Tom Hanks: “A lot of actors are nuts”

Tom Hanks clearly understands that actors can do great things, but they are not always able get the things they want to done; enter the role of producer which allows the actor more creative control over the end product.

With his new film, Larry Crowne, Hanks explains his decision to add the title of producer to his resume which already included actor, writer and director. “A lot of actors are nuts, and they don’t want to do the long-haul  diligence. My joke about producing is that it’s getting somebody to do something they don’t want to do, and telling somebody else they don’t get to do the thing they want to do. It’s not easy.”

Yet Hanks says he has no regrets about his decision to expand his on set duties. “I sought to be creative without being at the mercy of the phone. Most actors have to wait for permission to go out and do their job. And I didn’t want to be a guy who was sitting in Los Angeles waiting for a call. In order to change that, I needed to have alliance with people who knew how to make things work. I made those alliances [by forming] Playtone, and I was able to get back to my original  desire, and that was to answer the question, ‘How can we do this?’
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Javier Bardem: “When you are portraying somebody that has a very specific emotional weight, you feel like you’re really starting to abandon your own body and go to someplace else”

“And that is one of the ten scariest guys I’ve ever seen in a movie,” NPR’s Dave Davies tells Javier Bardem, after playing a clip from the Coen Brothers’ “No Country for Old Men.”

In the movie, Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, a murderous psychopath who wants his money back. It’s a very different role when compared to his portrayal of a poet in “Before Night Falls,” the archetypal lover in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” or, most recently, a dying father in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Biutiful.”

In the interview Bardem discusses the unique challenges and rewards of acting in a foreign language. Reading lines in English, he explains, can be as tiring as it is liberating. “It’s like, I’m trying to express myself … and there’s this office in my brain full of people working at the same time … trying to not be wrong with the intonation, with the words,” he said. “So it’s very exhausting. If I speak Spanish, that office is closed. … But [working in English] gives me a different kind of freedom because, since some of the words don’t have an emotional resonance with me, I can play with them more freely. When you’re speaking in your mother tongue, you may be more cautious.” Read more

Taraji P. Henson Would’ve Played “A Tree or a Rock” to Act Alongside Tom Hanks

In a recent interview with The Huffington Post, actress Taraji P. Henson talked about being cast in the latest Tom Hanks vehicle, Larry Crowne, and what it was like working with the legendary actor.

“Apparently, Tom wanted me involved,” recalled the 41-year-old. “So he called my manager and my manager called me and said, ‘Tom Hanks really wants you to be in his movie’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ And my manager was like, ‘Maybe you should read the script first,’ and I was like, ‘No, I don’t have to read the script, it’s Tom Hanks, that’s a no brainer. I don’t care, I could play a tree or a rock, it’s Tom Hanks.’”

Over the course of her decade-long career, Henson has had roles in 2005’s Hustle & Flow, 2008’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and 2009’s I Can Do Bad All by Myself, among others. In Larry Crowne, which is in theaters Friday, she plays the neighbor of Hanks’ character, a middle-aged man who decides to re-enroll in junior college.

“It’s amazing working for him. The set is very stress free,” Henson said. “Even though he was director, producer, he co-wrote it, there was no tension. And I’ve been on sets where the director is just wearing that one hat and there’s just so much tension. And it was a low budget. And you know, you’re gunning it. It felt so easy, breezy, we laughed a lot on the set.”

David Hyde Pierce on his worst theater experience and his new film, “The Perfect Host”

David Hyde Pierce played lovable psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier from 1993 to 2004, but you won’t find him cracking too many jokes in his latest project, thriller The Perfect Host.

Pierce has remained open to a variety of roles ever since Frasier ended, and he continues to spread his wings in The Perfect Host, in which he plays a man who unwittingly welcomes a fugitive into his home.

“I liked the script and the character, and it fulfilled a career goal, which was to have people see me doing something other than what they’re used to seeing me do on television,” Pierce said in a recent interview. “That’s not hard to do in the theater — my stage work after Frasier was very different from Niles — but it’s different in the bigger media.”

Pierce has also been embracing theatre in recent years, having performed in productions of A Wonderful Life, Children and Art, Spamalot, Curtains, Accent on Youth and La Bête since Frasier went off the air seven years ago.  “I couldn’t imagine doing television better than we’d done it for the 11 years we were on… I was completely happy, satisfied, sated with my experience in television, and I wanted something different. I would periodically do plays during breaks from Frasier, so it wasn’t like I’d totally left the theater,” he explained.
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Scarlett Johansson signs on for “Can A Song Save Your Life?”

This week Scarlett Johansson, signed on to do a new film with director John Carney about a singer-songwriter titled “Can A Song Save Your Life?”

John Carney, is the Italian-Director responsible for the popular 2006 indie Once.

Judd Apatow has signed on as executive producer, telling us that there will definitely be a comedic element; in this story of a washed-up A&R man in New York City, who forms a bond with a young singer-songwriter from out of town.

The male lead for the story has still not been cast,  although we here  that Mark Ruffalo and Jim Carrey are interested in the role.

“I’ve been writing it for a year and a half,” said Carney. ‘‘I went out to Los Angeles to meet Scarlett a couple of months ago. She was everything you could imagine – very hot, elegant and she’s really smart.” Read more

Taking A Leap Into The Unknown

Written by Anthony Meindl

EVERYTHING you want is in the Unknown. In the wilderness. In the void.

Outside your comfort zone.

We’re not taught the physics of creativity so we listen to the pseudo-self (our Ego) — which tells us that the unknown is a scary and unsafe place to be. And it tries to prevent us from going there.

But a deeper part of us craves the unknown, desires it. The adventurer, the seeker in you – knows that all expansion in life, all discoveries, all creative victories have only occurred by stepping into that which is unknown.

Look at your own life. Anything that you’ve accomplished that has been meaningful or significant or fulfilling has required that you first step into that which is unfamiliar.

You had to take the leap.

But because our minds tells us things like “You’re going to get hurt.”

“Don’t be stupid.” “You can never do that.” “You’re crazy!” “Who are you to try that?” – and on and on –  it feels almost counter-intuitive to step into the void.
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