Category: Interview

Angelina Jolie and the Torture of Fame

Posted February 17, 2000

SHE’S FIFTY MINUTES LATE and I’m starting to walk toward the door when I see her. She’s smaller and thinner and sadder than I expected from that movie-star face and the wild bad-girl spirit she projects onscreen–the best bad girl in movies today. She looks beaten and dogged. I think about keeping on going because I’m pissed off and of course she doesn’t recognize unfamous me but then something in her beaten face stops me and I say, “Angelina” and she looks at me, hesitates, remembers that she shouldn’t stop because I might be a wacko and starts to keep […]

Shock Treatment

Shock Treatment

Posted January 17, 2000

“I am so sorry I’m late.” I’ve only been at Johnie’s – a L.A. diner so low-rent they don’t even include the second n in the name – for about 10 minutes. This is where I’m to meet Jolie, the 24-year-old actress whose considerable talent is frequently overshadowed by both her beauty and her eccentricities. I turn around to tell her not to worry about being late, and for a long couple of seconds, nothing comes out of my mouth; now I know what they mean by stunned silence. I was not prepared for this woman. Angelina, The Actress Acting […]

Joshing Around

Joshing Around

Posted November 1, 1999

James Van Der Beek, the Dawson of Dawson’s Creek, isn’t the only guy on that hit show that teens (and twentysomethings) are obsessed with. As the series starts its third season, 21-year-old Joshua Jackson, is probably bringing in as many fans with his slow-burn charm as Van Der Beek has with his chiseled looks. Unlike the rest of the Dawson’s Creek cast Jackson has been hesitant to take on major screen roles. Instead, he’s taken smaller parts, playing one of the many students in Scream 2, a former friend of Brad Renfro in Apt Pupil, the class cut-up in Urban […]

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 […]

The Unbearable Bradness Of Being

Posted October 1, 1999

Brad Pitt swishes down the Lisbon streets, one more American on vacation. In his hand he carries a camera, which he shoots from waist height. “I learned a few tricks from the papara*holes,” he announces. “They all look alike to me – horns and a pointed tail and a big Cyclops eye.” He snaps a ragged, down-and-out Portuguese man on a bench and pushes through a flock of pigeons, a little disappointed that the birds, with their seen-it-all urban ways, are too underwhelmed to scatter in front of the lens. Instead they nonchalantly hop out of his path, and he […]

American Beauty

American Beauty

Posted September 17, 1999

Angelina Jolie used to play the hard girl. This fall, she goes vulnerable and ladylike – and twice as tough. Angelina Jolie does not like to be touched. “I like to be felt or invaded or confronted,” she says, “but I don’t like to be touched.” Jolie is adamant on this point, and as she speaks her blue-green eyes blaze with intensity. It’s very simple, she says: “I don’t like to talk about nothing, and I don’t like to just kind of be touched.” She smiles, though, widely, and has a firm handshake. Occasionally she hugs – with intent and […]

The Devil in Miss Jolie

The Devil in Miss Jolie

Posted August 17, 1999

Angelina Jolie is in the front room of her apartment in New York, giving what has become the obligatory tour of her tattoos. “OK,” she says, standing up and showing her left arm. “That’s my dragon, upper left.” She presents the inside of her wrist: “That’s an H — there are two people in my life who have this letter who I’m very close to and who I sort of love and cherish. And this is the newest one. I got this with my mom, actually — she came with me. It’s a Tennessee Williams quote: ‘A prayer for the […]

The muscle behind Fight Club

Posted August 1, 1999

“It’s a metaphor,” says Norton, who plays the film’s nameless narrator. “It’s off the charts. It’s not a photograph; it’s lurid and crazy. For me it’s always about, ‘Have I seen this before?’ And I’d definitely never seen this before. Nobody’s ever seen this before.” The first rule of Fight Club is, you don’t talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is, you don’t talk about Fight Club. The problem is, Pitt and Norton wanted to apply those rules to this interview. It’s 10 p.m on a Sunday in April. I’m in Pitt’s impeccably vacuumed trailer, parked […]

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 […]

Tres Jolie

Tres Jolie

Posted February 17, 1999

Angelina Jolie gazes out into the Royalton lounge. The six-day shoots for The Bone Collector have her shuttling from New York to Montreal on the Canuck red-eye. She looks sad. Someone with as fully realized a presence as Angelina should not be unhappy. “Listen,” I offer, “you wanna do something really cool?” “Sure,” she smiles. “Hey, you ask me some good questions, I’ll answer them.” “What’re good questions? There are no good questions.” “New questions.” “Nah, there are no new questions. What? Did you love your director? What was your motivation? What brought you to this role? That’s dreck – […]