Posts tagged George Clooney
Vera Farmiga & Anna Kendrick Interview For Up In The Air
Mar 3rd
Up In The Air sits itself comfortably in my list of favourite films of the last year, it’s been showered with awards gaining eight Broadcast Film Critics Association, six Golden Globe nominations , three Screen Actors Guild nominations, six BAFTA nominations and six Academy Award nominations including Best Supporting Actress nominations for both Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Check out my interview with the both of them below.
From Jason Reitman, the Oscar nominated director of ‘Juno,’ comes ‘Up in the Air,’ the timely odyssey of Ryan Bingham (Oscar winner George Clooney), a corporate downsizer and consummate modern business traveller who, after years of staying happily airborne, suddenly finds himself ready to make a real connection. Ryan has long been contented with his unencumbered lifestyle lived out across America in airports, hotels and rental cars. He can carry all he needs in one wheel-away case; he’s a pampered, elite member of every travel loyalty program in existence; and he’s close to attaining his lifetime goal of 10 million frequent flier miles– and yet…Ryan has nothing real to hold onto.
When he falls for a simpatico fellow traveler (Vera Farmiga), Ryan’s boss (Jason Bateman), inspired by a young, upstart efficiency expert (Anna Kendrick), threatens to permanently call him in from the road. Faced with the prospect, at once terrifying and exhilarating, of being grounded, Ryan begins to contemplate what it might actually mean to have a home.
The script has been nominated for nearly every award going, how did you assess your character when you first read them?
Vera Farmiga: I didn’t have the luxury of reading the script and knowing what happens in the end so I had some preconceived ideas. It was challenging to play a woman who is very much like a man and often it was a fine line to tread, to have the softness and yet be forceful unapologetically and make demands you usually see men make in scripts, I really like the male perspective on heartbreak which I hadn’t read much of before.
Your character is a bit more explained, what made her appealing?
Anna Kendrick: Well first off it’s a rare thing that you have this girl who’s so intelligent and complicated and her character does not revolve around a romantic storyline, that was fascinating in itself for me, it just doesn’t happen, you don’t read scripts like that. In real life I’m usually pretty timid so I guess I’m excited to play someone who tells people off and to tell off George Clooney was pretty awesome (laughs).
One of my favourite scenes in the film is when you go to pieces in the airport after you get the message from your boyfriend, how did you prepare for that?
Anna Kendrick: I don’t actually remember what was in the script other than she just starts crying, I knew that some of the scenes are in some ways really heart breaking and there’s a desire to play it that way but I knew it was supposed to be funny, but that it couldn’t be funny for me . It was a long day of trying different noises (laughs), it was kinda of brutal because all day I was so upset, Jason would demonstrate sometimes because he knew I was running out of juice. We had to get something that was not funny to me but hopefully to other people.
What was it like shooting in actual public places like the airports?
Anna Kendrick: At times it was a little uncomfortable, when I had that little wobbly it was in a hotel lobby that we sort of shut down, there weren’t that many looky loo’s but there was still this space and even though the people were extras and apart of the film, you don’t know them so it was sort of embarrassing, I think on that particular day it was less about the people and more about the space.
Vera Farmiga: For me it most often controlled or closed sets, for me what I found most interesting was the fanaticism for George Clooney, that was overwhelming, it was so odd, for me no one ever knows who I am, they probably think I’m a producer, but watching George just opening a door and seeing a standing ovation that goes blocks and blocks from him just peaking his head out. He’s so gallant and gracious with it, I didn’t find it very difficult though working in public places, I think its more difficult for the crew than the actors.
Your character has her views on love and life challenged in this film, how did you find that? Especially with someone like George Clooney trying to bring you over to the lone wolf side of things.
Anna Kendrick: My character had very specific ideas with what she wants and what she expects, I don’t have many of them same ideas, I know that there are things in life I want that I won’t get and refuse to except just yet, but her views on love are not my views on love.
