Columns
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Chayse Irvin on Shooting Blonde in Digital Black and White and God’s Creatures in 35mm Color
This week, Netflix’s Blonde and A24’s God’s Creatures head to streaming and theaters, respectively. The digitally-shot Blonde is a highly stylized look at the life of Marilyn Monroe, shifting aspect ratios and alternating between color and monochrome while employing extreme wide angle lenses, body cam mounts, infrared and more to expressionistically convey Monroe’s perspective. God’s Creatures is the antithesis—austere and somber, captured on 35mm, with an observational point of view distanced from the main characters, a mother in a small Irish fishing village whose life crumbles after providing a false alibi for her son. The films do share one thing in common—cinematographer […]
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Cobra Kai Star Xolo Maridueña on His Year of Acting Revelations (Back to One, Episode 222)
Xolo Maridueña has been playing Miguel Diaz on the hit series Cobra Kai for five seasons, starting when he was 16 years old. On this episode, he talks about how preparing for his dream role as Blue Beetle (in the eponymous D.C. superhero movie coming out next year) sent him down a road that expanded his acting capabilities in new and exciting ways. Plus he talks about William Zabka’s positive influence on him, and the ways that played into how he took on his leadership duties when he got to be number one on the call sheet. Back To One […]
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Fincher Upstairs, Raimi Downstairs: DP Zach Kuperstein on Barbarian
On a rainy night in a rundown Detroit neighborhood, Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb rental only to find the abode double booked and Keith(Bill Skarsgård) already nestled comfortably inside. That’s about all Barbarian’s refreshingly cryptic trailer gives you, along with a few glimpses of the subterranean terror that awaits. So, that’s all I’m going to give away about the plot as well, other than to say that whatever you expect from Barbarian after its first act is most decidedly not what you’re in store for. With the movie in theaters, cinematographer Zach Kuperstein spoke to Filmmaker about recreating […]
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The Woman King Star Lashana Lynch on the Soil, the Sisterhood and Making History
Last year, Lashana Lynch made history as 007 in No Time To Die, this year she uses history to energize her powerful performance in The Woman King. In this episode she talks about how filming that movie “barefoot, on that soil,” surrounded by a truly supportive sisterhood, was so significant to her performance. She explains why she doesn’t have (or even want) a go-to preparation process, what choosing the hard road of avoiding stereotypical roles has done for her career, why she cherishes outstanding assistant directors, and much more. Plus she gives us a peek at her role as Miss […]
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Essie Davis on When She Stopped “Trying” and Started “Being”: Back To One Episode 220
Australian actor Essie Davis is best known for The Babadook, Game of Thrones, and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. This year, she stunned me with two incredible performances in two powerful films. In Nitram, directed by her husband Justin Kurzel, she plays the important and heartbreaking supporting role of Helen, opposite Caleb Landry Jones. In The Justice of Bunny King she broke my heart again, this time playing the house-less titular character who is desperately trying to get her kids out of foster care. It was made pre-pandemic and had a staggered release last year overseas. Look for it in select […]
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Filmmaker Moves To Exact Editions for Digital Editions and Archive
Filmmaker is proud to announce that we have moved our quarterly digital edition and archive going back to 2005 to Exact Editions, a London-based company that specializes in digitizing content, selling subscriptions and providing streaming solutions across web, iOS and Android platforms. Our digital edition, which replicates our print edition, is now available to read via Exact Editions across browsers and mobile devices, the latter through a browser or the company’s Exactly app, found in the App and Google Play stores. As a long-time reader of other publications using Exact Editions, I’ve admired the company’s elegant, easy-to-use platform. Issues download quickly, can […]
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“The Fear Was Real”: John Christopher Jones on Returning to Set with Advanced Parkinson’s (Back to One, Episode 219)
Esteemed veteran actor John Christopher Jones returns to the podcast (his first time was episode 13) to talk about conquering the “real fear” he had of going back to work, in a guest starring role on the television series New Amsterdam, while dealing with the unpredictable and often debilitating effects of worsening Parkinson’s. Then he takes us on a brief tour of the various directors that worked well for him over the years, and others that, sometimes hilariously, fell a little short, like José Quintero and his maddening direction in the 1985 production of The Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards. […]
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“The Only Important Thing is the Work”: Austin Pendleton on a Life on Stage (Back to One, Episode 218)
Austin Pendleton might be best known for My Cousin Vinny, or What’s Up Doc? but the 82-year-old actor, director, playwright and teacher is a one-man theater institution. It almost seems like there isn’t a great play that he hasn’t performed or directed, somewhere, in his more than 60 years in the business, and he’s not slowing down in the slightest. In this epic, 90-minute episode, what Meryl Streep said of Pendleton will ring tru: “There’s no line between the man and his work.” He talks about his latest performance, in the celebrated new Tracy Letts play The Minutes, then takes […]
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“I Would Cut with Scissors if I Had To”: Editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir on Bullet Train
In Bullet Train, a half dozen assassins, the screw-up kid of a Russian crime lord and a lethally venomous snake are among the passengers on the titular mode of transport travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto. Balancing the sheer volume of characters and orchestrating the intricately choreographed tussles of action maestro David Leitch (John Wick and Atomic Blonde) already present ample challenges for an editor. For Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir, the Icelandic cutter of both Wick and Blonde, the degree of difficulty was further embellished by an array of flashbacks, Thomas the Tank Engine metaphors, surprise cameos and Engelbert Humperdinck needle drops. With […]
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“Listening Became My Prime Directive” Back to One, Episode 217: Adrian Pasdar
Adrian Pasdar has experienced a lot in his nearly 40 years as a working actor and in this episode he generously shares the wisdom he’s gleaned. Some of the highlights in his credits include Top Gun, Near Dark, Carlitos Way, Heroes, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, and perhaps the most talked about single-season series of the ’90s, Profit. Not to mention he’s the voice of Iron Man. He talks about how listening became his prime directive as an actor, his search for truth in performance (and the search for a better word than “truth”), “the method” as protective element, and why he […]
