Category: Actors (Page 14 of 343)

A short chat with Ryan Gosling of “Drive”

September 16, 2011 /

No disrespect to Keri Russell or Justin Timberlake, but Ryan Gosling is easily the most powerfully versatile actor to emerge from that thespian crucible we call the Mickey Mouse Club. He’s done very well playing relatively straightforward leads in “Fracture” and the chick-flick phenom, “The Notebook,” but the 30-year-old Canadian with an oddly urban accent has specialized in playing a wide variety of oddballs and doing it better than anyone of his generation. Right now, he can be seen going way into the violent dark side of life with the rather remarkable thriller, “Drive.” From Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, it’s a fascinating blend of 70s/80s aesthetics, true romance and deliberately ugly brutality. Describing his attraction to the film, Gosling says, “I’ve always wanted to be in a violent John Hughes movie. I always thought that if ‘Pretty in Pink’ had a head smashing, it’d be perfect.”

He was more serious than you might think when he said that. And so it went as a very interesting Mr. Gosling spoke with Bullz-Eye and other journos about his latest film. Check out a sample of the roundtable discussion below and then head over to Bullz-Eye to read the full interview.

On his unusual relationship with violent cinema and on being a head-smashing “superhero.”

When I was a little kid, when I first saw “First Blood,” it put a spell on me. I thought I was Rambo; I even thought my face felt like Sylvester Stallone’s face when I touched it. I went to school the next day. I put steak knives in my Fisher Price Houdini kit, and I took ’em, and I threw them at all the kids at recess. I got suspended, rightfully so, and I’m sorry and I learned my lesson and I never did anything like that again. But my parents said, “This guy can’t watch movies, or violent movies anyways.” They put me on a leash and I could only watch Bible. National Geographic movies, and black and white comedies, Abbott and Costello…

I understand the effect that movies can have on you, and the kind of spell that they can cast on you. When I first read this script, I felt like this is a guy who’s just seen too many movies. He’s going around acting like he’s the hero of his own action movie. I wanted to play a superhero, but all the good ones are taken. I thought, “Well, I can create my own, potentially.”

On working with “Drive” director Nicolas Winding Refn, best known previously for such hyperviolent slices of cinema as the acclaimed “Bronson” starring Tom Hardy and the Danish “Pusher” trilogy.

Look, ever since Nicolas was a little boy, his mother has been telling him he’s a genius and everything he did was genius. Even when he was watching “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” while he ate his cereal before he went to elementary school in the morning. Obsessively, she believed he was a genius. I think that, you get told that enough, eventually it becomes true. I’m not sure that he really started out as one, but I do believe he’s become one.

He is a very unfiltered filmmaker. He just makes what he wants to see. If it’s boring to him, he won’t shoot it. He fetishizes things, in a way… He sexualizes things because he can’t maybe be as sexual as he’d want to be [because he’s married]. He talks about filmmaking a lot like having sex. It has to arouse him and has to be sexually interesting to him, even if it’s a pair of gloves or where you hand is in the frame. It has to literally turn him on.

Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Interviews, Movies

Steven Bauer talks “Scarface” and more

September 12, 2011 /

Actor Steven Bauer is the sort of down-to-earth guy who’s willing to come right out and tell an interviewer that, overall, his career in Hollywood has been “kind of… a little iffy,” so it really does the heart good to see him currently experiencing a bit of an upswing in his success. If you’re a fan of “Breaking Bad” – and, really, why wouldn’t you be? – then you saw him make the first of his two appearances on the show this season, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect: between those episodes lies the Blu-ray release of “Scarface,” where Bauer ably held his own against Al Pacino with his performance as Tony Montana’s brother from another mother, Manny Ribero. Although we only had a short time to talk, Bullz-Eye still managed to get Bauer’s recollections of working on both of these projects.

Check out a sample of our chat with him below and then head over to Bullz-Eye for the full interview.