You’ve gone from playing a small role in Twilight to play a big role in this, how did you feel when you got this role?
Anna Kendrick: I was shocked beyond belief, I thought Jason hated me, my audition was very strange, I think Jason was trying to sike me out by not showing any enthusiasm, but when I got the job I was so shocked, I thought he’s just like that, he’s gonna be a tyrant on set, but he’s very very nice, I was very surprised, thrilled beyond words. I didn’t really really think George was doing it, I thought that would be too good to be true, for a script to be this good and working with George Clooney I just thought it was rumoured.
Jason Reitman Interview Part 2 Director Of Up In The Air
Jan 15th
Here’s part 2 of my interview with Jason Reitman director of Up In The Air, Juno and Thank You For Smoking. If you missed part 1 check it out here. Up In The Air is in cinemas now!
Over the 7 years you were working on this how did you have to change the screenplay after the financial problems of the last year or so?
Jason Reitman: When I started writing the screenplay 7 years ago the economy in America was obviously very different, we were basically at the end of a corporate boom. So I wanted to write a corporate satire about a man who fires people for a living. I wrote comedic scenes in which people lost their job, but by the time we started shooting the film it wasn’t funny any more, I couldn’t shoot these scenes as they were written. We did have to change things
How many of those people interviewed in the film were real people?
Jason Reitman: Well we were scouting St Louis and Detroit, with the idea of shooting real people, we put out an advert saying we’re shooting a documentary on job loss, we are looking for real people who would go on camera and talk about there experiences. We had an overwhelming response, we brought in a 100 people, 25 of those are in the film, so outside of the people you recognise like JK Simmons everyone else who loses there job in this movie is a real person. They came in and sat down with an interviewer for 10 minutes answered questions on what it’s like to lose your job in an economy where there is really nothing available, then after that we would fire them on camera and asked them to respond the way they did when they lost there job or if they prefer say what you wish you said. This would turn into improv scenes where they would pelt our interviewer with all sorts of questions that he did not know the answer too, about severance, why they lost there job instead of Jeff, it just went on and on, some people got emotional, some people were really funny, some people got angry, I’m so grateful for there participation in the film, I could never have written some of the things they said.
You’ve got a history of writing strong female characters do you think there is a shortage of them in Hollywood?
Jason Reitman: Yeah to be honest that’s why I think I write them, I like to write original films, many men’s story’s have been told but so many women’s stories haven’t. I’ve fallen in love with really smart women over my life, the most recent being and presumably the last last (laughs) my wife. I enjoy spending time with my wife. The best scene I’ve ever written, which I wrote half of, is a scene in this movie when Vera and Anna talk about what they look for in a man, at each of there ages. The only way I could have wrote that was by asking my wife to have a conversation with herself at 18 about what she looked for in a man, so everything they say is true to her, but it breaks her heart every time she sees it with an audience, because they basically laugh at her for 5 minutes. I enjoy writing for women and working with great actresses, I’ve made 3 movies now and through all of them I’ve been surrounded by great women actresses, I hope I can work with more as my career moves along.
You mentioned you started the script 7 years ago earlier, how did the time line work? You made Juno and Thank You For Smoking in that time.
Jason Reitman: The time line was that no one wanted to make Thank You For Smoking so I started to look for something else to write and direct. So I found this book and fell in love with it. I started writing it, then out of nowhere a millionaire, one of the creators of Paypal, who had sold Paypal to Ebay for $1.5 billion with his partners decided he wanted to make movies, he read my script, he got it from a friend and called my agent and said hey I’d love to make this movie, so he wrote a cheque for $6.5 million and we made Thank You For Smoking, all of a sudden I wasn’t writing Up In The Air any more, so I made Thank You For Smoking then went back to Up In The Air and Juno came in to my life, which was this irresistible screenplay that I knew if I didn’t make I’d regret it the rest of my life. Then I basically finished the screenplay after Juno. 5 years later after never going back over what I had been writing, as I read from start to finish I watched myself grow up, in that time I had become a professional director, I bought a house, I got married, I became a father and I watched myself in the first act be a cynical guy in his twenties who really is just a satirist but over the 6 years I became a bit more sophisticated as a writer and understood more what was more important in my own life, that really changed Ryan’s journey
George Clooney & Kevin Spacey interview for The Men Who Stare At Goats
Nov 4th
Struggling reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) gets the scoop of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who claims to be from a unit of psychic soldiers who have been reactivated for duty. Intrigued by Cassady’s assertions that they can walk through walls and kill goats by fixed gazes, Wilton follows him on a dangerous, top-secret mission across Iraq to find the brigade’s founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges).
