences the investigation, following step-by-step instructions from the police officer on the other end of the line and authorizing others to do the same, no matter how invasive the requests become. I recently had a chance to speak to Zobel, Walker and Healy, one-on-three, about their collaboration and the unlikely educational inspiration found in Cops. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read. For a review of the movie, meanwhile, click here.

After her striking, unforgettable debut in Heavenly Creatures, Melanie Lynskey has crafted a career largely out of deftly inhabiting a wide variety of supporting roles, always with a quiet centeredness that suggest various rich inner landscapes. In the funny, resonant dramedy Hello I Must Be Going, however, she gets to step into the limelight. The opening night film at the Sundance Film Festival, actor-turned-director Todd Louiso’s movie centers on a recent divorcée, Amy, who seeks mental refuge in the suburban Connecticut home of her parents. There, contemplating the crossroads of thirtysomething life, she hooks up with a 19-year-old actor (Christopher Abbott). Recently, I chatted with the lovely Lynskey in person about her on-set playlists, Twitter, embracing uncomfortableness and why dating used to freak her out. The conversation is excerpted over at New York Magazine‘s Vulture, so click here for the read.

Iranian-born French novelist and multi-hyphenate Marjane Satrapi made a well-received transition to filmmaking in 2007 with the animated international hit Persepolis, adapted for the screen from several of her own autobiographical works. The live-action Chicken with Plums marks her second collaboration with animator Vincent Paronnaud, her co-director on both projects. The film, set in Tehran in the late 1950s, centers on a renowned musician (Mathieu Almaric) who, having lost his taste for life, decides to confine himself to his bedroom and wait for death; deep and wild reveries ensue. I recently had the chance to speak one-on-one and in person with the effusive, Paris-based, colorfully dressed Satrapi, about her movies, working with actors for the first time, not liking children, and how she feels about the apocalypse as well as Robert Rodriguez’s Machete. The lively conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the chat.

From The Devil Inside, The Rite and The Haunting of Molly Hartley to The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the enormously successful Paranormal Activity films, to name but a handful, movies dealing with devilish and otherworldly control of human vessels are a staple of the horror genre. The Possession, though, strikes a certain balance between the familiar and the original. The movie’s actors and Danish-born director Ole Bornedal gathered at a Beverly Hills hotel this week, to talk about real-life exorcisms, on-set spookiness, the importance of finding the right cast, and some of their lead filmmaker’s quirks. The chat is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

A favorite at this January’s Sundance Film Festival, where it shared the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, Robot & Frank represents Jake Schreier’s feature directorial debut. Set in the near future, the story centers on an increasingly memory-impaired septuagenarian living in upstate New York, Frank (Frank Langella), whose worried son (James Marsden) buys a walking, talking robotic caretaker to help tend to his needs and improve his mental and physical health. Frank is gruff and dismissive of the robot at first, but, somewhat unexpectedly, finds old impulses from his career as a cat burglar awakened. Shenanigans of a sort ensue. I had a chance recently to speak to Schreier one-on-one, about his movie, Langella, his Waverly Films collective, draining Peter Sarsgaard’s voice of emotion, and how technology is changing humankind. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

The enormous success of the Twilight franchise has made celebrities of not only Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner — the actors at the center of its love triangle — but also its many standout supporting players, including Ashley Greene. As the series winds down, however, the actors are looking to stretch, and strike out more on their own. Greene’s latest film, The Apparition, represents a new stab at leading lady status in a big studio movie, coming on the heels of an engaging turn in last year’s tender period piece teen ensemble, Skateland. In it, she plays a young woman who discovers that she and her boyfriend (Sebastian Stan) are being haunted by a presence conjured years ago, during a university parapsychology experiment gone wrong. I recently had a chance to sit down and talk to the pleasant Greene, both in a small roundtable setting and also one-on-one, about The Apparition, what first drew her to Los Angeles, the conclusion of the Twilight series, and what else is on tap for her. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

For his directorial debut, The Apparition, a paranormal thriller starring Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan, director Todd Lincoln worked to explore the genre in a more classical style than a lot of found-footage films of recent note. I recently had a chance to talk to Lincoln one-on-one, about his movie, future projects, and the unlikely path of inspiration inclusive of Stan Brakhage and Salma Hayek that led to his career in filmmaking. The conversation is excerpted below:

Brent Simon: I know you went to film school at USC, but take me back further, because there’s usually a moment of transition where, for every film fan who devours movies as a kid, a switch is flipped between avocation and something they realize they can do for a living.

