It’s not after every interview that you stand up to leave and then your subject drops a bomb that changes how you see them, but at Fantastic Fest anything goes. So I was amused when, after talking opening night selection Dredd 3D (in theaters nationwide on Friday), lower jaw acting, and Indiana Jones baby names with actor Karl Urban , he mentioned he’d read my stuff. “Even the one where you said I have no charisma,” he laughed. Mea culpa , Karl. Months ago I’d written my reaction to the very first Dredd 3D trailer. “With Urban set to never take off that Dredd mask in the film — and delivering lines like ‘I’m the law’ with no trace of Sly’s charisma — this feels like a precursor to the RoboCop reboot, only with less emotion,” I opined . (Technically I never said Urban himself lacked charisma, but still .) Later I caught the film’s world premiere screening at Comic-Con and was pleasantly surprised to see how the film, directed by Pete Travis from a script by Alex Garland, navigated my concerns with strong performances by its cast — including, yes, Urban and his Judge Dredd grimace. It turns out Urban not only is one charismatic dude in person (and onscreen, as his recent work as Bones in Star Trek attests quite plainly, and with his full face exposed!), he’s got quite the sense of humor. I offered to reconsider my stance if he gave Fantastic Fest karaoke a whirl following tonight’s Dredd 3D premiere, but the truth is in that moment I already had. So, for the record: Karl Urban — charisma for days. Karaoke skills — to be determined. Enjoy our chat below and stay tuned for more from Fantastic Fest! You’ve been in many geek-oriented properties but it was nice to see you dive into Comic-Con full on, and now Fantastic Fest, which is my favorite time of year. It’s good fun. I guess I only get to experience a small fraction of it. Well, you’ll experience it tonight when they take you to karaoke. [Laughs] Oh, no. That would be a bad move. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, there aren’t many musicals on my resume. That’s true! Why is that? Yeah, why is that? If you see me at karaoke you’ll find out why. Well — let’s jump into Dredd . Stallone’s version, which is quite different from your new one, came out 17 years ago. Where were you when it hit theaters? I was living in Auckland. And Judge Dredd as a character was dear to me. I read it as a kid. I responded to the sort of tough, enigmatic lawman who is essentially a Man With No Name Western archetype — The Man With No Face. Yes, essentially — an enigma in many ways, but defined by his actions. The character and the comics were something that I read, but I went along for the movie. As a fan of the comics how did you respond to the movie? I think that film was very much a product of its time. You know, the way that comic book adaptations were treated in the ‘90s is quite different from how they’re treated now, and tonally our films couldn’t me more different. We’re a lot grittier, a lot more realistic, a lot more futuristic and less sci-fi. And the character is actually quite different. Dredd in our movie is a bit more monolithic, he’s a bit more stoic. He’s a man of few words but he’s got a great dry sense of humor. I think he’s like a tightly-wound coil that is ready to leap forth at any given point, but the character is also compassionate — you can see that in when he chooses not to kill people. And there’s a wariness about him which also humanizes him. Essentially I think the biggest humanizing factor is that relationship with Anderson. That, to me, is the heart of the movie. In the beginning of the film Dredd is so consistent, and that consistency is one of his virtues — but over the course of the film he learns to be flexible, and learns to value life so much more. Exactly. That’s what I liked about it. The heart of this piece is this story of two people who get together, a senior cop and a rookie cop, they don’t like each other, they don’t particularly get on, and Dredd doesn’t think that she’s worthy of even wearing the uniform. But over the course of the film that changes, and I find that really interesting – for a guy who sees the world in such black and white terms and who often has to make a decision that results in life or death actions, to suddenly be confronted with the idea that he could actually be wrong about this person, I could be wrong about this situation… suddenly there’s this whole gray area and what happens in the story is a tiny crack in Dredd’s worldview. He does something at the end of this film that he would never do, that he would have difficulty explaining or justifying to anyone else, but he knows it’s the right thing to do. I found that to be so interesting in Dredd — so much of the film is filled with violence, and so much of the action looks “cool” as action movies do these days, but what I came away from the film was the feeling of the loss of life. It is, and it’s interesting that you should speak of that because I think it really does evoke a certain sadness. This