Category: Interview

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. […]

Both Huntress and Prey

Posted November 1, 2014

As the third of the wildly popular Hunger Games movies hits theaters, Jennifer Lawrence has been dealing with the dark side of fame: a far more shocking invasion than the usual paparazzi onslaught. Talking for the first time about having her intimate private photos hacked—and splashed across the Web—the 24-year-old star tells Sam Kashner about her fear, her anger, and the call to her dad. You wait for movie stars, but if it’s Jennifer Lawrence you don’t mind. It’s like waiting for a comet to come hurtling into view. She was due to arrive by the pool on the roof […]

Leo DiCaprio: Epic actor

Posted October 24, 2014

Leonardo DiCaprio looks older than you’d think. DiCaprio carries himself deliberately. He doesn’t walk; he saunters. He speaks intensely, mulling his words while locking his eyes on you. He looks all of his 30 years, if not more. There’s only a trace of the boy who starred seven years ago in the biggest box office hit of all time. “Yes, I can play younger than my age,” he says with a grin over chocolate-dipped strawberries and biscotti at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. “But I can play characters older than I am, too. I’m not an actor who can just […]

Joss Whedon: The Biography excerpt

Posted July 24, 2014

Joss Whedon: The Biography, written by MTV’s Amy Pascale, is chock full of new details about Whedon’s life and career, from his veteran screenwriter family to his work on The Avengers and other Marvel films. Plus a lot of new insights into his creative process on things like Toy Story. Below is the chapter on the genesis of Firefly, including why Fillion had such a hard time in those auditions. And it ends with the story of why Whedon named this show after the type of spaceship they were flying in. We Aim to Misbehave: Firefly Joss created Buffy the […]

Super Friends – James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender

Posted July 24, 2014

TRUTH, LIES, AND PRESS JUNKETS Fassbender sips from his pint of Sussex Bitter Ale as his close friend and costar James McAvoy takes over the job of explaining the appeal of X-Men: Days of Future Past — both for audiences and for these two accomplished actors. It’s early still at the Lord Stanley in North London, but in true pub-sermonizing fashion, McAvoy becomes instantly animated. James McAvoy: People have been asking me a lot, “Why have superhero movies become so popular recently?” And they go, “Is it because they’ve become really serious and blah, blah?” I’m like, “No, it’s not.” […]

Chris Evans Says He’s Ready to Leave Acting Behind

Posted March 24, 2014

There’s no escaping Captain America — especially for the actor behind the blue mask. That’s not just a career assessment. It’s a physical reality. To gear up as the iconic Marvel superhero, Chris Evans’ trademark patriotic suit requires the actor to wear a snug latex undergarment that keeps the uniform from clinging to his sculpted muscles. Given the confines of the zip-from-the-back costume, Evans jokes that there’s one thing audiences won’t see Captain America do. “Not to get too graphic,” he says, “but you’d better hope you’re on a nice schedule in that thing. There are all these zippers and […]

Angelina Jolie Maleficent Q&A

Posted March 24, 2014

Bringing malevolent ‘Maleficent’ to life, doing some good in the world — and those ’50 Shades’ rumors Beware the unloved. If there is a lesson to be learned about the cruelest among us, it might be that one. Most villains, when you find them in real life, are born from pain, and pour it back on the world to keep from drowning in it. A few are heartless sociopaths who derive their power from persecution, and care about nothing else in the world but their own force of will. And some are just mad they didn’t get a party invitation. […]

Luke Evans swaps the valleys for the Shire

Posted December 24, 2013

At the age of 30, this Welsh actor became an overnight success. Now he’s playing dragon-slayers and Draculas in big-budget movies “They were the first victim of my career,” sighs Luke Evans ruefully. He was very attached to his tropical fish; at the end of each day he’d melt into a beanbag and gaze at them endlessly. But as the movies got bigger, stealing him from his London home for months at a time, they had to go. “These discus were beautiful. The fish man came into my house and scooped them out into bags, gave me £20 for them. […]

A Day In The Life Of Chris Hemsworth.

Posted November 24, 2013

The golden-locked God of Thunder from Down Under speaks softly off the set but wields a big stick on it— in Thor: The Dark World, in Rush, and in a series of notable dramatic roles. Is this the moment when the 30-year-old Aussie’s blond ambition pays off? THERE’S A BEACH ON BALI CALLED DREAMLAND. That’s the actual name. High above it, on the glass-fronted terrace of a cliff-side villa cantilevered over the postcard-blue eternity of the Indian Ocean, Chris Hemsworth and I are picking at a platter of cut melon and pineapple, talking about how we got here. Playing the […]

George Clooney’s Rules for Living

Posted November 10, 2013

No one does the fame thing like Clooney. He floats above it even as he uses it to embellish his influence. He understands his place in the pantheon even as he remains hidden from the inquisitive lens. He’s the master. You must love him. For one thing, he’s lovable, professionally so. For another, he leaves nothing to chance. If he can’t win you over with his fame, his charm, and his good looks, he will win you over with preparation. It’s not that he’s needy, like an actor; it’s that he’s competitive, like an athlete. He’s always been good at […]