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Film and the Arts
Spike Lee & Stew Go On Camera for "Passing Strange —The Movie"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Wednesday, 13 January 2010 13:36
- Written by Brad Balfour
Spike Lee's cinematic chronicle of the fascinating, award-winning rock musical Passing Strange — which 
went from an off-Broadway production at New York City's Public Theater to a limited Broadway run — airs on the Channel Thirteen series Great Performances this week.
Based on the musical developed at the Sundance Theater Lab and Sundance's Directors Lab, Lee’s acclaimed film, Passing Strange The Movie, premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The live-show document then had a celebrated homecoming premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and was greeted with packed audiences, positive reviews and a panel discussion with cast, director and producers. It went on to have limited theatrical exposure, became the first release through Sundance Selects video-on-demand in August, 2009, and had a DVD release this week as well.
Created by singer/songwriter Stew, and co-composed with his creative partner Heidi Rodewald, the guitar-infused musical details a young African-American man trying to sort out the conflicting cultural messages assaulting him as a teenager, Raised in a religious family from somewhere in Los Angeles, the frustrated kid (played throughout by Daniel Breaker) is suffocated by his mother's obsession on family, church and mainstream values.
Eventually, he follows in James Baldwin and Josephine Baker's footsteps and hightails it to Europe to explore the world, from outrageous Amsterdam to politicized Berlin. Misadventures with sex, drugs, politics and art ensue as his eyes are opened. While he finds himself a stranger in strange lands, he aches to find out what's "real" in life for him.
Applauded for its originality, emotional resonance, and high-octane score, Stew's creation offers a window into lives we may know about and provides some universal truths. So when Oscar-nominated director Lee turned his cameras toward the stage for this filmed performance, it was preserved in a way rare for most Broadway musicals. There is even talk of a filmic retelling being produced.
Stew's years as a leader of rock bands paid off in driving the performances of the actors and of the band, where one isn't subordinate to the other. Though the show was long, the music is awesome and stays with you long after you watch it. You walk out a performance wanting more — which thankfully can be had by repeat viewings of this film.
Q: With the film we get to see things happening in front of us that would never been seen in a theater — it's something else.
Stew: That’s the very advantage of film right there; it’s the close-up. Even though when you’re in theater you’re watching actual human beings, when [seeing it] in a film [like this] you get to see close ups, and close-ups are what we’re all seeing right now.
So in some ways cinema is more like real life than theater, because what do we really want ultimately than to look at people’s faces and get a reaction. And in theater, if you’re in row 40 that’s not happening.
Q: Talk about getting close -- singer Coleman Domingo sweats a lot and you could really see everything. Shooting in HD is really interesting — did you talk about the look of the film?
SL: They were all sweating.
Q: Was it always the way you wanted to go?
SL: We couldn’t afford to shoot film. With shooting live performances, they get burnt with film a lot of time because at the right moment you need a magazine change. Again, we had to look at the first show during the break between the Saturday matinee and the Saturday evening show, and we just barely made it.
Matt and I talked a lot about it; we just wanted to enhance the enjoyment for the audience member, and like Stew said, really give them those close-ups that really only people in the first row can see.
Q: If money weren’t an issue, would you have shot in film?
SL: No.
Q: Did you discuss what was to be seen or was it all your vision; how much input did you guys have?
Stew: All his.
SL: It’s just a matter of seeing the show a lot of times, knowing the show, and knowing where the camera had to be at at crucial moments. We filmed the last three performances, there was a Saturday matinee, an evening, and we came back for the Sunday matinee.
In between the two shows on Saturday, we watched a whole matinee and Mattie [Matthew] Libatique, the great cinematographer and I, and the operators, watched all together and said, “We missed some shit; we got to get it.”
Q: Did you watch from different places in the theater?
SL: No, we had monitors in the basement.
Stew: There were about, what, 10 monitors, and we were all in this really sweaty room that they made for us to watch. And all the monitors have names of the different camera men, and he was screaming — in a very nice, funny way — he would be screaming by name, “Frank, man, you got to pull back next time! And Joey, who taught you how to shoot like that!”
He was watching all of the screens at once in real time. And we never stopped and rewound; he was just yelling out and Mattie was up front and me and the actors and the band we were just looking around like, “How do they do this? How does he watch 12 at one time?”
They just went over the whole entire film basically, and then we shot it again. We just felt like we were in good hands.
Q: Spike, how many times did you have to see this show before you felt that you sort of knew it and knew what to shoot?
SL: I think I’d seen the show, combined with the Public, about 10 times. But also the operators, everybody who was shooting, they saw it at least once. So you have to be familiar with what you’re doing; I think it would be a disservice to all of the hard work that they did if people just come up and get behind the camera without knowing what the subject matter is.
Q: Thematically this production touches onto a lot of things you’ve dealt with in your work, and Crooklyn in particular; were you were conscious of that when you first saw the production? Or did you just fall in love with it and not think, "Wow, this speaks to a lot of my films as well."
