Mads Mikkelsen is perhaps best known for playing villains in Casino Royale, Doctor Strange, and the television series Hannibal, but he’s also been called the “face of the resurgent Danish cinema,” culminating with his Best Actor win at Cannes for his work in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt. In this half hour, he talks about performing some physically and emotionally wrenching scenes in two new movies he currently stars in, the pure survival film Arctic, and the live action adaptation of the popular graphic novel Polar. Warning: Spoilers abound. Arctic is in select theaters now. Polar is on Netflix. Back To […]
Noomi Rapace became an international sensation playing Lisbeth Salander in the original, Swedish version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and its sequels. Hollywood beckoned, and leading roles in such films as Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Brian DePalma’s Passion followed. Now she stars in Vicky Jewson’s Netflix nail-biter Close, in a role based on real-life female bodyguard Jacquie Davis. In this half hour, Rapace talks about the intense training she went through to prepare for the part, and how that awareness expands to all aspects of her life. Plus she explains how “kicking ass” is more a mental exercise […]
If you didn’t know Imogen Poots was British, it is understandable. Few young actors transform so chameleon-like, role-to-role, applying accents so skillfully. I was first wowed by her in Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way and then I actually didn’t even know it was her in Green Room until I saw the credits. She floored me again in Frank and Lola opposite Michael Shannon, in an entirely different kind of role. Now she plays a drifter with questionable parenting skills, who steers into escalating trouble in Mobile Homes, and by the end of the movie her performance wrecked me. In […]
Ethan Hawke’s “staying power” is grounded in hard work. He survived being the poster child of Generation X (Reality Bites), and thrived as Richard Linklater’s go-to actor (The Before Trilogy, Boyhood) and always returns to the true home of the actor–the theater (he’s currently starring in True West on Broadway). Now he has delivered one of the most critically acclaimed performances of the year in Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. He generously shares the wisdom and knowledge he’s acquired over the years as an actor, and is extremely eloquent when doing so. In this episode, he talks about the importance of […]
Do critics matter? Maybe. But do critics’ top ten lists matter? There’s little doubt within the industry that an Academy Award nomination (or win) can provide an extraordinary boost to a film’s profile, especially smaller independent films who need the long tail of awards recognition more than most. Think of last year’s The Florida Project or Faces Places. But what about all those year-end numerical rankings and lists, proffered by that dwindling professional entity known as the film critic? He’s no Oscar, but when the New York Times’ A.O. Scott puts your little film at the top of his year-end […]
In Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, two determined women — Rachel Weisz’s refined but ruthless Duchess of Marlborough and Emma Stone’s desperate and cunning chambermaid Abigail — vie for the titular preferential position alongside the ill and melancholy Queen Anne. Anyone expecting a beautifully mounted but stuffy 18th century period piece has not seen a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. Employing the same absurdist sense of humor as Lanthimos’s The Lobster, The Favourite also imposes the director’s preferred set of aesthetic restrictions — namely, wide angle lenses and shooting almost entirely with available light. Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan (American Honey, Fish Tank), who […]
He’s perhaps best known for his portrayal of Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish on Game of Thrones but I first took note of the uniquely talented Aidan Gillen as Mayor Carcetti on The Wire. The Dublin native’s most recent role was the manager of Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody. Now he stars in the period UFO drama Project Blue Book, which premieres January 8th on History. In this half hour he talks about his intuition-based approach to preparation, how Jez Butterworth introduced him to the work of John Cassavetes, and I toss a name at him to spark some memories from The Wire. […]
For Filmmaker‘s annual look at our top posts of the year, as determined by Google Analytics, we break the list into two: the top 10 posts of the year, and the top 10 2018 posts drawn from our archives. So, jumping right into it…. The Top 10 New Posts of 2018 D.P. Larkin Seiple Breaks Down Every Shot from Childish Gambino’s This is America. I’ll immodestly say that Matt Mulcahey’s Shutter Angles column presents the best DP interviews out there, and this one, hot on the heels of the Childish Gambino viral hit, topped our list of the best new […]
Joanna Kulig’s performance in Cold War is so astonishingly captivating and commanding and downright brilliant, that it feels like a classic performance delivered by an immortal screen goddess from the golden age of film. The film’s penetrating black-and-white cinematography and Pawel Pawlikowski’s impeccable direction helps, but this Polish masterpiece, short-listed for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is impossible to imagine without Kulig. In this half hour she talks about how her music training came in handy while shooting the intricate moving camera shots in the film, and she ponders what it means when someone says she’s “so natural.” Plus […]
If you’re a fan of the music of the 1970s, your favorite artist may soon have a biopic on the way. An Elton John flick is already en route. We’ll probably get a Bowie movie. Maybe Zeppelin. I’m crossing my fingers for The Jim Croce Story. You can thank Bohemian Rhapsody for that potential onslaught. The Queen biopic has grossed more than $600 million worldwide so far on a budget of roughly $50 million. With the film still out in theaters, cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (Drive, Three Kings, The Usual Suspects) spoke to Filmmaker about recreating Queen’s epic concert lighting, […]