is what humanity has degenerated into, and I think great science fiction films have that tone. Look at the sadness throughout Blade Runner ; it’s the same with Dredd , the state of humanity and often the choices that people within the film who live in Peach Trees [tenements], the choices they make. Alex Garland mentioned that he spent a while going back and forth on the script and that you added your own notes as well — how did that work out? It was a truly collaborative experience — one of the most collaborative experiences I’ve ever had. Alex, when he came onboard to write this, immediately contacted John Wagner, the creator of Dredd . A couple of months later Alex delivered a script and one of John’s few notes was, “Dredd says less.” So Alex in his next draft incorporated that note, cut down the dialogue, and we got to Cape Town. Three weeks before we’re shooting Alex and I sit down for a script meeting and I open up my page and Alex sees these lines that I’ve drawn through his dialogue. He looks at it quizzically and I say, “Look, I love this dialogue — but Dredd says less.” So from even there on we sat down and reduced it. I was lucky to be working with a writer who wasn’t precious, who could see the value in economy. And that’s one of the things in Dredd — the economy of movement, the economy of speech. That seems like it might be unusual for an actor to voluntarily reduce his own dialogue, but then you took on a role where most of your face is obscured. Was that a hard choice to make? Was there any hesitation knowing that people might only see your jaw? No, I guess I was blinded by the affinity I felt for the character. I didn’t really start this by approaching it from a perspective of fear, a how the fuck am I going to do this? It was just like, Okay, this is a challenge. What have I got to work with? Is there a secret to acting just with your jaw? Well it’s not actually just acting with your lower face. You’re using your voice and your physicality, how you do something. If you think about the massacre that occurs in this film, the loss of innocent life. At that juncture you can see a violent gear shift within Dredd and the way he treats Wood Harris’ character, the perp-prisoner, Dredd gets a little off the leash at that point and that’s an emotional response to what’s just gone on. That’s a good point. Can we also talk about the female characters in the mix? Lena [Headey] as the big boss is a wonderfully complex, ferocious character. The women in this film are bad ass. They are dominant and proactive and smart and scary and formidable. Lena is so compelling to watch, particularly to work with; she made choices that are so left-field and scary as a result. And of course Olivia does such an extraordinary job of bringing a humanity to this whole story; she’s a key way into Dredd, but she humanizes the story with her vulnerabilities and her insecurities and you see her grow — she becomes empowered, she becomes a tough and badass judge. You’ve been in Star Trek and comic book movies and, tell me if this is right — I read that you named one of your children after Indiana Jones? My wife, actually, had the dibs on that one. I got to name the first son. But we were watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and it was the scene where Marion’s been abducted by the Arab swordsman and she’s in the basket going, “Indy!” We were sitting on the couch like, Indy — let’s do that. So yeah, he’s named after a famous abduction. [Laughs] I go to him sometimes, “Doctor Jones!? Have you brushed your teeth, Doctor Jones?” And he loves it. His nickname is Jones. Given all that I’ve wondered if you’ve taken to messing with the media when it comes to Star Trek spoilers . Are you messing with us? No! I don’t believe I messed with you. I promised exclusive footage at Comic-Con, and I gave exclusive footage. I didn’t lie! Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Her novels have sold 40 million copies worldwide and the pending film version of the trilogy’s first installment has fans guessing worldwide who will play the male lead with nearly every hot young actor in Hollywood a possible contender. So what is a wildly successful author to do as an encore? Well, be in the movie of course! British author E.L. James, the mind behind the ever-so-hot Fifty Shades of Grey series said on the Katie Couric daytime talk show that she is eyeing a possible cameo in the big-screen adaptation of the novel, revealing that one of the smaller characters in the book is actually based on herself. Speculation persisted all summer who would play the irresistible young business magnate Christian Grey and the guessing game flared up again recently between the possibilities of Alexander Skarsgård vs. Ryan Gosling at the recent Toronto International Film Festival (http://movieline.com/2012/09/17/ryan-gosling-alexander-skarsgard-fifty-shades-of-grey/). James remained silent on who she expects to take on the lead roles, though she has several in mind, but that was the extent of her