Category: Interview

Dakota Fanning Pushes the Limits

Posted February 24, 2009

The adorable Dakota Fanning is growing up. The go-to child star has made her move into bona fide teenage roles — and she’s more than ready to go beyond her usual sweet and innocent side in the sci-fi thriller Push. She swears, has a brief drunk scene and carries a gun. This kid you play in Push is pretty out front and in your face, isn’t she?My character is a true 14-year-old — kind of rebellious. She has a very sassy attitude and that was very fun to get to explore in this film. She says and does things that […]

A Hollywood Elusive

A Hollywood Elusive

Posted February 1, 2009

With all Cate Blanchett has on her plate—three young boys, a three-stage theater, and a global acting career—she might be forgiven the occasional emotional outburst or diva-like moment. Instead, the author encounters a Hollywood anomaly: a star who doesn’t do drama offscreen, whose only hint of domestic conflict is her husband’s threat to divorce her if she gets cosmetic surgery, and whose latest role, as Brad Pitt’s soulmate in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, has her focused on aging and death. When David Fincher first saw Cate Blanchett play the Virgin Queen, a decade ago, he was stunned. “I […]

Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt

Posted February 1, 2009

To be Brad Pitt is to know the bowels of hotels: the hidden mazes of back entrances, subterranean passages and service elevators daily trudged by housekeepers and room service waiters—and sometimes traveled by a VIP guest who needs secret conveyance to his suite. Thirty minutes before Pitt is scheduled to arrive at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, his private security detail is scouting a route through the basement and issuing brisk instructions to hotel staff. Intensifying the situation is the fact that, a few days earlier, Pitt said on television that he “hates” the paparazzi—an arguably gratuitous comment, since, who […]

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Year of Rejection

Posted January 9, 2009

Eleven years after their romance aboard the ill-fated Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are together again in Revolutionary Road. The superstar duo play a married couple with children trying to overcome the monotony of suburban life. DiCaprio credits Winslet with bringing them back together under the direction of her husband, Sam Mendes. Even though you and Kate haven’t worked together since Titanic you have kept in touch haven’t you?We’ve known each other since we were teenagers, and she’s remained one of my closest friends. It was Kate who brought me the novel by Richard Yates on which the film […]

Reese Witherspoon| Innocence Abroad

Posted November 24, 2008

With a new look, a new man, and newfound happiness, Reese Witherspoon lives out a fashion fantasy in the City of Light. These days, Reese’s own star is in alignment, in part because of her range as an actress. After last year’s thriller Rendition, she’s returned to romantic comedy in Four Christmases, costarring with Vince Vaughn in a role that reminds us that Reese Witherspoon is the kind of star we like–hardworking, with a young family, a star who considers herself lucky to be a star—even though, believe it or not, it’s a lot of work being a star. But […]

One Week: Brad & Angelina

One Week: Brad & Angelina

Posted November 17, 2008

As one of the most-watched women in the world, Angelina Jolie, who stars in Clint Eastwood’s new film, Changeling, has been photographed by thousands of strangers. But what happens when the man behind the camera is her partner and the father of her children, Brad Pitt? In these remarkably intimate and unguarded portraits, commissioned by W, Pitt captures a week in the life of Jolie and their family at home in the South of France. Every family has its unique rites of passage. In the Jolie-Pitt household, one such event is the day a kid begins collecting daggers. Angelina Jolie […]

Leonardo DiCaprio| Still King Of The World?

Posted October 3, 2008

Leonardo DiCaprio on why he became an actor and what he really thinks about marriage. “I feel like a whole era in my life is over,” Leonardo DiCaprio tells me. Tall and lanky, he’s one of the world’s biggest box-office stars, making $20 million a picture. But today he looks more like a young guy who just came in from doing yard work. He looks unhappy and tired. “My grandma died last week,” he says quietly, explaining his pensiveness. “I have no more grandparents. I feel that coming ahead in my life is more stripping away, for sure. I feel […]

Dakota Fanning| Working Girl

Dakota Fanning| Working Girl

Posted October 1, 2008

Given that she’s 14 now, one might expect Dakota Fanning to exhibit just a tiny smidgen of adolescent angst. But the preternaturally excitable actress, who somehow comes off as both young and old for her age, is so sunny and positive that it’s hard to imagine her finding anything unendurable. Life, for Fanning, is apparently nonstop fun. Take, for instance, cheerleading camp, which she attended in August to prepare for her position on her high school’s varsity squad. “For four days, there are 600 cheerleaders on the field all day doing cheers and dances,” she says breathlessly. “And then you […]

Daniel Radcliffe Q&A

Posted September 24, 2008

“Stepping out the motherf**ing carr, they in awe,” says Daniel Radcliffe. “I’m looking like a starrr.” He looks up. “How was that?” Bright-eyed and bushy-browed, the British actor is gamely reciting some phrases we’ve come up with to test his American accent, in preparation for becoming a full-time New Yorker when he moves here this fall to star in the Peter Shaffer play Equus. We started with some conversational basics softened t’s (“Can I get a bottle of water?”), smashed syllables (“Look at the size of that squirrel”) and are now in the extra-credit section: Lil Wayne lyrics. Radcliffe tries […]