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.

The New Normal’s Andrew Rannells on How He Got His Start and Pitching Himself to Series Creator, Ryan Murphy

There has already been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Andrew Rannells’ new show, The New Normal. Ryan Murphy’s (American Horror Story, Glee) NBC comedy is about a gay couple who decide to have a baby via a surrogate mother. A Utah syndicate already decided to ban the show from airing because of the content. So Rannells feels a certain responsibility to represent the show’s positive qualities.

Matthew Perry on the Legacy of ‘Friends’ and the “Valuable Lesson” He Learned on His Cancelled Series ‘Mr. Sunshine’

It isn’t easy to follow up starring in one of the most successful and beloved television sitcoms of all time. We’ve all heard about the “Seinfeld Curse” (though Julia Louis-Dreyfus seems to be handling herself well these days), but most of the cast of Friends have had trouble finding a project that had a fraction of the success of the “Must See TV” hit NBC sitcom.

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