Lake Bell: “The most difficult thing about acting and directing in a film is acting and directing in a film”

Lake Bell has worked steadily in film and television since appearing in her first major role as Alicia Silverstone‘s character’s best friend in the short-lived NBC series Miss Match (which I do not remember ever existing, but apparently it did).  She has also branched out into writing and directing, but she still remains an actress.  She stars in the horror movie Black Rock alongside Katie Aselton, who co-wrote and directed the film.  Bell spoke to Interview magazine about the way the film was shot and how she feels about working with other directors now that she is a director herself. Read more

‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and J.J. Abrams Answer Fan Questions (video)

Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and director J.J. Abrams got together at the offices of Moviefone to answer some mostly ridiculous fan questions about Star Trek Into Darkness. 

Quinto was asked a weird question about if he’s worn the Spock ears naked, Pine is asked what the toughest decision he’s ever had to make in his career (this was a good one actually and he gave a good, thoughtful answer), and which ship would win in a fight, the Enterprise or Millennium Falcon.

Check out the videos below! Read more

Benedict Cumberbatch on His Villainous ‘Star Trek’ Role: “I was terrified by what I was doing”

If you haven’t yet heard of Benedict Cumberbatch– and I do mean “heard” because of his instantly recognizable voice — get ready to see (and hear) a lot more of him.  First, he stars as the villainous John Harrison (doesn’t that name sound like the most alias-y of aliases?) in Star Trek Into Darkness and voices the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit trilogy.  In a conversation with The Wall Street Journal, Cumberbatch talks about this major shift in his career and what he thinks about his Star Trek character.

Cumberbatch admits that while he had empathy for the character, his own performance scared him when he saw it in IMAX.  He explains, “I think with any characterization there’s a point where you empathize, no matter how much of a deviance his or her actions may be from your understanding of humanity. You have to empathize, and that can go for the people who perform despicable acts. Having said that, when I sit in my own audience now—which is a very weird thing to do for an actor on any given day, especially with a film this big, in an IMAX theater, in New York—I was terrified by what I was doing. I don’t have kids but I’m quite glad at this stage that I don’t have to go, ‘Just look away, dad’s not like that.’” Read more

Greta Gerwig: “I’ve gone through times where I regretted movies that I now don’t regret”

Most actors — no matter how successful — likely have played some role that they’re not exactly proud of for various reasons.  Maybe it had to do the with the quality of the film, or they did something embarrassing in it, or maybe it was a commercial for an awkward product (nobody really wants to be the smelly person in a deodorant commercial, right?)  When it comes to indie star Greta Gerwig, she has gone through phases of regretting some of her past films — particularly when the offers weren’t coming in.

Gerwig admits that she has changing perceptions on her past work, and some films she previously regretted she no longer does.  She explains, “I’ve never worked on anything that I haven’t in some way enjoyed. I’ve gone through times where I regretted movies that I now don’t regret. I was naked in lots of stuff for a while. And it was like, ‘Why have I been naked in everything, and I’m a whore, and everybody thinks I’m a softcore porn star.’ I was so ashamed. I remember going through all these like great actresses, like Cate Blanchett’s never been naked, Meryl Streep’s never been naked… Even when people would present me with like, ‘Well, Kate Winslet was naked,’ I was like, in a period piece! Now I don’t feel ashamed of it. So much of it is based on where you are as a person.” Read more

Interview: ‘Vikings’ George Blagden on How He Got Cast and Doing a Sex Scene on His Very First Day On-Set

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:01 — 9.7MB)

George Blagden plays Athelstan in The History Channel’s great new show, Vikings. Created by Michael Hirst, the show is about the adventures of Ragnar (Travis Fimmel), his family and his band Viking brothers.

Besides his work in Vikings, you may have seen him as Grantaire in the film version of Les Miserables. From singing in the French revolution to playing a 12th century viking… he’s has had a very good year!

I talked to George at WonderCon about how he got his part, being nervous on his first day on set – he had to do a sex scene…the very first day – and how he prepared to play a Viking. 

Vikings airs on Sundays at 10pm on The History Channel

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

SXSW Interview: Anna Camp & Ashley Williams Talk Their New Short, ‘Sequin Raze’, Auditions and Having a Back-up Plan

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:30 — 9.3MB)

I love shorts. As actors, they are the greatest way to get people to notice your work and see what you are capable of doing. They’re short, sweet and if they are good, they make a lasting impression on the audience.

Sequin Raze absolutely falls into this category. The short, directed expertly by Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, takes you behind the scenes of a Bachelor-type reality show where the runner-up (Anna Camp) has to make her final statements to the camera. A producer (Ashley Williams) is there to coax out something that the show can use. They need something good and juicy and Williams character won’t stop till she get’s it.

