Chris McKittrick

Christopher McKittrick is the author of Vera Miles: The Hitchcock Blonde Who Got Away (2025), Can’t Give It Away on Seventh Avenue: The Rolling Stones and New York City (2019), Somewhere You Feel Free: Tom Petty and Los Angeles (2020), Gimme All Your Lovin’: The Blues Beard, and Boogie of ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons (2024), and Howling to the Moonlight on a Hot Summer Night: The Tale of the Stray Cats (2024). In addition to his work for Daily Actor, McKittrick and his work have been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Observer, Newsday, USAToday.com, CNBC.com, Time.com, RollingStone.com, and dozens of other entertainment and news websites. He has appeared on television on the Tom Petty episode of HLN’s How It Really Happened and Al Araby TV’s Hekayat Al Cinema, and on various radio shows and podcasts.

For more information about Chris, visit his website here!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt on His ‘Looper’ Bruce Willis Makeup and Directing His First Film

Premium Rush aside, Joseph Gordon-Levitt appears in two of the best-rated action films of 2012, The Dark Knight Rises and Looper, and also stars in the likely Oscar-contending drama Lincoln due out in November. In an interview with New York magazine, Gordon-Levitt talks about the makeup he had to wear to portray a younger version of Bruce Willis in Looper and what inspired him to direct his first film, which is due out next year.

Jessica Chastain on Making Her Broadway Debut in ‘The Heiress’

If you took a time machine all the way back to 2010 and started to talk to people about the Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain, there’s a big chance that nobody would know who you were talking about. Of course, I could think of a lot better ways of using a time machine, but the point still stands: after starring in six (!) films in 2011 alone, including The Help, Chastain has become a praised actress in Hollywood and is often on the shortlist for many upcoming projects.

‘The Hobbit’ Star Billy Connolly Thinks J.R.R. Tolkien’s Books are ‘Unreadable’

Actor/comedian Billy Connolly doesn’t strike me as the type of person who parrot out generic answers to questions about his latest projects (as opposed to, say, Liam Neeson talking about the “character development” in Battleship). My notion appears to be correct, because in an interview with New York magazine he openly admits that he isn’t a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing even though he is appearing in The Hobbit movie series in the key role as the dwarf lord Dain Ironfoot.

Emily Blunt talks ‘Looper’ and Choosing Her Parts: “It’s very deliberate though I wouldn’t say that I strategize any role I do”

Emily Blunt is one of the many actresses working today that aren’t satisfied by repeatedly starring as giggly girls in lighthearted comedies. Following in the footsteps of her Devil Wears Prada co-star Meryl Streep, Blunt has taken on a variety of roles in many different genres, including a major role in Looper, a sci-fi movie starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis.

Harrison Ford on Playing the Real-Life Branch Rickey in Jackie Robinson Biopic ’42’

It’s almost impossible to believe that Harrison Ford is now seventy and is now a regular in “older men” roles. But the seemingly ageless Ford has put Indiana Jones behind him (well, most hope) in order to appear in more dramatic roles, such as the Jackie Robinson biopic 42. Ford stars as Branch Rickey, the general manager who initially signed Robinson to a minor league contract and later called him to the major leagues, making Robinson the first professional African-American baseball player in the modern era.

Matthew Lillard: “Every career ebbs and flows and right now it’s a good time to be me”

Nobody would fault you if upon hearing the name Matthew Lillard your first thoughts were of a talking dog and the Mystery Machine. Even IMDb’s #1 “Known for” for Lillard is 2002’s live-action Scooby-Doo, in which Lillard somehow managed to pull off the perfect Shaggy. Considering that Lillard has since stared in a live-action sequel to Scooby-Doo and has also been doing the voice for the animated Shaggy for the last several years he isn’t shying away from what some actors might consider a pigeonholing role.

