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 […]

A Secret Key

Posted April 1, 2000

How did he summon the fierce emotions necessary to play characters such as the skinhead in American History X (1998), for which he received a second Oscar nomination), or the ex-yuppie in last year’s controversial film Fight Club? “It’s something I have a capacity for,” he said. “I don’t mean that I’m full of rage and violence. I’m not. But portraying that kind of character has always felt right in the middle of my strike zone. When I went to do American History X, I was thinking: ‘I’m going to eat this thing alive.’ It was a lot easier for […]

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 […]