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How to Get Some Life Lessons from the “Bad Teacher” Cast

Published on July 4, 2011 in Interviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

We all remember a teacher we didn’t like growing up – the one who smelled bad or who hated you just because or was a mean as a snake. But I’m pretty sure we never had a educator quite like Elizabeth Halsey.

As portrayed by Cameron Diaz, Elizabeth is a very, very bad junior high English teacher indeed. She drinks, smokes, curses and has absolutely zero interest in teaching anyone anything. In fact she’s only doing the school thing because she needs to find another sugar daddy pronto, setting her sights on the new, filthy rich substitute Scott Delacorte (Jason Timberlake) and deciding she needs a boob job to get him. That’s it. That’s her motivation through the whole movie.

Directed by Jake Kasdan (Orange County), the rest of the hilarious cast is rounded out by Forgetting Sarah Marshall funnyman Jason Segel, The Office‘s Phyllis Smith and Dinner for Schmucks actress Lucy Punch. They all gathered one bright Sunday morning in Los Angeles for a press conference to talk about the meaning of Bad Teacher.

On playing someone with such wrong self-image values:

Cameron Diaz: “Obviously, if I felt I could get somewhere by having bigger boobies, I would have done it by now. For her, it’s everything. It’s called hard economic times, ever heard of this? You couldn’t get a millionaire like you could three or four years ago before the crash. It’s an investment. Even Suze Orman would have been like, ‘Girl, five year plan.’ To get what you want, you have to have a goal. And for her, it’s to invest in her business of finding sugar daddy. It was fun to make fun of it.”

On making Elizabeth likable, despite all the flaws:

Diaz: “I read 30 pages into the script thinking, ‘There’s no way I’m playing this character. How can I redeem her? This is a horrible person.’ But then 10 pages more, I was like, ‘Uhh, I think I like her!’ By the end, I was like, ‘This is amazing because I don’t have to apologize.’ And that’s the beauty of this script, such a breath of fresh air. Usually you spend the last 20 minutes of the film apologizing for the first hour and a half because you can’t own up to what it is. In life, you don’t have epiphanies and just change your life. It happens but it’s not the norm. I just think at the end she slows down the train a little so she can jump off and climb on the train going the opposite direction.”

On Elizabeth and Scott’s dry humping scene (yes, you heard correctly):

Justin Timberlake: “Nothing wrong with a jean jam. And collectively, I think we all felt a responsibility to those young people who are buying tickets to other movies and sneaking into ours. It’s a public service announcement to safe sex. No one got pregnant with their jeans on.”

Diaz: “That’s pretty much the only message in the movie that we are proud of. If we are going to be role models in ANY way, we should at least offer a jean jam.”

On SNL changing Timberlake’s life:

Timberlake: “I grew up with SNL as an institution. It is part of the humor and chemistry I had with father, who let me stay up and watch it with him. I came from a divorced family and I didn’t get to see my father a lot, so it’s something we shared and is special to me. Just a huge fan of the show. And to be honest, I’m here at this press conference because of SNL. I have no doubt in mind about that. I owe getting a shot to be in Bad Teacher directly to Lorne Michaels and SNL. I’m not a five-timer yet, only hosted four times, but just to be there and rock out with all I got. And can I just say… that really IS a thoughtful Christmas gift.”

Jason Segel: “I’ll join the five-timer club when I host SNL FIVE MORE TIMES.”

On the fact women behaving badly is so funny these days:

Diaz: “Women have always behaved badly. Maybe more so than men. Any of my friends, if I tell them what women really talk about, they’re like ‘lalalaalalaalala’ and plug their ears. They can’t take it. But I think now, these kinds of films, everyone can laugh at them. I mean a male could have played this role and it would have been just as funny.”

Timberlake: “As a male who likes the dirty things women say, I think funny women have been around forever. Carol Burnett, Madeline Kahn. There’s always been genius female actors in comedy. I also think we live in an age where technology has afforded a generation who look at the world in a more crass way. The Internet is a really strange place to be. Like Cameron said, that’s the coolest thing about this movie, that a male actor could have played the role but it’s great to see a female do it and do it as well as Cameron does it.”

Segel: “I feel like the boob story would have had to change a bit.”

On the cast chemistry:

Timberlake: “After the first week of rehearsal – and orgy – it all kind of came together.”

Jake Kasdan: “It wasn’t that hard. We just really funny people to play every single part. The material was great… it wasn’t that hard.”

Diaz: “It was comedy marksman, precision. Pull the arrow back, slow the breath down and shoot. Bullseye! You had to be like that with the fast paced comedy. Jake would come up and give me notes and then wouldn’t say anything to Jason, and Jason would say, ‘So just be as awesome as I was last time?’ [Segel looks at Kasdan and nods]”

Segel: “I’m just super good at this. When you’re in a cast like this, there’s a sort of mutual admiration society element to it, especially when you are off camera, sitting in awe, watching great comedians do their thing. That’s when I feel the luckiest and also the most humble, working with people who are actually amazing at what you profess to do.”

On having memorable teachers:

Segel: “I’d like to give a shout out to my high school drama coach. He changed my life. Right before I left high school, my last high school play before I met Jake [looking at director Jake Kasdan] and started working on ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ wow, 13, 14 years ago? Anyway, my drama school told me, ‘Don’t forget, the best actor in the world is out there stuck doing dinner theater somewhere, so don’t ever get arrogant, thinking you are entitled to this.’ It stayed with me this whole time.”

Timberlake: “I had a teacher in 7th grade who told me to have more realistic goals than being a songwriter and that my school work was suffering. And I like to say to her, and you can quote me on this: Suck it.”

Phyllis Smith: “All of my teachers were exactly like Elizabeth. So that’s they way I am.”

Opinions on the public education program:

Timberlake: “Man, we’ve got to figure out how to pay our teachers more. They are like our surrogate parents away from home. In doing these interviews and hearing you guys ask us about having “bad teachers” – which I get, it’s a natural question – I’ve come to realization the teachers I remember the most were the ones who taught me life lessons rather than just trigonometry. They have such a huge responsibility and under appreciated and underpaid.”

How to Cut Off Your Arm… Or Interviews with the “127 Hours” Crew

Published on November 14, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments

127 Hours is truly something you don’t want to miss. Many people I’ve talked to say they don’t think they could sit through a movie like this. But they are only focusing on the fact mountaineer Aron Ralston had to cut off his arm to escape certain death from a fall in a canyon.

Director Danny Boyle and actor James Franco bring so much more to it than that. Boyle’s vision of this man’s courageous story is all at once alerting, revolting, hilarious, panoramic, compelling — and a lot in between. And with an actor like Franco, it’s all played out with true brilliance and stamina. The film will most certainly be an major Oscar contender, and lucky for me, I got to speak with both filmmaker, actor, writer — and the man himself, Aron Ralston. What a fascinating afternoon…

James Franco and Danny Boyle

Boyle on how he wanted to tell the tale:

“I said to Aron, I want to tell the story through an actor, I don’t want to tell it through you. Which was weird because he’d just written the book and had control of it. He heard horrendous stories about Hollywood, how they chewed up real-life stories and put happy endings on them. The guy gets out, his arm’s OK, the surgeon works miracles. Everything’s fine. I told him not to worry about any of that, we’ll tell it through an actor.”

