Ben Affleck Tried to Drink Away the Pain. Now He’s Trying Honesty

Posted February 19, 2020

The actor speaks frankly about everything from his addictive behavior and his divorce to why he lied about that back tattoo. This is Ben Affleck, raw and vulnerable, talking extensively for the first time about getting sober (again) and trying to recalibrate his career (again). Affleck, Oscar-winning writer, director of the Oscar-winning Argo, alcoholic, divorcé and proud possessor of a mythical back tattoo — has four movies coming out this year. The Way Back where Affleck plays a reluctant high school basketball coach with big problems — he’s a puffy, willful, fall-down drunk who blows up his marriage and lands in rehab. You read […]

Brad Pitt Is Still Searching

Posted September 21, 2019

At 55, the consummate Hollywood star seems to have the Hollywood parts figured out, using his wattage to get unlikely movies—like his new space drama, Ad Astra—into theaters. Brad Pitt interviews tend to happen in strange and impromptu places. Like this poolhouse, on a property that belongs to neither of us, not too far outside Pasadena. By necessity and inclination, Pitt likes to present a moving target, and so he spends a lot of time passing through spaces that are convenient to something else he’s doing. Just yesterday the Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, which Pitt stars in opposite […]

Tom Holland Braces For Impact

Posted September 3, 2019

Tom Holland loves golf. He plays rounds on public courses and on courses that used to be the exclusive province of kings. He plays while on movie press tours in Asia and Europe and the United States. If he’s not currently playing golf, there is almost always some part of his mind that is just anticipating the next time he’ll be able to. “I don’t know what has happened,” Holland says, “but it has become my addiction. I go to sleep thinking about playing golf the next day.” What’s interesting about this fixation is that Tom Holland could reasonably be […]

X-Men Dark Phoenix

Posted June 17, 2019

I went into Dark Phoenix with fairly low expectations. Other than James McAvoy I wasn’t in love with the cast. And it’s a story Fox has tried to do before. With one of my favorite characters. And, despite box office success, few of the X-Men movies have really been spectacular (Days of Future Past is pretty much the exception). Also while I love Jean Grey, I’m only familiar with the Dark Phoenix saga through wikipedia (and honestly I read through the Endsong rather than Dark Phoenix years ago because it’s gorgeous. Which means Dark Phoenix was either going to be […]

How Chris Hemsworth Found His Way as a Movie Star

Posted May 28, 2019

Like everyone else, Chris Hemsworth recently bought tickets to see Avengers: Endgame. This was actually his second time watching it. The first time Hemsworth saw the film was in mid-April at the premiere in Los Angeles. When Hemsworth returned home to Australia a few days later, his three kids — 7-year-old daughter India Rose and 5-year-old twin sons Sasha and Tristan — persuaded him to join them for a showing. “My kids were dying to see it. I wasn’t going to take them. They were like, ‘Dad, we have to go!’ We found a small cinema so we wouldn’t get […]

Captain America Comes Home

Posted May 25, 2019

RURAL MASSACHUSETTS SEEMS miles removed from where you’d imagine a Hollywood superstar would want to spend the waning days of winter. The trees are bare, refrozen slush piles reach head high, and even in the midafternoon, there’s a kind of dull gloaming. Yet here’s Captain America, Chris Evans, as he ushers me into his home, a heavily renovated farmhouse on a couple of snow-covered acres outside Boston. “Yeah, I guess this is the part of the year where you, you know, question why you live here,” he admits, laughing as he surveys the scene. But Evans, 37, loves it here. He […]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Ultimate Preview

Posted May 22, 2019

There’s a desert valley in southern Jordan called Wadi Rum, or sometimes “the Valley of the Moon.” There are stone inscriptions that are more than 2,000 years old. Lawrence of Arabia passed through there during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. More recently, J. J. Abrams went there to film parts of the latest Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, because it’s largely uninhabited and starkly beautiful and looks plausibly alien, and one of the things that has always made the Star Wars movies feel so real is the way they’re shot on location, with as few digital effects as possible. George Lucas shot […]

Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio Take You Inside ‘Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood’

Posted May 21, 2019

Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio Take You Inside ‘Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood’ As the director unveils his highly anticipated ninth film, Esquire sits him down with his headlining stars for a provocative three-way Q&A about Hollywood past and present. “HEY. HEY. GOT A SECOND?” Quentin Tarantino is in my face. He’s smiling, polite. But still, in my face. Nose-to-nose like. “Listen,” he says, and he starts fast-twirling his index finger in a tight circle, like he’s winding dental floss around it. “I’ve come up with a few questions that could be really good for you to ask.” […]

Chris Evans| The Political Avenger

Posted March 27, 2019

It’s a Friday afternoon in February, and the view from Chris Evans’ house in the Hollywood Hills consists mostly of fog. He bought this place for $3.2 million in 2013, back when he was two hit movies into his seven-film stint as Marvel Studios’ Captain America; there’s a Zen-ish garden inside the front gate. Evans banishes his dog, Dodger, to the guest room, shuts off the TV in the family room (CNN on mute), and takes a seat on the couch. Evans has Avengers: Endgame coming out in a few months. Evans — who made $15 million for the past two […]

Shiri Appleby Returns to ‘Roswell, New Mexico’ as Director

Posted March 18, 2019

“It was great to have a hand in shaping this Liz’s story,” Appleby says of directing Jeanine Mason in an alternate version of her own breakout role. Roswell, New Mexico is billed as the second adaptation of Melinda Metz’s book series, rather than a remake of the 1999 show Roswell, which aired on The WB and UPN for three seasons. Accordingly, the new show has forged its own narrative path in its eight episodes to date. The season’s ninth episode features original series star Shiri Appleby returns to the fold as director. Appleby first threw her hat in the ring for the […]

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