SL: I wasn’t thinking about my films, but I was thinking about my own personal experience. Crooklyn is semi-autobiographical and Stew and I — I’m a little older than him, but we’re still the same era — and he was growing up in South Central L.A. while I was growing up in Brooklyn.
I lost my mother when I was in college. But that was just a small part of it; I just loved the work in general, not just one specific thing. The story, the whole expatriate thing, the music, the songs these guys wrote. I keep saying, "It’s a giant piece of work."
Stew: Crooklyn is the only movie emotionally — and Spike, I’ve never told you this — that I really can’t get through. It’s the only film I’ve ever seen in my entire life where I actually had to stop close to the end and just be like, “Okay I’ll get back to it.”
Q: Why is that?
Stew: Because the same thing that he saw in this, I see in that film; it’s so close to home, particularly in that film, because, I mean, he pulls up things like TV commercials from Soul Train era, like things that hit you on a visceral, unconscious level. Like seeing The Partridge Family in a black home I know, that’s my whole story.
SL: Black people watch The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch too.
Stew: Exactly. And so [with] whole cauldron that he set up in there. it’s the only film where I really had to stop it.
Q: Obviously, Stew, there are a lot of things you reflect on about your life in Passing Strange. And Spike, since 2009 was the 25th anniversary of Do the Right Thing, knowing what you know now, what would you say to the person you were 20 years ago? Can both of you address this question.
SL: 20 years ago? I was 26.
Stew: I would say Spike Lee’s going to make a movie of your play [laughs]. No.
That’s why I have a daughter; because I get to talk to a 17-year-old about my life. I don’t know what I would say really; I think I wouldn’t tell myself to do necessarily anything different except maybe… It’s very difficult to teach a 17-year-old or 19-year-old like, “You’ve got to see your grandmother,” you know what I mean? It’s hard.
SL; In your play, you are talking to yourself. As a narrator, you are talking to yourself as a youth [laughs]. Wait a minute, man.
Stew: Yeah, right right. I guess what I would say to him — I would make this play [laughs]! The play would be what I would say, I guess you’re right. This is why I mention my daughter, because my daughter’s 17 and she wants to be an artist, and sometimes you just want to grab them and say, “Remember all these things; these people are important.”
Part of being 17 is that you don’t know, you want to go and hang out with that friend that you’re not going to even know in 6 months. You know the beauty of being a dad is that I can look at her and say, “This is your first boyfriend. Your first.”
SL: That can be a nightmare though, too. My daughter’s 14.
Stew: That’s why you make art, that’s why you made Crooklyn, that’s why you made Passing Strange, to say, “Hey, look, here’s what we missed; this is what it used to be like, here’s what we missed.”
But you can’t shake a 17-year-old into being what you want them to be. I mean, they’re not an adult; they’re not close to mortality and all those kind of things. So, yeah, you just make a play and you hope for the best.
Q: What have you learned that you would say to yourself?
SL: It’s really hard for me to answer a hypothetical question like that because I didn’t write a play where I can talk to myself like that [laughs]. I’ve been very lucky because every time I was about to make a big misstep the creator or whoever would just… I’d be like, "One more step and I’m going off the cliff." and something would happen and go, “Uh uh, go this way.”
At the time that would happen I’d be mad and then it would later be revealed that if I went that [other] way it could have been not a good thing. Someone’s looked out for me.
Q: When you saw yourself on the stage from a whole other point of view, how did it affect you? Did it change you or make you think more about being viewed from this side or that? Do you see things about yourself that you’d say, "I want to focus on that aspect or this aspect in a way that I hadn’t thought of before with the next project?"
Stew: No because I think the thing about both of us is we’ve been doing this for a while now. I think if we were 22 we’d be analyzing it to make corrections like, “Oh I think I’ll wear green next time,” or something. But I mean we kind of already know what we look good in and I know my guy in Harlem to go to get my goatee looking way better than it looks right now.
When I’m [being] a Spike Lee movie. it’s real easy; you go into the salon — one of them “bourgee” black Harlem salons — and go, “I’m about to be in a Spike Lee movie tomorrow,” and suddenly the whole salon surrounds you. And then you come out looking great.
So, nothing changed, and the combination we were already comfortable with ourselves, and then you get this guy who’s framing you to make you look as good as you can, so it’s all really cool.
Q: Did you redirect anything? I mean, they’ve been doing it for a long time.
Stew: Let me speak because he’s been very humble about this. I was definitely directed in a very particular area because there’s a moment where I get to be with the audience and kind of really sing to the audience doing the “It’s Alright” section, and that’s where the audience gets pumped up. He went into my dressing room the morning of; he waited till the morning of shooting and said, “I need you to get them on their feet.”
