Christoph Waltz on His ‘Overnight’ Success: “I had been trying for years. I was already giving up”

The incredible Christoph Waltz is a great example of how there are incredibly talented international actors that just need a single high-profile performance to break through to English-speaking audiences. 

Waltz has been acting, mostly in German television roles, since the late 1970s, but he didn’t become a familiar face to Americans until his Oscar-winning performance in Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglourious Basterds.  Waltz has since reteamed with Tarantino for Django Unchained as the bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz, and he’s a main reason why the western is one of the best films of the year.  Waltz spoke to Moviefone about becoming an “overnight sensation” after thirty years of hard work.

Of course, a German in a western might seem like a strange fit at first.  On the reason why the German Dr. Shultz would be in the antebellum South, Waltz says, “Quentin has a detailed biography before he sets out to write the story. But he doesn’t burden me with it because he wants me to come up with my own ideas.”  He also points out that there was a significant German presence in the United States during the eighteenth century, with German being one of the most widely-spoken languages after English. Read more

Michael Fassbender Talks ‘Prometheus’, Staying in Character and Preparation

A couple of years a go, Michael Fassbender was a relatively unknown actor. However, a whole spectrum of performances in recent movies like Inglourious Basterds, Jane Eyre, and X-Men: First Class changed all that. Ridley Scott’s new highly anticipated movie, Prometheus, has Fassbender playing an entirely different kind of role: an android named David.

Fassbender recently discussed his unique characterization for “David” in an interview with Collider.

Fassbender explained that he did not go his normal “route” for developing his character. “I watched Blade Runner and I looked at the replicants. [I] looked at Sean Young. There was something in her character, a quality that I kind of liked for David, this longing for something or some sort of a soul at play there, a sort of vacancy also, a sort of vacant element.” Fassbender went on to explain how 2001: A Space Odyssey inspires quite a bit of his character, as well. “I don’t know exactly what, I just knew there was a quality that I liked … Hal from 2001.” Fassbender also mentions that “Peter O’Toole’s character of Lawrence [of Arabia]” was in “the mixture,” as well. Read more

Christoph Waltz on Choosing Roles: “Usually you take a step in the right direction… but you can’t win them all”

Oscar winner Christoph Waltz is currently enjoying a level of success that has previous avoided him in his three-decade career.

One of these accomplishments includes Carnage, the Roman Polanski adaptation of the successful play God of Carnage. 

While speaking with MovieFone, Waltz not only talks about his role in the film and how he prepared for it but what he has taken from his current success.

When the interviewer mentions that the film is dialogue-based and, as a result, seems theatrical, Waltz immediately disagrees, saying, “I don’t think the movie is theatrical. Because what would that be? On the contrary, I think it is highly cinematic. As cinematic as it gets. Just because it’s a confined space doesn’t mean it’s not cinematic. Just because the camera movements are not from thirty-foot cranes swooping over Death Valley and behind the racing stagecoach doesn’t mean it’s not cinematic.”  Read more

Brad Pitt on Taking a Role: “It’s a big commitment. I’ve found it’s gotta mean something to me or what’s the point? You’ve only got so much time”

While it may be true that most entertainers have a “shelf life” — meaning that after a certain period of time their popularity, skill, or both are bound to wane – Brad Pitt has always seemed to be one of the rare exceptions. 

After gaining his first brush with Hollywood buzz from his appearance in 1991′s Thelma & Louise, megastar Pitt has remained a reliable box office draw ever since, starring in such acclaimed films as Se7en, Fight Club, The Ocean’s Eleven series, Inglourious Basterds, and Moneyball.  So it’s odd that in an interview with Australia’s Telegraph that Pitt believes that his days as a Hollywood superstar are numbered.

He proclaims, “We have a shelf life, no question. And mine’s coming. But there’s a few more things I wanna do before my shelf life expires… I wanna get to play the grumpy old man who swears.”  Pitt might have to wait a few years to fulfill that particular ambition — though he played a convincing elderly man in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the Mississippi-born actor is just turning forty-eight next month (and certainly doesn’t look anything like any old men I’ve ever met yet!)

So does Pitt have any other filmmaking ambitions after his “shelf life” has passed, like will he get in to directing like his Ocean’s Eleven co-stars George Clooney and Andy Garcia or like his longtime girlfriend, Angelina Jolie, who recently wrote and directed her first feature, In the Land of Blood and Honey?  Read more

Movie Review: “X-Men: First Class” starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence

I’m a huge fan of Super-Hero movies. I grew up on comic books and I still have almost 10,000 stored away at my parents house. At least I hope they’re still there. I haven’t checked on them in a while. Spider-Man and The X-Men were my favorites so when I sat down earlier this week to watch X-Men: First Class, I was beyond excited.

