All decked out, Nicole Kidman received a gala tribute at the New York Film Festival Wednesday night ahead of the U.S. premiere of her latest starrer, The Paperboy , directed by Lee Daniels . Appearing like audiences have never seen her before, Kidman said she pushed her boundaries in the role in which she plays a sultry vixen who is carrying on with a convicted murderer in prison (played by John Cusack ). Kidman opened up about the role and why she decided to take on the part which required her to — among other things — spread her legs and even pee on fellow co-star Zac Efron ; she also shared why she never spoke to John Cusack on the set outside of their characters. But despite pushing herself into admittedly uncomfortable territory, there was one thing she would not do. Initially, Kidman did not think she could pull off the part. Daniels had her meet with five women who have had relationships with men in prison. Unsure of herself, she said the experience allowed her to find he way to the character with some encouragement from one of the women. “I was kind of freaking out and didn’t think I could be authentic in this role. And then, one of them said to me, ‘No, I think you can do this.’ And she kind of gave me that confidence. And after that, it sort of just flowed out of me. I didn’t want a sense of myself in any way, so I went straight into the character and never stepped out of it.” Based on a novel by Pete Dexter, The Paperboy is set in late ’60s/early ’70s Florida. Kidman plays Charlotte Bless, who sashays with a period-fabulous wardrobe, fake eye-lashes and pillowy lips. She’s the object of young Jack’s (Efron) affections. He’s a young guy who’s aimless and living with his dad and soon-to-be stepmother. His older brother (Matthew McConaughey) is a journalist who comes to town to investigate death-row inmate Hillary Van Wetter’s (Cusack) conviction, who he believes is actually innocent. Meanwhile, love-struck Charlotte is in a tither trying to get her man out of jail — and then things grow very strange… “I never got to know John Cusack through the shoot,” said Kidman. “I never knew John [at all, in fact] and that’s when I [decided] I’m not going to get to know John. I wanted to deal with him as the character and have him deal with me as the character. I never, never spoke to him through the shoot as John, and that was a great way [to do this]. At the very end of the shoot he came to my trailer and he said, ‘Hi, I’m John’ (laughs). It was great!” While playing Charlotte, Kidman was very careful not to judge her. Because of the production’s very tight budget, Kidman — an A-lister who is one of the world’s most photographed actresses — said she went to second-hand stores and picked up $5 frocks and shoes ahead of the shoot in New Orleans and physically and figuratively assembled Charlotte’s persona. After picking her accent and look, she stayed with the character even after the day’s shoot ended. And there was one physical trait filmmaker Lee Daniels wanted from Kidman. “Lee was obsessed with the butt,” said Kidman. “He wanted my butt to be bigger. I said, ‘I can do that…'” Continuing about her character she added, “I don’t see her as crazy because I see very few people as crazy. For me, she’s a woman who’s obviously very damaged. And she’s scared of intimacy, which is the common thread for people who [form] relationships with people in prison. But once they get out, it’s often very different, which was something interesting for me.” Lee Daniels, the Oscar-nominated director of Precious (2009), who is African-American, said he felt racial tension while filming Paperboy in Louisiana’s bayous. The tension prompted him to ask Nicole Kidman to use the n-word in one scene, but she drew the line there. “I didn’t think it was right for the character honestly,” she said. “And I have a son who’s African-American. But the other stuff, I think the whole thing I try to do as an actor is fulfill a director’s vision. I have opinions and I’m there to stimulate and ignite things in the director, hopefully, but I’ve never tried to pull a director off his vision. So, the spreading the legs and all that were fine because I wanted to please Lee.” The Paperboy begins its theatrical run this Friday. Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
” James Cameron is who James Cameron is because James Cameron does what James Cameron does.” At least I think that’s what James Cameron’s doppelganger said on Wednesday night’s new episode of South Park after diving into the depths to “raise the bar” and save the world from Honey Boo Boo and fat people who terrorize the world on motorized scooters. While President Obama debated Mitt Romney on the networks, Michelle Obama made a cameo appearance in a wonderfully meta episode of the Comedy Central series in which the Avatar , Titanic and Terminator director — who last spring dived to the bottom of the deepest place on earth, the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean — took it upon himself to save the world from the cultural nadir established by Honey Boo Boo (whose consumption of “sketti and butter” and other craptastic food necessitates her being fitted with a pig’s heart in the episode). For those who listen to NPR and still read the New York Times , Honey Boo Boo is the nickname of ultra-zaftig child beauty pageant oddity Alana Thompson, who has her own show on TLC, which, believe it or not, stands for The Learning Channel. As South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone indicated in Wednesday night’s episode, Honey Boo Boo’s emergence in the culture has lowered the bar even farther than President Bill Clinton’s oral sexcapades with Monica Lewinsky. The good news is that after Cameron saves the dignity of our culture, he instructs the crew of Team Cameron to “Set a course for the set of Avatar 2!” Now that’s what we call N’avi-gation ! (Ba-dum-bump!) Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
