DiCaprio, Depp, Sandler Top Forbes List of Highest-Earning Actors

In a curious twist that certainly differs from the typical results, its turns out that two actors who are well-respected for their respective talents — Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp — top this year’s list of highest-earning Hollywood actors, according to Forbes.  The list covers the estimated earnings of the actors after consulting “agents, lawyers, producers and other industry insiders to come up with an estimate for what each actor earned between May 1, 2010 and May 1, 2011.”

DiCaprio — who ranked #5 on the list last year — swiped the top position from Depp, who topped the list last year, at $77 million and $50 million respectively.  DiCaprio’s top spot is cemented by appearing in two major hits, Inception and Shutter Island. DiCaprio has yet to appear in a film in 2011 (his only 2011 film is October’s J. Edgar), so it’s unlikely he will be in the top spot again next year.
Read more

Glee’s Darren Criss Will Make His Broadway Debut in ‘How To Succeed’

Darren Criss will make his Broadway debut in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying this coming January 3rd.

The Glee actor takes over the role from Daniel Radcliffe, who’s final performance will be January 1st.

Criss will only be in the show for 3 weeks because of his commitment to Glee.

I saw the show in April and loved it! I thought Radcliffe was great and worked his butt off. Criss will have some tough shoes to fill.

The press release is below.

Read more

Interview: Brit Marling, Co-Writer and Star of ‘Another Earth’

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:00 — 10.3MB)

In the film Another Earth, co-writer and star Brit Marling plays Rhoda, a woman who’s released from prison after serving time for a fatal drunk driving accident.  Eventually, she works her way into the life of John (William Mapother), the sole survivor of the wreck and the two form a unique bond. As this story unfolds, the world is dealing with a different set of problems: a mirror version of Earth has appeared in the sky.

The film, also co-written by Director Mike Cahill, is a mash-up of a small indie drama and sci-fi and it works wonderfully.

Brit is having one amazing year. Not only was Another Earth accepted into Sundance, but a second film she co-wrote and starred in, Sound Of My Voice was also in contention at the festival. Add to that, she’s currently shooting the film Arbitrage with Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon.

Not bad for someone who didn’t even have her SAG card before filming began Another Earth began.

I talked to Brit about the film, her decision to start writing and more!

Another Earth is in limited release. Check it out when it comes to your town.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes

You basically quit college (Georgetown) to follow your dream?

Brit Marling: Well, yeah. I guess. I was having a hard time figuring out how to be an actor in the world. Unless you’ve started when you were like 2 in L.A. doing, you know, diaper commercials, like how do you, how do you enter the system? It takes such a long time and I was obviously coming at it after school and I, I don’t know, I guess I knew that that’s what I was passionate about and what I wanted to do and it seemed to me like the best way to even begin was… because I came out to L.A. and I found out it was just really hard.

It’s hard to get work and a lot of things that you can audition for are, especially for girls, so thinly written, you know what I mean? When in your early 20’s and you’re young and you haven’t done anything before, it’s like the kinds of roles you can go out for is just always a girl being chased by some serial killer. Or being held hostage, or they’re always in such week positions and I felt like, oh this is so sad, this isn’t like the women that I know who are strong and interesting and complicated and driving the action of their lives. And so, I thought it would probably a good thing to just try to write. Write things for myself and for other women and so that’s sort of how it begin.

Read more

Mark Rylance Gives Away ‘Jerusalem’ Tony Award

Jerusalem actor Mark Rylance apparently realizes that he couldn’t have won a Tony Award for his part in the stage production, as the 51-year-old gave away his award to a man who helped inspire his performance.

Mickey Lay, a 71-year-old construction worker, consulted with Rylance on the role of Johnny “Rooster” Byron, an ex-daredevil with a penchant for telling tall tales. “I think he’d really like it,” Rylance told London’s The Independent. “He was very generous with me and invited me into his house and talked with me for six hours or so on different occasions about his life as a Romany gypsy man in England.”

The Jez Butterworth play opened in 2009 at the Royal Court Theatre in London and moved to the nearby Apollo Theatre last year. It also stars Mackenzie Crook, formerly of the British version of The Office.

“He didn’t really say much,” said Lay’s landlord about the man’s reaction to Rylance’s impressive act of generosity. “Although he did open up after a few liveners (alcoholic drinks).”

Andy Serkis on Motion Capture: “It is a tool that enables you to enter into the world of your character. I think of it as digital makeup”

Andy Serkis has made his name as a motion capture performer, portraying computer-animated yet life-like characters in hit films like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is due to arrive in theaters this Friday. The 27-year-old waxed philosophic on the art of motion capture for a recent story in the Orlando Sentinel.

