Leonardo DiCaprio| The Kid Stays in the Pictures

Posted November 24, 2002

Leonardo DiCaprio gawks at celebrities. Not gawks, exactly. He’s hardly awed by them, but he watches them like an outsider. He is lounging in the half-shade on a promenade at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, gazing out toward the hotel’s outdoor restaurant, where celebrated performers are sipping drinks under cream-colored umbrellas and, above those, the high hibiscus that buffers the hotel from the clamor of Sunset Boulevard. “Man, look at that,” he says. “There’s a celebrity at every single table out there! Val Kilmer, Heath Ledger, that guy from ‘Saturday Night Live.”‘ At 28, DiCaprio has already ridden the entire […]

Minority Report

Minority Report

Posted June 21, 2002

I read this in a Variety review I think, and it really resonated for me.

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 […]

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Posted December 19, 2001

Of course most everyone loved this movie. Because J.R.R. Tolkien created such deep, rich, complex characters. And he did something amazing with them that just doesn’t happen now – he gave them nobility.

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 […]

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Posted May 26, 2001

This isn’t going to be a typical review because I’ve seen Pearl Harbor a dozen times. But I’m watching it while I cruise around the internet because I’m too tired to watch anything that requires thought. And with all due respect to Mr. Bruckheimer and Mr. Bay (because I’m generally a fan of them both) they ended it completely wrong.