And the thing is, nobody, including the director of the play, had ever really directed me, especially in my zone. Which my zone is when I’m not in a play anymore and I’m dealing with my crowd. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and nobody had dared tell me anything about when I’m in my zone. And I do a pretty good job of getting the people riled up, but he said, ‘We need them on their feet; this is the shot I need.”
We had a conversation about my influences and he said, “I need you to roll call.” So if you look at the film you’ll see magic marker on my hand where I’m trying to remember the things that he said. It’s all in the film; I’m like, “Is this going to show up? It’s not going to read.”
I got all these notes from him that morning and to me it was kind of a moment of truth because he was asking me to do something that I had never done in two years of eight shows a week. It was a challenge and what would have happened if it wouldn’t have worked with the cameras rolling? Shit, it could have been really embarrassing.
Q: But it did work.
Stew: It totally worked.
Q: You say in the film, "When we are in the presence of art we are taking the cure." This is a very personal journey that you bare for us, similar to what he does with Crooklyn. Talk to the cure; how does that work?
Stew: I feel like art is like religion in that it offers a critique of society as we know it. There wouldn’t be a need to go to church, there wouldn’t be a need to look at artwork to me if we didn’t want to get a different perspective. Art and religion both say that the status quo is not enough; I want to get another perspective on this. Am I right?
SL: You’re right.
Stew: So it’s like, this isn’t working for me, I need to see somebody else’s vision of how this world could be and what’s wrong with this world and what’s right with it.
That’s why we go to movies, that’s why we read books; we want to see what somebody else is thinking. Tell me something about this world I’m struggling with. So that’s what I mean by the cure; we’re looking for something else.
Q: Spike, you made a conscious decision to film the play not make a film interpretation. I wonder about that decision as opposed to filming the story of the play and going to Berlin, or to Amsterdam.
SL: I saw it twice at the Public, was blown away by it, and then I thought, “How would I do this as a film?” The first thing I said was, "I don't know if you could get it on film; Negroes would play Dutch and German people? That's not going to work."
I had someone from [the production company] Imagine come to the show; I had recently done Inside Man for Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, who own Imagine, and they sent somebody but they weren’t really feeling it, for them to option the play for a film. So then it went away and it moved to Broadway and the thing that was troubling to me was that, and I had this happen to me on 25th Hour where stuff is based upon the award, so we’re going to spend more money on 25th Hour if we get an Academy Award nomination. And with Passing Strange, like, well, we’re struggling at the box office so we really need to win a whole bunch of Tonys to keep this thing going.
When they didn’t win those whole bunch of Tonys it was like, “Alright, it’s not going to be that much longer.” And that’s when Steve Klein, one of the producers, approached me about making sure this thing will live on forever, and we filmed the final three performances.
Q: How did you empathize with theater actors in comparison with film actors? Do you see yourself writing a play?
SL: My wife’s been on me years about doing it. A long time ago she said Do the Right Thing should be made as a musical. But I didn’t have to do any directing; Stew mentioned the thing I told him but writer Annie Dorsen had done a great job and she’d been with these guys forever so it was set in place, it was done. So it was just a couple things that we did structurally but it was not really done as far as directing actors.
Q: Is there a difference between theater actors and film actors. Is there more of a diva-esque kind of thing with film?
SL: I didn’t see any of that; they worked hard. The final Saturday we did the matinee, evening, we came back and shot the final final show which was Sunday matinee, and then we came back the next day after the show closed and shot it without an audience all the way through, stopping and starting. So people’s voices were shot, really, [by] the end.
Stew: I just want to say that the distinct advantage of doing this was that he caught us at a time when we were like a really well oiled machine. He also walked into my dressing room and said, “Do you want to see the movie?” and I said, “What do you mean?” and he just kind of like flicked through a little camera and he showed me all these angles, and I was like, “Wow I’ve never seen that movie before. This is the movie I’m about to step into.”
So we all walked in already knowing, it was like, I’ll say the Lakers. It was like the Lakers in Magic Johnson days where you just kind of walked out and it was like, “All we have to do is run these plays and we will win.” And that’s what we did; we just went out and we ran our plays.
Q: There’s a community of an audience and actors; there's nothing like that Broadway/Off-Broadway community of New York. You showed a sense of community as much as anyone else, connecting with then you subsequently, seems a part of this, and about the themes of this show too.
Stew: I can’t overemphasize the fact that each of these actors knew that the next thing they might be in, the next 10 things they might be in, were not going to speak to their souls. This was every actor on that stage’s story. This is every band member in that pit’s story. They knew that this might be it in terms of the time in their lives when they can actually give their entire souls to a story that they knew and felt and had lived every line. They all had a family, they all had the church issues, they all had sexuality issues, they all had vocational issues of what you’re going to be; “What? You want to be an actor?”
That’s just as crazy as saying you want to be a musician. Crazier in some way; at least [as] a musician you can sit on the corner and make a quarter. So I’m just saying, for them, the reason why the performances to me were so intense is because they were living this; this was really their story, and that’s lucky.