‘It was like high school to me,’ MGK told ‘RapFix Live’ about BET Hip Hop Awards scuffles. By Rob Markman Machine Gun Kelly on “RapFix Live” Photo: MTV News
‘[Simon Cowell] wants the ‘X Factor’ to breed stars that are gonna go across the world,’ British singer tells MTV News. By Jocelyn Vena Olly Murs Photo: MTV News
They’ll be joined by U.K. rock heavyweights Muse at the awards show, which airs November 11 from Frankfurt, Germany. By James Montgomery Taylor Swift Photo: Paul Kane/ Getty Images
Things have been a tad quiet on the Planet of the Apes front of late, but Deadline reports that the sequel to Rupert Wyatt’s hit reboot — saddled with the unwieldy title Dawn of the Planet of the Apes , which instantly makes me think zombies are going to join in with our primate frenemies on the assault on mankind — has landed a new director in Matt Reeves ( Cloverfield , Let Me In ). Wyatt did well with his franchise re-starting Rise of the Planet of the Apes (only his second film, following the festival hit The Escapist ) so it was a bit surprising when he left the Fox sequel last month. The film only earned one Oscar nod, for Best Visual Effects, but notably sparked debate over the performance-capture as art thanks to Andy Serkis’s work as ape Caesar. Reeves demonstrated an innovative sensibility with Cloverfield and earned critical support with his most recent effort Let Me In , the Americanized remake of the kid vampire flick Let The Right One In . (Cue groan-worthy Hollywood puns: Did Fox let the right director in? ) Given the effects work and close collaboration with WETA that the first Apes film involved, however, he’s got a big job ahead of him in order to meet the Apes sequel’s May 23, 2014 release date. [via Deadline ]
It’s too bad they don’t give Oscars out for individual performances in documentaries because Liv Ullmann’s work in Dheeraj Akolkar’s Liv & Ingmar would be worthy of consideration. The Norwegian actress and filmmaker discusses her 42-year relationship with the late Swedish filmmaking legend Ingmar Bergman with such emotional candor and poetic economy that the movie becomes something much more than just a re-telling of one of the most famous work-love relationships in cinema. Although Ullmann and Bergman — who was 22 years her senior when they fell for each other on the set of Persona in 1965 — lived together for only five tempestuous years, the friendship that they built in the aftermath is very much a love story. And Ullmann’s remembrances of their time together and apart until Bergman’s death in 2007, combined with Akolkar’s sumptuous and artful telling of the story, make Liv & Ingmar a story that can be enjoyed without an immersion course in their work together. Liv & Ingmar is at its essence a story of two people who love each other but cannot live with each other. (Think of it as a real-life Celeste & Jesse Forever .) Ullmann, 73 will attend the U.S. premiere of the film at the New York Film Festival on Monday night, and the Oscar-nominated actress spoke to Movieline about her initial reluctance to participate in Akolkar’s film, her happiness with the result, her rollercoaster relationship with Bergman, and Johnny Carson’s flirting during a Tonight show appearance. Note: The door to which she refers in the interview is located at the house on the Swedish island of Fårö where she and Bergman lived together. On the door’s surface, the couple kept a kind of hand-doodled calendar of their good — and bad days together, and Akolkar repeatedly depicts the drawings as a document of their union. Liv Ullmann and Dheeraj Akolkar Movieline: Liv & Ingmar was clearly an emotional experience for you. Your decision to talk so candidly about your relationship with Ingmar seems pretty brave to me. Was it a difficult one to make? Liv Ullman: Well, I did say no at first, but then I met with the director and the producer here in Norway. They really convinced me I would like to be part of this, but only on a very limited basis: two days to be interviewed and to produce my readings from my book. That was it. I did not have anything to do with how the movie was made. It wasn’t a brave decision because I’ve done so many interviews in my life about Ingmar or Ingmar and me. It was only when I saw the finished movie and saw what it was about that I thought, Oh, if I had know this before, I would maybe would have been more scared because it is so much deeper than I thought based on the interviews I did. The director is a tremendously creative person, and I believe that if Ingmar were alive, he would have liked this version. It’s not how I would have described this relationship, or how he would. But nonetheless, it’s terrifically true. You’re saying that if you had directed this movie, your interpretation of your relationship with Ingmar