Matthew Goode on ‘Leap Year’, accents and ‘A Single Man’

From movieline:

Had you met Amy Adams before shooting?
Before shooting, yes, because I had to get the job. She had a part in the casting so I went in and read. I wasn’t the only chap; she’s quite a big actress these days.

You’ve done several accents in your films. Was it tricky getting this one?
I have to say it really was because Anand wasn’t quite sure where he wanted me to come from for a while then he made the decision that it would be Dingle and the County Kerry accent would be a good one. Luckily I had one of the best vocal coaches in the world, Gerry Grennell — he worked with Johnny Depp and other people — he’s fabulous and he lives in Dublin so it was perfect. The first day Anand said, “Well, everyone in the crew seems to think you sound alright, it’s just that I can’t understand a bloody word.” It was a bit thick, which is good in the west of Ireland, very, very strong accents in certain parts. You can barely understand a bloody word yourself. So it was definitely blood, sweat and tears [sighs] but it worked out.

Is there any sort of character you’d really like to play?
I’ve always wanted to play a detective in a thriller with another guy, I think. Two guys trying to find out something, that would be fun, private detectives or something. I’d really enjoy that … or not, as the case may be.

But you’d like to try.
Absolutely, as long as the script isn’t a floating turd. “I’m going to do my dream! A dream of playing a detective! But the script is f***ing shit!” That would be hell.

Is there any actor whose career you’d like to emulate?
Yeah, sure, there’s so many really. People like Billy Crudup and Sam Rockwell; they have very tremendous range, doing theater and cinema. There are heroes of mine, like Michael Caine … I loved Peter O’Toole. Maybe O’Toole and [Richard] Burton and those boys, but without the alcoholism.

So how was it working with Colin Firth and Tom Ford on ‘A Single Man?’
I loved it; bearing in mind that the film was shot in 21 days, I wasn’t there for terribly long. Colin was one of the reasons I wanted to do it; I knew he was going to smash his part out of the park, and Julianne [Moore] was involved. Great cast. And Tom’s Tom. It was a bit intimidating to meet him at first, but after a couple of drinks in Claridges, we went through what his vision was, he’s very, very passionate, and it was kind of a love poem to his own partner Richard. Why wouldn’t I want to be involved with that? It’s a great book and quite important story.

It’s great that it’s getting so much recognition.
Yes, and Colin’s become a chum; I’m terribly fond of him.

He seems like a really solid guy.
He’s so solid. He’s fab, really, really fab. Give him a good vodka martini with a twist and sparks can fly.

Trailer: "Julie and Julia"

Meryl Streep is Julia Child and Amy Adams is Julie Powell in writer-director Nora Ephron’s adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell’s Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme. Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends…until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

Casting Director Debra Zane is freakin awesome

A friend clued me into this article about Debra Zane, one of the best casting directors out there.

She’s cast several of my friends in some huge films and by all accounts the article below is spot on with how far she goes in trying to get actors cast for parts.

From Reuters:

When casting director Debra Zane brought in the little-known actor Michael Shannon to tape an audition for “Revolutionary Road,” she pulled out all the stops.

Zane assembled a team to play the other roles, with friends and associates filling in for Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Kathy Bates.

“We were playing all the different parts, so he would have different faces to refer to. We had snacks and martini glasses to make it look like a little party,” explains Zane.

She got so into the scene that “when (Shannon) turned to tell me to shut up, I was so embarrassed, (which was) the absolute appropriate response.”

Director Sam Mendes, who has collaborated with Zane on five pictures, saw the tape and hired Shannon to play Bates’ mentally ill son. He went on to score the film’s only acting Oscar nomination this year.

A wiz at spotting breakout talent (Amy Adams, Wes Bentley, Justin Long), Zane has even been known to put together her own version of an actor’s reel to show a director that a performer can play against type.

When working on “Dreamgirls,” she spent eight months scouring talent from around the country. About 700 actors read for the part of Effie before director Bill Condon chose Jennifer Hudson for the part that would earn her an Oscar. But it was clear to Zane from the moment she saw the first of Hudson’s two audition tapes that the “American Idol” reject was a frontrunner.

“I can’t explain to you how people who work in casting know something like that,” she says, “because there are so many elements involved. It’s almost like a chemical reaction where you can say to yourself, ‘The director is going to love this person.’”

Zane has loved actors and movies ever since her childhood in Miami Beach. From an early age, she paid close attention to the “casting by” credit. “That credit struck me. I knew what it meant, and I knew I could do it because I was aware of actors in different roles.”

Nearly 20 years into her career, during which she has worked on such hits as “Traffic” and the “Ocean’s 11″ trilogy, she’s still as passionate as when she began.