For more by Brad Balfour: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-balfour
Writer/Director Tyler Perry Does "Bad" All By Himself
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Monday, 11 January 2010 04:50
- Written by Brad Balfour
Sitting at a conference table almost too full with cast members of the 2009 film I Can Do Bad All By M
yself -- being released on DVD on January 12, 2010 -- the mulit-hyphenated Tyler Perry came to Manhattan to offer a lively Q&A session with a broad range of press people. While his latest film is remotely based on an early play of his of the same name, Perry's feature focuses more on his on-going positive message of redemption and growth than the antics of his flippant but caring Grandma Madea character. And again, once it opened it topped the box office.
Perry's films have grossed just under $400 million worldwide as of July 2009. And to add to his list of accomplishments, Perry co-produced — with Oprah Winfrey — director Lee Daniels' critically acclaimed hit Precious based on the novel by Sapphire — a movie that has won top audience awards at both the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals, was the centerpiece film at the 2009 New York Film Festival -- likely to be an Oscar contender in several catgeories.
Coming from poverty and homelessness, Perry has gone on to make an incredible success of himself, first as a writer/director/producer of plays, then as the creator of films and television series. Through his female alter-ego, Madea, he became a huge comic phenomenon, and a whole industry in and of itself.
Besides producing plays, film and television out his huge Atlanta-based production studio, the 40-year-old multi-hyphenate has become a media mogul and motivational speaker with various charities under his auspices.
In I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Madea (Perry) catches 16-year-old Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson) with her two younger brothers looting her home. The big-mouthed, wise-cracking granny takes matters into her own hands and delivers the young delinquents to their only relative, aunt April (Taraji P. Henson), a hard-drinking nightclub singer who lives off her married boyfriend Raymond (Bryan J. White). April wants nothing to do with the kids, who live with their missing grandma. When a handsome Latino immigrant, Sandino (Adam Rodriguez), is sent by the pastor of their neighborhood church (Pastor Marvin Winans), he trades work for a place to live in her basement.
The closer April and Sandino grow, the more she realizes the importance of faith and family. Once she's told by church elder Wilma (legendaryy songstress Gladys Knight) that her mom has died, she knows she has to take care of the kids, and reluctantly sees her life in a different light.
Things come to a head — Ray and Sandino fight; Sandino proposes to April — and her best friend, bartender Tanya (hip-hop soul singer Mary J Blige), sings a song that is both the film's title and its signature statement: "I Can Do Bad All By Myself."
Q: What's the key to your success especially with this subject matter.
TP: I'm just a man that has used what I've learned in this life and I've tried to put it in film. I don't want to just do film to make a movie for people to see; to blow up something, to kill somebody, explosions. None of that is attractive to me because what I've tried to do with my work and with my life is inspire and motivate people because I've come through too much hell to be able to sit in this seat.
I have a tremendous debt to pay so I want to just pay it forward and pass it on to other people; that's why I keep doing positive movies. This is what I know for sure; you reap what you sow. That's why I think I've been so successful; god is just blessing me and honoring everything that I'm doing.
Q: Your films are based on your plays; you've been able to work out the experience before a live audience. How has that experience of working in theater educated you and what your plans are with theater going forward.
TP: There's nothing like a live performance; it's immediate. And being on the circuit that I was on for a very long time doing 300 shows a year, most of them sold out, for 10 years straight, I learned a great deal. What will work and what won't work and how far I can go and how far I can't. And I'm still writing from those experiences. Everybody at the table can attest to that immediate give and take from an audience, and you take that and you go with it.
Q: You have a knack for talking about contemporary issues as you do in this film with the child molestation element.
TP: In writing this and talking about molestation and sexual abuse, it is very very clear to me that a lot of our own issues, including myself as a person, are a result from what has happened to us as children. So when I was thinking about April and her, "I don't care about anybody but myself," where would that come from? And molestation is the root to so many things, so I wanted to explore it a little bit and I think that when people really see it, they get it. They understand that, "Wait a minute; is this why I'm this way?"
Because it's happened to so many people, and [because whatever goes on in this house stays in this house and nothing ever gets covered], that's why I wanted to address it. I think that as people see it they'll really get it.
Let me say this to everybody here; I'm speaking to people, for the most part, my base, my core audience, that everybody has ignored for years. And we are a people that exist and need to be spoken to in a way that we get, in a way that we understand. And I'm just really really fortunate and blessed to have that opportunity to do that.
Q: What are your thoughts on the current status of African-American women who are not getting married at the same rates of other ethnic groups or white women, particularly because you cast another ethnic minority in a role that is the love interest for an African-American woman. Were you subtly suggesting that African-American women need to exercise other options [laughs]?
TP: I want to make sure that this is clear:Hell, no! No, the thing is this: I didn't suggest anything, I didn't even know those stats. I was once accused of being anti-Semitic last time I was here doing a press conference because one of the attorneys in Diary of a Mad Black Women got an award called the Feinstein award and they said that was anti-Semitic because I named the award after a Jewish person.
