Revolution’s Billy Burke: This show “has been the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve been doing this for a long time”

It’s hard to imagine Billy Burke playing any other character in NBC’s Revolution besides Miles Matheson.  But the pilot was actually shot with Burke playing militia leader Sebastian Monroe.

“After shooting my part of the pilot, Eric [Kripke, showrunner] called me and said, ‘I think you’ll find this good news: We’d like you to play Miles,” Burke recalled in an interview with The New York Post.

The actor was immediately sold on being a part of the series (no matter which role he was going to play.)  “We met on a Sunday and they sat there and started pitching me on the idea of the show,” he said.  “I stopped them in the middle and said, ‘You don’t have to pitch this.  I’m in, based on what this show is and what the pedigree is here.’” Read more

WonderCon Interview: Kristen Kreuk talks ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Smallville’ Friends and “Rabid” Fans

Fans of The CW’s Beauty and the Beast are “rabid” and star Kristen Kreuk loves that about them.

I talked to Kristen at WonderCon right before she was to appear on the panel for the show and in the roundtable interview, she talks about how she got involved in Beauty and the Beast, if she ever reads the internet forums and keeping in touch with her Smallville friends. 

And as a little added bonus, there’s also a couple minutes with Executive Producer Sherri Cooper-Landsman where she talks about Kristen and how great of an actress she is and how she does her own stunts.

Beauty and the Beast airs at 9pm on Thursdays on The CW

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Interview: ‘Beautiful Creatures’ stars Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert talk Getting Cast, Bad Auditions and Vomit

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:19 — 15.4MB)

The new film Beautiful Creatures, adapted from the best-selling novels of the same name, tells the story of Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), a young man eager to leave his small southern town, and Lena (Alice Englert), the new girl who is filled with secrets.

Directed by Richard LaGravenese, it also stars Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, Emma Thompson and Emmy Rossum and Ehrenreich and Englert more than hold their own acting with the top-notch cast. But, for them to even get there, they both had to be convinced to audition for their roles because both actors turned down their auditions when first asked. Crazy, right? When they were given the chance to read LaGravenese’s script, they quickly changed their minds. “Oh my God. I’m silly. I really wanna do this now,” Alice told me.

Alden and Alice are smart, charming and talented actors and for their sake, I really hope the film is a success. We need more young actors like them working today.

In this interview, we talk about how they got their parts, working with the cast, some of their worst auditions, advice to actors and vomit. Yeah, there’s some vomit talk happening. You guys are going to enjoy this.

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

Screenplay: ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’

Snow White and the Huntsman: In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart (Twilight) plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Oscar winner Charlize Theron) out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, Thor) dispatched to kill her. Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) joins the cast as the prince long enchanted by Snow White’s beauty and power. The breathtaking new vision of the legendary tale is from Joe Roth, the producer of Alice in Wonderland, producer Sam Mercer (The Sixth Sense) and acclaimed commercial director and state-of-the-art visualist Rupert Sanders.

Director: Rupert Sanders

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin

Writers: Evan Daugherty

Click here for the screenplay to to Snow White and the Huntsman

via Screenplay Explorer

In Theaters: ‘Lincoln’, ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’, ‘Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2′, and ‘This Must Be The Place’

I’m on vacation this week in lovely Key West, Florida so I’m not able to write up any full-on reviews this week. But, I wanted to write-up a bit about these movies opening this weekend. Some are fantastic and some… aren’t.

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Interview: Maggie Grace & Mia Maestro talk ‘Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2′, Action Scenes and Auditioning

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:36 — 16.3MB)

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 opens in theaters this weekend, and by all accounts, this film is the best of the bunch.

I talked with Maggie Grace and Mia Maestro, who star in the film as part of the Denali Clan, and they both told me that they can’t wait for the fans to see it. “It’s a much more grownup film,” Maggie told me. “It stands out from the others in terms of theme. It’s more about community and the community banding together.”

