George Takei has been beamed out of Celebrity Apprentice. After Donald Trump served up arguably the competition’s most difficult challenge for the celebrity teams yet, the fan-favorite contestant became the casualty. With a fashion-related challenge, the 0-for-2 women’s team (which has two models as members) finally won their first challenge to get the zero off the board. In the boardroom, Takei ended up paying the price. Sunday’s assignment was to create two living window displays at Lord & Taylor to promote Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump’s clothing line … convenient. The teams were judged in three areas: creativity, brand message and overall presentation. The women’s team project manager? Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza. The men’s manager? Takei. The deck was stacked on this one. The men spent a lot of time complaining about Takei’s leadership (Clay Aiken even called his leader “slower”) while the women’s team benefited from Aubrey O’Day. In addition to Mendoza leading the way, O’Day came up with the concept and took over a lot of the planning, helping key a demonstrative win for the females. Takei brought Lou Ferrigno and Arsenio Hall into the boardroom, where both blamed his lack of leadership … at which point George threw himself under the bus. It wasn’t exactly a surprise to see Takei fired at that point. Just sad. Next week, Trump says he’s firing two celebrities. Who should go next? What did you think of Sunday’s episode? Were you sad/shocked to see Takei fired?
Lamar Odom is on his way back to the NBA. The Dallas Mavericks star – who had volunteered to play a game in the D League in order to get back into shape after missing a week of action for personal reasons – will suit up tonight for a game against the Utah Jazz. And he has a lot to prove to Coach Rick Carlisle. “Our fans want to know that Lamar’s in,” Carlisle told ESPN Dallas 103.3. “Our players want to know that Lamar’s in. It’s not about how many points he’s scoring or rebounds; those things are a factor. Our fans, our players want to see the guy playing like his pants are on fire and we haven’t seen that so far and that’s got to change.” Don’t worry, though, Rick, Khloe Kardashian Tweeted late this week that she’s “putting fantastic vibes out into the universe. Vibes do your thing.” So everything will be fine.
General Zod ‘has some cool speeches,’ actor tells MTV News at Independent Spirit Awards. By Kevin P. Sullivan, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Michael Shannon at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images We know that we can expect at least somewhat of a revisionist take on Superman when ” Man of Steel ” hits theaters next year, but a tap-dancing General Zod? If Michael Shannon is to be believed, Superman’s Kryptonian nemesis could be borrowing a thing or two from the 2012 Oscars Best Picture winner. On Saturday, at the biggest ceremony for independent film, the Independent Spirit Awards , Shannon arrived in support of his nominated film ” Take Shelter ,” and stopped to speak with MTV News about his upcoming role as a super-villain. For one of next year’s biggest movies, we’ve seen next to nothing officially from Zack Snyder’s reboot, but as one of the lucky few working on the film, Shannon has been privy to the top-secret info we’ve all craved. “I saw the dance sequence, but that’s it, just because I have to match the moves,” Shannon joked — we hope. We could even see a silent, black-and-white, song-and-dance film
Aubrey O’Day and Debbie Gibson tell MTV News they ‘didn’t get along in the beginning.’ By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Kelly Marino Aubrey O’Day and Debbie Gibson Photo: MTV News This Sunday, a slew of celebrities will backstab and cat fight their way to the top of the heap when “Celebrity Apprentice” kicks off its new season. Considering who made the cut — a Gotti, a real housewife, several comedians and a few pop stars — drama will certainly ensue. MTV News had the pleasure of catching up with Debbie Gibson and former Danity Kane singer Aubrey O’Day, who revealed how they went from enemies to besties while shooting the show. “I was somewhat familiar, but I was a little bit of a victim of perception,” Gibson said about O’Day, who is best known for her drama-filled run on MTV’s “Making the Band.” “I knew Aubrey’s persona, but not really a lot about her; I try not to judge anybody until I meet them anyway.” “I had Debbie Gibson, of course, on my iPod, and if I didn’t have it on my iPod, I heard every one of her songs during the entire show,” O’Day joked. While the two ladies are good pals now, O’Day recalls when that wasn’t the case. “We didn’t get along in the beginning; it wasn’t disrespectful,” she teased. “She was always singing all the time; it got on my nerves, but then we really got along. It’s like a distant memory now.” Gibson, who owned up to being the “obnoxious singing girl,” recalled when the two finally started to relate to each other. “There was an episode where we saw eye-to-eye over somebody else that was agitating both of us. So we bonded over that. We were kind of like ‘Oh my god! We’re on the same page after all.’ ” O’Day describes both girls as having Type-A personalities, making it easy for them to eventually bury the hatchet. “What I like about Aubrey is we kind of didn’t care that we didn’t jell. … We were being real about it,” Gibson said. “And then we were able to get over it.” Hosted by Donald Trump, the show will also feature “American Idol” season two runner-up Clay Aiken, racecar driver Michael Andretti, TV and radio personality Adam Carolla, actor Lou Ferrigno, former talk-show host Arsenio Hall, magician Penn Jillette, rocker Dee Snider, “Star Trek” actor George Takei, “American Chopper” star Paul Teutul Sr., actress Tia Carrere, “Real Housewives” castmember Teresa Giudice, Victoria Gotti of “Growing Up Gotti,” comedian Lisa Lampanelli, model and actress Cheryl Tiegs, Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza, and actress and model Patricia Velasquez. The celebrity winner will earn $250,000 for the charity of their choice. Who are you rooting for on “Celebrity Apprentice”? Leave your comment below!
‘It’s personal, sweet and really sad at the same time,’ actress Jasika Nicole tells MTV News of her upcoming ‘Fringe’ episode. By Josh Wigler Jasika Nicole on “Fringe” Photo: FOX There’s a running gag on ” Fringe ” about good-natured FBI agent Astrid Farnsworth: Even though she spends almost all her screen time assisting and taking care of the delightfully delirious Walter Bishop, the kooky scientist can never quite remember her name. “Aspirin,” he’s called her, or “Asteroid” or any other number of “A” names. Sadly, fans can relate to Walter’s repeated mistake. Sweet and mysterious though she may be, the alluring Astrid is relegated to supporting status so often that it’s far too easy to forget her name. But that all changes with “Making Angels,” the new episode of “Fringe” airing Friday (February 3). Forget Olivia, Walter and Peter — this one is all about Astrid. Actress Jasika Nicole, who plays Astrid on “Fringe,” spoke with MTV News about both versions of her character taking center stage in “Making Angels,” the challenges of merging two versions of the same person for the first time and much more. MTV : We’ve been waiting forever for the Astrid episode of “Fringe.” What took so long? Jasika Nicole : I’ve been waiting so hard and long, just like the fans have! [ Laughs. ] I don’t know why it took so long. It would be one thing if it seemed like Astrid didn’t have a lot of fan support and people aren’t interested, but I feel like fans have been begging to learn and see more of this character. I don’t know for the life of me why it took so long. At the beginning of the season, I called [“Fringe” show-runners Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman] and said, “I want you guys to know that I’m so happy on this show, but I would really, really love to know if there’s an Astrid episode coming up. It would really give me something to look forward to.” They were super vague about it. And I assumed that whenever she did get her episode, it would be a situation where Astrid figures out [the episode’s mystery] at the last minute, or everyone’s on LSD and she has to go out and save the day. That would be an easy way out. But I’ll tell you, I was really surprised with the episode. It’s so beautiful. It’s personal, it’s sweet, and it’s really sad at the same time. I don’t know why it took so long. But I think all the support the episode has been getting is going to make them feel really crappy that they didn’t do this sooner. [ Laughs. ] MTV : You’ve always been vocal about who Astrid is and what she’s about. For the audience, though, we’ve had to piece things together: You get a bit of Astrid here and there, but she’s not at the forefront the way Olivia and Peter are. When you got your episode, did Astrid measure up to your vision of her? How did the episode change your perspective on the character? Nicole : I think [the writers and I] were on the same page. But before with Astrid, we just got the CliffsNotes version of her. She’s kind, thoughtful and a great caretaker. The other Astrid is very smart and she’s a little bit vacant in terms of emotional relationships and isn’t the best communicator. That was kind of it. You didn’t know anything about her family, what it’s like when she got home … it was just overviews of these two characters. But this episode delves into them much more. You see to what extent this Astrid is a caretaker. She does something that’s just really