Boardwalk Empire’s Kelly Macdonald: “I don’t generally get to play the stronger characters…. but I’ve been enjoying getting my teeth into something else”

There is no show on television that I follow as closely as Boardwalk Empire, and a big reason for that is incredibly talented actors and actresses featured on the show. One of the series’ strongest lead characters is Margaret Thompson, played by Kelly Macdonald, whose recent career has even lead her to being cast as the lead character in Pixar’s last film, Brave.

Bank of America Sued by Child Actors for Depleting Trust Funds with Bank Fees

In the last several years Bank of America, one of the largest banks in the United States, has come under fire for a number of its business practices. The latest complaint aimed at Bank of America involves child actors, with the banking giant facing a class action lawsuit for charging child actors’ trust accounts with monthly service fees.

Ed Lauter on His Late Success After Appearing in ‘The Artist’: It “percolated things”

Talk about a late bloomer: Ed Lauter has appeared in dozens of television series and movies in his long career, but at seventy-three the character actor seems to finally have become more than just a vaguely recognizable face after appearing as a butler in last year’s The Artist. This fall he appears in two films, Trouble with the Curve and Ed Burns’ The Fitzgerald Family Christmas

Robert Patrick on Becoming an Actor: “The guys who make it to the major leagues are not there because they are lucky”

I can’t help it — even though it was over twenty years ago now since the release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, whenever I see Robert Patrick on screen I end up thinking of him as the T-1000. Though I don’t think he minds that one bit, Patrick has had a lot of great roles since then, and he is his usual stoic self as the General Manager for the Atlanta Braves in Trouble with the Curve, which stars Clint Eastwood.

Actors Send Letter to SAG-AFTRA Over Foreign Royalty Payments Dispute

As members of SAG-AFTRA likely know, actors receive royal payments for purchases of blank VHS tapes and DVDs, and cable reruns and rentals of media they appeared in. Often this can make up a significant amount of an actor’s yearly income. This applies to foreign countries as well, but a letter sent to SAG-AFTRA by a group of actors alleges that the union has not been paying the proper amount to actors for more than a decade.

Ben Affleck Talks About Directing and The Lowest Points of His Acting Career: “I made a bunch of movies that didn’t work”

It wasn’t too long ago that I looked at new Ben Affleck movies like trips to the dentist, especially the parts involving the dentist painfully picking at my gums. After excellent roles in films like Dazed and Confused, Chasing Amy, and, of course, Good Will Hunting (which he co-wrote) in the 1990s, the new millennium brought with it a string of films starring Affleck that ranged from inoffensively mediocre to reaching new levels of awfulness. But Affleck successfully taped into his Good Will Hunting creative energy to direct Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo, three films that have received strong critical praise (he also co-wrote the first two).

Brad Pitt on the Economics of Stars’ Salaries During the Current Recession

The economic instability that hit most of the world in 2008-2009 and still lingers didn’t just hit the lower classes — A-list stars who used to command paychecks hovering upwards of $20 million per film are far less common than they were before the recession. For a major star like Brad Pitt, who earned a reportedly $20 million salary for Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 2005, hasn’t gotten paychecks close to that in recent years.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt on Being Bruce Willis in ‘Looper’

In order to play a younger version of Bruce Willis’ character in Looper, Joseph Gordon-Levitt underwent three hours of makeup each day before filming. While I personally don’t think the changes are that drastic (I mean, it isn’t like he has to look like the Elephant Man to play Bruce Willis), Gordon-Levitt talked about transforming into Willis and what audiences might discover when watching Looper.

Ben Affleck: “If anybody really wants to be an actor, a great advanced class would be to direct some stuff”

Remember when most people thought of Ben Affleck as the less-talented half of the Good Will Hunting duo? Turns out that while Affleck wasn’t always the greatest actor — at the very least his bad moments, like Pearl Harbor, Gigli, and Surviving Christmas were really bad — he’s a great director, with his first two films getting rave reviews and his soon-to-be-released third, Argo, already getting award buzz.

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