I don't get it. It's kind of similar to this; I'm just writing. I'm not thinking about what race a person is because I don't live my life that way. I just write the story and I thought these two would be a good look and be good for each other with his story, his problems, his issues that he's worked through, and her with hers. He could have been Tyrone Jackson, it wouldn't have mattered, but in this case it just happened to be somebody who's Latin.
I had the same issue in the first two movies; a couple of critics went off because all of my heroes seem to be light-skinned. It's not something I was even thinking about, it just happened. And so I went and found some dark skinned heroes in the next one. So I will take this into consideration; next time I will make sure that the black woman finds a black man.
Q: While white and Hispanic women may be on their second husbands, many African-American women have never been married by the time they are in their 30s and 40s. One reason for that is that African-American men are more likely to marry outside of their race.
TP: It doesn't matter who they are or where they come from, but my point was that part of the reason that a lot of people are not married is because they have this list of what they want their men to be, have, make. And more important to the point of what Adam was making, it doesn't matter if the person has nothing; if they can bring you love and the love you need then that should be enough.
Q: You do allow for some ad-libbing; not everything is scripted. Were there parts of the movie where you were allowed the cast to expand their roles?
TP: Well, there is this one scene. Iit was a really serious scene where Taraji and Adam are sitting on the sofa, and we're shooting the scene and Taraji leans over and she starts to kiss him, but it wasn't in the script. So I'm looking through the script and I'm sitting at the monitor watching and I just sit back and see how long it's going to go. I don't understand how when you're kissing somebody you put your tongue in their mouth and you're supposed to be acting, when there's no camera inside your mouth to see the tongue.
So the kisses went on and on and on and I sat there waiting for them to finish and they just kept kissing. I have it on video; it's a long, long, long, long, long kiss and they wouldn't stop. So I finally said "Cut" and I said, "What the hell was that? Where did that come from?" Taraji was like, "What? It's in the script." "Show it to me." So they "ad-lippped."
[continued next page]
Q: Being around such soulful singers and such an amazing pastor, was there ever a time during taping when you were doing the church scenes, that you literally go to church?
TP: Yeah, the entire church scene is real. I had five cameras rolling because I knew the only way to capture what I wanted is to have church, so that's what we did. [Pastor Winans] actually preached a sermon and sang the song, that was it. It wasn't like we did a million different setups; we did maybe one or two, but that thing that you feel when you're watching it is real and you can't fake that. You can't cut and resetup and cut again and re-setup and try to get it; you hav
e to get it as it happens and I was very adamant about capturing that moment.
Just like in Diary of a Mad Black Woman, when she comes in that church, you feel it. It was the same way I wanted it in this situation and the only way for that to happen is it had to be caught all at the same time.
Q: I Can Do Bad is one of your earliest plays. Why did you wait until now to bring it to the screen? And what sort of changes did it go through in the adaptation?
TP: No rhyme, no reason. And it's so different from the play; the only thing that the movie has in common with the play is the title and Madea, that's it. It was Madea's first time on stage, I was scared to death. It was the Regal Theater, 79th and Stony Island. I had rehearsed all month the show without ever looking at a costume or putting it on, just like this. The night of the show I put the costume on and looked at myself and was like, "Oh god, what have I gotten myself into? It's sold out out there and these people are waiting."
So I'm standing there and they're saying, "Go, go, go," and Brown pushed me on stage. And that's where she was born. But no rhyme or reason for it; I just thought the time was now.
Q: What are your upcoming projects?
TP: I'm working on a new album with Mary J. Blige [laughs]. Not. I just finished Why Did I Get Married Too; it comes out in April [2010]. The first thing that [came] out, in November, [was] Precious.... And then it's Why Did I Get Married Too and I can't wait for you guys to see it because Janet [Jackson] went through all the stuff with Michael at the time and she needed the work so she brought everything she had into the film and she's got some scenes in here that I can't wait for you guys to see.
Q: And you're adapting For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf — a challenging and highly respected play. What makes you want to do that as your first adaptation?
TP: I'm writing it now, don't worry there will be no Madea in it. I know there are For Colored Girls fans who are wondering, "Why the hell is he doing For Colored Girls?" but I really really embraced the material and listened to the stories and the cast I think is going to blow people away. It is the most incredible cast of women of color, and Latin, that has ever been assembled in film. Ever.
Q: Are you sticking with the play?
TP: It's all of Ntozake Shange's work, her poems, but as you know, as everybody who knows For Colored Girls knows, there's no story there; it's all different vignettes. But what I did was each woman has her own story and all of their lives cross. It's kind of like Crash; none of the women know each other. They pass through each other's lives and they're all living their own lives but nobody knows that they're all on a collision course to meet each other.
At the middle of the movie what happens is one of the women has just started a For Colored Girls center, where women go through this 12-step program of healing from relationships and everything. A lot of the poems happen in this center when all of these women come together. So it's going to be fantastic.