reveal: “I have three people who could play Christian and I think four who could play Ana, and I’m not going to tell you any of them,” she is quoted saying on the show via The Guardian . She did, however, say that she appears in the book and may pursue being cast in the minor role as a cameo. “I’ve actually written myself into the book. I play a very tiny cameo role and I might try and do that if I’m asked to … we’ll see,” she said, adding, “It’d be interesting to know if people can find me in the books.” Set mostly in Seattle, Fifty Shades of Grey revolves around a virgin college senior who is swept up by a the dashing Christian Grey into an erotic frenzy. No telling how palatable the book’s sexual scenes involving bondage and sadism/masochism will be for producers. Universal optioned the novel for $5 million in March and it will be overseen by the producers of The Social Network , Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti. [ Source: BBC ]
Sweeping into Austin to present Fantastic Fest ’s opening night film Frankenweenie in his signature tinted glasses, director Tim Burton extolled the virtues of one of his most favored art forms: Stop-motion animation. “It’s such a beautiful, rarified medium,” said Burton, who returns to many of his roots — stop motion, black and white film, monster movies, macabre kids tales, and his own 1984 short film of the same name, about a boy who brings his beloved dog back from the grave — in the feature-length October release. Speaking to press alongside producer Alison Abbate and voice cast Charlie Tahan, Winona Ryder , and Martin Landau, Burton waxed nostalgic about his long journey with Frankenweenie . It all started in Burbank, Calif., where the filmmaker grew up, in Burton’s own relationship with his childhood pet. “The dog I had had this disease called distemper and was not meant to live for very long,” Burton said, “but ended up living a long time. There was always this specter of death hanging over it, which as a child you don’t always understand, but growing up Frankenstein movies were sort of your introduction to death. That’s why it seemed like such an easy fit, it seemed quite natural.” Years later as a young employee of Disney, Burton channeled that childhood experience into a live-action short starring Barret Oliver, Shelley Duval, and Daniel Stern; the resulting film, a black-and-white cult classic, got him fired from the studio, who insisted it was too scary for children. How did Burton walk that line in the feature-length version of Frankenweenie , a second go-round with Disney? He didn’t. “I remember when we first did the short and they were going, ‘This is too weird,’ and then they showed Pinocchio and kids were running out screaming in the theater,” he recalled. “Disney founded its company on having things that were scary and I think people forget that. To me, this was really safe. I never was worried about it because they’re little puppets, for God’s sake.” Ryder, who starred in Burton’s Beetlejuice , voices hero Vincent Frankenstein’s next door neighbor, a quiet but sympathetic little goth girl named Elsa. The visual resemblance is strong in itself, but Ryder deliberately conjured the spirit of her Beetlejuice character for the part. “I drew on a little bit on my character Lydia from Beetlejuice ,” she explained. “I imagined her as a little girl — and also I imagined what Tim was like at that age, that sort of shy but super creative.” According to Ryder, Burton coached her during the Frankenweenie production in a similar fashion to when they worked together over twenty years ago. “Tim actually used some of the same direction and same words that he used the first time on Beetlejuice , which was just to keep it very real,” said Ryder. As for the Beetlejuice sequel that Burton is developing, don’t expect any updates just yet. “A writer’s writing it,” Burton allowed, “but I just said ‘Surprise me, so I don’t know when it’s coming, if it’s going to be any good, whatever.” Frankenweenie is in theaters October 5. Stay tuned for more from Fantastic Fest! Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
It says something about how the LAPD tends to get portrayed in the movies that when Officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Peña) are introduced on screen at the beginning of the surprising cop drama End of Watch , it feels like it’s only a matter of time before they plant evidence on someone, steal drugs or money, beat or kill someone without warrant or let loose with something terribly racist. The film is, after, the latest from David Ayer, who wrote and directed Street Kings and scripted Training Day , two features that portrayed Los Angeles law enforcement as morally compromised at best and violently corrupt at worst. That sense of apprehension carries through an opening scene in which Taylor and Zavala shoot two suspects down in what appears to be legitimate self-defense. (They’re cleared of any wrongdoing and roll back onto the street on patrol.) The two cops are cocky and funny