“I’m an actor’s director, I like actors, I trust actors to tell stories. And all the stuff you hear about them is fine, and the gossip is fine, but what they REALLY do is something very, very basic and very old, much older than documentaries, which is they kind of live out stories for us. We put ourselves in their place, we’re happy, we’re sad, we’re angry with them. We fall in love and that’s how to tell Aron’s story. It’s so cathartic. If he entrusted to an actor and me and we pull it off, he would feel like he never felt before. Because he’d take people to a place that is unbearable. And in any other form, they will not be able to tolerate. People aren’t going to watch it unless you can get a great actor who will live it out for you, take you on that journey.”

“And you know how it is when it’s a bad actor, you just get annoyed. Because they are abusing that trust you want to put in actors. Makes me furious. I get angry at the ones who cast them and they way it’s come about because they are not really actors, but celebrities or whatever it is. Acting is a weird profession because it’s so deeply embedded in us to let them play out these massive psycho-dramas for us. But I told Aron all this and I think it was his wife, Jessica, who convinced him to entrust us with the story. And we said we’d give it back to him after it was done, which we do in a symbolic moment at the end of the film.”

Franco on playing Aron:

“I loved examining a person by stripping everything away. Having everything he’s used to and taken for granted in life, taken away so he is just faced with the essentials of what life is made of. And also have to just stare death in the face. Powerful material and a powerful approach to that material. As for performing all that, there were many different levels. I got to see the actual videos Aron made while in the canyon. Sure, he told me every second of what he felt along the way. But seeing those videos made it more pure, because it wasn’t Aron telling us the experience, it was Aron in the middle of that experience and not knowing he’s going to get out. He believed he was going to die, making those video up to an hour before he escaped.”

“You could tell there was a lot more going on underneath. But kept up this dignified demeanor for his parents and family, so they wouldn’t see him crumbling in front of the camera. So that’s one the key things I used to do the role. You also have to use every experience you have as a person and amplify that. Of course, I’ve never experienced something like this, but I remember after I got my pilot’s license a few years ago, going up in those little planes, I’d ask ‘OK, if this goes down, that’s it. Are you ready for that, James?’ Have this conversation with myself, as you do. I just take that kind of thing and amplify it.”

Boyle on shooting the movie:

“In a purely narrative sense, you have to establish that rock will not move, enter into this bargain for the rest of the story. We had the cameras, we had the set, which was sealed. It wasn’t movable, wasn’t flexible. It was the real deal, well, as much as it could be in a warehouse in Salt Lake City. We didn’t know how to shoot it. We had a bit of confidence from Slumdog, bit of a role. But we decided to go for it, refocusing between a third person and first person. It’s sort of point of view, and sort of observed, constantly going between the two like that. It dictated the rest of the film.”

Franco on being squeamish:

“I can’t have my blood taken, just don’t like it. I’ve passed out at blood drives. So yeah, wonder how I got through that scene. Funny thing, Aron told me he was squeamish around blood, too, but there is something you can work up in yourself and can’t past if you need to. Of course Aron’s was real and mine was a fake arm, but they did such a good job making this prosthetic arm real. It’s very intense and hard to watch, but there’s a lot Danny could have put in that he didn’t. They built a real arm, with veins and tendons. In hindsight, I just did and didn’t pass out, I guess. But a friend of mine from NYU shot a behind the scenes documentary for the film and I just watched a bit of that scene being done. I guess after the first take, I told Danny he got an authentic performance because I was feeling a little light headed. And we have it on video.”

Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy

On meeting Aron Ralston:

“I had some specific requests, personal. I leveled with him and said we weren’t going to just make a survival movie because it’s not going to touch people in the same way. We could do something more than just tell the facts. Make this a very powerful story about other things, get to the emotional truth of the situation. But to do that, I needed some pretty tough stuff from Aron that he didn’t put in his book. And was he prepared to give us that stuff? And he was!”

Aron Ralston

On how he could cut off his arm:

“Sure, everyone going into the film is thinking this is the guy who cut his arm off but hopefully when they leave, they’ll be glad he’s the guy who cut his arm off, so he could get out of there. That smile on James’ face when he’s doing that, that’s real. I WAS smiling, because I saw it as a triumph, an exuberant feeling of euphoria, which it was for me. The most intense pain I’ll ever experience, for sure, but I was grinning from ear to ear. Cause I was gonna get out there and see all the people I love.”

“It was the riddle of how do you saw through your bones? But you don’t saw through, you break. And then the boulder becomes the solution, not the problem, because I can use the vice-like grip to break the bones. It dawned on me, out of a moment of rage, trying to rip my arm free. It took one hour and four minutes from the time to break my bones and then cut myself free. And I was euphoric the whole time.”

On watching it with his mother:

“It’s been emotional every time I’ve seen it. My mom sitting with me, holding my hand, by the end as there’s the building salvation… at this point, my mom is clutching my hand so hard, I think I’m going to lose my other hand. We are both involuntarily rocking back and forth, and she kept saying, ‘Thank you, God, thank you, God.’ It bonded us even more. Danny gave my family and me this story, truly a gift.”

“When You’re Strange: A Film About The Doors”

Published on May 29, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: .

By Robert Sims, Special to TheMovieKit.com

Like many charismatic singers who died sad and untimely deaths, Jim Morrison continues to live on in the collective hearts and minds of rock fans the world everywhere. Director Tom DiCillo’s When You’re Strange: A Film About The Doors attempts to set the record straight about rock’s poetic laureate’s life, death and musical legacy.

With narration by Johnny Depp, the documentary details The Doors’ formation, its rise to glory, Morrison’s descent into drugs and alcohol, and the band’s failed efforts to soldier on following his 1971 death in Paris. More important, When You’re Strange boasts footage of The Doors never before seen — shot between 1965 and 1971 — and excerpts from HWY, a film Morrison made several years before his death.

Prior to its theatrical release, Doors guitarist Robby Krieger brought the film to SXSW and told the documentary’s audience during a post-screening Q&A about how Morrison influenced his songwriting, his reaction to his band mate’s death, and the bids to replace him with a new singer.

Step 1: Find the footage
Robby Krieger: “Most of it was shot by a guy named Paul Ferrara, who came on tour with us, just followed us around whenever we went. Wish we had more of it, but it’s all we’ve got. So lucky we have it.”

Step 2: Pay homage to a fallen comrade
Krieger: “Jim was a mentor to me. He kinda taught me how to write songs, at least the words. What was my most favorite story about that was probably at one time I was still living at home and my parents left town for a couple weeks, so I had Jim stay over at my house, which might have been a mistake. We had a great time writing song, and that’s where we wrote a whole buncha stuff, including ‘The End.’ ‘The End’ was just a love story when we first started. It was just, ‘This is the end, beautiful friend,’ and as we played it in person, it would get longer and longer until that night at [the LA nightclub Whiskey a Go Go], when the Oedipal part came out.”

Step 3: Recall the first meeting with Morrison
Krieger: “Jim was always weird, you know, from the very first time I met him. We had our very first rehearsal — he was very cool, the music was great. After the rehearsal, some guy comes in and Jim grabs him, throws him in this room, and it sounded he was going to kill the guy or something. ‘Jesus Christ, this is my lead singer?’ Turned out it was this dope was a dope dealer, a bad dealer.”