I'm also working on a new play; the first date is October 4th and it's called "Laugh to Keep from Crying" but I haven't written a word yet. But it will be ready.
Q: Have you cast For Colored Girls yet?
TP: I have made five phone calls. We haven't made an announcement yet; the five women that I've spoken to have said yes, but it's 16 women, 16 major roles, and I can't wait to tell you. But the dream cast is pretty darn exciting and most of the dream cast has said yes.
For more by Brad Balfour: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-balfour
Jennifer Garner Tells the Truth About "Lying"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Friday, 08 January 2010 16:45
- Written by Brad Balfour
Coming to video on January 19 with no extras whatsoever — sorry ... we're lying — British comic and Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais' directorial debut, The Invention of Lying, posits an alternate earth where humanity lacks the capacity for prevaricating. But while people speak only the truth, they have no sense of humor and no idea of fiction. As a result, they reveal more than they know — including how inflated their views of themselves can be.
As Mark Bellison (Gervais) struggles to survive at a mediocre television company, the pug-nosed, pudgy writer endures a rivalry with the better looking, more successful and far more arrogant Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe). Mark suffers through miserable dates his mother encourages him to go on. When he meets tall, gorgeous Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) on one of those dates, he falls for her and she tells him that despite the fact they get along, and that he's a nice guy, she can't continue to see him — let alone marry him — because she's way too out of his league; she'll never have his children. Since he's just not up to her in looks or physique, their relationship has to remain platonic.
Whether you think the creator of the English, original version of TV's The Office is or isn't in her league, he's so frustrated by her refusal and other factors that when his mother is on her death bed he has a brainstorm and tells her one big lie — the first — that death is not the end of things. She will go to a nice place where everything is wonderful. Unfortunately, his comment is overheard by the nurses and doctors and his words are spread everywhere — that he knows things no one else in the world knows.
Soon Bellison becomes an international phenomenon, making proclamations on the afterlife and just about everything else. He lies up a storm to help friends; lies to get money from the bank; cheats at the casino; and eventually, to win the affection of Anna. People start camping out on his lawn to learn more, so he develops a strangely familiar story about the "Man in the Sky," who does all these mystical things, and is kind and wonderful. When he pastes a set of rules on two pizza boxes and reads out his Commandments, we get the message.
Though The Invention of Lying falls flat in places by the time it ends, this fascinating idea show how Gervais is leading the charge to create comedy that requires more than an endurance for bodily function jokes and absurd R-rated sight gags. In turn, his ability for the right comic moves, has led him to host The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards (to be broadcast in HD on Sunday, January 17, 2010 from 5-8 PM PST and 8-11 PM EST live coast to coast on NBC).
The 38-year-old Garner — wife of Ben Affleck, former star of the spy series Alias, and who was much-drubbed when she played the titular anti-heroine in Elektra — does a great job as the ingenuous Anna. The almost 5' 9" actress enlightens us about Gervais, the film and the art of lying in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
BB: Did it feel to you as if this movie was an episode of The Twilight Zone?
JG: I think that's what they were going for. So, yeah, it did feel like that, except that it was the funniest episode of The Twilight Zone that was ever invented.
BB: When you got this script, did you think of it as a science fiction idea or more of a parody?
JG: I liked the questions that it brought up. I liked the conversations that I felt would start. I thought that it was funny. Really, when I first read it, I just laughed out loud, and that's the most important thing. I loved the way my character was introduced. I loved the challenge of looking at a scene and thinking, 'I have to play this with no subtext, no irony, no sarcasm and just be as straightforward as I could possibly be.' I think that's a really interesting acting challenge.
It wasn't until I read it again and then thought about it a little more that I thought that. As soon as you read it or see it, you can't help but think about the world and think about all these advertisements that I see, one way or another, are lies. We're sold lies all the time and it's so much a part of our society. But we edit out [a lot] of what we can say. I like that the film is provocative in that way.
BB: Do you think this film has a British point of view or a British tone to it?
JG: I feel like it has Ricky's sensibility, but no, I feel it's pretty universal. Matt Robinson co-wrote and co-directed the script and the movie with Ricky. I think that they didn't really seem to have, "Oh, that's too British" or "You're trying to pull it to the American." There were a couple of references or words that of course you have to switch, but no, it does not seem British to me.
BB: It's got a great cast.
JG: There are some of the greatest comic talent alive and a lot of them are in this film, from Tina Fey to Louis C.K. to Christopher Guest...
BB: And Jonah Hill.
JG: You could go on and on and on. I signed on before all of those people. So I had the benefit of being on the film and hearing more and more about how great the cast was every day and how it was growing and growing. I felt like, "Wow, I signed onto this tiny independent movie, and now it's turned into this whole thing." It's just a lucky coincidence for me.
BB: And when they saw your name on it, did they jump onto it because you were signed already?