would have been different? Mine would be different, yes, but I’m not saying that mine would be truer or closer to the truth. It would be my kind of truth. I would have talked more about the memories and the longing, but this is true in a way that I never thought about our relationship. To me, this film is interesting because the person telling the story never met us before. [Dheeraj] only knew me through reading my book Changing and through our brief work together. He never met Ingmar. And yet, Liv & Ingmar may be closer to the truth in some ways because he’s looking in at us and he sees us in a different way than somebody who was completely involved with the experience. That’s interesting. The film left me with the impression that you had worked very closely with Akolkar. No! This movie is his creative work. Except for the interviews I gave, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. We had no discussions beforehand about it. We did not talk while he was editing it or finishing it. We did not talk about music. It was his film. How did Akolkar contact you? He wrote me [to ask if I would participate], and I said, “No.” And I was so glad that the Norwegian people who have money in the film called me and convinced me to meet with him. Sometimes you need to see a person and listen to a person to make your decision. When we met, I saw this young man who was very different from me — a different country and a different religion as far as I know. But I could tell that he was hearing me. We met for one hour, and that’s it. And then we shot two days in Fårö. That’s how much we knew each other. And then when I saw the movie, I just knew this man knows me in so many ways. One of aspects of the movie that I found fascinating was that when your on-camera comments are interspersed with scenes with the Bergman movies you did, the films seem remarkably autobiographical. Was that apparent to you when you were making them? No, I’ve never known this. But that is Ingmar’s genius. The movies may be autobiographical for a lot of people. It’s easy to say, “Oh God, this movie is about us..” But maybe some other woman can say, “Oh, it’s about me, too.” I know a lot of people who’ve said they recognize themselves in these movies. That’s another thing that I really liked about this film: You don’t need to have seen your work with Bergman to feel the emotional impact of this film. It’s a story about a very intense love affair that works on a universal level. Other people have said that to me — that you don’t have to know Ingmar, or me, or our movies to enjoy this movie. That surprises me because the first time I watched it, I thought, maybe this will only appeal to people who have seen the Bergman movies. Liv & Ingmar leaves the distinct impression that you couldn’t live with each other but you also couldn’t live without each other. Exactly. But one thing is true: if we had continued to live with each other, we probably could never have been together as friends afterwards. For some strange reason, it happened at the right time for us. It was so painful — so painful. I hope I’ll never have that pain again. But it led to a deep friendship and often those friendships don’t happen either. When you’re on camera, you really communicate the emotional complexity of your relationship with Ingmar. The scene where you learn that he kept one of your notes tucked away in a favorite teddy bear is pretty devastating. I’m so happy you’re saying that, but the credit goes to the director. The moment with the teddy bear that you talk about – no one knew about it until the housekeeper in Ingmar’s house [in Fårö] said, “Do you know what’s in that teddy bear?” It was kind of a friendship letter that I wrote Ingmar around the time that I did Faithless [in 2000.] And he took the letter and put it in his teddy bear that was always at the house. When I learned about the letter, it was like Ingmar saying again: “I love you –but, of course, not like when you were in Persona . I love you in a different way, and your throwaway letter is so important to me that I’m putting it in my teddy bear.” If I hadn’t done this movie, I would never have learned that. The housekeeper would never have told anyone. The same goes for the door at the house with our drawings. Since I left Fårö, I was so scared that Ingmar would take away the door, or his wife would take away the door. And when Ingmar died, I was sure I’d lose the door. But if you see the film, you see that every year, he did things to keep the sun from bleaching our drawings. Now that there’s no one there anymore to do that, in a couple of years you won’t be able to see what we did very clearly, but now I’ll never lose the door. It’s in the film. That door symbolizes so much. There’s a hand-drawn image of two side-by-side hearts with faces, but they’re both wearing frowns. Was that the essence of your relationship –that you had this great love and yet struggled to make each other happy? You always hope that the other one will make you happy before you think of all the ways that you can make the other one happy. It’s so strange—those doors came just before it was all over [between Ingmar and me]. Why we made the hearts, I don’t know. The other thing I noticed when we made the film is that Ingmar put airmail stamps over some of the dates. I don’t know what’s under them. It’s probably sad. But again, it’s