Step 4: Don’t speculate
Krieger: “We don’t really know exactly what happened because he was over there in Paris, and Pam [Courson] was the only one who really knew what happened, and unfortunately she died about a year later. She was totally heartbroken and got into hard drugs and she was gone in a year. It was terrible.”

Step 5: Realize hindsight is 20/20
Krieger: “In a way I wasn’t surprised because, you know, it seemed like he was always trying his hardest to crash his car or jump out of a window or something. But then again I always thought he’d be one of those guys, those crazy Irish drunks who’d live to be 80 years old and just never give up, give up the ghost. But I was wrong.”

Step 6: Accept that life goes on
Krieger: “The three of us continued to record after Jim died. We did two albums and we thought about getting a lead singer but it really didn’t make sense right away, but after the second album we did we said, ‘God, Ray and I are not the greatest singers, so on, we should get a singer, it’s been two years, three years.’ So we actually went over to London. We all moved over to London: ‘Maybe we’ll find a singer over here.’ And we talked about Iggy Pop and we never did get around to trying him out. I don’t know whether he would have wanted to do it or not. [Audience’s] Howard Werth was one of the guys that we talked about. The guy from Free, Paul Rodgers. But we never really got to try anyone out because Ray’s friend was pregnant and she kinda freaked out and Ray decided to go back to L.A., and that’s when the three of us kinda broke up The Doors, in 1972, 1973.”

Step 7: Dissect Hollywood’s version of The Doors’ brief reign
Krieger: “I did like The Doors movie. I worked on it as an advisor, and if you remember the part about when we wrote ‘Light My Fire,’ that was kinda my idea that I asked Oliver to do, and I basically wanted the musical parts of the movie to be true to life, and they really were. They really tried hard to recreate the concert scenes in that movie, as true to life a possible. There was some stupid stuff in the movie, but I thought for a Hollywood movie about rock ‘n’ roll it was pretty damn good.”

How to Interview: “Barry Munday” Painful Loss

Published on May 29, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: .

By Robert Sims, Special to the MovieKit.com

At the end of Little Children, Patrick Wilson helps Jackie Earle Haley after his convicted child molester castrates himself in a bid to stop him from falling into his old ways. In Barry Munday, it’s Wilson who suffers a similar fate when he loses his testicles. The difference is, Barry Munday plays Wilson’s severe injury for laughs.

Director Chris D’Arienzo’s indie comedy, which received its world premiere at SXSW, follows the changes Wilson’s insufferable dickhead undergoes after his unfortunate accident. Chloe Sevigny and Judy Greer play the sisters — the former an admitted slut, the other a virgin — who help Wilson move forward with his life in comical fashion.

I spoke with Wilson, Sevigny, Greer and D’Arienzo following Barry Munday’s packed premiere about the comedy’s painful premise, the trust fostered on the set, and the cool cat that is Billy Dee William.

Step 1: Don’t get too attached to your manhood
Patrick Wilson: “It’s funny I’ve had a history of some kind of emasculation in movies. This was the first time it actually was quite literal. What I loved about it was you — once they established who he was — thought it was the most outlandish circumstance, but the coolest journey for a story essentially about this being about becoming a man, to have this completely stripped away, that was exciting.”

Step 2: Make your directorial debut with a story that speaks to you
Chris D’Arienzo: “The characters were really specific and human. They weren’t traditional movie romantic comedy characters. They were flawed and their flaws were like really naked. And I just really liked that. When I read it, there was a possibility there was a way to do this that was kind of in the spirit of comedies that I really love. Movies like Harold and Maude or The Graduate….”

Step 3: Assemble the coolest cast possible
D’Arienzo: “I never would have dreamed to have this cast. But when it actually became the process of casting, we just had a lot of fun with who is your dream person and start there. As far as like certain characters like Billy Dee [Williams’] character, Lonnie, and Jennifer for Chloe as Ginger’s sister, I felt like in those two instances I was like, Jennifer needs to be the coolest person in Ginger’s world just like Lonnie’s kind of the coolest person in Barry’s world. So I just kind of went for who I think are the coolest actors.”

Step 4: Then persuade Billy Dee Williams to play the coolest cat in the film
D’Arienzo: “We went to L’Ermitage [Bevery Hills Hotel to discuss the role]. Anytime I’m in that lobby…I only see rappers and NBA stars like all that time. And so hanging with Billy Dee was like hanging with the Pope. It was kind of fantastic. He doesn’t do a ton of movies now, but he’s such a fantastic actor and a wonderful guy and he was really sweet. And he was like, ‘So why did you think of me for this?’ And I said, ‘Well, I just think Lonnie needs to be the coolest guy in Barry’s universe, and I was trying to think who is the coolest guy in my universe. It’s Billy Dee’ And he just kind of looked at me and went, ‘And you’d be right.’ And we got really close actually, it was like really sweet. We would go have dinner all the time, it was just awesome. He’s a really, really wonderful guy.”

Step 5: Get in touch with your inner geek
Judy Greer: “Putting a character together from the outside in, it’s fast and easy. Once I’m not wearing makeup and I’m in like my clogs, which were my own clogs, and it was funny because on set, I actually remember, I forget who said it, ‘And then you have to wear those awful shoes.’ And I was like, ‘Those are mine.’”

Wilson: “Yeah, they’re really terrible. I would never wear these in my real life.”

Greer: “It was icing on the cake for Ginger. But it’s so easy, once you get those clothes on. And that’s true really for me, for all the characters, once I know what I’m wearing and what I look like, it starts to sort of come together. And then there’s walking stuff, and Ginger definitely doesn’t stand up very straight. I mean, those things. And then it all sort of comes together. And when she’s talking in the movie, when Ginger, when I talk about being ugly and what it feels like. When I was looking like that, I really felt that way. I felt angry at people who like, you know, going to Starbucks cut in front of me in line, or whatever, and I’m like, Really? I’m here, I’m a person that’s standing here.”

Step 6: Take the risk and go for laughs
Chloe Sevigny: “I think everybody involved and meeting Chris and talking about the film and what he wanted to do with it. And kind of his references to other films that he loved, the kind of movie that he wanted to make. I’ve never been in a comedy, a straight-up comedy before, so that of course attracted me to the project.”

Step 7: Take the risk and follow up your big-budget superhero saga with a small indie comedy
Wilson: “Until you’re like kind of super famous and can turn down all that stuff, I’m not in that situation. I’m lucky to have great support around me. And I love my agents. I think back to when I signed with them, nine years ago, it was always very creatively driven. It was not, ‘Look, let’s turn down this great role because I think you can get in this big budget movie.’ Because the reality is I’ve done some big-budget movies and they haven’t been as successful. But I never had one, ‘Oh, I don’t know if you should do this, let’s wait for something.’ Because that’s not me. And luckily they get that.””

Step 8: Watch the Watchmen weight
Wilson: “The first time I got the script, I was shooting Watchmen, so luckily it just sorta fit with this guy. We all know this type of guy — he’s still hanging onto the ’90s, when he thought he was cool when he hung out at the Bennigan’s after-dark bar. And you know, I also thought there was something incredibly cool about not being vain about it, and just actually the fact that you did get to see like a shower scene and a love scene and just have him still be doughy. So, I didn’t necessarily try to keep it on, but it wasn’t until after Barry Munday that I said, Alright, let me get back in shape. So it worked for this.”