beautiful. She’s such a sweet, caring, sincere woman. It made Astrid seem like a real person. Before, you see her taking care of Walter. She laugh at his jokes and there’s this weird husband-wife, father-daughter thing going on. [ Laughs. ] But now we get to see her in relation to someone who is not Walter. It’s the first time in the four seasons we’ve really seen her interact with another person and putting herself out there so much. The alternate Astrid has been a little one-note because you’ve only seen her at work, very focused on her job. She delivers her information and that’s pretty much it. But the truth is, she has a life and she has a family. Something traumatic happens where she comes from in that universe, and she’s so distraught and incapable of handling what’s going on by herself, that she comes to this universe to seek out our Astrid. That’s definitely a side of her you’ve never seen before. I always wanted to know what she’s like in personal situations instead of professional ones. You get to see that. This episode is really about alt-Astrid. MTV : One of the beauties of “Fringe” is that we get multiple versions of the same character — even though they’re literally the same person, they’re very different in many ways. With the two Astrids coming face to face in this episode, how do those differences and similarities come into play? Nicole : What’s interesting about having an alternate universe is trying to figure out where your paths went differently. What went on here that didn’t go on there? Why aren’t we the exact same person? With the Astrids, it’s a little different because they’re fundamentally different to the core — possibly at a genetic level, if you’re of the theory [that alt-Astrid is on the autism spectrum]. That changes your relationships with your family members, which is something that’s essential to the story of this episode. Not only are the two Astrids different, they’re so different that they have different relationships with the people in their lives. They’re the only constant. Everybody around them is different, but this connection that they have is the only solid thing that they have between them. That’s going to help the alternate Astrid to figure out what’s going on in her life in this crazy, tumultuous time. MTV : “Making Angels” isn’t just the first Astrid-centric episode of “Fringe,” it’s also your first chance to get in on some of the fun your co-stars have been having: acting opposite yourself for pretty much the entire episode. On one hand, that’s got to be pretty cool. On the other, it has to be pretty tricky, right? Nicole : You’re right, it was a double-whammy. It’s like you’re sticking two days into one. You have to know exactly what you’re going to do, you have to know so well how you’re going to play those characters in the beginning of those scenes. It takes a lot of foresight. The emotional part is really tough, but then there’s the technical stuff. You have to stand and make sure your outline is the same every time. There’s a point where [the two Astrids] shake hands, and I could not for the life of me figure out how they were going to make it work. It’s too big of a concept for me to grasp. But what was really cool is that they were able to merge the split screens on the monitors in video village, so they were watching it in real time. I’m doing it with my stand-in, but they’re watching both Jasikas on the screen. At one point, we’d been doing this one scene for like eight hours or something. We were tired. It was a big scene with two Olivias in it, two Astrids, Walter and Peter. There’s all this stuff going on. We ended up not being able to finish the green screen that night. We had to come back and finish the next day. But they only needed to stick me in the scene. There are four or five other characters in the scene, but they’re just filming me in front of the green screen playing off of dialogue that we had recorded the day before. Because we had done it for eight hours, I knew it like the back of my hand. I smiled at imaginary jokes being pulled, I watched imaginary people walking in — it was just so surreal. It’s like you’re playing a pretend game while you’re drunk by yourself, but there are people watching you do it! [ Laughs. ] Nothing about it makes sense, but the end result is phenomenal. The new episode of “Fringe,” “Making Angels,” airs Friday (February 3) at 9 p.m. ET. Check out everything we’ve got on “Fringe.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