I’m sure you know by now that the film is a prequel set in the 60′s. Professor X (James McAvoy), or Charles at this point in the film, is a brilliant, well-to-do… and horny man about town. Yup, I said horny. He’s got pick-up lines and swagger that most guys would only wish to have in this day and age. With his shape-shifting half-sister, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), the two are living a nice, comfortable life free of any troubles.

By contrast, Erik Lehnsherr – the future Magneto (Michael Fassbender) – has had a life of pain; being torn away from his parents in a Nazi concentration camp and watching his mother die at the hands of Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon).

Cut to several years later, and the three have formed an alliance aided in part by Dr. Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) of the CIA. What’s the alliance for? Shaw has turned up with his partner in crime, Emma Frost (January Jones), and they are on the brink of starting a World War.

With the help of Hank McCoy or The Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Xavier and Magneto – in one of the funnest parts of the film – head out to recruit a gaggle of new mutants; Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Havok (Lucas Till), and Angel (Zoe Kravitz).
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Trailer: ‘Beginners’ starring Ewan McGregor

Beginners: Oliver meets the irreverent and unpredictable Anna (Melanie Laurent of Inglourious Basterds) only months after his father Hal (Academy Award nominee Christopher Plummer) has passed away. This new love floods Oliver with memories of his father who – following 44 years of marriage – came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full, energized, and wonderfully tumultuous gay life. The upheavals of Hal’s new honesty, by turns funny and moving, brought father and son closer than they’d ever been able to be. Now Oliver endeavors to love Anna with all the bravery, humor, and hope that his father taught him. from trailers.apple.com

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic

Writer/Director: Mike Mills

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List of Acting & Directing Oscar Nominees

Nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards

Actor in a Leading Role
Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart”
George Clooney in “Up in the Air”
Colin Firth in “A Single Man”
Morgan Freeman in “Invictus”
Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker”

Actor in a Supporting Role
Matt Damon in “Invictus”
Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger”
Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station”
Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones”
Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds”

Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
Helen Mirren in “The Last Station”
Carey Mulligan in “An Education”
Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia”

Actress in a Supporting Role
Penélope Cruz in “Nine”
Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air”
Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart”
Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air”
Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

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SAG Actors: Screeners are coming!

If you’re a paid up SAG-member, 5 great movies are coming your way in the next couple of days.

AN EDUCATION

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

JULIE & JULIA

PRECIOUS

UP IN THE AIR

I’ve seen all of them except An Education but I will gladly take and watch a couple of them again (Inglourious Basterds and Up In The Air specifically).

Don’t forget to vote for the SAG Awards!

Embarrassing audition memories from big-name actors

From CNN.com:
Bill Nighy
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” “Love Actually”
“There was one that started out terrible, which was where I had to go to a disused tax office in Harrow [near London, England] very early in the morning and put on very tight velvet flared loon pants and a pair of crocodile four-inch- heeled platform shoes, and wear a sort of very small top that didn’t meet my trousers, hair extensions and I had to karaoke to ‘Smoke on the Water’ by Deep Purple. It’s a very lonely place. And I was 45 at the time…”

Ethan Hawke
“Before Sunset,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”
“I have had so many bad auditions. I have fallen on my ass. I have made a complete fool of myself. I auditioned for Robert Redford once and I was so starstruck I couldn’t even speak. I had a mic wire at a screen test clipped to me and then I got kind of nervous and I paced in a circle and then took a step and tripped and fell on my face. You just have to forgive yourself and keep going on.”

Mike Meyers
“Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” “Shrek”
“I’ve had some bad auditions for some TV movies that were shooting in England where I just didn’t want to be in them and offered them more obtuse [performances] … I like to think of it as performance art. I didn’t sabotage it, I was just woefully inappropriate, you know? I just thought, ‘Why not be nude even if it is a children’s theatre?”

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Daniel Brühl on being nervous, auditioning for Quentin Tarantino and more!

From Movieline:
It’s not going to be apparent to anyone who goes to see Inglourious Basterds, but you actually speak fluent English. Why don’t you do more American films?
Actually, it makes sense for me to stay in Europe, as I very much consider myself a European actor — also, I’m half-Spanish, and over the last few years I’ve tried to get into the Spanish cinema. So I stay here because the offers that I get for bigger parts came from Europe, not the U.S, but I’m always open to the idea. In the case of Inglourious Basterds, it just made total sense to be in it. I found it to be a very good idea of Quentin’s to choose German and French actors to play these European parts. As I said, though, I’m open to any good project, no matter where it comes from.

Was Quentin already familiar with you and your work?
Well, I was very happy to know that he enjoyed Good Bye Lenin! so much. I think it’s one of his favorite German movies of the past few years, and he said that to him, it was the kind of movie that’s started a renaissance of new German cinema. He was also in the jury at Cannes when we showed The Edukators in competition, which I think he also liked. I think he was very clear on certain parts. It had never happened to me before that I got a call on the same day as the audition of the director offering me the part, so I was very thankful that he didn’t let me wait and make me too nervous.
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