Actors
Interviews - Actors
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“The Last 50 Years Destroyed Our Old World”: Five Questions for Actress/Director Mélanie Laurent
French actress Mélanie Laurent may be best known to American audiences for her role as Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. But in addition to acting in over 35 international roles, Laurent has also directed two feature films. Based on the YA novel by Anne-Sophie Brasme, her latest film Breathe premiered at Cannes this year. Laurent expertly crafts the world of adolescent codependency. She claims she’s learned from every director she’s worked with: one tip she stole from Tarantino is to play music in between scenes to get people to be more comfortable on the set. Laurent served on the […]
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“All Films are about the Tugging of the Heart”: 5 Questions for Jeremy Irons
After attending the inaugural edition in 2001, English actor Jeremy Irons returned to the Marrakech International Film Festival on Saturday night to receive a career tribute award. The Academy Award-winning star greeted fans at the fest’s opening film The Theory of Everything and accepted his award before the screening The Imitation Game the following night. The festival opened with two films about geniuses, and Irons himself plays a mathematician in the upcoming The Man Who Knew Infinity, across from Dev Patel as the famed Ramanujan. Irons has come a long way since his entry into the Hollywood elite with 1981’s […]
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“Stanley Begged Us Never to Talk About Him”: On Making Barry Lyndon
15 years after his death at the age of 70, director Stanley Kubrick remains more than ever a figure of admiration, fascination, and curiosity – and the pleasure his work provides seems, at this point, to be as infinite as the universe depicted in the final act of his 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. A secretive and private director during his lifetime (though nowhere near the recluse he was largely reputed to be by the international film press), in death Kubrick’s process has steadily become more and more transparent, with a growing number of books, articles, and documentaries devoted […]
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Risking It All: Helly Luv, Kurdistan’s Pop Star and Mardan Actress
“Right now, the Kurdish freedom fighters — the peshmerga — are protecting the whole world.” Middle Eastern politics start to sound different when explained by pop sensation Helly Luv. Nicknamed the “Lion Girl” in her native Kurdistan, Luv is known for her outspoken politics, fierce dance moves, daring fashion sense, and love of animals —especially her jungle cat co-star in the music video for her incendiary independence anthem, “Risk It All.” Released in March, the song turned Luv into a voice for Kurdish freedom; by June, it had been viewed by millions and Luv was performing at Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday celebration. Years of […]
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Tilda Swinton’s Best Interview Ever
Last fall Jamie Stuart was conducting interviews for his NYFF51. He ran into the publicist handling Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive and asked if he could get a sit down with Tilda Swinton. The answer: yes, but time was tight. The result is the following short interview in which Stuart asked Swinton to just… well, you’ll see. At the end, she did indeed say it was her best interview ever. Cage by way of Glazer? Only Lovers Left Alive opens this Friday from Sony Pictures Classics. Camera: Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera, 2.5k RAW, ProRes 422 post conversion Lens: Canon […]
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The Women of SXSW: Wedlock Creator and Actress Jennifer Lafleur
Following “The Women of Sundance” article in our print and online additions, Danielle Lurie continues her coverage of female filmmakers with a series of pieces highlighting women directors at SXSW. In this email interview, she talks with Jennifer LaFleur, director of the web series, Wedlock, in the Digital Domain section. Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? LaFleur: I found myself as an actor spending far too much time waiting for someone else to give me an opportunity to perform. While at lunch with my manager from Principato Young Entertainment, we were trying to think of […]
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Chris Tucker in Toronto: “I Don’t Do a Lot of Stuff, Because I’ve Seen Everything”
Earlier this week, Chris Tucker braved the latest polar vortex to be honored at Black History Month in Toronto, presented by the Canadian Film Centre and Poor Boy’s Game director Clément Virgo. The 41-year-old co-star (with Jackie Chan) of the hugely popular Rush Hour franchise was revered as an elder statesman by the mostly young, black audience of filmmakers, actors and fans. Though known as a rapid-fire comic on screen, Tucker this evening was alternately funny (raising the roof by dancing like Michael Jackson) and thoughtful as he reflected on his his two decades in a Hollywood where non-whites have […]
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The Shape of Something Squashed Director Tom Noonan on How Jennifer Lawrence Inspired His New Play
Playwright, actor, director and screenwriter Tom Noonan is currently debuting his latest play, The Shape of Something Squashed, at New York’s Paradise Factory, but it might never have been written if it weren’t for an invitation to meet with Jennifer Lawrence one day. I’ll let Noonan tell the story below, but suffice to say that the bent emotions and darkly comic introspection that near-encounter produced are the stuff Noonan has memorably mined in his writing and directing work for years. Noonan’s film roles include singular turns in Heat, Mystery Train, Manhunter, Synecdoche, New York, and House of the Devil, to […]
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Women of Sundance: The Foxy Merkins
“How elaborate is the camera?” The Foxy Merkins director Madeleine Olnek texted me as I was walking to photograph her with her female laden crew at Columbus Circle. “We would like to stage ourselves being hit by a cab,” she explained simply and obviously. As it happened, a few months prior to making The Foxy Merkins, a film about lesbian hookers, Olnek was in a taxi driven by a woman named Debbie. They got to talking and Debbie threw out the “If you ever need an [insert random gender, race, or career here]” phrase filmmakers always get. In Debbie’s case it […]
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Women of Sundance: Obvious Child
Gillian Robespierre, Elisabeth Holm and Jenny Slate are highly skilled comedians who are prone to self-deprecation and the bawdiest of humor that will make even the most sexually liberated feel prude. When I went to Robespierre’s apartment to take their photo, however, it was not a time for gag humor with kitschy props (condoms were, for example, off limits). Their film, Obvious Child, written and directed by Robespierre, produced by Holm and starring Slate, is both bold in its humor and also its intent: to make a comedy that talks about real issues that women face – something usually saved for […]