Step 9: Trust your first-time directorGreer: “I’ve worked with lots of first-time directors, and he was so prepared. That was like what was really impressive to me. He had so much enthusiasm for the movie when I met with him. And he came to work with photographs and his shots for the day and he knew exactly what he wanted. Sometimes, I don’t know, directors aren’t really that prepared. You show up and you’re like, You’re getting this opportunity. Nobody gets to do this, and you won the lottery and you don’t know what you want to shoot today?”

Wilson: “The thing about film, too, you can come from such different backgrounds. Sometimes you’re a writer, sometimes you’ll work with a guy that’s done just a bunch of commercials or a guy that’s a DP, a choreographer, whatever it is. But at the end of the day, you really have to know visually what you want. It’s funny, and this is coming from the guy from the theater, but in a weird way, I don’t care if you give me these great acting notes, I want to know what you want to shoot because this is a director’s medium. This is not an actor’s; film is not an actor’s medium. He knew the style that he wanted. If you can hang on a scene, a comedic scene from one angle, for four minutes, if you can do that, you have to have supreme confidence in your script, in you, in your actors, in the situation, because you’re not telling people to laugh and then a quick cut to reaction. Now comedies have their place too, but for this style of comedy, it’s almost like a ’70s style of comedy, you have to trust the situation and luckily you’re given such a great base really for as quirky as it can be. This is a love story about two people who would never come together and how they worked around their very blatant, concrete differences and circumstances and really come together Chris, he just knew, because he’s just a humble guy and an enthusiastic guy, he’s like, ‘Actually, the way I want to shoot this, is like this.’ And just you gotta go with it. And it worked. And truthfully, a lot of times, when you only have a couple angles, producers, editors, everybody else when you get into the editing room, they all get scared, because it’s like, ‘Can we cut to something and put a sound cue in there and that’s gonna make people laugh?’ Just trust it. Trust it and let it sit.”

Step 9: Trust your cast to trust you
D’Arienzo: “It’s completely terrifying at times, but when you’re actually working — one of the things we wanted to do was do lots of masters and let scenes play out in one shot and you can only really do that if you have really great actors. So, once we were actually working and we were in this kind of structure and OK, we’re going to try this all out here in this one shot, then I was completely at ease because I didn’t have to worry. Everyone was just completely at the top of their game.”

Sevigny: “I have to say it was the calmest set I have ever been on. And one of the funniest. I mean, everybody was so relaxed. So mellow, and everybody got along. I was like, ‘What the hell is going on? Are we making a movie here? Shouldn’t there be tension? Shouldn’t people be screaming about getting the shot?’ We did really minimal takes and minimal set ups. It was really nice. It was really laid back.”

How to Interview: “MacGruber” Saves the Day

Published on May 18, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: , .

By Robert Sims, Special to the MovieKit.com

No matter how many MacGruber blows himself up, he always seems to live to screw up things another day.

But the raciest, sexist dolt who would be MacGyver now faces his greatest challenge: luring audiences away from their TVs to go to the theater to see the first Saturday Night Live-originated film since 2000’s lamentable The Ladies Man. In MacGruber, Will Forte’s special op teams up with trusty sidekick Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) and the perpetually flabbergasted Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) to stop madman Dieter von Cunth (Val Kilmer) from launching a nuclear strike against the United States. Mayhem ensues, mostly as a result of the incompetent MacGruber’s bumbling ways and his willingness to place a piece of celery in a place where the sun don’t shine.

Forte, Wiig, Phillippe and Kilmer joined director Jorma Taccone — an SNL writer responsible for creating such classic digital shorts as “Dick in a Box” and “Lazy Sunday” with his Lonely Island cohorts Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer — to discuss MacGruber’s latest mission.

Step 1: Create the perfect MacGyver parody
Will Forte: “MacGruber was Jorma’s idea. He kept coming to pitch it. Every week he would pitch it, for the sketch, and I would say, ‘No, I don’t want it, I don’t think so.’ He did enough weeks in a row where finally to shut him up we said, ‘Let’s write it.’ It was really his idea from the beginning.”

Jorma Taccone: “I’m not very good at pitching. Every Monday we have to get into Lorne’s [Michael, SNL’s creator and executive producer] office, all writers and cast. We get into the room and have to pitch in front of the wildly famous host. It’s really nerve-racking and I’m terrible at it. It was probably one of my worst pitches ever. I think the pitches went something like, ‘You play MacGruber, who defuses bombs only using pieces of shit and pubic hair, so nobody wants to hand you any of the items.’ And I got the worst groan ever.”

Step 2: Think big-screen
Taccone: “Lorne’s always been a real champion of MacGruber. He’s always really like it as a sketch. When the opportunity presented itself for Pepsi to maybe do something with SNL, he came to John [Solomon], Will and I. That propelled it into a little more of a national conscious. Not like SNL is not in the national conscious. But a ton of people watched that [2009] Super Bowl. There are people who don’t know MacGruber except for those Pepsi commercials. We sorta made that on spec. We made it entirely without Pepsi’s revision. We always wanted to make a commercial where he sells out because that’s well within his character. Because we had Richard Dean Anderson, we shot two MacGrubers, six individual little snippets. Because we had Richard Dean Anderson we didn’t know whether we would get the Pepsi commercial on the air. We shot one where MacGyer is MacGruber’s dad, and he’s also a little bit of a bit of shit. That propelled into the idea of it being a film. And then the opportunity came up, that there might be this opportunity—several different studios were interested in the idea—so we wrote a script and were really excited about it.”

Step 3: Make like MacGyver and work wonders with what you have
Tacoone: “The budget on this was $10 million…. It’s still a lot of money, but what we were able to get out of it is pretty awesome.”

“There’s a scene in the movie where they find MacGruber in a monastery. He’s reluctant to join this mission because there’s too much pain in his past. He wakes up from a nightmare and see Dieter von Cunth’s portrait on the wall. He was going to throw a lantern at the picture, burn down the whole monastery and walk away in slow motion like he’s a badass. These poor monks had to put out the fire. That was one of the things we couldn’t do: too much money.”

Step 4: Say goodbye to your dignity
Forte: “In Albuquerque, [Forte’s mother] came to visit. The final day she was get was the day we were doing the celery scene. I had prepared her. She’s been kinda prepared my whole life, but that was like … it wasn’t her so much. I was completely naked and cupping my genitals and placing this piece of celery and looked over and there was my mom standing, watching with no judgment: ‘This is what my son is doing.’ Next to her were her two friends who were not as excited about being there. I apologize.”

Step 5: Never work with props
Forte: “When we first got to Albuquerque and went to the Embassy Suites, as a joke, I guess they knew it was in the script, there was some celery that was in this care package that they had left in there. So we all came in there and were workshopping the placement of the celery. [Jorma] had a little Flip camera. He filmed it. Throughout the next couple weeks people would come up to me and say, ‘I saw the celery thing.’ He would send it to every people.”

Tacoone: “I just showed it.”

Kilmer: “I called Jorma in the middle of that and he said, ‘I can’t talk right now because we’re working on some props.’”

Step 6: Make (courtesy) pillow talk

Wiig: “When you do a sensual love scene with Will Forte, there’s a little barrier between—”

Forte: “This is only a love scene with Will Forte?”