another sign of him saying he cared. Do you still feel his presence? Yes, I do. In this movie, people might say, ‘Ah, he’s not here. He probably would not have made this movie. That happens not to be true. I am so sure that Ingmar would smile and care about this film. I even made a contract with the producer: if I don’t like the movie, I’m going to badmouth it and just say that I spent two days on it and what a shame. I made a contract: no payment but I am free. So, why do you think I’m talking about it? I think this is a great movie about a relationship. It’s a great movie about love. In the movie, you talk about struggling with living in Bergman’s shadow. Do you feel free of that now? I’m will always be proud of having worked with Ingmar. But at the same time, I’m directing Uncle Vanya in Oslo now and an English film version of Strindberg’s Miss Juliet . I will also probably direct Ibsen’s A Doll’s House on Broadway. So, I feel my life has always been apart from Ingmar’s but always connected to him. If I didn’t have him, I wouldn’t have the deep satisfaction of having worked so often with one of the great people of cinema. He has given me so much knowledge and trust and I use so much of what he taught me. When I was in Hollywood and maybe doing things that weren’t the best of the best, I could smile because my luggage were some of Ingmar’s great movies. So nobody could say, ‘Ah, she shouldn’t be filming.” What are your favorite performances in non-Bergman movies? My favorite films are Jan Troell’s The Emigrants (1971) and The New Land , (1972) about Swedish immigrants to the United States. I was nominated for an Oscar for the first one. I just love those two movies. It’s been 40 years since they were made, but they still reflect the attitudes and the realness of why the Swedish came to the United States. I think they would be very important to show now that you are having a new election. I have to ask: I loved the clip in the movie of you being interviewed by Johnny Carson on the Tonight show. He seems genuinely smitten with you. Did he continue to flirt with you when you were off-camera? My husband thought the same thing. He watched it. No, [Carson] didn’t flirt with me after the show didn’t, but he did have me on his program a number of times. And the strange thing is that he didn’t want me at first. He said, “Oh God no, she’s serious. I don’t want someone like that.” He was talked into having me on because I was so open. And then I was there a lot. And no, he did not start, though I wouldn’t have even minded. My husband was very jealous. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
What do you think about all this bullisht? We’ve all read about the backstage scuffle that went down at BET’s Hip Hop Awards over the weekend and a lot of folks have spoken out against the beef since it happened Saturday night. BET finally released a statement and we’re wondering if they dismissed it a little too quickly. Tonight during a taping of the BET Hip Hop Awards 2012 (not the BET Awards, which went down without incident two months ago) an altercation between two rap entourages broke out backstage. Atlanta police and BET security quickly defused the altercation. According to the Associated Press, police spokesman Carlos Campos said officers responded to the scuffle at around 7:30 p.m. EST Campos says there were no shots fired. More drama unfolded as two men were involved in a fistfight in the parking lot of the venue. BET Networks issued a statement in response to the many inaccurate reports and rumors circulating on social media. “BET Networks works very hard to bring the best in entertainment to the city of Atlanta. For the past 7 years BET has celebrated the true art form of Hip Hop. Due to some misjudgment of select attendees, it is unfortunate that certain incidents took place. BET Networks does not condone any type of violence. Local authorities are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. Despite the actions of a few the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards embodied the true spirit of hip hop and was not impacted at all by any incidents.” What do you think about the way it was handled…does stating that the event “was not impacted at all by any incidents” really ring true? Source Images via WENN/facebook
Hungry for some funny? Sounds like the new competitive carving satire Butter might be what you’re craving, at least according to its cast who hit the red carpet last night for the NY premiere! Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, Modern Family ‘s Ty Burrell and more were all on hand for the creamy fete hosted by The Cinema Society along with DKNY, Forevermark, and RentTheRunway.com — and they all went out of their way to assure audiences that Butter is NOT a political comedy. So then what is it? To find out, watch my video interview below! Plus while Butter hits theaters October 5th, you can get instant gratification right now as the movie’s currently available on iTunes and On Demand. And if it’s half as fun as the cast seems to have had making it, then you’re in for a treat… Follow Movieline on Twitter . Follow Grace on Twitter .
‘If there’s a Cruel Summer then there’s got to be a Cruel Winter, right?’ Q-Tip tells MTV News on BET Hip-Hop Awards red carpet. By Rob Markman Q-Tip at the 2012 BET Hip-Hop Awards Photo: Chris McKay/ WireImage