Todd Lincoln: Right, right. I was much more serious about playing with toys as a kid, and I would stage elaborate battles with G.I. Joe and Transformers and Star Wars-type stuff, and would come up with early forms of scripts. And I would get all these sound effects CDs and edit together all these jungle sounds and explosions and machine gun fire. So I started with that, and would play movie soundtracks as the score to some of these toy battles. But I wasn’t videotaping anything. I didn’t have my own video camera for some reason, so I’d borrow some friend’s, or have a friend come over with an early-era Hi-8 camera. We started to shoot some of our toy battles and even start to mess with the stop-motion function on the camera. That was for fun, and then in high school I started making deals with teachers to get out of writing big papers and essays on Shakespeare… I’d say, “What if I make a video?” I wasn’t getting that great of grades, so I started making these videos with inanimate objects and my dog and I played this back for the class and would get this great reaction from the students and teacher. I went from getting Cs or Ds on papers to getting As, so now it was in my brain, like, “I get a great reaction and people are talking to me now and my grades are going up.” My school in Tulsa was pretty progressive, and the video teacher was this very avant garde guy. He had his own studio in town and was a video artist. He showed what were new works at the time, by this teenage girl Sadie Benning who shot short videos on a Fisher Price Pixelvision camera, and while I’d grown up loving Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Terminator-type stuff I was being shown videos by William Wegman or Stan Brakhage — all this experimental stuff — and I felt like, “Wow, this counts? You can do that and call yourself a filmmaker? That’s awesome — maybe I can be a filmmaker. I can do that.” It made it seem possible. … And then the summer between my junior and senior year I went to this summer production workshop at USC, and traveled out to L.A., where you’d shoot one Super 8 a week for five weeks and then you’d shoot a 16mm film at the end. So you’d write, produce, and then edit on Moviolas. I worked on a bunch of independent documentaries and features. And then right after high school and before USC I worked on From Dusk ‘Til Dawn.

BS: Did you have any special moments with Salma Hayek and/or her boa constrictor?

TL: I was on set when that was happening, and I was like 17 or 18.

BS: And you said, “This is the greatest profession ever…”

TL: Oh, man. She, oh… yeah. I was also working visual effects department at the time time, and… well, I have to be careful. (laughs) But seeing Salma Hayek, when you’re a teenager, in states of undress is a huge thing. And there was some after-party where Quentin Tarantino was celebrating with mariachi music and Salma Hayek came up to me and pulled me onto the dance floor and asked me to dance. It just changed my DNA. (laughs) And the important thing about that film was that I worked in every single department and wore many hats and (saw) that’s how they really came at it — this close-knit circus family, with an independent spirit. So I worked in the office, on set, in visual effects, the art department, creature effects, craft services, wardrobe — everything. So that helps later on, because as a director when you’re asking somebody for something you know what it means to ask for that. Sometimes it actually hurts you, because I’m probably too nice of a guy and I know what it feels like to do all of those things, and I’m like, “Oh gosh, I hate to ask this.” But at least you know what some production assistant has to go do at three a.m. or whatever.

BS: Part of doing a film like The Apparition is deciding what you’re going to show, and what you’re going to leave to the viewers’ imagination. Digitally, you can manipulate a lot more things. But was shooting on 35mm integral to how you wanted to tell the story? 