Wiig: “Is it a normal thing? We are talking about the same thing? He put it in between our areas. Did we really use it?”

Forte: “I didn’t want to? You were the one who insisted on it.”

Wiig: “But we didn’t end up using it, but maybe I got fooled somehow.”

Taccone: “We did with it, it just fell out immediately.”

Wiig: “He had a little sack.”

Forte: “It was a pretty big sack. I think basically we just used a towel. This was not a piece of fabric that you wanted to be around after the filming. It was pretty sweaty and hairy.”

Step 7: Think big casting your villain
Kilmer: “It’s really funny. Isn’t it funny? The last time I read a script, a comedy or otherwise, where I called the agent and said I wanted to do it by about page 30 was a comedy not very many people saw called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It was just like that. It was just so good. Every single idea I had Jorma would kinda not let me finish the sentence and go, ‘No.’ It’s only because it was so good there was nothing to add. I just got dressed and tried not to laugh. I blew out a take because Will was so funny.”

Step 8: Understand the difference between directing an SNL short and a feature film
Taccone: “The biggest challenege was trying to keep your head when every day before lunch … or an hour or two before wrap you were told, ‘What are you doing to cut? You’re not going to make a day. You’ve got to cut something in the afternoon, you’ve got to cut something tomorrow. There’s no way you’re making your day.’ We would make our day every single day, but it would be really fast. On occasion you would really have to think on your feet and say, That scene is now a walk and talk with a Steadicam. The hardest part was having to think, How can we consolidate? We wouldn’t do it that much, but we would consolidate certain scenes as long as it wasn’t to the detriment of the film. Directing is just being able to organize your time and not freak out.”

Step 9: Don’t even worry how MacGruber’s success or failure impacts other SNL characters heading to a movie theater near you
Forte: “My mom is giving me pressure. She’s thinking about not inviting me to Thanksgiving if this does not do well at the box office.”

Taccone: “There’s always pressure, but the budget being so low is helpful.”

Step 10: Hope for a sequel
Ryan Phillippe: “Especially in a tropical locale. MacGruber in Paradise.”

How to Interview: “Iron Man 2′s” Robert Downey Jr.

Published on May 8, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments

Really, his words speak for themselves. I love this guy.

Step 1: Have fun on set. Or try to, at least.
“Uh, what was fun?  I could say it was fun when Tony was just hanging out in the doughnut hole, but the truth be told is, I was wearing that [Iron Man] cumbersome suit, and I was not really properly rooted to the spot I was on. So really what I was thinking about while I was looking relaxed and cool and eating a doughnut was, ‘Jesus Christ please, if I move my ankle one inch I’m going to slide off this thing.’  I’m not really afraid of heights, but I’m wearing this stuff, and I won’t be able to break my fall, so I was kind of troubleshooting.  Not in a neurotic way, I was just going, ‘Jesus, this is not really fun at all.’”

Step 2: Then find out what makes him mad
“Miscommunication.  And, uh ,people being put in positions of influence who don’t know what they’re doing at all!  It annoys me, it unnerves me.  Really here’s what makes me mad, what pisses me off are the things that put me in fear.  So I need to manage my fear, first and foremost.  That way, if you were to get me mad, right, like I have no conspiracy theory cell in my body that’s activated, because the truth is, conspiracies aren’t the problem. Capitalism is the problem.  Capitalism is what it is and we’re just hacking away at this three billion ton block of granite with like, little spoons, like we’ve always been doing so what am I gonna, there’s nothing to worry about really.”

Step 3: Then define his father/son dynamic
“I don’t think Tony blames his father for anything.  I think he feels that the perception of his father does not match up with his emotional experience of his father, so uh it’s pretty different.  It’s not one of those things where he’s saying, ‘My problems are because I’m in my dad’s shadow.’ I think what he’s saying is ‘I’m old enough to know that the story doesn’t jive with my experience, and my experience was that I didn’t think he thought all that much of me.’  As far as parenting goes, I mean isn’t that the way it is, you know?  No matter what kind of experience any of us had, our parents were doing the best they could do.  And then there are always social constraints and then there’s always generational constraints.  To me, when looked at in that light, it actually has so much emotional resonance because I can start having empathy for people, you know?  When you have a mom and a dad and then you have kids, oh my God, it’s just crazy.”

Step 4: Tell us what you do at home
A:  “I’m rarely clothed, I’m riding horses bareback.  No, not really. You know what?  This is how it goes: This is a nice colored towel, but it doesn’t really match the paint. Oh that’s right because these towels are from the last house. You know what, don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it. Maybe I’ll get some yellow towels.  Then I go downstairs and maybe I got a little stereo system, and I start hooking it up, and I go ‘Look, I put all the wires in the right place!’ No one’s looking and they don’t care.  But I go, ‘Look what I did!  This is great!’  So, I’ve got the speakers and maybe I’ll put some old Steely Dan or some classical music, and I go, ‘What would somebody think, who thinks I’m this hip movie star, and I’m walking around listening to classical music or yes, recently again obsessed with the Renaissance and old like chamber music or acapella music?’ I’m like some old queen like walking around the house.”

Step 5: Explain why superheroes are taking over Hollywood
“Uh well we were just talking about mythology, right?  I mean it use to be the Iliad.  I just think that things are changing a little bit.  I’m kind of fascinated with the way things are going now.  Technologically somewhat but also in just this kind of way that people are making movies successful by their own volition more than ever.  It’s almost like the people are deciding what way to turn entertainment.

Step 6: Travel the world
“So here’s the thing, I’m a California resident. I’m like Tony Stark you know, I live by the beach. I have a nice spread. I’m a lucky guy, but I realize more and more it’s not just important. It’s crucial I get out and travel more and understand more about other cultures and people and how we’ve all shaped the world together.  I have such an incomplete education.”

Step 7: Set up a Due Date
“[The new upcoming comedy] is about my favorite thing I’ve ever done.  Largely due to Zack Galifianakis, who is f**king criminally insanely brilliant, and Todd Phillips [The Hangover], who is just one of the great American directors of my memory. Zack doesn’t really improvise, he does whatever he wants, whether he leaves the set or not. For instance, there’s a scene in which he says, ‘You’re acting like a child, Peter.’ and I go, ‘Have you used the bathroom? Cause we’re going to be in the car for awhile.’  He walks around the car and says, ‘That’s where I’m going to pee pee.’  He walks off camera to where a bathroom might be and I say, You can’t use that’ and then Todd says ‘Oh yeah, that’ll be the scene.’  Five other times in the movie during the middle of a scene, if he’s getting mad at me, I just go, ‘Have you used the bathroom yet?’  And he goes you’re right.”

Step 8: Find out what defines him
“If I define myself as everything I wanted and everything I want having to do with my career then, no.  I don’t really consider my career the most important thing.”

How to Interview: “Kick-Ass” Without Getting Your Ass Kicked,Part 2

Published on April 19, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: .

by Robert Sims, Special to TheMovieKit.com

Who said heroes aren’t made? In Kick-Ass, the eponymous costumed crusader isn’t an invincible super-powered being but a physically meek and emotionally vulnerable teenage wallflower trying to make sense of his life and the world he lives in. He’s especially prone to getting his ass kicked by the very crooks he seeks to put behind bars. But he soldiers on in an effort learn more than

His partners in keeping the streets include the vigilante Big Daddy and his daughter Hit-Girl, an 11-year-old lethal weapon with a dirty mouth. Together they fight to take down a mobster, whose son pretends to be the superhero Red Mist in an effort to stop those intent on harming his father.