I found 2011 to be a great, overstuffed year in film, though the sweeping trend of nostalgia that peaked during this awards season left me a little cold. Hugo , War Horse , The Artist , The Adventures of Tintin , The Help , even the self-aware looking back of Midnight in Paris — when it’s been such a turbulent 12 months beyond the movies, the comfort of evoking the past, especially the cinephilic past, is understandable, particularly with attendance down once again. But the features I really loved tended to be more prickly, vital affairs, about tragedy and life messily, stubbornly going on in its aftermath — ones that reminded us that film can not only be a great escape, but can also engage and reflect the outside world. 10. Shame Steve McQueen’s sophomore effort took flack from some who found it moralizing in its portrayal of sex addiction, but it’s not a film about a condition, it’s a film about damage. Michael Fassbender plays a man who’s left a traumatic childhood behind and has shored himself up in the city that never sleeps with an immaculate condo and a high-powered job that almost hide his underlying desperation and his inability to connect or open up to anyone on anything other than a physical level. It’s one of the loneliest portraits of urban living I’ve ever seen. 9. Warrior The neglected blockbuster of our Occupy Wall Street era, Warrior drapes Rocky trappings over characters and settings more immediate than you’d ever expect at a multiplex. Its two brothers, in what should have been star-making turns from Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton, head to the cage after taking beatings elsewhere — one’s left the Marines on less than ideal terms after the death of colleague, the other’s upside down on his mortgage and unable to support his family on a teacher’s salary. Add to that the fact that the tournament in which they both compete was started by a former Wall Street type putting up the money to see “who the toughest man on the planet is,” and you have a rousing, violent fight film with a seriously bittersweet edge. 8. The Arbor Andrea Dunbar grew up in run-down Bradford council estates, drank heavily, had three kids by different fathers, wrote a trio of acclaimed plays about the life she knew and died at age 29. Clio Barnard’s documentary about the playwright brilliantly stages its interviews as their own performance, lip-synched by actors in the settings in which Dunbar and her children grew up and lived, and offering a piercing glimpse of how tragedy is taken up — her second work Rita, Sue and Bob Too was made into a film directed by Alan Clarke — and passed down, to her heroin-addicted eldest Lorraine. 7. Certified Copy It’s never clear which part of Juliette Binoche’s antiques dealer and William Shimell’s writer’s relationship is the pretense — are they strangers who play at being married, or a married couple playing at meeting as strangers? The thesis of Shimell’s book may or may not line up with that of Abbas Kiarostami’s film — the relationship between art and reproduction, original and copy — but the figuring out, and the slippery nature of the connection the pair on screen, is delicious. 6. The Tree of Life It’s a film about a family that stretches from the beginning of the universe to a possible vision of the afterlife — if it may not be wholly lovable, its ambition alone should earn respect. But it’s the evocative immersion on childhood that lingered with me after Terrence Malick’s more grandiose imagery had faded, the tactile sense of that Texas street, the house, the endless possibility, uncertainty and wonder of being young and new to the world, the flashes of memory — the offering of a drink to a prisoner, the caress of a baby’s foot, the goading of a younger sibling to touch a light socket — that break up the more iconic moments with startling specificity. 5. Margaret Messy, vivid and wonderful, Kenneth Lonergan’s difficult production has become a critics’ cause, in part because of how tough it’s been to actually see. It’s worth the trouble, and in some ways better because of the long wait in reaching the few theaters it did — it now looks less like a movie about post-9/11 New York and more one about the city in all of its anonymous, chaotic glory, about a teenage girl’s first horrific brush with mortality and about the strange places that life leads us. 4. Take Shelter Few films have attempted to capture our age of anxiety like Jeff Nichols’s drama, about catastrophic dreams that may be caused by mental illness, but seem just as much to spring from the sense of uncertainty with which we’ve all been infected. Anchored by a stunning performance from Michael Shannon, Take Shelter presents a look at quiet breakdown spurred on by a desire to protect one’s loved ones, and pairs it with frightening scenes of monstrous storms and shadowy attackers that rival any of this year’s horror movies. 