Category: draft

The times of their lives starring Wentworth Miller

Posted February 1, 2005

RW: Your first major film, The Human Stain, dealt with race and identity, so I know it’s something you’ve spoken about at length. Is it a subject you’re sick of talking about?WM: I was when the movie came out. Part of me thought, I don’t want to be forever linked with this issue as an actor. But at the same time I thought the movie spoke to such important and often unaddressed issues that it was necessary to talk about it. I’m very proud of The Human Stain, but it was not a critical or commercial success; I think part […]

Angelina Jolie Is a Woman We Love

Posted November 17, 2004

She materializes in the dark lobby bar at the Hotel Bel-Air, a wisp of smoke, late but somehow unexpected. It is our second meeting. In the three nights since last we met, she has stayed in three different hotels — two in Beverly Hills and one in New York City, where she went, she says, partly because she had a business meeting, but also because her son loves to play in Central Park. Her son’s name is Maddox Jolie, and she adopted him in Cambodia in 2002. Like his mother, the boy is airplane mad. She promised him on his […]

Brad Pitt| Oprah Winfrey and Troy

Posted May 3, 2004

OPRAH WINFREY: Whoa! OK. All right. I know you’re ready. He’s here, and I’m not going to make you wait one more second. Please welcome Brad Pitt! Sit down. Just let it be. Let it be. PITT: They’ve got a couple of guys out there. That’s good. WINFREY: Oh, yeah.PITT: Is that how loud they get on Oprah’s Favorite Things? WINFREY: Like that. Yes ’cause you are a favorite person. Yes, you are. I have to say that I’ve never seen a reaction like that in all of these years you know, where you can feel it coming up out […]

A Secret Key

Posted April 1, 2000

How did he summon the fierce emotions necessary to play characters such as the skinhead in American History X (1998), for which he received a second Oscar nomination), or the ex-yuppie in last year’s controversial film Fight Club? “It’s something I have a capacity for,” he said. “I don’t mean that I’m full of rage and violence. I’m not. But portraying that kind of character has always felt right in the middle of my strike zone. When I went to do American History X, I was thinking: ‘I’m going to eat this thing alive.’ It was a lot easier for […]

Buffy’s Boo! Crew

Posted October 1, 1999

The Writers EW: Do you identify with specific characters?WHEDON: I identify with Giles a great deal. Because dealing with this world and these actors, every now and then I feel terribly British — slightly appalled by everything I see. I can’t believe I’ve been put in charge of these people, none of whom pay any attention to me. Do you think of Buffy as a feminist role model?Absolutely. The idea was, let’s have a feminist role model for kids. What’s interesting is you end up subverting that. If she’s just an ironclad hero — ”I am woman, hear me constantly […]

Liam Neeson| Star Wars Samurai

Posted May 1, 1999

Liam Neeson became famous as Oskar Schindler in Schindler’s List. He’s about to become a megastar as Jedi knight Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Coming from a Catholic minority in Protestant Ballymena in Northern Ireland, Liam Neeson never dreamed of becoming an actor. As a teenager he was interested in boxing, and won his weight class for three years running until he got punched silly in a fight when he was 15. School was always a serious matter for him, but after spending one year at a university and two at a teacher’s college, he […]

Clean Slater

Posted July 1, 1993

Still beloved by teens, but yet to carry a major hit, the reformed Christian Slater makes his bid for breathing room with Tony Scott’s True Romance. Slater’s sexiness on-screen is a given. Now that he’s 23, though, one has to be increasingly suspicious about where he can take his Nicholsonisms and the hipster’s cockiness. It’s now-or-never time for vaulting the chasm between teen idoldom and grown-up stardom. STEPHEN REBELLO: I’m thinking about how everybody used to like movie rebels who tangled with the law. What’s a rebel to do in the safe and sober era?CHRISTIAN SLATER: Lie. [Laughing] No, I […]

Wil Wheaton

Posted December 17, 1991

I’m waiting for Wil Wheaton out in front of the Columbia Bar and Grill and beginning to wonder if he’s going to show up. He’s already canceled a day at the beach, a lunch in Beverly Hills, and an afternoon at his house in La Crescenta. Since he is almost a half hour late, I suspect he’s going to blow off interview attempt number four. Just when I’m ready to leave, Wil pulls up in his truck, tumbles out, and shuffles up the restaurant’s walkway. “Sorry I’m late,” he says, pushing his hair out of his doelike like chocolate-brown eyes. […]