Behind the masks of Kick-Ass, Red Mist and Hit-Girl are, respectively, British newcomer Aaron Johnson, Superbad’s Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and 13-year-old Chloë Grace Moretz of (500) Days of Summer. This dynamic trio attended SXSW— along with director Matthew Vaughn and Kick-Ass comic-book co-creator Mark Millar — in advance of the superhero satire’s April 16 opening to discuss being onscreen crime-busters, their costumes, and the training required to vanquish a small army.

Step 1: Find the Right Kick-Ass

Matthew Vaughn: “I’m an English director, [Millar’s] a Scottish writer. I was worried we would do a Mary Poppins and have a Dick van Dyke version of an American kid. I just felt I needed an American to help me make sure — I’m not a teenager, either — so I wanted a teenage American boy. But we couldn’t find one. It’s sound crazy. Five hundreds kid I auditioned. I think a lot of the kids wanted to be famous and not interested in having any acting technique.”

Step 2: Accept Your Mission

Aaron Johnson: “When you’re growing up, you always want to be Batman, Spider-Man. This was a fantastic opportunity, to be put a twist on [it].”

Step 3: Find the Right Red Mist

Step 4: Understand that the Costume Makes the Superhero

Christopher Mintz-Plasse: “That was the most badass I’ve ever felt [putting on the Red Mist costume for the first time].”
Vaughn: “Come on, that’s not true. You complained you looked liked Michael Jackson in Thriller.”
Mintz-Plasse: “When we first made the costume it was red on the sleeves and black here [pointing to his chest]. Then you came in and said, ‘It looks like Michael Jackson.’ We completely juggled it and reversed the colors around and it turned out to be really good.”
Johnson: “And you padded him up with muscles and that sort of thing.”
Vaughn: “My 7 year old fits into his costume.”
Mintz-Plasse: “The very first costume, I looked like the Michelin Man because there was fake muscle padding all over. I looked kinda bulky walking around this [arms bent at his hips] feeling very uncomfortable. I’m glad we got rid of that.”

Step 5: Train, Train, Train

Chloë Grace Moretz: “Two months before the movie started…I started training for Hit-Girl. I knew I was going to be really physical, but I never knew it was going to be this physical until I went to this place and did basic training, how to take apart your gun, how to put it back together, don’t point it where you’re not going to shoot it, keep your finger on the trigger …”
Johnson: “Basically she became a marine.”
Moretz: “I did more training that was more technical with the bow staff and the saw.”
Aaron Johnson: “She’s a terrorist now.”
Moretz: “They made me do a thousand crunches a night.”
Vaughn: “In my defense there are no such thing as an 11-year-old stunt girl. We had no choice.”
Moretz: “This man, he pushed me to the limit.”
Vaughn: “But it was worth it.”
Moretz: “But in a good way. I loved it. What would I do without Hit-Girl?”

Step 6: Don’t Faint at the Sight of Nicolas Cage, as Big Daddy, Shooting His Preteen Onscreen Daughter

Millar: “That was the first day of shooting, and I remember they had a stunt child do that fall, and I remember thinking, ‘What kind of parent allows their kid to be a stunt child?’”

Step 7: Go [Adam] West

Vaughn: “When we did the first costume fitting, Nic starts running lines. I was pretty impressed as the costume fitting was six weeks before we shot and he knew all his lines already and he started it he was telling me he with the Adam West style, before we get sued. Performance started and I just encouraged it. I thought it was very funny and I wasn’t sure whether he was going to do it on the day of filming but we went with it. The only thing about Dark Knight that drove me nuts was the stupid voice when Christian Bale spoke, so it was a little bit like we’ll have a silly voice as well but we’ll do it in a way that’s actually meant to be silly.”
Moretz: “My dad’s a big comic guy and he had to tell me who [Adam West] was.”

How to Interview: “Kick-Ass” Without Getting Your Ass Kicked, Part 1

Published on April 14, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: , .

By Robert Sims, Special to TheMovieKit.com

The world hasn’t known a superhero like Kick-Ass.He can’t fly. He can’t climb walls. He can’t turn invisible.

What can he do? Throw a punch. Just about.

High school geek Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) may not possess any superpowers, but that doesn’t stop him from fighting crime. Night after night, though, his costumed alter ego and YouTube star Kick Ass is more likely to end up bruised and bloodied than the crooks and thugs he hunts. So he teams up with two other masked crusaders — Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his sweet but deadly 11-year-old daughter Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) — to bring down mobster Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong). Throw in D’Amico’s son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who takes on the persona of Red Mist to deceive and defeat his father’s enemies, and Kick-Ass lives up to its name time and time again.

Both a celebration and spoof of the superhero genre, Kick-Ass is the creator of two comic-book icons, Wanted writer Mark Millar and illustrator John Romita Jr. They had barely started work on the Marvel-published series when Layer Cake and Stardust director Matthew Vaughn decided to give Kick-Ass the Spider-Man treatment.

In advance of Kick-Ass’s April 16 opening, the British director, the Scottish writer and the American illustrator premiered their cheerfully violent and decidedly unconventional superhero saga at SXSW. The day after the premiere, the three gathered—along with most of the cast — to discuss the origin of Kick-Ass, the differences between the comic book and the film, and the reaction to Moretz playing a foul-mouthed one-preteen army.

Step 1: Unleash Your Inner Superhero

Mark Millar: “It was very autobiographical. Like when I was 15 my best friend and I were reading Frank Miller comics like Batman: Year One… We were so into it we should have been studying for our O Levels, our exams, at the time. We said, ‘Let’s start going to the gym, let’s start learning karate, and let’s start being superheroes.’ It was that pathetic. We were five years too old to be doing this. And we really got into it. The story is really about what would have happened if we hadn’t come to our senses, that we had actually gone out and done this. It’s funny, because the character I created is called Mr. Danger, and I thought it was a cool look and design. My friend’s idea was Batman. It was Batman’s exact costume. I said, ‘You haven’t put a lot of thought into this at all. If D.C. gets wind of this you’re fucked.’ He was like, ‘They’ll never know. They don’t know who’s under the mask.’ And it was a good point.”

Step 2: Find the Right Sidekick

Millar: “About three years ago Matthew was going to be doing Thor, and it didn’t quite work out. He was just looking for a new project, and we have a mutual friend who thought, ‘You guys would get on well.’ We have a phone call that about lasted four hours. Normally, a first phone with someone, it’s a couple of minutes. But we talked all afternoon about these all geek things we were into, and we both thought it would be quite nice to work on something together. Matthew asked, ‘What have you got?’ He was looking at a few items, a few potential projects, and I had a thing called American Jesus which was a sequel to the Bible…. Matthew and I talked about that briefly, and I mentioned informally that I had started writing a thing called Kick-Ass, and I had only written two issues and I was working on the third. He said, ‘Can you send it down?’ He read it, he liked it, and he said, ‘Can you finish the third? I’d like to see it.’ I sent it down. He said, ‘Where’s the fourth?’ I said, “Can you give me a week?’ So I wrote it and sent it down, and he said, “Where’s the fifth one?’ I said, “I can’t do this.’ He said, “Do you mind if I move on from here?’ It’s weird, it was so informal, there were no agents [involved]…. It was just two mates sitting informally, saying, “Let’s do something together.’ So Matthew went off and did a draft of the screenplay, I had various notes, I had written a bit of issue six, and Matthew brought all this new stuff. It was really cool. The best bits, I nicked [stole] and then put back in the book, which was great. Before we knew it, a screenplay emerged. And Jane Goldman came in and did another draft—magnificent—we thought this is the Pulp Fiction of superhero movies. We thought was awesome, but everyone else thought it was shit. They hated it. Every studio knocked it back.”