Intrigued by his new acquaintance’s far-fetched stories, Bob impulsively decides to accompany him on the search. When the pair tracks Django to a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey), the reporter is trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django’s New Earth Army and Hooper’s personal militia of super soldiers. In order to survive this wild adventure, Bob will have to outwit an enemy he never thought possible.
The Men Who Stare at Goats was inspired by Jon Ronson’s non-fiction best-seller of the same name, an eye-opening and often hilarious exploration of the government’s attempts to harness paranormal abilities to combat its enemies.
I recently caught up with George Clooney and Kevin Spacey at the London Film Festival check out the result below!
With the film there’s a blur between fact and fiction, did you approach the characters as if you were recreating a real life character or did you start from scratch? I know Kevin your character is the most made up.
Kevin Spacey: To me it was all in the script, there are times when you are playing someone who’s already lived and there’s this responsibility of trying to make that as accurate as you can and even if it’s not an impression you want to embody that person, particularly when an audience knows who they were. In this case nobody really knows who these guys were so you can pretty much do what ever the hell you want and get away with it (laughs).
George Clooney: Yeah it’s whatever the script called for, we done Good Knight and Good Luck, we had a great responsibility with that to get everything accurate, with this one we thought if there’s something funny to be had we’d do it. It’s funny there are things that are made up in the screenplay, but the wackiest things are actually the real ones, when you read the book and them literally try to run through walls, they really did try that and believe they could.
What’s your relationship like with working with Grant Heslov? You’ve done a number of films together now.
George Clooney: Grant has some compromising pictures of me from 1982 so Grant’s the boss. I have nothing but faith in him, he’s incredibly talented and incredibly smart so I’m lucky to be his friends for 30 years.
What was it like working with Ewan Mcgregor?
George Clooney: After the restraining order it was really hard to work with him, with Ewan its shocking how normal and fun he is, we talk about his motorcycle trips he takes around Africa and the world, he has fit into this group of actors who are really fun to work with, they’re all professional and they do their work before they show up, so by the time your on the set there isn’t much misery, there’s only work between action and cut, the rest of the time is fun. He is absolutely fun to work with.
Why do you think it has been so hard to make good films on the Iraq War and the so called War on terror? Are we now at a stage that we are making good films on that subject?
George Clooney: There’s a couple of issues with Hollywood, everything comes a couple years later because you have to write it, produce it, film it and then distribute it, automatically your not gonna be on the cutting edge. I think it’s such a polarizing moment it’s hard to make films directly on that subject matter, especially when we are in the middle of it. We don’t see this as an Iraq war film, we see this as something very different to that completely. I’ve done an Iraq war film with Three Kings which holds up and continually seems to be relevant, this one is just a glancing blow at Iraq, it just happens to place it there, I never saw it as dealing with the war.
Have any of you two had any supernatural or paranormal moments?
Kevin Spacey: I think working with George is about as paranormal as it gets.
George Clooney: (laughs) Thank you, I’m not a big believer in the paranormal, I think everyone goes through deja vu and things like that I don’t really believe in many of those sorts of things, I find them to be coincidences.
Kevin you haven’t featured in as much films as a lead role lately, focusing more on the stage, were you just waiting for the write script or taking a break?