TL: Oh yeah. Right from the initial words the first time I pitched it [I said] this is 35mm, 2.35 aspect ratio, and we want to shoot on these vintage anamorphic lenses to give it a bit of grain or texture, and life to it. So that was the plan from the start, and (cinematographer) Daniel Pearl, who shot the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the remake, (felt the same); that guy is as hardcore about 35mm as I am, and we were really fighting the good fight, because sadly, 35mm is no longer a given — you actually get a look when you bring it up sometimes, and that’s such a tragedy.

BS: Have you worked in digital before, on commercials or shorts?

TL: I’m mainly exclusively film. I’ve shot only one or two things on digital, and I always prefer film. I think certain people have made digital look great, but I think I can tell the difference and whether audiences know it consciously or not they feel it too. They may not be able to describe it, but it’s a feeling.

BS: You had a ghost consultant on this film, but you also did a lot of reading, about documented experiences (of paranormal investigation) from the 1970s and ’80s. Through the process of osmosis, how much of that (research) made its way into the film as you were shaping the narrative?

TL: A good bit. And yeah, in fact it wasn’t just me who did the research. After we cast the movie I had all the actors talk and meet with our paranormal consultant, and we had all these files and images he would email us about how his lab was set up, and different findings and equipment, and of course terms and jargon. The actors would read through all that stuff, and they really got into it. I was just trying to keep things as grounded and real and authentic and honest as possible — for the movie, and horror fans and the paranormal community, so that they can be
like, “They got it right it!” In fact, there are a bunch of paranormal sites that are excited, and [have written], “They said the word Tolpa!” or “They’re using the right EEG headset!”

BS: This is your debut but you already have a couple interesting upcoming projects. Are you really going to be able to keep the title Twittering From the Circus of the Dead?

TL: (laughs) That’s the title of Joe Hill’s short story, and Mandalay Pictures is where that film is [set up], and they love the title. I loved the short story, and I’m a huge Joe Hill fan. It’s hard to describe, but it’s about a teenage girl on a road trip with her family, and they end up pulling off to a Route 66-type circus that’s going on and sit down and watch the show. Strange stuff starts happening, and the location and imagery and set pieces [evoke this] carnival sideshow scary stuff, but the first half is a road trip Polaroid portrait — part Sophia Coppola, part Terrence Malick, part Larry Clark, part Gus Van Sant, where no horror is happening. The first 30 minutes are like Psycho or something, and then it’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Carnival of Souls, ending on more of an Eyes Wide Shut third act. It shifts through these different gears, but it’s also very consistent and congruent in terms of style. It’s been a challenge to craft things in the right way, but I’ve closely collaborated with Joe Hill and got his blessing on things.

BS: You also have “The Nye Incident.”

TL: Yes, that’s with Whitley Strieber, and is based on real incidents of alien abductions and mutilations that are happening in this town. That’s really a grounded, terrifying new take on alien stuff — doing it as if everyone else got it wrong in all movies and TV shows, because they actually have gotten it wrong. It’s so much more strange and terrifying than anything else out there. I feel like we haven’t really had an alien film that’s knocked it out of the park in a relatable, iconic way in a while. We have go-to exorcism (movies), and vampires and zombies and werewolves, but you don’t really have that film you reach for that makes you feel like this is really going on out there. That’s the goal with that. It’s been ruined by pop culture — alien stuff is on every skateboard deck and sticker and notebook now, and doesn’t really seem scary. But this movie is going to be fucking scary.

BS: Which one is definitely next — do you know yet?

TL: “The Nye Incident” seems likely to be the next on deck. That script is solid and locked in and ready to go. I’m meeting with actors now and we’re getting the financiers ready and in order. I’m also writing some other original stuff, and I’m going to go knock out this new experimental short film to kind of balance out all this big commercial machine stuff, because (with) my favorite filmmakers it doesn’t matter where they are in their careers, they flex all their different muscles and keep it real (by) knocking out a short film or whatever.

David Duchovny is an erudite guy. Although formal collegiate education is often lacking in big screen stars, he possesses both an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a Master of Arts in English literature from Yale. So his casting in director Christopher Neil‘s new coming-of-age indie film Goats, as a bearded and not particularly motivated gardener named Goatman, may not seem like the most obvious fit. Duchovny, though, breathes dimensionality and life into his character, even if he spends most of the movie actually inhaling. I recently had the chance to speak to Duchovny one-on-one, about the movie, Craigslist, goat bleating, his thoughts on marijuana legalization and what he would still do to Seann Willliam Scott in a heartbeat. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the full, fun read.

