Early in Spike Lee’s collaboration with Chayse Irvin, the venerable director asked his cinematographer if there was anything special he needed for BlacKkKlansman. Irvin answered, “a third camera”—an extravagance on a low budget movie, but one Irvin believed would allow him “to take massive risks on every scene, whether it be a unique angle or the freedom to use a lens that was flawed.” Irvin embraced that self-imposed mandate for boldness by employing imperfect vintage lenses, “flashing” the image with a contrast-reducing filter and dusting off long-expired film stock. Never one to wilt in the face of risky choices, Lee […]
John Peter Kousakis began his career in 1979 as a production assistant on the television mini-series The French Atlantic Affair, which led to work as a second assistant director on CHIPS. From there Kousakis worked as an AD on some of the most popular series of the era, including The Greatest American Hero, The Fall Guy, and The A-Team, but he caught the directing bug during his first foray into features, working as a second AD on the Burt Reynolds-Hal Needham car chase extravaganza Cannonball Run II. Since then he has moved back and forth between production management positions and […]
Linus Roache has played upstanding characters on Law and Order and Homeland but he had to plumb the depths and reach the epicenter of narcissism to play Jeremiah Sand in Mandy, and it’s a frightening joy to behold. He talks about the draining yet rewarding time bringing this character to life and the guidance and trust he had from director Panos Cosmatos. Plus he answers a listener question about the faith life of his character, King Ecbert, in the TV series Vikings. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. And […]
“The discovering began after I moved to Alabama in 2009 to teach photography and coach basketball. Photographing in my day-to-day, I began filming using time to figure out how we’ve come to be seen.” — RaMell Ross, Hale County This Morning, This Evening The film Hale County This Morning, This Evening defies easy summary. It’s an ontological inquiry: a pushback against dominant narratives of what it means to be black in the historic South, an invitation to the African American diaspora to return to its roots and participate in the reimaging of blackness. It’s also a poetic exaltation of two young […]
It might be hot. There are several quarries for swimming. It might be cold and rainy, and we’ll be in a non-heated, non-air conditioned barn. There will be mosquitoes. So began a long list of somewhat unsettling particulars describing conditions for the six-day DesignInquiry residency that took place at the end of June 2018 on Vinalhaven, an island halfway up the coast of Maine. I had applied six months earlier, intrigued by the year’s theme, “Rewrite,” and was delighted when I was accepted. I was stepping down from a decade-long leadership stint, having cocreated and chaired a new department in […]
Ashlie Atkinson is getting kudos for playing Connie Kendrickson, the motherly yet evil KKK wife, in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. We talk about the unique prep work that went into inhabiting her and the tools she used to stay present inside such a sick character. We also chat about her approach to comedy, particularly in the Ingrid Jungermann web series F to 7th, and working with Craig Zobel in both Compliance (a favorite of mine, as may listeners know) and now the brand new CBS All Access show One Dollar. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, […]
John Cho is perhaps best known for playing Sulu in the Star Trek reboots and Harold in the Harold and Kumar films. His new movie Searching takes place entirely on computer screens. Cho’s performance is one of the reasons why it is a successful piece of true cinema and not a novelty. We discuss the unique challenges of performing alone in some scenes and trusting director Aneesh Chaganty to navigate him through the space. We also talk about one of my favorite recent indie films, Columbus, and the connection he felt with co-star Haley Lu Richardson that truly powers the […]
His portrayal of “Richie” on the HBO series Looking brought Raúl Castillo some serious recognition and started moving him into bigger and better parts. One such role is “Pops” in the astonishing queer coming-of-age film We The Animals (in theaters now) directed by Jeremiah Zagar from the Justin Torres best-seller. Castillo talks in depth about his process of bringing this complex character to life, and the importance of owning your space as an actor. Plus we do a deep-dive into the straight man’s approach to same-sex on-camera kissing. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including […]
One of the greatest and most criminally overlooked Westerns in the history of cinema arrives on Blu-ray and DVD this week in the form of the Criterion Collection’s release of Robert M. Young’s The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. A landmark independent film that kicked off the Chicano cinema movement of the 1980s (a movement that would include movies as varied as El Norte, Stand and Deliver, and Born in East L.A.), it’s a genre piece without a shred of manipulation or sentimentality; director Young and producer Edward James Olmos, who also stars in the title role, tell their chase narrative […]
His performances in Spring Awakening and American Idiot are probably what John Gallagher Jr. is most known for at the moment (he won a Tony for the former), and are often what get him labeled a “musical theater guy,” but they were the only musicals he’s done in his 20-year career. I ask him about two recent play productions (Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Jerusalem) that I suspect were very formative for him, and his latest screen role in the important and moving indie The Miseducation of Cameron Post. And, of course, I couldn’t let him go without talking […]