Columns
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Back to One, Episode 95: Portrait of a Lady on Fire Special Episode
This is a very special episode of Back To One. Last year, in September, I sat down with the stars of Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel, and their director, Céline Sciamma. On this show, I only sit down with one actor every week, so for me to sit with two actors and their director from the same film, it must be very special. And it is a very special film. For me, it is the purest example, in recent memory, of a perfect synthesis of direction and performance. The exemplary work of these three […]
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Back to One, Episode 94: Deirdre O’Connell
Deirdre O’Connell is a legend of the New York stage and brings true depth and authenticity to every moment she has in front of the camera, but make no mistake, she doesn’t have this “down” yet. In this hour, she talks about why she likes to travel to the place her character resides and why it’s important that she believes her character is smarter than her. I ask about her incredible performance in Diane, one scene in particular, and how on earth she’s able to lip sync every single line in the brand new production Dana H at the Vineyard […]
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Back to One, Episode 93: Marsha Stephanie Blake
Marsha Stephanie Blake destroyed me. Not just once, a few times. Her devastating portrayal of Linda McCray in When They See Us was justifiably recognized with an Emmy nomination last year. She talks extensively about one line in particular that really got to me in that incredible limited series. She also “kills” with comedy too. Like in The Merchant Of Venice on Broadway. She talks about obsessively studying Al Pacino during that run, and relishing her time with Viola Davis on this season of How To Get Away With Murder. She was on her way toward a career in medicine when […]
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Back to One, Episode 92: Adrian Martinez
He’s been called the “sidekick to the stars,” but a more apt, yet slightly less elegant description of Adrian Martinez is “scene-stealer from the stars.” Some recent thefts occur in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Focus, and Casa De Mi Padre. You can also see him in the hit ABC show Stumptown. Now he wrote, produced, directed and stars in the brilliant, timely, and deeply impacting new film iGilbert. On this episode, he talks about going “all in” to make that labor of love, how the psychological gesture plays a big part in his craft, the work ethic Philip […]
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Back to One #91, a Special Episode: Rehearsal
On this special episode, I spend a few days with the cast of A City Of Refuge as they rehearse this powerful new play by Evan Cuyler-Louison for Primitive Grace Theater Ensemble in New York City. Having had no experience with theatrical rehearsal, I pose lots of questions to Louison (who also directed the production) and his incredible actors, Ylfa Edelstein, Wilton Guzman, Miah Kane, Hailey Marmolejo, Gregg Prosser, and Luke Edward Smith. If, like me, your experience is limited to film production or you just have gaps in your knowledge regarding rehearsal in general, or you’re just curious about […]
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Back to One, Episode 90: Chris Eigeman
The incomparable Chris Eigeman is probably best known for the three films he made with Whit Stillman—Metropolitan (which was his very first film), Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco. The singular style of performance he delivered in those films led to great work with filmmakers and showrunners such as Noah Baumbach, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and John Frankenheimer. Lately he’s been writing and directing his own films. In this episode he talks about the importance of knowing your role in the story, the harmful effects of the disappearing table read, loving those monologues, the freedom of it NOT being game day, […]
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Not (Really) a List: Recapping 2019 As Seen from the Pages of Filmmaker
2019 will soon be the past, but once it was the future — a subject explored by Joanne McNeil in her Filmmaker print and online column, Speculations. She revisited films (The Running Man, Akira, Blade Runner) specifically set in 2019, assessing not just the accuracy of their future-dreaming but also the fantasies of progress their own eras entertained. McNeil listed various aspects of the present, including policy denial around climate change, that the films missed. But considering the last quarter century, who could have predicted that filmmaking — and film culture — would have landed where it is? While there’s […]
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What’s Inside Filmmaker‘s Winter 2020 Issue, On Newsstands Now
Filmmaker‘s Winter 2020 issue — our most beautiful issue yet — is now on newsstands (and selling out, we hear), as well as arriving in mailboxes. What’s in it? Our cover is Uncut Gems, with me interviewing Josh and Benny Safdie about their adrenaline-fueled Adam Sandler-starring film — an interview that goes into the details of shooting the fountain scene with Sander that we have used as our cover image. Director Anna Rose Holmer interviews Greta Gerwig about her Little Women; Aaron Hunt talks with Pedro Costa about 2020 release Vitalena Varela; Paul Dallas interviews Mati Diop about Atlantics, currently […]
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Back to One, Episode 89: Mary Kay Place
Mary Kay Place’s long career is filled with memorable supporting parts in films like The Big Chill, The Rainmaker, Being John Malkovich, and television shows such as Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, for which she won an Emmy. Diane is her first starring role. Kent Jones wrote it with her in mind. In this episode, Place unpacks and lets us examine the DNA of that vulnerable and subtly devastating performance. She talks about the importance of “building a bridge to the unconscious” (and other Jungian approaches) in her work, finding the rhythm in a scene, not being afraid to be “bad,” and much […]
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“I Had Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars Worth Of Jewelry In My Bag. Someone Could Just Steal Me.”: On-Set Prop Deneice O’Connor Juggles Uncut Gems
Uncut Gems traffics in the upscale loot sold and loaned in the Diamond District. A bejeweled furby necklace and a pendant of Michael Jackson pinned to a cross are fan favorites in a claustrophobic rain of riches. But a rare black opal trumps the pile. Howard (Adam Sandler), a jeweler with debt gnawing at his heels, lifts one off the black market from the Ethiopian Jews who discovered them, and sees it delivered to his show floor inside a vacuum-sealed cooler of fish. As the gambit in some of his biggest bets yet, the opal might just clear his life’s […]
