Category: Interview

The Joy of Being Jolie

Posted June 17, 2002

I interviewed Jon Voight at my home in 1978 when he was filming The Champ. Now, 23 years later, I am talking to his daughter, Angelina Jolie. I’m curious to see if she’s at all like her father, who was (and still is) intense, focused and original in his thinking.  You’ve already won an Oscar and you’re starring in a huge action movie that could make you even more powerful. Do you feel like your living a fantasy?Yeah, I feel extremely blessed. But it wasn’t only about getting here. I enjoyed all the steps that got me here. You’ve said […]

Jared Leto – Thriving in the Dark

Posted April 24, 2002

In an effort to shed the teen pinup image he earned on My So-Called Life, Jared Leto searched his lower depths for films like Fight Club. And in his current offering, the nightmarish thriller Panic Room, he doesn’t seem to be detouring much from his course. Surviving Young Hollywood is a challenge for even the most skilled actor, but it’s been especially difficult for Jared Leto, who was thrown an extra curve—My So-Called Life. Though the series lasted only one season, Leto developed such a massive cult following for injecting an appealing blend of rebelliousness, moodiness and sensitivity into high […]

Brad Pitt| The Center Of A Star

Posted December 1, 2001

Brad Pitt shies away from traditional leading-man roles. Yet his indie sensibility hasn’t dimmed his stardom (or lowered his salary). In the fortress like studio where Pitt does architectural design and photography, and where his wife Jennifer Aniston, paints and sculpts, the 37-year old actor talks about fighting the celebrity trap and honing the fine art of Hollywood mischief-making. One day Brad Pitt was standing in line waiting to buy a hot dog at Pink’s, the shabby if venerable fast-food shack on La Brea, in Los Angeles. Suddenly a van pulled up and a guy inside yelled, “Yo, Brad Pitt! […]

Orlando Bloom Profile

Orlando Bloom Profile

Posted November 17, 2001

With his warm, somnolent Canterbury accent, tranquil self-assuredness and a face that looks like it was carved from Italian marble, it’s a wonder Orlando Bloom didn’t aim for movie stardom right after his first few acting jobs. Instead, the 24-year-old followed up roles in the UK soap “Casualty” and the 1998 biopic Wilde (starring fellow Briton Jude Law) with a three year stint at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. “I had an agent before I went in,” he says, “but I wanted to train.” The experience apparently paid off because shortly after graduation, Bloom landed the pivotal role […]

The Chosen One

Posted September 1, 2001

“IT FEELS LIKE THIS ROAD COULD GO ON endlessly,” Elijah Wood says, spinning around and then walking on the flat, cracked earth of a dry lake bed in California’s Mojave Desert. “You are chasing something that you are not actually reaching.” We are staring at a mirage, walking toward it as it recedes in the dry heat a mere two-hour drive from Wood’s home in Santa Monica. “I’ll have to make pilgrimages out here.” In the distance, a brushfire rages, casting a smoke plume high into the cloudless sky, but Wood focuses on the dusty earth below us, and he […]

Straight from the Hartnett

Posted July 1, 2001

What finally convinced you to take Pearl Harbor?A conversation I had with my dad. I told him that the film would change my life and maybe my whole family’s, too, and that I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. He said, “It’s your decision. But fame is temporary. You can quit and it’ll go away or you can keep going and it’ll go away anyway. But regret can be permanent.” One of the last things I said to my dad before I got on the plane to go off and shoot Pearl Harbor was, “I’m going […]

The Heath Is On

Posted April 1, 2001

He touched teen hearts with 10 Things I Hate About You, then grabbed everyone else with The Patriot. Now Heath Ledger is starring in a rockin’ medieval adventure, Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale, and has already shot Elizabeth director Shekhar Kapur’s Four Feathers. Here Ledger explains how he keeps his sanity in the mounting storm of stardom [and] provides a plausible theory on why Aussies are stealing the best parts in Hollywood films… While fame may be relatively new to Ledger, acting isn’t. He landed his first professional gig at age 10 in a local stage production of Peter Pan. […]

Brad To The Bone

Posted January 1, 2001

Our hero is under attack. Splayed in the dirt, perfect abs planted in a muddy trench, impossibly blue eyes squinting through a scope, he squeezes the trigger and sprays a few hopeless rounds at the enemy. Around him, a relentless swarm of Vietcong soldiers advance, their heavy artillery buzzing his ears. Though tan and trim in his army fatigues, he collapses in the dirt, overwhelmed by the weight of his weapon. Someone barks, “They’re closing in on you! They’re 600 feet away. They’re 400. They’re 200…Fire! Fire!” “Cut!!!” Brad Pitt pulls a protective brace from his forearm and whips it […]

The Temptation & Salvation of Angelina Jolie

The Temptation & Salvation of Angelina Jolie

Posted December 17, 2000

In a year marked by a triumphant Oscar win and a sudden marriage, the actress seems to have undergone a startling transformation.  She comes around the corner from the bank of elevators in the discreet London hotel where she’s been living for four months, and steps tentatively into the narrow lounge – which is almost empty. A young, handsome hotel employee points her in your direction, and she takes a few more steps into the room, her head tilted to the side, curiosity growing soft in her eyes.  She sits down beside you and expresses some regret that you’ve got […]

Brad Pitt| The Esquire Interview

Posted September 1, 2000

Brad Pitt takes a swig from a keg of Gatorade, the label of which boasts a drink that is “new and bold”. The drink is so new and so bold that within a few sips, his tongue turns bright pink. “Your tongue is cerise.” He pauses mid-slurp. “What does cerise mean?” Pitt is not a man ashamed to admit the things he doesn’t know, nor to be coy about the things he does know. “Just a kind of pink, like a maraschino cherry, I guess.” “Like Fuchsia?” “A few shades of Fuchsia.” “Really?” He replaces the cap on the disgusting […]