3. Into the Abyss Trust Werner Herzog to find stories so strange and moving in a terrible small-town triple murder over an automobile. The Texas of this film is recognizable, but it’s also near-mythic — a place of universally broken families, sudden violence, prison reunions and hard-earned redemption. Taken alone, the interviews with Melyssa Burkett or Jared Tolbert would be enough to make the film. As part of a kaleidoscope of suffering and hope, they’re highlights in something dark, funny and expressly moving about the persistence of human nature in the face of loss. 2. A Separation A marriage falls apart over the decision of whether or not to leave Iran in Asghar Farhadi’s magnificent drama, and encompasses in its disintegration a snapshot of the fractured nation that’s so nuanced, empathetic and complex it quickens the heart. Certainly the smartest film of the year, both as a self-contained work and in the respect it offers the audience, A Separation is unadorned by a score or flashy camera tricks — it doesn’t need them. 1. Melancholia The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference, and in Lars von Trier’s film it’s the awesome force of Kirsten Dunst’s depression-fueled disinterest that exudes a gravitational drag on everyone around here even before the arrival of the destructive planet of the title. Before the breathtaking apocalyptic imagery appears — the object looming closer in the sky, the static sparking from fingertips — Melancholia is already a devastating look at an illness that leaves you unable to connect to what life has to offer, even on an extravagant wedding day that seems to compress half a lifetime into a night. But it’s that the film turns to offer a sympathetic eye to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s anxious sibling in the second half that makes it great, and that gives it a soul. As she struggles to hold everything together in the face of approaching disaster, even Dunst’s depressive is moved to offer her a conciliatory gesture as the world ends. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Traditionally a “guilty pleasure” is something you’d be embarrassed for the world to know you secretly enjoyed or for your Facebook friends to see you clicked on, but you know what? Around here we embrace the bad-to-godawful movies we love, and besides; what the heck does it even mean to like something ironically, you insufferable hipster? Toss away your pretentious hat, sit down in the circle of trust, take a deep breath, and join Movieline in unabashedly celebrating the inane, misguided, off-the-mark, and downright B-A-D but nevertheless shamelessly entertaining movies of the year – the Top 9 Not-So-Guilty Pleasures of 2011 . Because we all love some terrible things, don’t we? 9. Nick Nolte in Zookeeper Maybe I just cribbed from everyone’s Worst Movies of 2011 list. Maybe Nick Nolte’s work as a TGI Friday’s-loving gorilla named Bernie in Zookeeper eclipses his shattering work in Warrior on the basis of its cringe-worthiness alone. And maybe I feel so bad that poor Nolte had to sing Florida’s “Low” in character as a gorilla opposite Kevin James that it’s endeared me to his scenes. Also: Primates instantly make any movie better. Everybody knows that. 8. The year in Armond White-isms Call for his head all you want, I’ll staunchly defend notorious film critic Armond White (The man who once coined the phrase “abortionhorny” and thought Lady Gaga would make for better Lisbeth Salander casting!) to the end, purely because his reviews are so goddamn entertaining. Add to that the iconoclast take on movies, supported by left-field arguments that are sometimes so crazy they make complete sense, and you’ve got an essential voice in contemporary movie writing. Even if he raved over Adam Sandler in drag; let that be an exception. 7. The Footloose soundtrack I have no fondness for Blake Shelton’s feeble country mimicry of a Kenny Loggins cover, but Movieline’s Louis Virtel was won over by the Footloose remake’s contempo-pop soundtrack of redos. They can’t all be Karen O-Led Zeppelin covers, I suppose. Let’s hear it for the art of pop homage done toe-tappingly well enough? 6. Gerard Depardieu PeeGate At first, it seemed like French acting legend Gerard Depardieu, to quote 2011′s viral sensation the Honey Badger, simply did not give a shit. But unlike the year’s other infamous celebrity incidents (Lars and the Nazi Joke Heard ‘Round the Word, Madonna’s HydrangeaGate), this one boiled down to one man’s humble humanity (and prostate issues). So ridiculous was the tale that Anderson Cooper broke his dashing resolve to giggle through his on-air report, but think of Gerard and embrace his moment of weakness; there’s no shame in acknowledging our fragile human vulnerabilities from time to time. 5. Season of the Witch / Drive Angry / Trespass (AKA A Good Year for Nic Cage) I wouldn’t call it a banner year for Nicolas Cage himself, but it was a great year to be a Nic Cage watcher. He started out 2011 with the medieval gift of silliness that was Season of the Witch , guzzled beer from his enemy’s skull in the genre pic Drive Angry , and (with the other Nic – Nicole Kidman) bequeathed us with Joel Schumacher’s Trespass , a film Movieline’s S.T. VanAirsdale loved, and laughed through, unapologetically. All one big set-up to watch him pee fire! 4. Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family My personal conversion to the church of Tyler Perry happened earlier this year when I found myself rolling in the aisles during Madea’s Big Happy Family . Is Perry’s Madea a cartoonish, hulking hurricane of a woman? Does she reinforce unfortunate cultural stereotypes even as she doles out totally reasonable life advice? All I know is Perry – the performer, the director, the check-cashing media tycoon (and sensitive man of the world) – is some kind of genius to have made an empire out of a wig, a muumuu, and an attitude, one that further allows him a pedestal from which he geniunely consoles and encourages his fans. Hallelujer, indeed. 3. Lonely Island’s “Jack Sparrow” All you need to know, if you don’t already, is that Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg, and Akiva Shaffer – AKA Lonely Island – wrote an inspired ditty and snared icon of yesteryear Michael Bolton to sing the hook. Only ginormous film fan Michael Bolton turned it into a song about Pirates of the Caribbean , Forrest Gump , and all of his favorite movies — an ode to the cheesy, cliched movies we all love. Instant karaoke classic. 2. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Love it or hate it, the Twilight Saga is what it is. And when Robert Pattinson started chowing down on Kristen Stewart’s pregnant belly in the kooky denouement of Bill Condon’s vampire sequel, shit started getting so, so real. AND THEN THE WOLF GUY FELL FOR THE BABY AND OH MY GOD YES. 1. Abduction Speaking of Twilight , the universe that Stephenie Meyer created inadvertently led, in turn, to my number one most enjoyable film experience of the year: Sitting through the entirety of Abduction . Terrible line readings, second unit typos, Taylor Lautner’s posturing ’80s action-inspired swagger – it was all there, and it was all insanely terrible and great at the same time. Does this border on liking Abduction ironically? Maybe, but I couldn’t help it. Just know this: Every second of feeble-handed acting, directing, and writing held my attention rapt and engaged my senses; I came alive imagining the winding thicket of talent, dollars, and choices that could’ve churned out such a product. Was any of it intentional – was John Singleton just fucking with us all? Probably not, but still; this holiday season give yourself the gift of watching Abduction and soak in the glory of the ultimate Bad Movie We Love of 2011. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Exciting news for fans of Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi series Ender’s Game : Harrison Ford has officially joined the cast as Hyrum Graff, the manipulative colonel responsible for training students in a futuristic military academy called Battle School. Harrison joins fellow cast members Abigail Breslin, Hailee Steinfeld and Asa Butterfield, who will star as Ender, a gifted strategist hired by the government to help combat an alien race in the film adaptation from Wolverine director Gavin Hood . Breslin will play Ender’s older sister and Steinfeld will assume the role of Petra Arkanian, Ender’s trusted confidante and mentor. The expected blockbuster is slated for a 2013 release. Ender’s Game fans, do you approve of this casting?
What a momentous week for Ralph Fiennes — the august British thespian turns 49 today and lands at No. 7 on my list of the year’s best performances , therefore knocking Elizabeth Olsen out of the top 10 — ouch! Let’s keep his parade of good times rolling with a quick debate over his best onscreen moment. I dare you to disagree with mine. I’m of the opinion that Ralph Fiennes’s towering work as the odious Amon Goeth in Schindler’s List deserved an Oscar over Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive , but I’ll save that furious monologue for another day. My single favorite Fiennes moment is in Quiz Show , Robert Redford’s keenly observed morality tale set against the corruption of the game show cheating scandals of the 1950s. It presents with one alluring and conflicted character in lecturer-turned-liar Charles Van Doren (Fiennes), who eats up his stage time with gusto. Just fabulous. Start at the 4:00 mark, after competitor Herbert Stempel (John Turturro) takes a dive on the easiest Oscar question. If only Movieline writers were eligible to play Twenty-One in the ’50s — we’d rack up points and snappy retorts by the dozen. Have a different choice. The Constant Gardener ? Schindler’s List ? The English Patient ? Contribute your wrongness below.