and young, and it still takes a good half hour to accept that they may be as forthright and dedicated to their jobs as they appear to be. End of Watch is a Millennial police drama. It’s a generation or two removed from Rodney King and the Rampart scandal, and Ayer manages to give a startling sense of a changing of the LAPD guard as well as the forces they’re up against. Its main characters are tough but not yet jaded cops who bicker with affectionate familiarity about race and make obligatory gay jokes that lack the sting of homophobia. The longstanding L.A. battle against gang violence is ongoing, but lurking behind it is a new and more frightening enemy: the Sinaloa Cartel, onto whose ominous dealings Taylor and Zavala stumble more times than is good for their health. The film’s found footage aesthetic also speaks to its refreshing next-gen spirit. Taylor and Zavala blithely record themselves on the job — even though fellow officer Orozco (America Ferrera) warns them their footage can be subpoenaed and used against them should something go wrong — for the night school film class that Taylor’s taking for a pre-law program arts requirement. Both he and his partner pin cameras to their uniforms and mount the camcorder on the front of their black and white (and we witness some stomach-churning car chases from that perspective). It’s a pretty standard police drama technique, but like Chronicle earlier this year, the conceit that most of what we’re seeing was filmed by the characters on screen is only a loose one, allowed to drop away when it might interfere. Mostly, the self-documentation is a way of letting us get to know the central pair, who sometimes offer asides or explanations to the camera and who don’t feel they have anything to hide. End of Watch is fond of Taylor and Zavala almost to a fault — a scene early on in which the latter puts his weapons aside to fistfight a belligerent gang member, earning his respect in the process, feels ridiculous even as it establishes the partners’ frat-boy delight in their work. Fortunately, the two characters are easily likable — Gyllenhaal looks more comfortable on screen than he has in years — whether they’re busting each other’s balls or discoursing on marriage. Zavala is married to his high-school sweetheart Gabby (Natalie Martinez) while Taylor is getting serious about Janet (Anna Kendrick). The film is shaped around the two cops rather than around much of a plot and offers a heightened slice of the contemporary lives of law-enforcement officers assigned to a rough area of the city. It’s a depiction that includes some stirringly tense encounters with a cracked-out mother unable to find her children, and an ex-con whose encounter with fellow cop Van Hauser (David Harbour) and his rookie partner goes gruesomely wrong. Taylor and Zavala aren’t the only ones with access to recording equipment. One of the film’s most interesting aspects is that it also includes the self-documentation of the Curbside Gang, who are run by Big Evil (Maurice Compte) and kept in line by the swaggering female thug La La (Yahira Garcia). Everyone’s the star of their own movie, particularly when they’re holding the cameras, and End of Watch depicts a gang-on-gang drive-by from both sides: While the primarily black Bloods barbecue and commiserate about getting driven out of their neighborhood by the growing Mexican community, the Latino Curbsiders roll up and open fire on them. It’s only the cartel point of view that goes unrepresented, and its appearances provide End of Watch with its most memorably haunting yet bothersome scenes: stacked body parts in a darkened house, jewel-encrusted handguns, people locked away behind chicken wire like animals. When we see the cartel handiwork through Taylor and Zavala’s eyes, it looks demonic, apocalyptic and incomprehensible compared to the street skirmishes that they’re used to tamping down. And though the real-life cartels have shown themselves to be capable of all this and worse, the near-supernatural way in which they’re depicted in End of Watch doesn’t mesh with the film’s otherwise matter-of-fact sensibility and its warts-and-all adoration of the cops it portrays. Unlike the gang members, addicts and vicious ex-cons, who are all shown to be vividly human, the cartels are left to be symbolic — a metaphor for dread of terrible things coming that even the most devoted enforces of order won’t be able to handle. 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Also in Thursday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, upcoming New York Film Festival debut Frances Ha gets a buyer. The Rome Film Festival will debut a new section with a film by a quartet of auteurs. Any Day Now and Alex Gibney ‘s The Last Gladiators heads to theaters. And Focus Features welcomes a new executive vice president. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln To Close AFI Fest The world premiere of the forthcoming film will close the AFI Fest November 8th at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the drama focuses on the tumultuous final months in office of the 16th President of the United States. DreamWorks Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox title (in association with Participant Media) will open in limited release November 9th and go wide November 16th. The 26th AFI Fest will take place November 1 – 8 in Los Angeles. For the fourth year, AFI Fest will off free tickets for all its screenings, though only package holders will be able to reserve seats for the Lincoln closing night gala. Robert Redford to Fete Roger Ebert The Sundance Institute founder will honor film critic Roger Ebert with the Vanguard Leadership Award in “recognition of his advocacy of independent cinema.”The award presentation will take place at the third annual ‘Celebrate Sundance Institute’ benefit, chaired by Institute Trustee Lyn Lear and her husband, Norman, on June 5, 2013 in Los Angeles. “Among the many things I admire about Roger Ebert is how he has long supported freedom of artistic expression,” said Redford in a statement. “When I started Sundance in 1980, and when few would support us, Roger was there. This was one of the ways he communicated his forward-thinking outlook. He was one of the first to support our artists. His influence and reach is as meaningful as his personal passion for cinema, and he certainly deserves this award.” Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig’s Frances Ha Heads to Theaters in the Americas Ahead of its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, IFC Films picked up rights to the Telluride/Toronto debut Frances Ha , starring Greta Gerwig. The film centers on Frances, a New Yorke dance apprentice without her own apartment. She splits with her best friend Sophie, but throws herself into her dreams even as her possibilities dwindle. The film is a modern-comic fable that explores New York friendships, class, ambition, failure and redemption. Arianna Bocco negotiated the deal for Frances Ha from UTA on behalf of the filmmakers. Rome Film Festival to Debut Centro Histórico by European Auteurs The world premiere of the collaboration by Aki Kaurismäki, Pedro Costa, Victor Erice and Manoel de Oliveira will open the Cinema XXI, the new section of the festival that spotlights “new trends and new languages in international cinema.” The film explores the stories for modern-day Guimarães, the founding city of Portugal. Any Day Now Heads to North American Theaters Based on a true story and starring Alan Cumming and Garret Dillahunt, the film is set in the late 1970s about a mentally handicapped teen who is abandoned and is taken in by a gay couple. Music Box Films acquired the title and plans a release this December. Louis Phillips Joins Focus Features Phillips joins the specialty distributor as Executive Vice President, Physical Production. Based in the company’s West Coast office, he’ll oversee physical production and post-production on all in-house film productions and outside acquisitions. Alex Gibney’s The Last Gladiators Heads to U.S. & Canadian Theaters Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s The Last Gladiators , which explores “the goon,” Ice Hockey’s players who have only one mission: to protect the star players at any price. Phase 4 Films which picked up rights to the documentary, will roll out the film in Canada in October, followed by a U.S. release in early 2013. Phase 4’s Larry Greenberg and Sam Posner with Josh Braun from Submarine and Anne Atkinson from Pryor Cashman LLP on behalf of the filmmakers.
Also in Wednesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, recent Toronto International Film Festival Gala Inescapable is headed to U.S. theaters. Tech and media moguls are among Forbes ‘ list of America’s richest individuals. And, an actress of the video at the center of rage among some Muslims worldwide, Innocence of Muslims is suing the film’s producer and YouTube. Tom Hanks’ Saving Mr. Banks Heads into Production in L.A. The story is an account of Walt Disney’s twenty-year pursuit of the film rights to P.L. Travers’ popular novel, Mary Poppins , and the testy partnership he develops with the uptight author during the project’s pre-production in 1961. Two-time Academy Award®-winner Tom Hanks will portray Disney (the first time he has ever been depicted in a dramatic film) alongside fellow double Oscar®-winner Emma Thompson in the role of the prickly novelist. Daniel Craig, Quentin Tarantino Among BAFTA Los Angeles Honorees Craig, Tarantino along with Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Will Wright will be among the recipients of the 2012 BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards on November 7th. Craig will receive the Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year, while BAFTA Award-winning director Quentin Tarantino will receive the John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, will receive the Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy. Video game designer Will Wright will receive the Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Entertainment. Inescapable Heads to U.S. Theaters The thriller starring Alexander Siddig, Joshua Jackson and Marisa Tomei screened as a Gala at the recent Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by Canadian-based filmmaker Ruba Nadda ( Cairo Time ), Inescapable revolves around a Syrian expatriate (Siddig) whose journalist daughter goes missing in Damascus. He returns to his homeland to find her, despite the risks, and calls on a former love (Tomei) to help him, as well as an embassy official (Jackson) who is helpful at first, but may have an agenda of his own. IFC Films acquired the title from Myriad Pictures. Alliance Films is distributing in Canada. Around the ‘net… Forbes’ List of Richest Americans Filled with Tech and Media Moguls America’s richest man is still Bill Gates (at $66 billion) followed by Warren Buffet ($46 billion). Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg fell to 36th on the list, tying with News Corp’s Rupert Mrudoch at $9.4 billion. Others on the list, David Geffen (57th at $5.6 billion), Viacom and CBS chairman Sumner Redstone (91st at $4.1 billion), George Lucas (120th at $3.3 billion) and Steven Spielberg (125th at $3.2 billion), Deadline reports . Innocence of Muslims Actress Sues Producer and YouTube Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress at the firestorm of controversy throughout the Muslim world igniting violent demonstrations has filed a complaint in L.A. Superior Court agains the film’s producer, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (aka Sam Bacile) saying she was duped into appearing in the film. She is also going after YouTube and its owner Google for refusing to take the video down, THR reports .
In her new memoir My Mother Was Nuts , actress-comedienne-filmmaker Penny Marshall writes of her remarkable life: Growing up the youngest of three in The Bronx, she had a daughter followed brother Garry into showbiz, got famous as one-half of Laverne & Shirley , got married twice, got divorced twice, opened her home to friends like John Belushi, Carrie Fisher, Steven Spielberg, and Robert De Niro, and became the first female director to break the $100 million mark with 1988’s Big , also notching films like Awakenings , A League Of Their Own , Renaissance Man , and The Preacher’s Wife along the way. Ringing Movieline to discuss her baldly honest, often hilarious memoir — which also reveals darker times, recreational drug use, an abortion, an on-set miscarriage — Marshall explained why she set out to write her life story to begin with: “You want to set the record straight on certain things, because there are so many rumors.” Among them: Her dramatic backstage relationship with Laverne & Shirley co-star Cindy Williams and her recent lung cancer and brain tumor diagnosis. “The rags still say ‘She’s dying,'” she laughed, emphasizing that her health has improved and she’s ready for the next project. “But I dodged a major bullet.” You’ve really lived such a fantastic life. I’ve really been very lucky and fortunate. And I appreciate that! There comes a time when you give back, you know, so I do a lot of that stuff when I can. Why was now the right time to write your memoirs? Well, my brother just finished his second book, and so I figured well, since the rags have me dying every couple of months… [Laughs] That’s not helping me get work! Someone suggested it, and my friend Carrie Fisher’s a writer, so I went, well, I’ll try it. Did you take to it naturally? No. I did a lot of stream of consciousness, but I talked into a tape recorder — and it’s hard to understand me, I understand that. I do go off on tangents sometime. But I talked into a tape recorder then had it transcribed. I have a terrible memory when it comes to recalling my childhood, but you have such vivid memories of your experience growing up in The Bronx, in what seemed like a very special neighborhood that turned out so many talented people . It was a very working class neighborhood. Everyone worked; my mother was the only woman who worked. Mostly the dads worked, but my mother was a tap dancing teacher. It was a very colorful neighborhood, and it had a good work ethic for some reason — or maybe everyone wanted to get out of there! One or the other. There was so much of a sense of community, of family, throughout your life — family related by blood, a familial network of friends. It feels so special and rare, the group of people you surrounded yourself with. Well there’s more to life than show business, you know? Family and friends are part of your life, and sometimes life takes a priority over a job, or a business. And so those that you remain friends with, I think it’s important to fulfill your life. I don’t think just doing a movie fulfills your entire life — it’s important to have people around you that you like, you enjoy, you can do things with. Looking at your career, it’s so interesting to see how directing kind of just fell into your lap. You had such success in front of the