They also talked about much they loved working with Director Bill Condon. “He’s a fantastic actor’s director,” Maggie told me.  With Mia adding that “he even added a special surprise at the end for fans. It’s a really moving gesture that he gave all the actors and all the fans and he gave to the saga.”

I really enjoyed talking to these two; they were so warm and nice. We talked about Twilight, working with Michael Sheen and those hand-painted contacts they had to wear during filming. We also talked about acting; Maggie tells a great story about watching Liam Neeson on Inside the Actors Studio and we end the interview with a one of the best conversations I’ve had about auditioning.

Check it out below and don’t forget to catch Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2! 

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

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Taylor Lautner on the End of Twilight: “It’ll be tough to say goodbye to spending time with people that I love”

As Twilight fans are preparing themselves for the last installment, Breaking Dawn: Part 2, Taylor Lautner, who stars as werewolf Jacob Black, is also trying to cope with the end of the franchise.

“It’ll be tough to say goodbye to spending time with people that I love,” Lautner said in an interview with Yahoo! News.  “We’ve grown so close over the past few years.  Our relationships will go on past this but to not have that excuse to spend day after day together while filming or promoting will be different.”

Lautner faced one of his biggest obstacles with the role in this particular film—where the audience learns that Jacob has a special connection to Bella and Edward’s daughter.  “It was a challenge, and it is so complicated, but really nobody understands it more than Stephenie Meyer who created it,” he said.   “I was picking her brain all day long about it.  She basically told me over and over again, ‘Taylor, stop trying to over think it, stop trying to take it different places…It’s a lifelong bond between two people, that’s it.’  In the movie, [Renesmee, the daughter] is 10 years old, it’s much more of a protector relationship right now, and of course the relationship will grow more but we don’t explore that, but it was important for me to keep it simple.” Read more

Ashley Greene on Her Future, ‘Butter’ and Kissing Olivia WIlde

Ashley Greene easily could have been typecast after getting her start in the Twilight series.  But that doesn’t mean she’s going to take just any role now.

“Listen, never say never, but I think in general college film—playing the, like, hot cheerleader—you’re probably not going to see me do that,” she told NBC New York.  “I think I’ve been really lucky being able to bypass typecasting.  When I was cast as Alice [in Twilight], one of the really brilliant things about it is that she’s the girl next door.  She’s everyone’s best friend.  She’s sweet and charismatic, and so I think I got to bypass that whole kind of typecasting, saying, ‘This is what we see you as and what you’re going to play.’  So I don’t think I would backtrack in that sense.” Read more

Famke Janssen talks ‘Taken 2′, Life as a Bond Girl and Moving Forward as a Writer/Director

Famke Janssen is still well-known for appearing as a Bond girl in 1995’s Goldeneye.  But looking back, the actress isn’t too fond of that role.

“I’m also, I suppose, object to that whole world of ‘Bond girl’ as a woman,” she told Moviefone.  “It’s such a demeaning, silly title to give somebody.  And it’s definitely something that, as a woman, I have to deal with.  People constantly want to remind me or an audience that I was a model or that I was a superhero or that I was a Bond girl.  Any of those titles keep coming up, even now as a person who has directed her own movie.  It doesn’t happen with men as much.  They seem to be luckier in that department.  But I seem to have those things attached to my name regardless of what I do or how far away from it I am.  But that’s okay.” Read more

Kellan Lutz on Auditioning for ‘Tarzan’

Kellan Lutz goes all out for his auditions, including the one he did half-naked for Tarzan.

“When I auditioned, I wore my Conan wig, because I was testing for Conan the Barbarian at the time,” the Twilight star told Hollywood.com.  “So I had this wig that I made for that so I wore that and then I walked into the audition in my underwear.”

It was only after the audition that someone told him the film was going to be animated.  So his prized abs were of no use for the project.  Lutz recalled, “They’re like, ‘No can you actually slim down so you can fit in the [performance capture] suit.’” Read more

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