Authors — Peter Rinaldi
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Back to One, Episode 187: Renate Reinsve
Norwegian actor Renate Reinsve’s performance in her first leading role, in Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person In The World, earned her the best actress award at Cannes and is slowly taking the world by storm. She embodies Julie with a levity and depth that is both grounded in a relatable reality and poetically expresses the beauty and heartbreak of life at the same time. To say it’s the kind of work that changes people’s lives is not an exaggeration. In this half hour, we take the microscope to her performance and lay out the factors at play in its creation. […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Jan 25, 2022 -
Back to One, Episode 186: Eric Roberts
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Eric Roberts will soon have more credits as an actor than anyone else who has ever lived anywhere in the world. An intensity matched only by raw talent on display in films like Star 80, The Pope of Greenwich Village, and Runaway Train established him as a respectable actor’s actor in Hollywood. And, as he talks about in this episode, once video replaced film, and more people began shooting, they wanted Eric Roberts in their movies. And once he became privy to how many offers were coming in, he started saying yes. Work begot work fairly […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Jan 18, 2022 -
Back to One, Episode 185: Kevin Corrigan
This is Kevin Corrigan’s fourth time on the podcast (his previous episodes are #1, #67, #133). It’s a yearly tradition to visit with the wise sage of indie film acting. We’re catching him right after returning from his latest job in Vancouver. He highlights a few moments from that shoot that stand out for him, shares what’s behind his incredible drawings of moments he loves from various performances, fails at “Kevin Corrigan Trivia” (which leads to some memories of Walking And Talking), talks about what makes it all “worth it,” and much more. Plus we chat way too much about […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Dec 28, 2021 -
Back to One, Episode 184: Chris Diamantopoulos
Chris Diamantopoulos was always an actor. Never held another job. He was working on the stage at an early age—touring companies, Broadway—then transitioned to television, film, and eventually voice overs. Never stopped. Some highlights: Russ Hanneman on Silicon Valley, Reinhold on Community, Moe in The Three Stooges, the official voice of Mickey Mouse, and right now you can see him playing bad guys in Netflix’s Red Notice and True Story. We recorded this interview hours before he started a new job and he takes us through what’s on his mind on the night before day one. He talks about how […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Dec 21, 2021 -
Back to One, Episode 183: Riley Keough
The Girlfriend Experience put Riley Keough on the radar, and she’s been giving us multi-layered, deeply rooted, captivating performances ever since, mostly in indie films like American Honey, Under The Silver Lake, The House That Jack Built, and now this year’s Zola, where she brilliantly walks the line of authentic nuance and absurdity in the role of Stefani. In this episode, she talks about the touchy endeavor of building the right approach for that character with director Janicza Bravo, the importance of knowing when to tighten up on prep or leave it loose, why she hates auditioning, how her spirituality […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Dec 14, 2021 -
Back to One, Episode 182: Léa Seydoux
Léa Seydoux was a talented young French actor when she reached planet-wide stardom with her incredible performance in Blue Is The Warmest Color (she even shared the Palme d’Or at Cannes, which had never been awarded to actors before). Since then she has invaded Hollywood, starring in James Bond movies and Wes Anderson films, but also continuing to turn in exceptional performances for international directors like Yorgos Lanthimos, Arnaud Desplechin, Ildikó Enyedi, and, for her latest film, France, Bruno Dumont. In this episode, she talks about the “sweet craziness” of working with Dumont, the importance of learning the “language” of […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Dec 10, 2021 -
Back to One, Episode 181: Scott Speedman
Looking back at Scott Speedman’s work in the early days of Felicity is a bit surprising. His acting had a wonderfully nuanced authenticity even then. Two decades later, that natural artistry has grown into a charismatic intensity and assuredness. It’s on display this year in the third season of You, the eighteenth season of Grey’s Anatomy, and the charming indie film Best Sellers. When we spoke he had just wrapped films with David Cronenberg and Lena Dunham. He talks about working with those two very different directors, the secret to good onscreen chemistry, how fatherhood might deepen his work, and […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Dec 7, 2021 -
Back to One, Episode 180: Rebecca Wisocky
Rebecca Wisocky plays Hetty Woodstone, the deceased Lady of the Manner, on the new CBS series Ghosts, where she’s a stand-out among stand-outs in its impressive comedy ensemble. In this episode, she talks about the absolute pleasure of working on that set and the interesting ways in which the large cast, who more often than not act together in the same shot, find the “music of the scene” together. She has pretty much mastered the art of the guest star role, and has played more than her share of villains. I get her to breakdown her latest in a recent […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 30, 2021 -
Back to One Episode 179: Alex Hassell
Shakespeare on the stage is his first love, but Alex Hassell loves the camera and it loves him back. Currently he plays Vicious in Cowboy Bebop, the live-action remake of the popular Japanese anime series. On this episode, he talks about being attracted to roles that are difficult, how years of stripped-down live theater work at The Factory formed him as an actor, why he’s more at ease when he doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, his valuable contribution to Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, and how the particular challenges of acting on film excite him. Plus much […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 23, 2021 -
Back to One, Episode 178: Jon Bernthal
From The Walking Dead and Punisher to The Wolf of Wall Street, Small Engine Repair, The Many Saints of Newark, and this month’s King Richard, Jon Bernthal has established himself as the hard-working, all-in, go-to, actor’s-actor of the moment. In this episode, he talks about some of the elements he uses—generosity, energy management, isolation, fear-as-fuel, group strength—to do his work, the one thing all great directors have in common, why he’d be just as grateful doing regional theater, plus much more! Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher. And […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Nov 16, 2021