The film seems like the final 10 minutes of a really interesting movie; one where you wish you’d seen the whole film so you could spend more time with the characters. I saw it at SXSW and I know it’s playing around other festivals, so if you get a chance to see it, definitely try and make it. 

I talked with the stars, Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect, True Blood) and Ashley Williams (How I Met Your Mother), while they were at SXSW about how they got involved in the project, their fascination with the actual Bachelor, auditions and their sobering advice to actors.

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

Miles Teller on ’21 And Over’ and filming scenes naked “with a tube sock on with 40 crew guys around”

After starring in Project X and the new film, 21 And Over, Miles Teller has mastered the art of playing a party boy.  But Teller isn’t paying attention to the role similarities.

“I didn’t really give a shit about that.  As far as being an actor goes, I know I have range, so I wasn’t really too worried about it,” he said in an interview with The Huffington Post.  “Also, when I read the script, it was the funniest script I ever read.  I was excited to do it.  Project X, it was more of a cameo.  With this movie, I always wanted to do a rated-R comedy.  I just wanted to make something that would give people that experience.”

Teller read the script, from Hangover writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, and was excited to be attached to the project.  “Dude, when I read that script, I thought I had never read something that was so close to my own voice.”  Read more

The Walking Dead’s Laurie Holden on Rotating Show-Runners and Missing the Main Cast: “I did definitely want to get back to the prison”

For AMC’s The Walking Dead cast, killing zombies is basically a piece of cake.  Getting naked on the other hand is a little more challenging.  Last Sunday’s episode featured Laurie Holden, who plays Andrea on the show, revealing a bit of skin for her love scene with the Governor.

“I’m a woman.  It’s a little daunting to know you’re going to take your clothes off and 16 million people are going to see it,” Holden said in an interview with Vulture.  “It’s not a normal day at the office.”

Luckily, the production team did give her a heads up that she’d be one of the few cast-members to actually have a love life on the series.  “They talked to me beforehand because I’ve never…well, I can’t say never, but I haven’t done anything like that in a long time,” Holden said.  “And it was really risky for the show because…we don’t do that on The Walking Dead.  But [Glen] Mazzara [the show-runner] brought up a good point, which is, you know, people have sex.  You can kill zombies and show all this brutality, but where are all the people hooking up?  Because that’s what they would do.” Read more

Q & A: Milo Ventimiglia on His New Web Series, ‘Chosen’

Chosen is a new original web series on Sony’s Crackle that stars Milo Ventimiglia as lawyer Ian Mitchell who is forced to kill an innocent man in order to protect his family. One morning, Mitchell wakes up and finds a mysterious box on his doorstep that contains a loaded gun and a photo of a stranger he must kill within the next three days. Not a good way to start your day, I’d say!

The series is six 30-minute episodes and after watching the first one, the quality rivals anything you might see on TV. It’s fast, slick and you’re most likely to get hooked very quickly, which is good because Crackle has adopted the binge-model and already placed all the episodes online.

I talked with Ventimiglia, who is also a producer on the show, about how he got involved in the series, why he thinks a digital platform is the way to go, getting into the mindset of playing someone who is constantly paranoid and the differences between shooting a web series and TV.

Check out Chosen on Crackle! Read more

SAG Awards Speeches – Film: Ben Affleck, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence & Anne Hathaway

Here are the transcripts of the speeches t he winning actors gave from the Film portion of the 19th Annual SAG Awards, featuring Ben Affleck, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway. My favorite of the night was Affleck’s.

Check them out below! 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A CAST IN A MOTION PICTURE

BEN AFFLECK: Wow, thank you all so much. I can’t believe I’m standing in the place where Daniel Day-Lewis just was. I feel like maybe I’ll be a better actor just for the, like, radiation. [laughter] I am really amazed and stunned, there are so many great actors here and this is voted on by our brothers who are actors. There’s a hundred and some thousand people in SAG-AFTRA. Some of them never get, you know, to come to a place like this. And they vote from home, you know.

First, I want to thank my wife, who I love, and our kids who I also love. You know, and Warner Bros. who I love. Not quite as much, but I do love them. You know, there is so many people who are actors, who want to be actors. I got in SAG in 1986 and I always wanted – just like so many people who came up and made these speeches, and to me this has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the incredible people who are in this movie.

The people you see on stage, we had more than a hundred and fifty actors. They spoke in English, they spoke in Farsi, and the one thing that they had in common was that they came to work every single day, whether they had a line or a look to somebody, or two lines or 10 lines, or a bunch of stuff I couldn’t understand in Farsi, and they wanted to “kill” it to make the movie better.

Because that’s what actors do all over the world, every day. God bless you. Thank you so much for making the movies that you make, and the television you make, and the theater you make. We are in your debt. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you all and thank all these incredible films who were nominated with us. Read more

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