Monday, July 21, 2008

Monday, 21 July 2008

Choire Got A Grace Park Interview!

Former Gawker editor and lucky bastard Choire Sicha got to interview Battlestar Galactica's Pretty Asian Cyclon Grace Park for today's LA Times.

Lucky bastard.

He opens up with a question about a certain leggy Maxim photo spread.

One second you're on a squeaky-clean Canadian soap, the next moment you're in high heels and panties in a Maxim shoot.

I wasn't like 18, where it was sending off sparks and it was taboo, you know how the American public likes to do that.

The show's publicist one day called and said, "Would you be interested in doing Maxim?"

And I said, "Do I get the cover?"

And she said no.

And I said, "Hell yeah!"

So she broke it down and I was really happy with it.

And that helped me get "Cleaner."

Not that I was dressing like that — but it put a different image in people's heads.

When we know you as someone in an armor bodysuit, it does change the perspective on you.

Just look at media, and how they like to do headlines.

You want to catch people's attention.

Eh, I dunno!

It happened to work.

Some people will go further than others.

Are there points where you've sat down with your professionals and said, "OK, what do I do?

How do I get to where I want to be?"

Not really!

At that point I only had one, if you want to say "people," I only had an agent.

I didn't have anyone in L.A. — I had an agent in Vancouver.

And meanwhile I know people in the States collect a dozen people.

Talking to my castmates, they say, "Oh, my financial manager, publicist, manager, agent" — there are so many. . . . I think I actually follow my gut a little bit more.

If there was a Jim Carrey movie?

For sure I'd want to be in it.

We have our lists. I just haven't hit too many of those [...]

You would think we were, on the coasts, a nation of hedonist atheists.

You know, all those godless gays and Jews in Hollywood.

There's a lot of Jewish people in L.A. and I didn't know that!

I was like, "Jewfro?

What's a Jewfro?"

And half the people were laughing.

I was like, "What are you guys in on?"

What's matzo ball soup?

What's actually in it?

Everybody just knows, right?

I was like, "Is it meat?

Is it flour?"

I just had my first a few months ago.

[Ah, Choire.

Always with the gay Jews.

Gillian Anderson Hands Annoying Interviewer His Ass
So, you're Gillian Anderson, and you're about to reprise your iconic role as Agent Dana Scully for the first time in ten years in The X-Files:

I Want to Believe, and your hi-larious interviewer from Newsweek opens up with these "questions":

"I've got to confess.

I don't know anything about 'The X-Files'

[...] Why is it such a big deal?"

What on earth can you say?

Well, there's this.

"Ohmygod.

You're not going to do this to me, are you?

Tell me you're not going to do this.

Oh come on!

It's been such a long time.

Hire somebody that knows enough that we don't have to explain this again."

Here's the rest of Anderson's primer on how to handle a passive-agressive journo who's trying to act all cool.

I saw the last movie, but I didn't watch all nine seasons.

I mean, nobody did.

Did they?

Yes.

There are some people that did.

But that's cool.

I love running into people who have no idea what it's about.

Was it hard getting back into character?

It was a little odd.

It was more disconcerting than I anticipated.

I expected it to be a breeze.

But I tried so hard since the series ended to do things as different as possible from the character.

When I was faced with making acting decisions on that character again, my brain started backfiring and internally combusting.

You're a mom now.

Do you travel with all your kids?

All my kids!?

You make it sound like I have a bushel.

You've got two and another one coming.

How far along are you?

About five and a half months.

As I recall.

What else have you been up to lately?

I travel a lot and have bought and sold a lot of houses.

I like doing up houses and getting into the architecture.

I've spent a lot of time doing that in various places in the world.

Like where?

London, California, Canada.

There's another country that I've just added that I'm not going to talk about because it's private.

So that's four continents.

California and Canada are on the same continent.

It doesn't sound so special, then.

Never mind.

Your voice is actually very similar to Ben Affleck's voice.

Has he ever told you that?

No.

Are you sure?

Well, you probably wouldn't be able to tell.

But if you were standing next to Ben, people would say, "Are you brothers?"

Or maybe not standing next to, but talking next to and somebody else was behind a screen.

Can I use that as a pickup line?

You absolutely can.

You have my permission.

A journalist said interviewing you is like wrestling a crocodile.

What does that mean?

I have no idea.

Did you try to bite him?

Metaphorically.




July 20

Sure, this was a record weekend at the box office, but it was also a surreal one.

The numbers were amazing == a $155 million opening for Batman,

a $250 total for the full menu of movies.

But consider the options confronting filmgoers:

The bleakly portentous Dark Knight vs. the insistently cheery “Mamma Mia.”

What were those Batman fanboys thinking who couldn’t crowd into their superhero’s theaters and ended up at “Mamma Mia?”

“Dancing queens?

What the……?”

And how will these films hold up?

As Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal noted, “Dark Knight goes beyond darkness into Stygian bleakness…..

Will this prove to be more punishment than they signed up for?

’“Mamma Mia’s” $27.6 million opening is strong, especially considering that the movie’s already a hit in English-speaking countries overseas.

The audience is 75% female, most of them 30 and older and it’s amazing that they crowded into the plexes past the avid fanboys.

The big question:

Will that base expand?

Maybe it will, but not to the fanboy crowd.

I decided to see Batman this weekend at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science Theater, which was packed.

This is an older crowd, mostly male.

There was scattered applause at the end of the 2 hours 30 minutes, but some folks outside the theater felt so strongly about the movie they were taking informal polls.

They seemed to indicate strong ‘pros’ and vehement ‘cons’, with few in between.

This much is clear:

Heath Ledger already has become a mythic James Dean figure --

too bad none of the kids have any idea what he looks like.

Christian Bale should also be mythic:

Never has such a wooden actor lucked into such high-profile roles.
While we’re asking questions, could Batman have been vastly more effective if it had been twenty minutes shorter and stripped of its moralistic meanderings?

For that matter, would “Mamma Mia” reach a wider audience if was less feverishly cheerful?

But why ask questions?

Hollywood has been depressed lately and its denizens enjoy nothing more than box office records.

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