JG: [laughs] Yeah. I don't flatter myself to think that I was the draw there. I think that Ricky Gervais definitely has quite a following and is very, very respected.
BB: When Ricky asked you to be in the film, did you ask why he wasn't putting you into the British episodes of The Office?
JG: I do ask Ricky all the time why I haven't been invited to be on Extras or The Office or anything else. I bug him about it all the time and I'm still waiting. They're both done. They're speedy over there.
BB: You've done a lot of rom-com. What do you think of Gervais and his universe of humor? It's not the obvious humor, it's more realistic. Is there a trend towards this sort of comedy?
JG: I think there are a couple of different trends in humor. One is the Judd Apatow kind of humor of embarrassment [through] gross-out. Then there's the humor of embarrassment with reality, using real relationships and situations.
That's what Ricky does. I think part of what he does so well is that his humor is never mean spirited. It's very honest. He's very interested in what's honest, and he finds the truth to be the funniest. I loved working with him because he's so clear about what would make something funny, and he's always right. He's so funny and so incredibly good at what he does.
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BB: Do you think Bellison deserved to get what he got in the ending?
JG: I think he had earned it by then, certainly, because he's the kinder one. The interesting thing about Anna in the film is that she's the first woman to make a choice romantically.
In a world where women are driven by evolution and by the quest for the best genetics for their offspring, she's the first woman in this world who knows that something is different here. She's the first woman to say, 'No. I love this man. That's a good enough reason to be with him and have kids with him.'
BB: Both you and Ben [Affleck] have been leaning towards humor after you both started out in more serious roles. Do you find that you started to trade quips at home, reading each other the funny lines from your projects?JG: Yeah, we'll tell each other the funny scenes or whatever. But as far as trading quips, I don't know if we actually are living the life of His Girl Friday or something like that. It's probably much more boring and banal than that.
BB: Right, but I just assume that he beats you out with the laughs. He's a smart and funny guy.
JG: Are you saying that you think he's funnier than I am? Are you challenging me, saying that you think that my husband would come up with the funnier quips than I would? Because I will tell you that is certainly not the case.
BB: Oops! Are you picking projects now that mix it up for you; are you trying to show different aspects of yourself? Where do you think you're going in your career?
JG: The whole point of being an actor is that you don't do the same thing every day. So I'm just interested always in finding something that feels like, "Oh, wait. I've never done this before. This is different. This will be a real challenge." Luckily, all different kinds of things have come my way and so I've been able to pick and choose.
BB: If you had your ideal choice, what would be the thing that you'd like to do next, the most contrasting thing to follow this up?
JG: I just want to do something that's good. Nothing has to come next. I would love to do a musical, but if that happens five years from now, I'm fine with that. I don't feel like, "I have to accomplish this right now." It's much more that I just love whatever it is that I do. I don't just say yes to everything.
What I'd love to see happen next is a film that my production company has been working on for a long time called Butter. It's this little movie that takes place in the world of butter carving at the Iowa State Fair. So if that could happen next I would be thrilled.
BB: Do you ever think that Ben should direct one of your projects or even cast you in one of his, or do you guys try to stay as far from that as possible because of the scheduling issues?
JG: Of course, I wish that he could direct everything. There's no one better. Scheduling is definitely a big factor for us. If we were both on the same set at the same time all day — our kids are too young for that, so it's something that doesn't come up right now. But who knows, maybe we'll revisit it in a few years.
BB: Do you find now with kids that your outlook on what you want to do in film has changed, either wanting to do family-friendly projects or going in the opposite direction?
JG: I don't really feel like I'm driven away from doing family stuff or towards it. I look at the scripts that come my way. I look at the script that we're developing in my production company. It's much more about finding something that I like to do than it is about some overall thing like, "I better stay away from family movies" or "I'd really like to do a family movie." I mean, if a family movie came along and it was great, then I wouldn't care if I had no family or a family of ten kids, I'd still want to do it.
BB: But you're not inviting superhero costume films?
JG: Sure. If one came along, and it was great, I would suit right up.
BB: Which hero would you have in mind? Do you have a favorite?
JG: I don't know who she would be. It would have to surprise me. I don't have a particular favorite.
BB: Wonder Woman?
JG: Sure.
BB: Are you good at lying?
JG: I'm a horrible liar. I can exaggerate. I can definitely make a good story better, but as far as just telling a lie, not very good.
BB: So you would've been good for a world where no one lied?
JG: No, because I do think there's real value in a white lie to save someone's feelings.
BB: Are there some people that you'd like to tell the truth to, since it's perhaps a world in which you can't lie?
JG: Yeah, there are one or two that I'd like to get ahold of.
BB: What would you tell them?
JG: Wouldn't you love to know [laughs]?