Kevin Spacey: I’ve done a few films, I just finished two films where I’m the actual lead, I’ve done a film called Casino Jack about Jack Abramoff who was a Washington lobbyist and I’ve just done a comedy called Father Of Invention. I’ve been focused mainly on the building the theatre company for the last six seasons, things have been going really well there so I’ve had the opportunity to make a couple of films I’ve really enjoyed. My priority for the next six years will continue to be the Old Vic, I will continue to do films though that suit my schedule and that interest me.
Lastly do you both think the media obsession with celebrity’s is out of control?
George Clooney: I’m the son of a news man, I can understand the issue of papers needing to sell papers especially in this day and age, the problem is there’s so little reporting any more, the story could be false and there will be no recourse and this story will be used with so many outlets. They can just say a London tabloid said it, they’re just reprinting and reprinting things that aren’t true. Usually you need reliable sources
Kevin Spacey: I don’t get it or understand the notion of people who might call themselves journalists or might say they’re in the profession of that, who would just make up stuff I don’t understand it as a function as a human being. We live in a time where if you say that story has no whit of truth to it, they won’t say that story is false, they’ll say you denied that story was true, which is not the same thing. Some people fight it, but some don’t worry about it.
The Men Who Stare At Goats is in cinemas November 6th
This weeks Flicksandbits interviews
Oct 25th
Got a bunch of interviews I’ve done and press conferences I’ve transcribed that are to go up on the site this week. These include
Tamer Hussan, 50 Cent and Brenda Blethyn for Dead Man Running
Charlyne Yi for Paper Heart
Grant Heslov, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Jon Ronson for The Men Who Stair At Goats
Clive Owen for The Boys Are Back
MORE TO COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
George Clooney, Bill Murray and Wes Anderson Interview
Oct 17th
On the opening day of the BFI London Film Festival I attended a very entertaining press conference for Wes Anderson`s Fantastic Mr Fox. In attendence were George Clooney, Wes Anderson Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzmen, Eric Anderson, Wally Wolodarsky and Jarvis Cocker. Below is the majority of the press conference, I excluded all the tabloidy questions like `George does this film make you broody`, quite a few of the press seemed to be more interested in George Clooney having children than the actual film!
Earlier in the day I attended the press screening of Fantastic Mr Fox and was really impressed, it`s alot of fun, it`s one of them rare animated films that adults can enjoy just as much as a child. Fantastic Mr Fox is Wes Anderson`s first animated film, utilizing classic stop motion techniques to tell the story of the best selling children`s book by Roald Dahl. Check out the trailer below
What is the appeal for you with Roald Dahl`s story telling and characters?
George Clooney: I just showed up for the paycheck (laughs), it`s been a well known book for a long period of time now, it was not only an opportunity to work on the story but also to work with Wes so I was excited about the whole process, it was a very different process to what people usually have with working on an animated film, we were out in the middle of nowhere running around and doing sound effects, the whole process was exciting. That wasn`t an interesting answer I apologise.
(Laughs) Wes what brought you to the project and why did you particulary choose this style of animation in stop motion?
Wes Anderson: This was the first book I actually owned, it was a book I loved as a child and it introduced me to Roald Dahl`s work in general, it made a big impression on me. About 10 years ago I apporached Liccy, Roald`s wife and asked permission to do it, so it`s been a long process with this project, I always intended it to be stop motion, I`ve always wanted to do a stop motion film, especially with animals and fur, I love that odd but magical look. Dahl is quite anarchic and the movie is a bit of a Robin Hood movie, it`s a bit communist.
Bill Murray: Or English (Laughs)
Wes Anderson: There`s a French stop motion film called Le Roman De Renard that was a great influence on us.
What are your thoughts on your character Mr Fox, as a Fox?
George Clooney: (Laughs) For me he`s an optimist and was a fun character to play, I remember reading the script and telling Wes I love it, I was real excited to do it, I wasn`t sure if people would see it because it`s not really a kids movie or a grown up movie, Wes said don`t worry about it let`s go make a movie and have some fun, thats a great way of approaching a film. Working with Wes and these guys was great, I didn`t enjoy working with Bill Murrey though.