In the decade or so since Nick Frost first made a name for himself on the BBC comedy series Spaced , much has happened. For starters, he’s not waiting tables at that Mexican restaurant. He’s moved with ease from television to film, most famously in genre riffs Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (with Spaced comrades Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg ), and in the alien geek ode Paul (which he co-wrote and stars in with Pegg). Also notably, Frost has ventured out from the fold in films like Pirate Radio and the forthcoming Snow White and the Huntsman . And, with this week’s The Adventures of Tintin , he notches another milestone: Working with his hero, Steven . Steven Spielberg . Frost, Wright, and Pegg may be stretching their wings a bit after coming to prominence as “The Guys Who Made Spaced / Shaun of the Dead / Hot Fuzz /Etc.” but they all come together, with buddy Joe Cornish (whose directing debut, this year’s Attack the Block , features Frost as a dope dealer), in Spielberg’s motion-capture adventure adaptation Tintin — Wright and Cornish scripting, with Pegg and Frost as the comically bumbling Scotland Yard detectives Thomson and Thompson. Movieline spoke with Pegg in New York about his ten years since Spaced , maintaining the Wright-Pegg “unit” while establishing himself as his own entity, his directorial aspirations, working on the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman , completing the “Blood and Ice Cream” trilogy, how he really feels about Indiana Jones 4 , and why he missed his first phone call from Spielberg for a very, very good reason. You, along with Simon, got to do a riff on Star Wars , he’s in Star Trek , and now you’re working with Spielberg… What was the riff on Star Wars — the College Humor thing we did? Yes, in which you betrayed a deep, deep knowledge of the Star Wars universe. I was quite impressed with my sad droid noise. Do you want me to do it for you? Please! [Makes mewling R2-D2 noise] It’s so evocative. Yeah, it is! It’s just one little noise and you think, he’s crying! He’s sad . That’s what that noise says. So what remains to cross off of your geek bucket list? I don’t know, what have we had — zombies… have there been any ghosts? Aliens, we’ve had a space ship. I don’t know, I think I’d like to do lots and lots of things but I’m not necessarily going to glue myself to the genre side of it. I think it’d be quite daft to do that. I think it’s possible to have your cake and eat it, and we’ve been very lucky that we have been allowed to do what we want. And now, because of that, we are able to branch out — Simon doing Mission: Impossible , Edgar doing Scott Pilgrim , and this… We’re pretty lucky. Looking back, it has been about 10 years since the end of Spaced , and the three of you have come so far since then. Yeah, right? I was just saying, it was like 10 years ago I was serving shitty food to fucking horrible businessmen in a Mexican restaurant… Wait — during Spaced ? Yeah, after the first series I went back to work there. That was quite odd. Sometimes people would ask for the bill and then say, “Are you Mike from Spaced ?” [Hangs head] “Yes… yes, I am.” Ten years is the kind of milestone that makes you look back and reflect, isn’t it? Yes — I read something in the Times a few months ago that 10 years, or 10,000 hours, is what you need to master anything. An instrument, a language, to become a good dentist… Anything you want to do, you can learn to be great at it in 10 years, or 10,000 hours. What would you say you’ve learned in the last decade? You know what, I watch a lot. I watch what everyone does, and I’m interested in what everyone does on a set. I didn’t train as an actor so I think it would be quite stupid of me to just act, you know? I want to direct a film, films , I want to produce. Me and Simon have always said this is about the long game. This is it now, forever — this is my job. This is what I love doing. So I think it’s silly just to sit around and wait for the phone to ring, for someone to offer you a part. I might as well write it myself and shoot it myself. And you have all thrived in the arena of creating opportunities for yourself, it seems. Yeah, but that can be a double-edged sword actually, because people can also look at that and the unit that we are a part of and say, “Well, that’s all they do.” So people will not offer you things because they think you wouldn’t do it because you just hang out in this kind of unit. You think this happens to you because of the Spaced gang? Absolutely, I do. You do have this very close partnership, which people know you for, but you must also need to define yourselves separately. And that’s what it seems like you, Simon, and Edgar are all doing right now. Absolutely. And there’s no time limit on it. As long as we’re happy and working, you can go on forever in this job. Edgar and Joe [Cornish] wrote this, but how exactly did you and Simon come to be cast in Tintin ? Simon met with Steven — Spielberg … Ah, yes. That Steven. [Smiles] I’ve been doing that a lot in the past few weeks, just in case people didn’t know that I’ve been working with Steven Spielberg … [Laughs] I think Simon had a meeting with Steven, potentially to see if he would come onboard with Edgar and Joe, after Steven