Michael Fassbender on Early Auditions, Directors and Acting: “I take my work seriously but I can’t take myself too seriously”

Michael Fassbender is an actor who most people weren’t aware of in 2010, but by the end of 2011 his name and his naked body were the talk of the town.  

In a revealing interview with GQ, Fassbender talks about his early experiences breaking into acting and how he has coped with his fame post-Shame.

Fassbender explains that he more-or-less fell into acting while he was looking for a way to express himself.  He says, “As a teenager, you’re searching for something that fits for you. I was pretty average at most things. I was just looking for something that I could relate to and perhaps excel in myself.”

His professional career started with a number of lows.  After being cast in the HBO World War II mini-series Band of Brothers, the film shoot lasted for nine months.  Those nine months, however, did not amount to much screen time for Fassbender, who says,”Blink and you’ll miss me.” 

He lived in Los Angeles during the following months and struggled in his auditions.  He says, “I wasn’t blowing them away in the audition room, that’s for sure.  I just didn’t feel settled or comfortable or confident.” Read more

Ewan McGregor Talks About On-Screen Nudity and His Four-Month Break from Acting

You may not have noticed it, but in his nineteen-year career Ewan McGregor has appeared in 45 films, which is a prolific rate for actors these days.  However, 2012 might be the rare year in which McGregor only appears in one film released this year. 

As he tells The Telegraph, the reason for that is McGregor took a rare four month break, which has allowed him to reflect on his varied career and his proclivity of showing a lot of skin in his roles.

McGregor explains that he took the lengthy beak (well, for him anyway) because before then he always felt like he had to work.  He explains, “I finished shooting a film in September, and I just felt I’d worked my ass off for years.  I felt like I just hadn’t stopped. Which I hadn’t. And I realised one day that I didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to. It was like the sky suddenly opening up. I called my wife and suggested that I didn’t work for the rest of the year. And it’s been lovely.” Read more

Sarah Silverman on Her Nude Scene in ‘Take This Waltz’: “It’s such a common, everyday thing for women that’s never reflected in movies”

Actress/comedienne Sarah Silverman appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival last weekend promoting her new film, Sarah Polley’s indie Take This Waltz.  As seen in The Hollywood Reporter, Silverman discussed her role starring alongside Michelle Williams.

The film depicts a full-frontal nude shower between the costars.  Silverman said, “The actual day wasn’t bad.  It was very supportive, and you forget it once you do it, but the morning leading up to it, I overgroomed.  You know when you even and even and even until nothing’s left?  It was bad.  Never try to even from the top.  Let the top be the top…It was all right.  I wish it was fuller.  Michelle’s was so full and awesome.” Read more

Eugene Levy on the ‘American Pie Presents’ DVD’s and Finally Sharing a Scene with Stifler’s Mom

Eugene Levy might have been appearing in comedy films since the early 1970s, but he really hit fame since the late 1990s starring as Jim’s Dad in the American Pie series. 

Levy has not only appeared in all four of the theatrically released American Pie films — including the latest, American Reunion — but he is also the only actor to appear in all four of the straight-to-DVD American Pie Presents films. 

Levy talks to Vulture about why he’s stuck with the series so long and how he felt about sharing a scene with Jennifer Coolidge in the latest film. Read more

Interview: Gillian Jacobs Talks ‘Community’ and the Mystery of Britta

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Gillian Jacobs stars as Britta in NBC’s hit (yes, hit!) comedy, Community.

After a brief hiatus and scare that the show wouldn’t return, it came back with great ratings and hopefully, the show is here to stay.

Gillian graduated from Julliard and immediately started working off Broadway. She appeared at the Public Theater, in Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s The Little Flower of East Orange, opposite Ellen Burstyn and Michael Shannon, the Playwrights Theater’s A Feminine Ending and in Adam Rapp‘s Cagelove at the Rattlestick Theater.

She was also in the great indie, Helena from the Wedding (check out the cast interview here), opposite Melanie Lynskey, where she sports a dead-on British accent. I swear, I thought she was English for months. She also appeared in The Box and Choke (opposite Sam Rockwell).

I talked to Gillian at WonderCon about the intricacies of filming the show, how parts of Britta is still a mystery to her and if she thinks there will be a fourth season.

Follow Gillian on Twitter!

Community airs on Thursdays at 8/7c on NBC Read more

Musical Based on 1970s Classic Comedy Movie ‘Animal House’ in the Works

I’m thinking of starting a betting pool: take a list of 200 or so popular movies, have everyone pick ten, and whoever picked the one that is made into a musical first wins the money. 