Bill Murray: Thanks George
George Clooney: (Laughs) I`ve let go of some of the anger, we seem to get along now though
What is the moral lesson for this film?
George Clooney: Stealing is good, we applied that I think. I don`t even know
Wes Anderson: It`s a celebration of stealing yeah
Eric Anderson: To be true to your animal nature
George Clooney: That`s it let`s start again, it`s to be true to your animal nature.
Did working on this film make you want to do more animated films?
George Clooney: In fairness the actors only worked for a few days on the farm, running around and playing in barnes and fields, Wes spent a year and a half to two years, in some ways us being up here is a little silly it was Wes doing the real job. I would certainly do this again, it was a incredibally fun experience for all of us.
Wes Anderson: One thing I learnt, is that with the actors and their voices they give so much to the animators, we recorded the voices first, the animators spend all this time on the puppets but their inspiration is the moments these actors had. Stop motion is in my arsenal now.
Jason Shwartzman: I loved being apart of this movie, running around digging dirt, growling, it was so much fun, I can`t even tell you how much fun it was working with everyone, it`s weird to say but when your working with someone you admire, you can`t stare at them and take it in, but because there`s no cameras rolling. It was nice to work and to watch, it sounds odd but that`s what I really loved.
Liccy Dahl says that Roald was a wonderful man to live with until the few weeks before his books would come out he becomes really grumpy and stressed, can you relate to that?
Bill Murray: I was with her yesterday and she made me feel that way too (laughs), she brings out the fear in you, she seems ok but he`s dead now so he`s safe, she can`t do him any damage now, he seemed like a great guy and she rubbed him up pretty bad, whatever happened in their household should stay there.
We saw where they lived, she`s quite a person, they had a great life together and she`s so devoted to him even now, so I`m sure in that moment it must have been hard for her to think I can`t do nothing for you now, it`s an anxiety no person can help you with. She`s a wonderful wonderful women and if I was to re-marry I`d take her.
Your known for your improvisational skills does working with animation help or hinder that?
Bill Murray: It`s really to do with the Director and the actors you`re working with, the worse the script the more you improvise, it`s as simple as that, whether you`re a Doctor, a Badger or a House Wife, if the scripts lousy you`ll see more improv, especially if your a house wife.
Roald Dahl seemed to like scaring children, did you want to have a similar effect?
Wes Anderson: As a kid I remember being scared with his books, I loved that. We didn`t try to make it darker, we wanted to keep it as dark though, while we were writing the script our goal was to imagine how Dahl would have expanded the book into a movie, that was our ideal.
What were the difficulties and positives to making an animation film as opposed to a live action film?
Wes Anderson: The big adjustment you make with making an animation film to a live action film is that you film much slower, but what I enjoyed about that is it meant we could have so many opportunity`s on working on different aspects of the production and refine them, you could find more things that are funny or connect to the story. The fact that it was slowed down so radically introduced more opportunity. What animators provide is very serious and interesting they take a list of the frames of the film and they have instructions to every single frame but two different animators will interpret those instructions very differently, their personality comes into it, that was a suprise.
I shot this film the same way I would shoot a live action movie, I enjoyed doing it that way, people who are used to working on a animated movie were a bit thrown off by that at first, but we found a way of making it work and I enjoyed it that way.
Bill Murrey: This film couldn`t have been made anywhere else in the world but London, one of the most exciting days I`ve had in the film business was the day I spent at The Three Mills Studios there`s more talent in one little factory than any other single place I`ve been, I`ve never been with so many talented people in one place. They do more things with sets, designs, models, than Americans can dream about, we can put a man on the moon but we couldn`t have made this movie. That to me is a celebration to all the people who worked on this film. They`re fun after work too, I wanna make a special point of saying that (Laughs)
FANTASTIC MR FOX IS IN CINEMAS 23/10/2009