Goats is Christopher Neil’s first film as a director, but he has both an unusually deep connection to the material and an amazingly sturdy foundation of cinematic experience from which to draw. An adaptation of Mark Jude Poirier’s rangy novel of the same name, the film tracks the coming-of-age of Ellis (Graham Phillips), a 15-year-old Tucson native who leaves behind his New Age hippie mom (Vera Farmiga) and his best friend — an affable stoner and their live-in gardener, named Goatman (David Duchovny) — to attend an East Coast prep school where his estranged father (Ty Burrell) once matriculated. I recently had a chance to speak to Neil one-on-one, about the movie, marijuana and his connection to the Coppola clan. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

There was a time when, between Alias on the small screen and myriad projects on the big screen, Jennifer Garner seemed to be everywhere. Now, married (to Ben Affleck) and a mother of two, she’s a bit less ubiquitous but no less charming. Garner recently sat down with press at a Beverly Hills hotel to discuss her new movie, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and also talk about on-set rap battle free-styles that she did not take part in. Joel Edgerton was also there. Both roundtable conversations are excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for Garner and here for Edgerton.

In 2007, Julie Delpy wrote, directed, starred in, composed the score for and edited 2 Days in Paris, a relationship comedy which charts a slipping knot in the bond between French-born photographer Marion and her interior designer boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) when they wrap up a European vacation by taking a night train to Paris to visit her parents (Delpy’s real-life mom and dad) and pick up a cat. An observant, warm arthouse bauble, the film seemed unlikely to spawn a sequel. But one arrives this week with 2 Days in New York, a vibrant and engaging dramedy about mixed family and relationships whose predecessor isn’t essential viewing for enjoyment but certainly helps deepen one’s regard for it. In it, Marion and Jack are no longer a couple; she now lives with radio host boyfriend Mingus, played by… Chris Rock? I had a chance to speak to Delpy one-on-one recently, about her film, her father’s butt, the deliciously quirky casting of Rock, little white lies, and how (if not why) she’s been damned to hell. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

Some directors come to filmmaking with a laser-like focus and sense of predetermination. Others, like French-born Vincent Paronnaud, drift in from other mediums, almost like visiting maestro professors. A key figure in underground comic books (he’s also drawn under the alias of Winshluss) who along with friend and partner Cizo co-created Monsieur Ferraille, the emblematic character of influential magazine Ferraille Illustré, Paronnaud made a number of short films before co-directing the striking Persepolis, which nabbed the Los Angeles Film Critics Association‘s Best Animation prize in 2008. Adapted with Marjane Satrapi from her series of autobiographical graphic novels, the movie charts the story of a young girl who comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution.

The latest collaboration between Paronnaud and Satrapi, Chicken with Plums, finds them exploring live action for the first time, in the melancholic story of a renowned musician (Mathieu Almaric) who loses the taste for life and decides to lie in his bed and wait to die. I recently had the chance to speak to Paronnaud one-on-one — well, one-on-two, with the generous assistance of a translator — about his work with Satrapi and the challenges of live action filmmaking. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read. For a chat with Satrapi, meanwhile, click here.

A 2005 graduate of USC’s School of Cinema and Television, Lee Toland Krieger made his feature film debut in 2008 with The Vicious Kind, starring Adam Scott, from his own original screenplay. His latest film is Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg‘s bittersweet Celeste and Jesse Forever, releasing this week and platforming throughout August. I had a chance to speak to Krieger one-on-one recently, about his new movie, the difficulties of mounting or landing an indie directing gig, the story he heard about Steven Seagal getting kicked off of Executive Decision, and the rudeness in some of his encounters with the press. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the fun read.

