Category: Interview

Leonardo DiCaprio| Man of the World

Posted January 1, 2016

These days the world-famous actor devotes much of his time and money to saving the planet, and this passion, along with his interest in history, is among the reasons that led him to star in the movie The Revenant. You frequently star in films based on real people and events in history. Why?I like stories in specific time periods. The Revenant’s era of American history was fascinating because it was this lawless no-man’s land. It defined the idea of the American frontiersman as man conquering nature. In a way, the story of Hugh Glass is about man dominating nature. Why […]

The Nine Lives of Leonardo DiCaprio

Posted December 12, 2015

LEONARDO DICAPRIO DOESN’T always survive. Titanic? Dead. Django Unchained? Unalive. The Departed? Departed. Romeo and Juliet? We won’t spoil that one for you, but you get the point. His new movie, The Revenant, takes the struggle not to die and really, really goes with it. In the film DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a real-life 1820s fur trapper who got mauled by a bear, was robbed and abandoned by his companions, and then spent months crawling to safety through the untamed American wilderness. WIRED: Watching the opening of The Revenant, all I could think was, “That looks really cold.”DICAPRIO: It was […]

Can Hollywood Handle Decent, Modest, Good-Humored Chris Hemsworth?

Can Hollywood Handle Decent, Modest, Good-Humored Chris Hemsworth?

Posted November 1, 2015

In March, Hemsworth, 32, hosted Saturday Night Live. The best bit was a send-up of those American Express commercials that feature famous people presenting themselves in modest, no-frills, this-is-the-real-me ways that are actually self-congratulatory and carefully contrived. Hemsworth is the most movie-starrish of his movie-star peers, by which I mean he’s the best-looking. Channing Tatum’s a hot young hunk, he however, has a beefcake quality. (He knows it, too, and uses it; it’s part of what makes him such a sly—and amusing—presence on-screen.) Bradley Cooper is the guy who was out of your league in college. Not that out of […]

Joss Whedon’s Astonishing Marvel Adventure

Joss Whedon’s Astonishing Marvel Adventure

Posted April 1, 2015

Even for a beloved and widely respected director living out his ultimate dream job at the helm of Avengers: Age of Ultron, it might be impossible to survive the Marvel Studios machine intact. “Thor’s dead!” Joss Whedon screamed. “I killed Thor!” It was at the end of a long day on the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron. The gargantuan production was in its final weeks last July on a converted back lot at a largely abandoned police training facility outside of London, doubling for the fictional Eastern European nation of Sokovia. Whedon had dreamed up a bit of business […]

Benedict Cumberbatch Amid Awards Season Crush

Benedict Cumberbatch Amid Awards Season Crush

Posted December 24, 2014

Benedict Cumberbatch is concerned that the world might be growing tired of him. Though the actor, who shot to fame as the titular character on the BBC series Sherlock, has long had a rabid and vocal fanbase, he is rapidly emerging as a leading man. His star turn in last year’s The Fifth Estate badly stumbled, but he more than compensated with wildly different roles in August: Osage County and 12 Years a Slave. And now he’s tipped for his first Oscar nomination, playing World War II codebreaker Alan Turing in the just-released drama The Imitation Game. Cumberbatch, making a […]

Chris Hemsworth: The Manliest Man In Hollywood

Chris Hemsworth: The Manliest Man In Hollywood

Posted December 11, 2014

Chris Hemsworth grew up scrapping with two brothers (the actors Liam, younger, and Luke, elder) and guided by a father who once raced motorbikes and wrangled buffalo. He surfs and boxess and knows Muay Thai. And so I wondered, is Hemsworth the rare Hollywood leading man who is actually more robust, more manly in reality than the characters he plays? Normally he’d be out surfing—and I’d ask to tag along for this piece—but since the Malibu coastline is glass-flat this week, he has another suggestion: What if we go mountain biking instead? This is an excellent idea that frightens the hell out […]

Johnny Depp – The Anti-Leading Man

Posted December 3, 2014

Hollywood Mavericks – The Anti-Leading Man Johnny Depp, 51 At 51, the only thing Depp expects is to challenge convention and himself. The coming year will remind us all of his artistic range and the power of thinking outside the box office. “As Marlon once so beautifully f**ing said to me, life is a birdsong. That’s stuck with me.” Like his friend, mentor, and fellow outsider Brando, Johnny Depp is poetic about the listen-closely-or-you’ll-miss-it, crushingly beautiful, ephemeral nature of existence — and also a little punk. “For everybody, the clock’s ticking. The main thing is whether you sit there and […]

Angelina Jolie: Woman of the Year

Angelina Jolie: Woman of the Year

Posted December 1, 2014

She’s a newlywed mother of six, a superstar with little trace of the diva, a woman who bears witness to the terrible things people do even as she continues to celebrate the human spirit. Whether advocating for refugees or directing the forthcoming World War II survival epic, Unbroken, Angelina Jolie lets Janine Di Giovanni accompany her around the globe, discussing kids, marriage, war, and the hero she just lost. Sydney, Australia – December 2013 On an early-summer day on Cock­atoo Island, a slender woman in a sun hat stands on a dusty film set. With one hand shielding her eyes, […]

Angelina Jolie on the Emotional Journey of Unbroken

Angelina Jolie on the Emotional Journey of Unbroken

Posted November 18, 2014

Angelina Jolie’s penetrating eyes are filling with tears. “I don’t want to cry, and I’m not going to cry in front of you,” she vows, quickly regaining her composure. The actress-filmmaker is choked up over the recent death of Louis Zamperini — a man who meant a great deal to her, and is the subject of her most significant directorial effort yet, Unbroken. Zamperini, a former Olympic runner, was on a World War II search-and-rescue mission when his plane went down in the Pacific. He was lost at sea for 47 days before being sent to a Japanese prison camp. […]