Bullz-Eye: With “Scarface,” my understanding is that it was a combination of your very authentic Cuban background and your audition that helped you get the part. How did you prepare for the audition?

Steven Bauer: Wow, it was… I’ll tell you what: it was pretty daunting at the time. What I did was… y’know, I read the script, I knew the script and I understood it, knowing that I had very little in common with this character of Manny. Fortunately, I’d met guys like that, so I had something to draw upon. Because I’m the antithesis of Manny. Well, I was then. I probably became more and more like Manny as I got older. (Laughs) But at 24 years old, I was more like Justin Bieber than Manny Ribera! But I had seen those guys, y’know, growing up in Miami. I’d seen guys who were that way, and that’s really what I drew upon. Also, it was the sensibilities of the Cuban who has lost his homeland and is really sort of adrift in the world and looking for any harbor. Landing in the United States is the opportunity to do anything you want to do and be anything you want to be.

BE: Talking about your inherent Cuban-ness, did it ever give you pause at all that so many non-Cuban actors were selected to play Cubans in the film?

SB: Not at all. Will, honestly, it was an amazing coming together of actors, and I for one… well, first of all, who am I to judge? (Laughs) But secondly, there was no room for judgment, because the actors that they chose, beginning with Bob Loggia as Frank Lopez. He did his own work, he did his own research, and he came up with a totally original Cuban character that… I recognized him immediately. He’s that guy who laughs at his own jokes. He’s a big blowhard, y’know? It was a fantastic character that he created. And then Murray Abraham created that weasel of a man, Omar. And the other guys who weren’t Cuban, the guy who played the Bolivian – God rest his soul, Paul Shenar, who passed away years ago – he was fantastic. And he had no knowledge of any Bolivian. But he did tremendous research. And when you look at the whole canvas of the actors that were chosen, they’re all stars. They’re all beautiful, amazing artists. Michelle Pfeiffer, in her second film role ever, she created this beautiful, beautiful character, this haunted girl who’s just completely lost and attached to this power, to this man, and then attaches himself to the other man as soon as he gets the power. And again, the actors who were playing Cubans, they were all… the ones who were playing the important roles in the film, they all did amazing, amazing work. I always, always defend it.

Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Interviews, Movie Dramas, Movies

Bullz-Eye chats with the men of “Warrior”

September 9, 2011 /

MMA fans can finally relax. “Warrior” is the first film to come out of Hollywood that treats mixed martial arts seriously and with the respect that the sport’s advocates insist it deserves. A populist family-centric tale in the spirit of the early “Rocky” films and innumerable kitchen sink melodramas, “Warrior” brings together likely superstars-to-be Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton as long-estranged Pittsburgh brothers Tommy and Brendan Conlon. The pair starts out working their respective ways through the world of ultimate fighting for very different reasons. With inexorable movie logic, they end up facing off with a boatload of money and their souls as the purse. In between them is Nick Nolte as Paddy Conlon, the formerly abusive, recovering alcoholic father neither can forgive.

Director/co-writer Gavin O’Connor and stars Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte all had plenty to say to Bullz-Eye and others regarding “Warrior” and their respective careers at a recent press day. Check out a sample of the interview below and then read the full transcript over at Bullz-Eye.

Director Gavin O’Connor on an early test screening of his theoretically very macho movie, which was delayed by over a year of intense post-production work.

The reaction was great in the room. I met [with executives] in the conference room of the studio and the first thing they said to me when I sat down, they said, “You made a chick flick.” Our highest scores – we got in the 90s – were with women, both above 25 and below 25. It was a shocker. I think women are pulled into the emotionality of the story… The movie isn’t about fighting. Even when you get to the fighting, it’s not about that. I call the movie “an intervention in a cage.” That’s what it’s driving towards. One brother saves the other brother’s life by beating the hell out of him.

Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton on the training required to play two bulked-up, yet highly agile, behemoths.

