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. […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Jul 31, 2018Meredith Alloway’s interview with director and DP Reed Morano (one of our top posts of the year), where Morano explains the exhaustive preparation that led her to be hired to direct the pilot of Hulu’s Margaret Atwood adaptation The Handmaid’s Tale, also contained a section where the director broke down the camera and direction decisions she made for one crucial scene. Now, Nathalie Sejean at Mentorless has taken that section and turned it into a concise visual essay that allows you to see for yourself the work that Morano described to Alloway. Check it out above.
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2018Reed Morano was told she wouldn’t get to pitch on The Handmaid’s Tale: “Don’t get too excited about it.” Someone showed her the pilot just so she had an idea of what Hulu was up to, but there was already a “very big male director” they were out to, as Morano discussed at an IFP Q&A earlier this year. When Morano heard that her long time collaborator and friend Elisabeth Moss was attached as the lead of the show, she reached out — not taking no for an answer. “A week and a half later, I got a call: ‘The producers […]
by Meredith Alloway on Aug 18, 2017Last month saw the premiere of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel documenting a future America in which women are oppressed by religious fundamentalists. The series has been garnering a lot of attention and acclaim, but it isn’t the first time filmmakers have tried their hands at Atwood’s dystopian classic; German director Volker Schlöndorff, working from a script by Harold Pinter, brought the book to the screen in 1990. His version of the story was considerably less well received at the time than Hulu’s, but it’s a compelling, distinctive film – one in which […]
by Jim Hemphill on May 5, 2017