“I like making sure you’ve turned over every stone and thoroughly thought through all the angles,” says Zane. “And then it appears before your eyes.”

Amy Adams long road to success

Amy Adams was talking recently about her years of struggling before her success in films. She was working for 12 years before her breakthrough role in Junebug.

Here, she talks about those years and how she wouldn’t never replace them.

“Yes, I get to do a lot of really fantastic things at this point in my life,” she says by phone from Los Angeles. “But there were a lot of years where it didn’t look quite so glamorous — very recently.”

Years that made her newest role, as a struggling single mom who starts a crime-scene cleanup business in “Sunshine Cleaning,” not altogether foreign.

It’s important here to note that Adams, 34, spent almost a dozen years trying to make it as an actress when “Junebug” finally came along. That she took a job at Hooters to pay the rent and worked in dinner theaters in Colorado and Minnesota for six years before mustering the courage to move to Hollywood.

“I definitely had to struggle to make ends meet,” she says. “But I think I was always okay with the struggle. I really enjoyed what I did.”

“I think at this point I can safely say, ‘Yeah, I’m very glad for those years.’ It really helped inform who I am,” she says. “It helps you keep it in perspective.”

But, she adds: “If you’d asked me then, I would’ve said, ‘No. I’d rather just have it easier.’ ”

But Adams considers herself lucky to have had time to develop real friendships before fame struck. She met her fiance, Darren Le Gallo, in acting class and has been with him for more than six years. “I don’t have as much time to spend on myself and my friendships as I would hope,” she says. “But I’m really fortunate that I have a really great support system, and it’s been there for a while.”

Here’s the whole shabang

Clips from "Sunshine Cleaning"

Sunshine Cleaning looks pretty good. Kinda like Little Miss Sunshine I’m thinking?

Synopsis: A single mom and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in the off-beat dramatic comedy Sunshine Cleaning. Starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin, Jason Spevack and Steve Zahn

Amy Adams talks about her second Oscar nomination and working with Meryl Streep

81st Annual Oscar Nominations

Best Motion Picture of the Year
* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Frost/Nixon
* Milk
* The Reader
* Slumdog Millionaire

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
* Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
* Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
* Sean Penn, Milk
* Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
* Josh Brolin, Milk
* Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
* Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
* Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
* Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
* Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
* Angelina Jolie, Changeling
* Melissa Leo, Frozen River
* Kate Winslet. The Reader
* Meryl Streep, Doubt

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
* Amy Adams, Doubt
* Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
* Viola Davis, Doubt
* Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Read more

A Profile of Amy Adams

On coming to Hollywood: “I thought maybe I could get on a soap opera, maybe get to do some commercials. When I moved out here, I must have, somewhere in my heart, believed in abundance — meaning that the work of acting in film and television is not meant for special people. There’s not an exclusive amount of it that only goes to the most beautiful, the most talented, the most special people in the world.”

On learning on the job: “I had trouble being open when I first started acting on film,” she says. “I felt extremely vulnerable. Maybe it was the nature of the work, the microscope that’s on you on a set. I never went to a conservatory and didn’t study anywhere; I went straight into doing musical theater and dinner theater, so I’d come up with what worked for me. But it didn’t work for every situation, so I had to study with a coach who helped me get over myself, essentially, and not worry about feeling exposed.”

Click here for the article

SAG Awards – The Nominations

15th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® NOMINATIONS
THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
RICHARD JENKINS / Walter Vale – “THE VISITOR” (Overture Films)
FRANK LANGELLA / Richard Nixon – “FROST/NIXON” (Universal Pictures)
SEAN PENN / Harvey Milk – “MILK” (Focus Features)
BRAD PITT / Benjamin Button – “THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON” (Paramount Pictures)
MICKEY ROURKE / Randy – “THE WRESTLER” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
ANNE HATHAWAY / Kym – “RACHEL GETTING MARRIED” (Sony Pictures Classics)
ANGELINA JOLIE / Christine Collins – “CHANGELING” (Universal Pictures)
MELISSA LEO / Ray Eddy – “FROZEN RIVER” (Sony Pictures Classics)
MERYL STREEP / Sister Aloysius Beauvier – “DOUBT” (Miramax Films)
KATE WINSLET / April Wheeler – “REVOLUTIONARY ROAD” (Paramount Vantage)
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2008 Golden Globe Nominations Announced

HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION 2008 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS NOMINATIONS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2008

1. BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

a. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures; Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures
b. FROST/NIXON
Imagine Entertainment, Working Title, Studio Canal; Universal Pictures
c. THE READER
Mirage Enterprises; The Weinstein Company
d. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
An Evamere Entertainment BBC Films Neal Street Production; DreamWorks Pictures in Association with BBC Films and Paramount Vantage
e. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros.; Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros.

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