“It’s not a genre of acting. It is a tool that enables you to enter into the world of your character. I think of it as digital makeup, really, not as a genre,” Serkis said. “If you want to learn it, want to go down that route, to be able to fully explore, physically, a character and to be able to express that character with every fiber of your being, you can be taught. Most good actors do that anyway.”

Read more

Julianne Moore Talks Preparing For “Crazy, Stupid, Love”

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Crazy, Stupid, Love star Julianne Moore talked about working opposite Steve Carrell and how she prepared for her role in the new box office hit.

“You never really know – a lot of it has to do with your chemistry with that particular actor, especially when it’s supposed to be a very familiar relationship. But Steve is somebody I responded to right away,” she recalled about the early stages of production. “You’re always looking for nuances in each other and always mining that connection, really.”

Crazy, Stupid, Love, which arrived in theaters last Friday, tells the story of a husband (Carrell) separated from his wife (Moore) and his exploits as a single man. The romantic comedy also stars Ryan Gosling, Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei and Emma Stone.

“Basically the script starts with what you see on screen with her saying, ‘I want a divorce.’ But you can only imagine that there have been many months or even years that she’ been trying to communicate her unhappiness to him, and finally she can’t take it any more and she has to break it off,” she said, adding that the revelation that her character went to see the latest Twilight movie just to get away from her husband is “so funny” and “incredibly telling about their relationship.”
Read more

Q & A: Jeri Ryan “Be trained. Be ready so when [your] chance comes, you don’t screw it up”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:58 — 6.9MB)

When Jeri Ryan was in college, she had to decide between two majors: Theater and…. biomedical engineering.

That’s not the usual choice facing most actors but thanks to her “incredibly impractical nature,” she chose theater.

After graduation, she moved to LA and has been working steadily ever since; Star Trek: Voyager, Boston Public, Shark, Leverage and currently starring on ABC’s Body of Proof.

But, that’s not stopping her from guest starring on other shows. Tonight, you can catch her on SyFy’s Warehouse 13 where she play’s a woman whose fairy tale wedding is derailed when she’s exposed to an artifact.

I talked to Jeri on a conference call where she talked about her decision to act, if she still has to audition for TV roles and her advice to actors.

Warehouse 13 airs on Mondays at 9pm on SyFy.
The season premiere of Body of Proof airs on ABC, September 20th at 10/9c

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download it from iTunes

I guess this is kind of like your first trip back into science fiction in a way, since Voyager. What’s it been like to do that? What’s it like to kind of return to that genre?

Jeri Ryan: Well, I mean I’d be eager to do a lot of stuff in that genre that you don’t really get to do in typical drama or comedy which is one of the reasons you become an actor is to do as many different things as you can and live as many different lives as you can. And it’s fun to do a role where you can really kind of suspend reality a bit. It’s a good time.

What’s next for you?

Jeri Ryan: Well right now I’m shooting Body of Proof. We just started shooting Season 2. And we actually are shooting our second episode today so. That’s a full-time gig right now.

Read more

Party’s Over? Academy Plans to Set Limitations for Oscar Parties

We all know that one of the perks of being a Hollywood star is that you get to go to some amazing parties which are usually thrown on someone else’s dime.  Nothing seemingly wrong with that, huh?

Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is beginning to think otherwise, and according to The Hollywood Reporter the organization is planning to set restrictions for parties that happen during the Oscars voting period.

The issue is that the Academy is uncomfortable with parties during the voting period for the Oscars because in some cases — particularly this past year — they seem less “celebrations” and more “campaign parties.”  For example, the article cites dueling parties for The Social Network and The King’s Speech, two films that were jockeying for the Best Picture award that was eventually won by the latter.  Though many parties are typically thrown by the film’s own studio, a more shady tactic is a party thrown by what the article calls a “third party endorser”, in which a well-known star throws a party to “celebrate” a friend who just so happens to be in the Oscar race.  Read more

Can SAG Actors Do Non-Union Theater?

One of my students is an actor who recently moved to NYC from LA. She had a question about building up her theater resume in non-union theater as a SAG member – many actors have the common misconception that if you are a member of only one union, you can still do non-union work in other unions, as long as you are not a member of those unions.

This topic has created quite a bit of confusion, so I thought I would share our conversation.

As you know, I am already a member of SAG. Do you think it’s smart for me to join AEA if I haven’t had a lot of NY theatre experience yet? Once in AEA, one can’t do non-union theatre right? Is there such a thing as non-union theatre in NY?

Outstanding question (and one that LOTS of actors have asked.) Since you are SAG you aren’t supposed to do any kind of non-union work- no non-union theater and no non-union commercial/industrials. The Global One rule states that once you join one union, you no longer are allowed to work for a producer unless they are under a union contract. Most people assume that this rule only applies to the union that they joined, but it applies to all of the unions because they have a “sister union” solidarity agreement. Read more

« Previous Page