did his draft, to see if maybe he wanted to have a little go at the script. But that just didn’t work out, and then I think Steven said to Simon, “Do you want to be in it?” Simon did a little fanboy squeal, and shut his legs as if he was going to do a wee, and then I think Steven said to him, “Well, do you know anyone that you work with, well, that you’d want?” That guy wasn’t available, so he came to me. That was that! No hesitation, I assume, in taking the job? For me? No! Not at all! Well, his office rang me up one night, one evening. It was like 9 o’clock at night. They said, “Steven’s going to ring you in 10 minutes if you could be available,” but I was cooking my wife’s dinner. She wasn’t in, I was cooking her a meal. And it got to a really crucial point in the preparation which meant I could not answer that phone call without ruining my wife’s dinner. So I dropped it — I dropped the call! How romantic! [Laughs] It was a really confused message from Steven saying, “Um… hey, Nick. Did my office phone you? Anyway, give me a call back.” I phoned the office back and he’d gone to a meeting and I was thinking, “I’ve really fucked this up.” But eventually we got to talk to one another and, you know, we did it. I was so pleased! He’s a hero, he’s an icon of mine in terms of filmmaking, and a lot of my cinematic touchstones are films that he’s made. That said, you can’t bring that with you on set. I think me and Simon allowed ourselves like two hours of fanboy dancing, and then… Then you put on your professional hat. Yeah, absolutely. That said, sometimes we’d be sitting around the monitor and Steven would be telling a story about how they shot something in Close Encounters and I’d kind of nudge Simon under the table, and we knew that both of us were thinking, “This is fucking amazing ” When I spoke with a few of the Super 8 kids earlier this year they had pretty much the same story. Oh, cool! I watched that this morning, again. I think it’s great, I love it. It does evoke that magical something in Spielberg’s films, doesn’t it? Yeah! Well, you know, we tried to do it on Paul and J.J. did it — it’s just a big, lovely love letter to Steven. I think it says a lot about Steven’s legacy to people of J.J.’ s and my age and Simon’s age that it stayed with us, it affected us through our lives. As a self-avowed Spielberg fan, let me ask you this: How do you feel about Indiana Jones 4 ? [Takes a sip of tea] Well, you know. It’s tricky, obviously… but it’s still an Indiana Jones film. It’s still Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones! I still got that feeling when I heard the music. It’s an Indiana Jones film, you know? It’s a Steven Spielberg film. [Pauses] Yes, it’s different. It’s the same kind of things about the original Star Wars films and Phantom Menace . But that said, I am a fan of the originals. Clearly. There are generations of teenagers who prefer the new ones, and that doesn’t make them any less valid. They’re just different. If I’m trying to be democratic about things… and it’s the same with Indiana Jones 4 . I liked it. It was weird, and it was different, but it was unmistakably a Steven Spielberg film, and that’s fine with me. You just finished filming another movie. Tell me about your experience on Snow White and the Huntsman — or, as the fans call it, SWATH . SWATH ! It was great. I saw a picture of you and your fellow dwarfs in your dwarf gear and your dwarf hair . Yeah, they shaved me bald every day just to put hair on me, which was weird. It was like, well, I had hair anyway, and you shaved it all off… to then put a wig on. You’re in great company with the other seven dwarfs. What was that cast like? It was fantastic! I got to hang out with Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Johnny Harris, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, for God’s sake. I got to just sit around and listen to those guys tell stories. I like the idea of Kristen Stewart , of all people, sitting in the middle of that group of men — and also the colliding of worlds, your universe and fan base overlapping with Twilight . Exactly! I was sitting next to Bob Hoskins and Bella Swan! Please tell me you and Bob Hoskins and Kristen Stewart talked Twilight on set. Not really. I think she’d be pretty sick to the bloody back teeth of listening about Twilight . On set she’s another actress, and a lot of the time actors just talk about nothing. Talk about shit, they just chew the fat. That’s what you do! And did you sign on for multiple SWATH films as well? Three, yeah. We’ll see where it goes. We were talking about it on set the other day, where it would start and what it would be. We’ll have to see how well it does, I guess. But I think we’d all love to do another one. We had a real laugh every day. Lastly, you’ve been talking about finishing the trilogy that begun with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Hot Fuzz . What’s the latest development — do you know when you might do it? We’d rather do it sooner than later. There is a script in place, and it’s just a question of finding the time when we can all fit it in, and when it works. But we are all really keen to just crack on. Next year has been bandied around, maybe, but I couldn’t tell you. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