After all, it seems like every Broadway season brings a new musical adapted from a classic movie, especially since the runaway success of Mel Brooks‘ The Producers.  Some are great (Spamalot), some crash and burn (Brooks couldn’t pull it off again with Young Frankenstein), but it seems like a given that Broadway producers will keep trying.  Heck, there is a Rocky musical and a Back to the Future musical in the works!

You can now add Animal House to the list.  The classic 1978 college comedy classic, which is to be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw with music by late 1990s pop-rock band Barenaked Ladies, with Michael Mitnick writing the libretto. Read more

Paul Rudd on ‘Wanderlust’ Nudity: “Everyone was professional and no one wanted to stare, but I think we all kind of caught each other at different points staring”

Opening this weekend is the comedy Wanderlust, starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston, about a couple who decides to join a free love commune. 

The film reunites Rudd with a number of his past collaborators — not just Aniston (who Rudd worked with on Friends), but also producer Judd Apatow and director David Wain.  Rudd talks about reuniting with them and both the easiest and most difficult parts of making the film.

Though Rudd is a solid member of Wanderlust producer Apatow’s comedy circle — he has appeared in films directed by Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, the upcoming This is Forty) and produced by Apatow (Anchorman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), he has also worked with Wanderlust director David Wain‘s Wet Hot American Summer and Role Models.  Read more

Ewan McGregor on Filming Sex Scenes: “Sometimes it’s messy, sometimes it’s guilty, sometimes it’s embarrassing, and you’ve got to tap into that”

I recently got a chance to see Perfect Sense, and I was particularly fascinated by the film’s premise: a virus causes humanity to gradually lose each one of its senses. 

Starring in it is Ewan McGregor, who plays a chef, and since that job particularly involves the use of the senses he is particularly affected by the troublesome state of the world. 

Opposite him is Eva Green, a woman who lives above the restaurant he works in and with whom he builds a relationship as the world crumbles around them.  McGregor talks about the role with New York Magazine, focusing on training to become a chef and filming sex scenes with Eva Green.

As it turns out, McGregor actually racked up some hours in the kitchen in preparation for the role, and it wasn’t easy — especially when he was drafted to assist!  He says, “I worked with an old friend of mine, Guy Cowans. He has a place called Guy’s in Glasgow, and he’s also a movie-set caterer in Britain. He became the chef advisor for the movie, for all of the sequences in the kitchen. So I worked with him for about a week, observing, about two or three hours a night, and I actually ended up helping out. I spent a few nights doing service, when it got really chaotic. [Laughs.] I used to be a dishwasher and a waiter when I was 14, 15, 16, so I do have some experience with that, but it’s fascinating to watch them keep the orders straight — what steak to cook for how long and all of that. It’s really quite something to see. So I was taught how to make several dishes that we incorporated into the scenes. Guy orchestrated most of it; we wanted it to be realistic, for our movements to make sense, so it looked like we knew what we were doing.”  Read more

Sundance 2012: The Film ‘Compliance’ and the Shouting & Screaming at the Q & A

Written by Sofia Gian

[For Sundance 2012, Daily Actor has actress Sofia Gian taking in the sights, sounds and films and writing it all down for us. Keep coming back for more Sundance!  - Lance]

I didn’t see it coming is the best way I can describe my screening of Compliance. It’s a story of the unexpected. What starts off innocently enough as relationship between the middle-aged fast food store manager Sandra and her young teenage employee turns into a psychological horror film, and takes the audience on an uncomfortable ride over the next two hours.

A busy Friday night at a generic fast food joint in just another mid-western town takes a turn to the perverse as cop-pretending prank caller seizes psychological control over the employees and makes them do things most of us would think of as unimaginable. Both the audience and I wanted to yell out at the characters on screen telling them to hang the phone up and make the mind-torture end, but it would not have made a difference.  Read more

Former NFL Star Eddie George Trades His Cleats for Julius’ Caesar’s Sandals

While there has been a handful of athletes-turned-actors, most that come to mind appeared in supporting roles in comedies that were built out of their already established images, like Bob Uecker in the Major League movies or Mike Ditka in Kicking and Screaming, and who could forget Bubba Smith from all those Police Academy movies (we’ll tiptoe around the former athlete who appeared in the Naked Gun series, though). 

It’s not often that we see athletes take a dramatic turn, though.  But for College Football Hall of Famer and former Tennessee Titans great Eddie George, the stage has become something of a second career. 

Like the previously-mentioned athletes, George took part in a few comedic and action roles on television and in movies, like in The Game Plan.  But after appearing in a production of God’s Tombstones in Nashville in 2006, George was cast in the lead role in the Nashville Shakespeare Festival of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which runs through January 29 at the Troutt Theater at Belmont University.  Read more

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