TH: We’d do two hours boxing, two hours Muay Thai, two hours Jiu-Jitsu, two hours choreography. Then, we’d all go and eat pulled pork and baked beans – you can never get enough jokes about pulled pork – then we’d go back and we’d do two hours weightlifting. Then, we’d go to bed and get up and do it all again, for about seven or eight weeks.

JE: I think by the time we were doing the fighting in the stadium we were being brought chicken and broccoli every three hours. Then, a protein shake in between. We were eating constantly. It seeped into our lives a little bit. We both still watch [MMA]. You’re still training for other reasons. I do a little bit of fight training, but not as intensely as that. I don’t think I could do that forever. I’ve got respect for the fighters who do that on a constant basis.

TH: We ate a lot of chickens. Normally, the job is about managing other people’s insecurities. Interdepartmental issues, trying to get your point across to somebody. Three weeks into a project you start to realize that you’re panicking, and who isn’t? But when you haven’t eaten any carbs you start to not really hear people, or care. And you’re built like a brick shithouse, and there are tears. And you can’t kick off and have a tantrum in this situation because you are surrounded by real fighters.

Nick Nolte on why his character is repeatedly seen listening to an audiobook of a certain weighty American literary classic in “Warrior.”

A lot of people have said, “Why ‘Moby Dick’?” What does [Captain Ahab] do? [Ahab] goes after a white whale, obsessed. He ignores his crew. He ignores their safety. And, eventually, he gets impaled on the white whale. That’s the same thing Conlon does. He ignores his family, he ignores everything, and he impales himself on alcohol. At first I didn’t understand why he was listening to “Moby Dick,” but as we went along, I began to. You know, it’s a big book. I mean, I read it. It was a long read. Then, when he gets drunk, it’s not violence that comes out of him, it’s the problem.

Actors, External Movies, Interviews, Movie Dramas, Movies

A “Warrior” for a good cause

August 4, 2011 /

The upcoming action drama “Warrior” is the first truly major movie we can think of to cover the world of MMA. A poster from Comic-Con signed by stars Tom Hardy — who made such a huge splash as Eames in “Inception” and who is slated to be next Mad Max — and Joel Edgerton (outstanding in last year’s “Animal Kingdom“) from Comi-Con is currently up for auction at eBay. It’s all for an outstanding cause, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, so you’ll be getting a small piece of history while helping children. However, the auction closes this afternoon (Thursday, 8/4), just a couple of hours, so there’s not much time.

warrior

Action Movies, Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movies

Game of Thrones shocker

June 18, 2011 /

Spoiler Alert – Don’t read more if you don’t want to know what happened on Game of Thrones!

If you haven’t been watching “Game of Thrones” on HBO, you should be watching it (get caught up with On Demand). With Episode 9, viewers were jolted with a plot twist that nobody saw coming, and Jeff Morgan thinks that’s a good thing:

That’s not to say his death was not sad. It was. It still is. There is a small pit in the part of my heart that loves a righteous character, but the shows that have given me such a visceral response are few and far between. I’m actually grateful to HBO for committing to a world that I can both love and fear and characters that I can both love and fear for. Ned Stark isn’t the only one to whom I would be sad to say goodbye. Arya, Jon, Robb, Drogo (despite his few lines), and even Jaime are all compelling enough that I want to keep them around. People are already calling down an Emmy for Peter Dinklage and his portrayal of Tyrion Lannister.

If I can take anything away from last week’s episode of “Game of Thrones,” it’s that more of television should be so gripping. If you were shocked, keep watching. If the death bummed you out, keep watching. If you’re upset, keep watching. Enjoy those feelings. Let them tie you to the rest of the characters. You won’t get the chance to experience a story like this very often.

I was shocked by the death of Ned Stark. He’s the kind of character you can build an entire series around, let alone one season. The series is loaded with great characters and performances, but you have to wonder as to who will emerge as the face of the series. The season finale is this Sunday night on HBO.

Actors, Actresses, TV, TV Dramas

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