camera, and all of a sudden comes a directing career. And you first learned from Spielberg, of all people! Well he was always encouraging. He’d come over to the house and see me doing jigsaw puzzles, which I had an addiction to, and he’d say, “That’s editing.” And then he’d see me talk to all these neurotic guys. He’d say [whispering] “That’s directing.” You have to hold their hand, and tell them what to do. I never said I wanted to direct; I had done a couple of Laverne & Shirley ’s but everyone did. Cindy [Williams] did! Michael McKean! The script girl! Anyone around! Who wants to direct this week? You bore witness to so many changes in the industry, on both sides of the camera, over your career. The way television works now compared to how it was made back in the Laverne & Shirley days… there was so much more freedom and looseness then. Well remember, there were only three channels! Now there are so many channels and so many reality shows that I don’t really watch, because they’re cheap. I don’t mind if there’s a game or a contest; I don’t mind American Idol . I don’t mind The Amazing Race . There’s a contest involved! But just people blabbing and fighting with each other… although Mob Wives did get me. They made me laugh. But that’s what they do. There are 20 people sitting watching monitors. Why don’t you watch the actors, they’re there! I watch the actors. I use a monitor to fill out a screen, but I’m watching the actor — and I have a strange memory. I’m in a wedding scene, I say “That lady was up here, she can’t be back there.” I have this strange memory, I remember what we shot. Before we hit the clacker, the slate, he said something — we could use it. But times have changed. The economy stinks, the whole world’s gone mad, so it’s a little difficult as far as it was simpler back then. I mean, the writers worked their butts off but any actors, you always wanted better, you know? And I don’t know what they do now. They all watch a monitor. You’re pretty honest about the role that nepotism played in your career, getting you in the door through your brother Garry. But you also talk about the idea of “giving someone a life” — paying it forward, giving someone new an opportunity to do with what they can. Do you feel like that sentiment still exists in Hollywood today? No. [Laughs] Everyone needs a life right now! But I think it’s important to give back, to give someone a life. I help take care of this kid, Germain, who’s in a wheelchair. He calls me Mommy Penny, because his mother was not so good. She moved while he was in the hospital because she wouldn’t take care of him. But he’s going to college. He got an apartment. I got him an air conditioner. May I ask how your health is these days? My health is fine, not good. I dodged a big bullet, even though the rags still say “She’s dying” and they have the wrong thing wrong with me. But I dodged a major bullet. And I’m the only one who gained 60 lbs. and got hard nails from it! You’re fortified! A strange constitution, I have. Maybe because I went through everything. [Laughs] You really have. And you’re so open in your book about them all: Marriages, divorces, abortion, miscarriage, illness. Yet your spirit seems to be so buoyant throughout. Whenever anything terrible happens, I stay very calm. I’m a Libra, what can I tell ya? [Laughs] It has to balance out. But if someone’s going crazy, I’m very calm. Or if I’m sick, I’m calm. Nothing hurt me [when first diagnosed with cancer]. I had no idea what they were talking about. So I ordered White Castle.
Robert Downey, Jr. is certainly an It boy at the moment after a summer of Avengers (and more on the way) as well as his current project, Iron Man 3 . Now it appears that he and Jude Law are ready to take on another installment of Sherlock Holmes , but Law said that while the pair are into the idea of a return to the eccentric British detective saga, “but Downey’s a busy boy…” Theoretically, Warner Bros. would be into a third match-up as well. The first installment in which Downey plays the title character, while Law takes on the role of Dr. John Watson, pulled in a massive $209 million-plus – and that was just in the U.S. The 2011 follow-up (both directed by Guy Ritchie incidentally) still cashed in with an impressive nearly $187 million domestically (and well-over a half-billion dollars worldwide). So will it happen or not? Jude Law gave some insight, as reported by Metro in the U.K. “There’s certainly talk of it and I know there’s a script being played around with, but Downey’s a busy boy and I’m a busy boy so we’ll see,” he said. “But we want to [do another one]. We’re a very happy team and we have a lot of fun and we also think there’s still a lot of legs in the duo.” Apparently Iron Man 3 writer Drew Pearce was tapped to complete a script for the possible third installment. Law is currently promoting his latest film, Anna Karenina where it debuted last at the Toronto International Film Festival. [Source: Metro ]
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