Matthew Vaughn: “I wanted to make a post-modern superhero movie. After looking at Thor and X-Men 3, and all the other scripts I read, they all just felt, you could change the superhero characters and the film would be virtually identical. It was just a different baddie and a different goodie. I just wanted to try to create the feeling I had when I first saw the comic-book movie. I was like, ‘Wow!’ When I read the Kick-Ass one—I can’t even remember our phone call to be honest…”

Millar: “You may have hung up three hours earlier.”

Vaughn: “I might have, as you can tell by his long answers. But it just felt like the right time to do. I was getting bored of the Hollywood bullshit. I thought it was time to do something independent and different.”

Step 3: Don’t Be Watchman-Faithful to Your Source Material

Millar: “We had something hammered out but as I was writing the comic after Matthew had finished the screenplay I realized the episodic nature of comics means that I had an eight-act story really and there had to be reveals and twists that would have messed up the structure of the movie. So things like Big Daddy’s big reveal would have been awful in the movie if it had gone that way, so they kept the original back-story for Big Daddy… It’s only one page of the comic book but it turns everything on its head and would have just ruined the movie. Likewise, the jetpack scene wouldn’t have worked in the comic. In the movie, things were building up so much at that point you need some ‘Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star’ moment. It was only two or three real diversions it took but it was necessary. Whenever someone slavishly adapts a graphic novel it can be quite tedious. First and foremost, I think the guys were just trying to make a good movie.”

John Romita Jr.: “It’s a kinetic thing. With the comics, it’s stop action. So you can have them come up an elevator and still do it fine visually but you can’t that type of stop action with film. You have to have that kinetic movement. The jetpack had to be done that way.”

Step 4: Declare Your Independence

Vaughn: “All the studios said no. It was a totally independent film. We couldn’t get any of shall we say the more safe places of raising finances for movies. The studios that were intrigued by it said that, ‘We’ll do it if you get rid of Hit-Girl and it make it as a PG.’ I was like, ‘No.’ Luckily enough, I’m sorta connected to — I made a lot of independent films before I made studio movies so I raised the money. It was pretty easy. I was lucky.”

Romita Jr.: It’s got to be so satisfying, knowing that after it’s all said and done, they came crawling back to you. I think that’s fantastic. That’s a testament to Matthew.”

Vaughn: “They didn’t crawl, but …”

Step 5: Stare Down the Moral Majority

Vaughn: “As long as they’re not reporting that someone’s gone and copied what they do in the movie, I’ll be fine with them complaining and causing controversy. I personally feel — I’ve been asked this question a lot and I don’t want to answer it without sounding bored… I think it’s really important that if you’re going to criticism a movie, or say this is morally wrong, go see it and then I’ll listen to your opinion. If you haven’t seen it, I’m not really that interested. I’m not forcing someone to buy a ticket to this film.”

Step 6: It’s OK to Be Sensitive

Vaughn: “When Mark first saw the film, his first comment to me was, ‘You’ve gone and made a chick flick out of this film.’ I think he meant that. I think the difference between us is that he’s Scottish, so he’s a bit colder, I’m English and a bit warmer.”

Millar: “A lot of people think it’s quite a violent, dark cynical film, but when you look at it look at it the poster’s all primary colors and in a way it’s the most naïve and idealistic movie I’ve seen in years. It’s about a wee guy who every night could get killed. Spider-Man’s probably going to be all right. Superman’s fine. His movie sucked, but he’s fine. But Kick-Ass at any moment can take a bullet. Even one guy giving him a bad punch to his throat and he’s dead. And it’s so apparent when I was watching it last night [at SXSW] that when he was fighting those three guys outside the diner and you think there’s something so nice about it, that he’s waiting until the cops get there. It’s quite a sweet movie.”

Step 6: Appreciate Your Good Fortune

Millar: “I wrote a comic book about four years called Wanted that was an Angelina Jolie movie last year. What they did with that, the first 58 minutes was the book and then they did their own thing. For those who have seen the movie, it’s all that stuff with the Fate of Loom [Loom of Fate] or whatever. Then they went back to being the book again for the final 10 minutes. I thought that’s just what happens. The studio system, they chew your thing up and hopefully do a good job. Timur [Bekmambetov] luckily did but it could have gone so horribly wrong. First I first saw the script I went, ‘Oh, my God.’”

“To work out like that, with the first two books being turned into movies by two guys at the top of their game, it’s just incredible luck. I should have a whole bunch of shit movies before I got to one good one surely. So I’m really pleased. I’ve been kinda spoiled now… Because there’s good buzz on both movies, other books that I’ve done people are circling and talking to me about them. You just have to be careful. Once you have had two good guys work with you, you want to make sure the next guy’s good, too. You don’t want to just take the check. I don’t know where I’ll go from here. I’m not sure who else will meet this standard.”

How to Interview: “Get Low” Cast

Published on March 27, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments

By Robert Sims, Special to TheMovieKit.com

Felix Bush doesn’t fear being late to his own funeral — because he plans to be there. Just not in the casket.

In the bittersweet 1930s dramedy Get Low, Robert Duvall’s cantankerous hermit ends 40 years of seclusion when he decides to make his funeral arrangements. He wants to attend his funeral party ostentatiously to hear the strange stories that people have spread about him over the years. Bill Murray is the funeral director responsible for getting the townsfolk to the funeral, Friday Night Lights’ Lucas Black is his assistant, and Sissy Spacek is a woman from Duvall’s distance past.

Duvall, Murray and Spacek joined director Aaron Schneider and screenwriter Chris Provenzano to discuss Get Low following its SXSW screening.

Step 1: Cast Duvall and the rest will follow

Robert Duvall: “It was a very unique piece, a Southern tale. My wife and I were on vacation near her family in northern Argentina. I just sat on the veranda of this rustic hotel overlooking the Anders and I just went over the part, over the part, over the part. That’s the only way I prepared because the writing was so good it led you to wherever you wanted to go. It’s a beautiful life, a true Southern tale. It was a great experience. It was an honor to play this part.”

Aaron Schneider: “Bobby was on the project before I came aboard. It was a project he had shown interest in and he was kinda counting on us to come through for him. It took us quite a while to raise the money — close to four or five years of Dean [Zanuck, the producer] and I working together. Once the project was on its feet financially, I immediately thought of Sissy. She was the first person I went to. We had a lovely four-hour meeting to talk about the script. Then it took four years to get the film made. I was really pinching myself when it got made because it was a labor of love that took a long time to get off the ground. The strangest thing about it, there was this five-year journey, and boom!, the gun goes off. The cameras start to roll and 24 days later and $7 million later, it was in the can. There was definitely times in the editing room where I would go get a bite to eat and come back and turn around and look at the plasma — I edited in my house, we couldn’t afford an editing room — and there would be Bobby Duvall in a close-up or Bill Murray, and I would go, Are these people really in my movie?”

