The “stay positive and keep it simple” approach Ann Dowd has toward her work is truly inspiring. A go-to character actor extraordinaire for 30 years, she has now received wide acclaim (and an Emmy) for her portrayal of the terrifyingly devout Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale. And her pitch perfect performance in Craig Zobel’s Compliance is, in my opinion, a tour de force for the ages. In this half hour, she talks about the nuts and bolts of playing these roles and generously lets us peek “under the hood” at the inner workings of her craft. Inspiration is guaranteed. […]

John Christopher Jones is a veteran “actor’s actor” with many Broadway shows including Simon Gray’s Otherwise Engaged (directed by Harold Pinter), Hurlyburly (directed by Mike Nichols), The Iceman Cometh (with Jason Robards), and Shaw’s Heartbreak House. He is the subject of a documentary film, The Endgame Project, which follows him in his tenth year with Parkinson’s as he rehearses and performs Beckett’s masterpiece. A “text-lover” through and through, he continues to translate the major plays of Chekov (he received a Lortel Award for his version of The Cherry Orchard) and work on his memoir. I’ve often heard the word “craftsman” […]

Over a sixty-year career, Lau Kar-leung wrote, directed, choreographed, and appeared in over 100 movies, including martial-arts classics like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. The Museum of Modern Art celebrates his work in a 10-movie series, “The Grandmaster: Lau Kar-leung,” running July 5–17. Born in 1937 in Guangdong, Lau entered the movie industry as an extra and stunt man in the 1950s. Trained in martial arts by his father, Lau began choreographing fight scenes, most notably with director Chang Cheh (The One-Armed Swordsman, Golden Swallow). He was the first action choreographer to be promoted to director at the Shaw Brothers […]

The brilliant J. Smith-Cameron blew us away in Margaret (written and directed by her husband, Kenneth Lonergan) and in the acclaimed series Rectify. Currently she’s starring in the new play Peace For Mary Frances (with Lois Smith), and the praiseworthy film Nancy (written and directed by Christina Choe and co-staring Andrea Riseborough and Steve Buscemi), which opens Friday June 8th. We talk extensively about her work in the latest two pieces and how her desire for rehearsal is sometimes satisfied in a roundabout way on a TV shoot. She also shares what she does right before she steps on the […]

As a singer, actress, writer, and director, Sylvia Chang has been at the forefront of Asian culture since the 1970s. She has worked with directors like King Hu, Tsui Hark, Johnnie To and Jia Zhangke, and directed several of her own features. Chang is the subject of a 15-movie retrospective at the Metrograph running May 18–27. Along with films she directed, including Murmur of the Heart and 20 30 40, the series includes Shanghai Blues; That Day, on the Beach; Mountains May Depart, and Office, a musical based on her stage play Design for Living. Chang spoke with Filmmaker Magazine after the New York […]

Filmworker, the title of Tony Zierra’s Cannes 2017-premiering portrait of Leon Vitali, is a term coined by the subject himself, probably still best known for his portrayal of Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon. But the former British TV star, who set aside his rising career to spend three decades as Stanley Kubrick’s behind-the scenes right-hand man (and more), seems to have never fallen out of love with the acting craft. Indeed, chatting with Kubrick’s actors’ coach/location scout/sound engineer/marketer — and current film restorer — one gets the sense that every role Kubrick tasked Vitali with was just that, a new […]

From Filmmaker‘s print issue archives comes this Fall, 2000 interview with director Asia Argento, who discusses her highly recommended and, today, even more vital feature debut Scarlet Diva with Travis Crawford. (Richard Kern did the original photos.) “Mixing humor and self-laceration, Tortoise and Nina Simone, Argento uses the tools of digital video to create a thoughtful aesthetic distance from her own semi-autobiographical lead character,” was our subhed for the piece, which we’re reposting today as the theatrical rerelease of the film opens at the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn. One could be forgiven for approaching Scarlet Diva with a healthy degree of […]

Joshua Leonard first came onto the scene with the lo-fi sensation The Blair Witch Project, then went on to receive rave reviews for his performance in Lynn Shelton’s Independent Spirit Award-winning Humpday. His narrative feature debut as director, The Lie, premiered at Sundance in 2011 and he just wrapped production on his sophomore feature Behold My Heart which stars Marisa Tomei. Currently he co-stars in Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Unsane, which was famously shot on an iPhone. Leonard talks about how freeing that was and how he’s dismayed, now that he’s a dad, at all the bad guy parts he’s being […]

Emily Mortimer is perhaps best known for her role as MacKenzie McHale in Aaron Sorkin’s beloved HBO series The Newsroom. Some of her other memorable performances are in Woody Allen’s Match Point, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Hugo and, as Phoebe, Jack Donaghy’s love interest, on the NBC series 30 Rock. In this hour she talks extensively about one particular, powerful scene in her breakout film, Nicole Holofcener’s Lovely & Amazing (which earned her an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress), and about what it was like to play a character named “Emily Mortimer” in her HBO series Doll […]

Welcome to the debut episode of Filmmaker‘s new podcast about acting, Back To One. In each episode, host Peter Rinaldi invites one working actor to do a deep dive into their unique process, psychology, and approach to the craft. No small talk, no celebrity stories, no inane banter — just the work. Episode One: Kevin Corrigan We could not have a more perfect guest for the first episode of a podcast about “the work” of acting if we had somehow constructed one. The TV guest star extraordinaire, the go-to indie comedy player of our time, the actor’s actor, Kevin Corrigan […]