Jessica Chastain Getting News of Her Academy Award Nomination

When Jessica Chastain got the news that she had recieved her Nomination for Best Supporting Actress in The Help, she was sitting front at Paris Fashion Week with her friend, Cameron Diaz.

Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani was there and documented the moment and posted it to, where else, Twitter.

Sozzani wrote: “Jessica Chastain receives the call on her nomination at the Oscars during the #Armani Prive fashion show” 

You know what’s weird? Every time I get good news, Cameron Diaz is sitting next to me too.  Read more

How “Bad” Acting Lands An Oscar Nomination

Just how did an acclaimed, stage-trained, Oscar-winning actor like Geoffrey Rush approach the scenes in “The King’s Speech” in which his character proves to be a mediocre thespian? With genuine anxiety.

“Clever Mr. Tom Hooper shot that scene on the very first day,” Rush told PopcornBiz at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival of the moments when speech therapist Lionel Logue reveals that, despite youthful dabbling in the theater, he’s anything but an accomplished actor. “He made me get up in front of an entire English crew and some other English actors who all knew that I had some sort of reputation for being a Shakespearean actor in Australia. But I’d always played prose characters – I was never the verse speaker. So I was nervous and I was bad, and he just shot it.”

The actor goes on to say how thrilling it is to see Mr. Logue receive recognition for his accomplishments, as seen by the results at Google: “If you had Googled Lionel Logue two months ago you would’ve had no hits. Now you might get a couple of thousand.”

To read more go to: PopcornBiz.com

Sam Rockwell on ‘Moon’, Oscar talk and ‘Iron Man 2′

From MTV.com:

MTV: You don’t have a lot of actors to play off of — or any actors to play off of — in “Moon.” You knew what you were getting into, obviously, but were there any unexpected challenges? Were you lonely as an actor to not have another person to feed off of?

Rockwell: That’s half the equation. Most of the time, it was hard. There was a young actor there named Robin Chalk, and there was also a body double that looked like him from the back, and a lot of times we were acting with tennis balls, or I’d have to pick a mark or put a piece of tape on the wall or something it was interesting.

MTV: So what’s it like, shooting on the moon?

Rockwell: It’s kinda hot, if you’re in a space station — it’s a moist, a little hot. You want to wear some kind of deodorant or cologne. But the other guys didn’t mind.

MTV: As you well know, there is a movement afoot that you, Mr. Rockwell, will get an Oscar nomination. How did you hear about this, and what was your reaction?

Rockwell: I heard about this — my dad told me about it — that something was cooking on the Internet. So my girlfriend and I looked it up, and it was very flattering. As an actor, this is the only thing you’ve been shooting for your entire career — you don’t care about the actual product [laughs]. You just want awards to put some place. Am I wrong? I would be honored to get an Oscar or anything else like that. But it’s just that anything that gets this movie some attention is a good thing. It’s hard for these smaller films, so anything that gets it attention, for sure.

MTV: Also in the course of this year, a film we haven’t seen yet but you shot already, is a little thing called “Iron Man 2.” Did you study up on your character, Justin Hammer?

Rockwell: I got some research — they sent me over some stuff. I looked it over and that was about it. I kind of took my own ideas from other things. A little bit of Lex Luthor’s stuff — [Kevin] Spacey and [Gene] Hackman. I think there’s a little Bill Murray in “Kingpin” in it. Probably some Richard Gere “American Gigolo” thrown in there. And a little Charles Nelson Reilly!

Read more

Viola Davis on why she wanted to become an actor

Josh Brolin on 'Milk' and his nomination

And check out fellow nominee Richard Jenkins sneaking into the interview halfway through.

Michael Shannon isn't writing his Oscar speech

Michael Shannon said that when he became an actor he “just loved doing it so much” and would still act for the sake of acting.

Well, I don’t think he’s going to stop anytime soon given his recent Oscar nomination.

But he also knows the chances of actually winning this year. “I know the odds,” he said. With Heath Ledger already winning the Golden Globe, Shannon’s chances are slim.

“I haven’t been writing my acceptance speech.”

Michael Shannon finds his Oscar nomination strange

Josh Brolin reacts to his nomination

The renaissance of Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep has been on a roll. First she had ‘The Devil Wears Prada‘ and ‘Mammi Mia‘. Now, with her upcoming film, Doubt, she is back on top and already being touted for an Oscar nomination.

Here she talks life, Doubt and oh yeah, acting.

Click here for the article

Tom Wilkinson Can Act Better Than You

“He knows in the first read, the first 10 pages. He knows right away what to do,” says Tony Gilroy, who directed Wilkinson to a supporting-Oscar nomination in Michael Clayton. “It’s effortless. I have never seen any machinery or string. There must be some private, secret process.”