For more by Brad Balfour: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-balfour
Star Penelope Cruz Is on Cloud "Nine"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Wednesday, 06 January 2010 19:23
- Written by Frank Lovece
The Madrid-born Penelope Cruz, a standout star in the Rob Marshall musical Nine, came to American attention with the steamy seriocomedy Jamón, Jamón (1992), in which she co-starred with future boyfriend Javier Bardem. After he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for 2007's No Country for Old Men, Cruz returned the volley with her Best Supporting Actress win for 2008's Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
In the interim, Cruz made such middling U.S. movies as 1998's The Hi-Lo Country, 2001's Blow, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Vanilla Sky – which sparked a three-year relationship with Tom Cruise – and 2005's Sahara.
But she became a signature screen persona for acclaimed director Pedro Almodóvar, starring in his Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006) and his latest, the recently released Broken Embraces -- which was the closing night film for the 2009 New York Film Festival. She now co-stars with an international pantheon in Nine, an adaptation of the Broadway musical inspired by Federico Fellini's classic film 8 1/2. Cruz speaks about her two latest movies, her cameo in Sex and the City 2 and much more in this one-on-one interview.
FL: You've said that Almodovar knows how to push your buttons to get the performance he wants. How did he do that in Broken Embraces?
PC: He knows me very well, but he is that way with all actors – he knows how to take you to the place that he needs, in a way that is a beautiful dance. He can be very tough and very demanding, but in the end for me it has always been an experience where I go home and feel happy about what everybody did on the set.
FL: But for an example.
PC: It's hard to explain; it's hard to put it into words. But sometimes he would play [the filmmaker character] Mateo in the rehearsals. We had a moment looking at each other in the mirror when the relationships were mixed together – the relationship between Lena and Mateo, and the one that I have with Pedro and what he means to me in my life, my career. It was a beautiful mix of reality and fiction. I have to say that was my favorite moment in the whole process of making this movie
FL: In Broken Embraces we see snippets of the film-within-the-film, Girls with Suitcases. Was there any talk of releasing it as, say, a half-hour TV film or a DVD extra?
PC: No, but because we shot stuff for Girls with Suitcases that didn't make it into the movie, [those scenes] will be in the DVD extras.
FL: In your major dance number in Nine, you do a lot of rope work without gloves, and endured a lot of calluses and bleeding. Did you realize that would happen when you decided against gloves, or did you realize it as it was happening and continued anyway?
PC: No, I knew it would happen because I trained for three months to do the number, and I knew I would be living with blisters during those months and I was used to it. During those months you rehearse, like, four hours a day of dancing, and when you get to shoot the number, you do 12 hours a day of dancing for three days in a row, and that's when you get all the bruises and blisters and everything open. But I didn't even feel that much physical pain because I felt like flying!
FL: According to reports, all the actresses in Nine had to do singing and dancing auditions. You haven't had to audition for movie roles for a while. What was that like? Were you out of practice?
PC: No, because I took a lot of lessons before the audition. I auditioned one time for the dancing and one time for the singing., I think it was very important to be able to go through that for the movie because Rob had to see that we could really do it, so most of us had to get in the room and audition. I mean, there was no other way to get the movie.
FL: Did you say to yourself, "Wow, I thought I didn't have to audition anymore?"
PC: No, because I know that sometimes I will have to, when it's something like that. Look, I've never sung before and nobody has every seen me dancing, really dancing – I've done something here and there, but this is a difficult solo number and I had to prove that I could do it. So of course I had no problem with getting in the room and auditioning. I was nervous about it, but I was happy they gave me the opportunity
FL: Different reports say that in your cameo in the upcoming Sex and the City 2 you play either yourself or a character named Lydia.
PC: No, I don't play myself. It's a little character [role]. I only was on the set for three hours. I did this collaboration because I'm a big fan of the show and the movie.
FL: You're listed as working on two upcoming features, Lasse Hallstrom's Rain in Spain and Sergio Castellitto's Venuto al Mondo.
PC: I'm not making Rain in Spain. I don't know why somebody wrote that somewhere. Venuto al Mondo, if that movie gets made, I think I will do it.
FL: And you're producing Haunted Heart?
PC: That's for the future. It's the first movie I have with Fernando Trueba [who directed Cruz in her second film, 1992's Belle Epoque, and in 1998's The Girl of Your Dreams] he wrote [as well as directed], and we want to do it sometime in the future but not yet.
FL: What is this eight-minute Almodóvar short, "The Cannibalistic Councillor" that you're in?
PC: That is one thing that we shot for Broken Embraces that didn't make it in the movie, so he released it as a short film. In Spain it played on TV.
FL: I'm not going to pry, but why do you suppose the public cares so much about whether a celebrity has a baby or not?
PC: It's all because of the Internet, because there are more and more shows and stuff to fill with material. A lot of the press is losing so much credibility that people don't know anymore what to believe and what not to believe. I have a couple of great friends who are journalists, who are very serious journalists, and at the end that affects them and their work.
FL: Yet when People magazine, say, pays a million dollars for a baby picture, those covers apparently sell well because the public, for reasons I just don't know, wants that.
PC: I don't want to talk about it.