As the son of legendary French filmmakers Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda, it was almost a mortal lock that Mathieu Demy, after many years as an actor, would end up behind the camera. His intriguing feature directorial debut, Americano, interweaves footage from Documenteur, a nonfiction film of Varda’s in which Demy appeared as a child, and centers around the story of a young Frenchman drawn back to Los Angeles to wrap up his recently deceased mother’s estate, only to learn of a mysterious woman, Lola (Salma Hayek), in her will. I had a chance to speak to Demy one-on-one earlier this year, about Hayek, getting his film’s title tattooed on his arm, and what his mother thinks of his re-appropriation of her work. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Plenty of performers take an interest in writing in order to help better craft roles in which they can then star. An excellent example is Rashida Jones, whose screenwriting debut, the Sundance Film Festival-minted Celeste and Jesse Forever, finds her starring opposite Andy Samberg, as one half of a married couple attempting to gracefully transition from coupledom to amicable divorce. With Will McCormack, however, Jones’ writing partner on the project, it’s almost the exact opposite. He’s an actor (he even has a part in the movie, as quirky pot dealer Skillz) comfortably transitioning to life away from the camera. I had a chance to talk to McCormack one-on-one recently, about working with his ex-girlfriend, mock-masturbating tiny cylindrical objects, and his next collaboration with Jones, Frenemy of the State. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.

Margo Martindale is an Emmy Award-winning actress — this past year, for her supporting performance in Justified — but still more likely to be stopped by someone who thinks she might be their old guidance counselor than stalked by a TMZ photographer. That comes from more than 20 years of respected character work in everything from The Rocketeer, The Firm and 28 Days to Ghosts of Mississippi, The Hours and Secretariat. In one of her more recent films, though — the rather engrossing little independent, character-rooted thriller Scalene, which hits DVD this coming week — Martindale gets to show her chops in a leading role. I recently had a chance to speak to Martindale one-on-one, about Scalene, fight sequences, her path to acting, and the warm afterglow of her Emmy win. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Filmmaker Lynn Shelton made quite a splash in 2009 with the Sundance-minted Humpday, about two straight guys who enter into an “art project” pact to make a gay porn film together, and find themselves locked in a circle of awkward uncertainty. Her new film, Your Sister’s Sister, centers on an emotionally unstable guy, Jack (Mark Duplass). Worried about her friend, Jack’s deceased brother’s ex-girlfriend Iris (Emily Blunt) offers up her family cabin on an island in the Pacific Northwest so that he can try to locate catharsis in solitude. Unbeknownst to Iris, her lesbian sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), who just ended a long-term relationship, is also there. When Iris shows up to surprise Jack, a sisterly reunion and other complications ensue. Recently, I had a chance to speak to Shelton one-on-one, about her dedication to improvisation, her film’s unusual title, her “ridiculous” diet, jean shorts and more. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.

Alessandra Mastronardi is beaming like a kid on Christmas morning, and can’t stop laughing. But then again, why not? The 26-year-old actress has a lot to be happy about, after all, having snagged a plum role in filmmaker Woody Allen’s latest movie, To Rome With Love. She’s presently in Los Angeles, accompanying the movie for its premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival (above). In it, she plays Milly, a small town girl who, during a trip to Rome, leaves her husband Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) for a hair appointment, gets lost in the city, and ends up getting romanced by a famous movie star (Antonio Albanese). I had a chance to speak to the pleasantly accented Mastronardi one-on-one recently, about working with Allen, celebrity and tabloid culture in her homeland, and why her English has an Italian-Irish tinge to it. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the chat.

She’s only 26 years old, but Alison Pill has already twice done something most actors or actresses her age would punch their mothers to get a chance to do: work with Woody Allen. In the writer-director’s latest film, the unfortunately re-titled To Rome With Love, she plays Haley, an American student who takes an Italian fiancé, Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti), and hosts her parents (Allen and Judy Davis) for a visit to meet him. I had a chance to talk to Pill one-on-one recently, about the movie, her continued love of theater, and her new Aaron Sorkin-scripted HBO series, The Newsroom. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the lively read.