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.

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

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.”

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