Posted on December 19, 2014 at 8:00 am
Film Courage produced this excellent and very compelling film with actors of color talking about the challenges they face in Hollywood. If we did a better job of representing diversity in film, we would not just tell better stories and tell stories better, we would make better progress toward understanding, respect, and justice for all.
Posted on September 30, 2014 at 8:00 am
Rosamund Pike delivers a stunning breakthrough performance in this week’s “Gone Girl.” She’s been a favorite of mine for a long time, for her elegant voice and precise acting choices. It’s a good excuse to check out some of her other films. The daughter of opera singers, she has a degree in English literature from Oxford. She has appeared opposite Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins (“Fracture”) and Tom Cruise in “Jack Reacher,” played a Jane Austen character (“Pride and Prejudice”), a Bond Girl (“Die Another Day”), and was Queen Andromeda in “Wrath of the Titans.” She will be in the upcoming “Thunderbirds” television series.
She played Miranda Frost in “Die Another Day.”
She was the oldest Bennett girl (the sweet, pretty one) in “Pride and Prejudice” with Kiera Knightly and Carey Mulligan.
She was married to an auto executive but sympathetic to the women working for equal pay in “Made in Dagenham.”
In “An Education,” she was a kind-hearted but slightly dim party girl, again with Mulligan.
Posted on June 12, 2014 at 1:48 pm
We lost one of the greats today, the actor and activist Ruby Dee.
Kennedy Center honoree with her husband, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee is as much a legend for her pioneering work as a leader of the Civil Rights movement as for her gifts as a performer on stage and in movies.
Here is a charming early glimpse of Davis and Dee in “Gone Are the Days,” based on Davis’ play, “Purlie Victorious.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRZfdUaVSUUHere they are in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.”
You can see Davis and Dee talk about their lives in An Evening with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee
Dee’s breakthrough role on screen was Jackie Robinson’s wife in the biopic starring Robinson himself. She would later play his mother in Court Martial of Jackie Robinson
Davis and Dee led lives so intertwined that they even wrote an autobiography together: With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together
Posted on February 9, 2014 at 3:57 pm
When “Downwardly Mobile,” a Roseanne Barr TV pilot for NBC, didn’t get picked up, the cast created their own show, “Bitter Party of Five,” a very funny (and very adults-only) interview series where five moderately successful actors interview their much more successful friends. And they’re not happy about it. The “face looks familiar but I don’t know if I saw them on television or at my kids’ school on parent night” cast is, Jason Antoon (“Minority Report”), Mary Birdsong (“The Descendants”), Greg Cromer (the upcoming Jason Bateman film “Bad Words”), Tricia O’Kelley “(“Secret Life of an American Teenager”), and Romy Rosemont (“Glee”) got together and began their own series “Bitter, Party of Five.” They sit around a table drinking some pretty potent cocktails and play exaggerated versions of themselves, actors who work pretty steadily and are always trying to get bigger and better parts. And they have enticed a remarkable assortment of very funny stars to join them, including Alfred Molina, Rachael Harris, Stephen Root, Chris Colfer, Allison Janney, Martha Plimpton, Wayne Knight, Missy Pyle, Martin Short, and Tony Hale, all of whom they pelt with the most outrageous questions. It was a lot of fun to turn the tables and get them to answer mine.
Who came up with the idea for the web series?
Birdsong: In a sense, NBC did, but unknowingly. We all met doing a tv pilot for them that starred Roseanne Barr and John Goodman. And by not picking up that pilot, they left us no choice. So… thanks NBC.
Cromer: I came up with the idea for the series. They all balked…I pressed…they acquiesced. I win, they lose.
Rosemont: It was a group effort for sure…the germ of the idea was one of our producers Adam Rosenblatt.
Antoon: It was already there before we even met on the set of the failed Roseanne Barr pilot. The idea was waiting for the five of us to be bitter.
O’Kelley: Let’s just say me.
What do you tell your guests to get them to agree to be on the show?
Birdsong: We tell them that if they DON’T come on the show as a guest, Tricia will cook for them.
Cromer: We don’t tell the guests anything. We do ask them to watch the show first so that they know what they’re getting themselves into. All they need to do is show up and be ready to roll with whatever goes down.
Rosemont: There will be booze and it will be quick!
Antoon: I say “listen if there is one reason I have been your friend this whole time this favor would be it.”
O’Kelley: Free booze, and the cast member of your choice will make out with you.
What did it feel like to hold Martha Plimpton’s Emmy?
Birdsong: It felt a lot like chicken.
Cromer: Martha Plimpton’s emmy was cold….and wet…for some reason.
Rosemont: It felt like it had finally found a home….in my hands.
Antoon: It felt important and heavy unlike when I held all my little league trophies as a kid.
O’Kelley: Thrilling. The best 30 seconds of my life.
What are you guys all drinking?
Birdsong: I like to go with a milk-tini® , which is one part skim milk served in a martini glass (no vermouth) and garnished with a chocolate chip cookie.
Cromer: I generally enjoy a nice glass of scotch. Mary guzzles milk-tinis like water. Romy fires down gluten-free water. Triv delights in a nice chardonnay and Jason drinks angry juice.
Rosemont: Anything and everything that gives us a personality.
Antoon: I’m drinking Absinthe in a plastic cup.
O’Kelley: I’m drinking Chardonnay, Greg’s got some scotch, Romy & Jason are enjoying Coke Zero, and Mary’s drinking milk & cookies.
Are you following Alfred Molina’s advice? Or Allison Janney’s ?
Birdsong: Definitely Fred’s (Unless Allison is reading this.)
Cromer: I follow both, Alfred’s and Janney’s advice. I’ll let you do the math on that one.
Rosemont: Did they give us advice?
Antoon: Neither. Advice from other actors means nothing. Take it from me, don’t listen to other actors.
O’Kelley: Luckily Allison’s advice actually helps me take Alfred’s advice. So yes. And yes.
Which guest surprised you the most?
Birdsong: Laura Benanti — she rocked it. Hard. I’m now her biggest fan. And by biggest I mean I probably weigh about 220 now.
Cromer: How can I NOT say that Janney surprised me the most? She swallowed my trachea.
Rosemont: All of them….We were just surprised they showed up.
O’Kelley: Laura Benanti. She was so quick and so funny, I thought she should replace me at the round table permanently.
Come on, you can tell me, who was your favorite guest?
Birdsong: Guests? Listen up. Mama loves you ALLLLLLLTHE SAME. That said, I did take my top off for Martha Plimpton. So… ya know. Do the math.
Cromer: How can I NOT say that my favorite guest was Janney? She swallowed my trachea.
Rosemont: Mary Birdsong… Love her…No wait….Greg Cromer…Couldn’t be funnier….No that’s not right…Tricia O’kelley….She’s pretty…What?…Jason Antoon…He’s down right creepy…Yes, him.
Antoon: My fav would be Laura Benanti because I’m her spirit animal and she’s secretly in love with me. Not!
Posted on October 20, 2013 at 8:00 am
I have been a huge fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor since I first saw him in the 2004 film Dirty Pretty Things
He also plays a musician in “Dancing on the Edge,” a miniseries premiering this week on Starz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF5LQY2fvWE