Bill Murray: We kept saying that a lot, we kept telling him how lucky he was. We had to drive it and pound it into him.

Step 2: Know how to act against Duvall

Murray: “That’s not really a performance, that’s what Robert is really like. There’s no way you can play straight to it because if you believe that someone like really exists on the planet you’re going to be dead like that. It was like lucky. It was a really nice piece of editing. We really threw it out there on every take. It’s very easy to play it straight but with these actors you let it go each time. Let’s notice that the director also edited the film. It’s not a small achievement. You can be funny in a take, you can do something, but it’s really his work that shows the root of the performance. He really did a nice job.”

Step 3: Strike the right balance between humor and drama

Murray: “The humor kept the energy bouncing up until the final scene. Where you’re going is that final scene with Sissy and Bob at the end. It’s worth the wait. If it were all kinda heavy until then, it would be kinda [let’s out a deflated sound]. Laughing all the way, you’re available for that scene. That’s what you want.”

Step 4: Turn fact into fiction

Chris Provenzano: “The original premise came from a friend of mine who basically married into the real-life family that is partly portrayed by Mr. Murray. The very basis of the story was factual. There was very little in the historical record as to what had actually happened. All we knew that there was an old hermit, that he came in and asked for a funeral, and in fact had one and people from all over the South showed up. Beyond that, we had to invent the story.”

Step 5: Find the perfect location

Schneider: “We looked for places that were lost in time that we could dress because we didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t build a lot of sets. We went to a lot of locations and dressed them. It was very tough finding an isolated woods with a little cabin in the middle of Georgia without going too far out of town. One of our location scouts found this Civil War park preserve, which is a big chunk of land preserved in the middle of Atlanta. He was walking through, taking pictures, and found this beautiful little cabin that one of the rangers had found and restored and had asked the park if he could store there. It was major luck to find both the woods and the house because we figured Bush would have learned to build a cabin from his father or grandfather back in the late 1800s. He was a carpenter, so it was a big bit of serendipity.”

How to Interview: Eulogize “The Runaways”

Published on March 24, 2010 in Interviews and Movies. 0 Comments Tags: .

By Robert Sims, Special to TheMovieKit.com

Underage and over the top, The Runaways proved that women could just as easily enjoy the excesses of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Led by singer Cherie Currie and guitarist Joan Jett, The Runaways exploded with the 1976 hit single “Cherry Bomb” and demonstrated that an all-girl teenage band could rock just as hard and partake in self-destructive behavior as any of their male counterparts. Currie left after three albums to pursue a solo and an acting career in such films as Foxes and The Twilight Zone: The Movie, and The Runaways fell apart soon after.

New Moon costars Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart portray Currie and Jett, respectively, in The Runaways, director Floria Sigismondi’s recount of the band’s rise and fall.

At a Q&A following the SXSW screening of The Runaways, Fanning and Stewart joined Currie to talk about turning The Runaways’ cautionary tale into a film.

Step 1: Tell the story from the perspective of singer Cherie Currie and guitarist Joan Jett

Floria Sigismondi: “When I got the call, they had already gotten the rights to Cherie, Joan and Kim [Fowley, The Runaways’ brilliant but manipulative producer] and Sandy [West, the band’s late drummer], and the other girls didn’t want to be involved. So that’s who I had to work with. Meeting them, they were nicknamed Salt and Pepper, and I was just really drawn to the two of them as the main story. So I mostly focused on the two of them. Just working with the ideas, and everything that had happened, I knew what would stick and what wouldn’t just by the story I wanted to tell, which is basically their friendship in this world and how different they are and how they came together and how special that was.”

Step 2: Know what to edit and condense

Sigismondi: “It was a rollercoaster. I was dancing all kinds of lines of what was important and what could the story possibly live without. It’s hard to capture someone’s life in an hour and 40 minutes, never mind their relationships. It’s more than just one life; you’ve got many other people’s lives. You’ve got real people, still alive. You’ve got fans looking at it in a different way. It’s just finding that line of what characterizes them more than the actual events.”

Step 3: Brush up on rock history

Dakota Fanning: “A lot of people my and Kristen’s age and generation aren’t really familiar with The Runaways. So when I read [the script] I immediately went on YouTube and looked at the Live in Japan videos, and specifically of the band performing ‘Cherry Bomb’ and I watched Cherrie performing ‘Cherry Bomb.’ I think that moment was when I realized that I wanted to do that. When I had my initial meeting to do that, I don’t think I would have been the first person people would have thought to do this role just because people think of me as a lot younger just because I’ve been acting for a long time. I’m really lucky that Floria and everyone believe in me that I could to do it and I hope that I did. So I think watching that video I really drawn to it and I wanted to do something different than I’ve before and that’s what I love about being an actor, being able to transform yourself.”

Kristen Stewart: “I said yes as soon as someone said they’re making a movie with Joan Jett and that’s one of the parts. I said, ‘Yes, totally, I’ll play it.’ There’s a million reasons you do a movie. You make an impulsive decision about something that moves you or whatever and realize what an insane responsibility you now have. Then you want to pass out. I didn’t know about The Runaways, that was mainly the thing, and it’s nice to be able to deliver that story to people our age because they should know. I got to know Joan really well, and I realized there’s a lot more to her than I saw. I really liked Joan.”

Step 4: Already know how to play the guitar

Stewart: “I did, thank God because I only had two weeks to learn songs because we finished New Moon very close to the start of the movie.”

Step 5: Get the moves right

Fanning: “During those two weeks we had band rehearsals and all of the Runaways girls got together and got to know each other and got used to being onstage together. For me, I had to sing the songs, so I had a few voice lessons and I worked with Cherie on the songs. Also, performing ‘Cherry Bomb’ was a really big deal to me and I wanted to do it exactly right. I had to practice that as well.”

Stewart: “We both had Joan and Cherrie by our side all the time. Both of them were telling us they would leave us alone as soon as we didn’t want them to be around anymore. We were telling them that as soon as we overstep boundaries or whatever we will not do that. We could to talk to them. We learned how to play and we got to talk to them about stuff.”

Step 6: Forget your fear of singing

Fanning: “That was one of the trepidations I had about doing it just because I have never thought of myself as a singer…. So when I knew I had to sing, I was really nervous about that I was self-conscious and scared. I found that the only way I can do it is if I’m playing someone else, and if I’m hiding behind a character. So Cherrie, that costume, and all that gave me the strength to be able to do it.”

Step 7: Watch Foxes

Sigismondi: “I looked at that. It was the closest thing I could get to [CC’s] face at that age, so I definitely looked at that. And I think … it’s the closet thing to [CC’s] personality to the person that [she] was at the time.

Cherie Currie: Annie was really me. I started that film right off the heels of The Runways, and I actually told Dakota—because right then, I wasn’t boisterous and in your face like I am now that I’m old. But I told Dakota to look at Foxes because that was where I really was. Annie was me. I don’t know how to act.”

Step 8: Enjoy the experience

Curie: “I’ve been working with Joan since Floria wrote the script…. It’s a dream come true. We got to go into the recording studio to record together for the first time in 35 years. It was as if time stood still. We’ve got so much to be grateful for.”