I’m no casting agent, but I have pegged Michael Shannon for a super-villain role for years. Still, I never thought Shannon — who has never really appeared in any blockbuster — would ever be tapped to star in such a role.
Brit on acting notebooks: “They can kind of become a crutch”
It’s official: Jonah Hill is a serious actor. Sure, he might be co-starring in This Is The End and is likely returning for a sequel for 21 Jump Street, but in an interview with Rolling Stone Hill refuses to speak about his more famous filthy comedies and only wants to speak about his transition from comedian to serious actor in films like Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Last week, I analyzed examples of the most successful examples of star casting on Broadway in recent years. While those productions are on the top tier, other productions don’t fare as well – with some even closing early, which is usually considered a major embarrassment for the star in question in additional to the significant financial loses faced by the producers.
Second Stage Theatre just announced that 2013 Tony Award nominees Stephanie J. Block and Will Chase will co-star in this fall’s production of the new musical comedy, Little Miss Sunshine.
Millions of people probably know Paul Bettany best for being the witty English voice of Iron Man’s virtual assistant, Jarvis. While that’s not completely a shame (those gigs probably land Bettany quite a bit of well-deserved money), viewers who haven’t seen more of Bettany’s work are missing out on a wonderful actor — particularly now, when Bettany claims he feels re-energized.
In this video, the great Shalita Grant performs a “cinematic interpretation” from Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, where she plays a waitress predicting gloom and doom.
In the past few years it seems like a Hollywood star opens a play on Broadway on almost a monthly basis. While this is a huge boost for Broadway and New York City – think of how many people traveled to Manhattan just to see Tom Hanks on stage in the last few weeks – the trend of “star casting” is controversial among Broadway regulars, many of whom see it as outsider stars jacking up ticket prices and “taking away” roles from legitimate Broadway actors for huge paychecks.
Brandon Walker’s forte is emotionally conflicted, mentally troubled characters, and if that doesn’t describe Hamlet’s character I don’t know what does.
Peter Sarsgaard was initially reluctant to sign onto the third season of AMC’s The Killing…mostly because he thought the series had already been cancelled.
Jesse Eisenberg is one of those actors who actually admits to having stage fright. Luckily, his role in the new film, Now You See Me, helped him get over his fear.
I, for one, can’t wait for the Tony Awards. It’s by far the best of the awards shows hands down.
Paul Bettany gave a remarkably candid interview with The Guardian while working on Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Though he didn’t say much about Nolan’s next film (and knowing how secretive Nolan is about his projects that’s not surprising), he did talk about what he looks for in a director — and what he thinks modern directors have lost.
For quite some time Johnny Depp was attached to star in the biopic Black Mass as Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, who is currently on trial for his role in 19 murders. But it was suddenly announced on May 30 that he was out after a pay dispute. Or is he? That seems to depend on whom you ask.
Though Russell Crowe is no stranger to beefing up for a role, it had been some time since he had to do so before he agreed to portray Superman’s Kryptonian father Jor-El in Man of Steel. Crowe is following in the footsteps of Marlon Brando, who played Jor-El in 1978’s Superman (and again nearly thirty years later in Superman Returns, which featured unused footage from the original).
So life after The Office begins for its principal cast, like Jenna Fischer, who had been with the show for the entirety of its nine-year run. For Fischer “life after” starts with her New York theater debut at the strictly limited engagement world premiere of Reasons to Be Happy, a play by Neil LaBute, which runs through the end of June at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
Henry Cavill almost played Superman several years ago while Warner Bros. was developing the project that would eventually become Superman Returns. Though that ultimately didn’t work out, opportunity ended up knocking for Cavill when he was selected to portray Superman in director Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel, a new origin movie of the world’s first superhero.
It has been said when the late Heath Ledger got into roles he really got into them. And when he portrayed Batman’s arch-villain The Joker in The Dark Knight, for which he won a posthumous Oscar for, Ledger went even deeper, including keeping a “Joker diary.”
David Morse is an actor who has had a long career in film, television, and theater for over thirty years and has never seemed to take a break. He has returned to the stage in New York in The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin at the Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre.
