Front Row (BBC Radio 4), 28/12/12 – 30mins. British stars of big American series like Homeland & House discuss why US TV and movies are so keen to employ UK actors right now. Answer seems to boil down to (a) proper theatre training (b) greater willingness to play unsympathetic characters and (c) botox-free faces still able to move in reaction shots. Damian Lewis, Hugh Laurie, Thandie Newton, Adrian Lester, Clive Owen, Ashley Jensen and Stephen Frears all take part. It’s an interesting discussion, though perhaps a little smug in its assumption of British superiority. I’d be interested to hear what American listeners make of it.
posted by Paul Slade
on Dec 28, 2012 -
80 comments
AV Club Interview with Nick Offerman Articulate and often profound, this excellent AV Club interview with MeFi favorite Nick Offerman (previously
1,
2,
3) discusses his role as Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson, the modern concept of masculinity portrayed by Hollywood, the importance of being yourself, and prosthetic penises. Second page of interview NSFW.
[more inside]
posted by dobie
on Jul 18, 2012 -
13 comments
The Lap of Luxury was a
Big Brother-style reality tv show filmed for Spike TV in 2003. The format is familiar: 9 contestants living in a house together, all trying to win immunity, prevent themselves from being voted out and vying to win a $100,000 prize while facing down a smarmy host. Except... only one of them, a guy named Matt Kennedy Gould, was really a contestant. The rest were actors, playing stereotypical reality show roles. The series was scripted, heavily improvised and entirely created around Matt -- his very own
Truman Show.
Welcome to Joe Schmo.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 24, 2012 -
55 comments
Day at Night was an interview series on the public television station of the City University of New York that aired from 1973-4. CUNY TV is in the process of digitizing and uploading the 130 episodes that were produced, with 46 done so far. The episodes are just under half an hour in length. Among the people interviewed by host James Day are author
Ray Bradbury, actress
Myrna Loy, medical researcher
Jonas Salk, singer
Cab Calloway, writer
Christopher Isherwood, nuclear scientist
Edward Teller, comedian
Victor Borge, tennis player
Billie Jean King, linguist and activist
Noam Chomsky, composer
Aaron Copland, actor
Vincent Price and boxer
Muhammad Ali.
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 16, 2012 -
6 comments
Shakespeare was not a full-time writer without other responsibilities, like O’Neill or Williams. But what might look like a distraction for such authors—acting in his own and other people’s plays, coaching fellow players, helping manage the ownership of the troupe’s resources (including its two theaters, the Globe and Blackfriars)—was a strength for Shakespeare, since it made him a day-by-day observer of what the troupe could accomplish, actor by actor. [...]
'According to Pacini,' Julian Budden writes in The Operas of Verdi, 'it was the custom at the San Carlo theatre, Naples, for the composer to turn the pages for the leading cello and double bass players on opening nights.' The composer had to change his score to fit new voices if there were substitutions caused by illness or some other accident. In subsequent performances, he was expected to take out or put in arias for the different houses, transposing keys, changing orchestration. He was not a man of the study but of the theater.
Shakespeare and Verdi in the Theater.
posted by shakespeherian
on Nov 18, 2011 -
48 comments
Unhappy with her hair style,
a bride flips out just hours before her wedding. Sobbing and screaming, she goes into the hotel washroom, rips apart her coiffure, and cuts her own hair. The episode is caught on video, posted to YouTube, and Farkalarity ensues. But the plot thickens. It turns out the bride is 22 year-old aspiring actress Jodi Behan, and the film was made by Toronto-based Ryerson University grad Ingrid Hass.
It's a hoax, designed to put
a lock on their film careers. We'll see more from these girls. Thursday on the Tonight Show, for a start.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium
on Feb 1, 2007 -
65 comments
Good Day Mr. Kubrick! In 1984 Stanley Kubrick placed an ad in Variety requesting audition tapes from unknown actors for his next movie, "Full Metal Jacket." This is allegedly one of those tapes.
posted by KevinSkomsvold
on Oct 26, 2006 -
57 comments
The Room: The Movie. Triple-threat (actor/writer/director)
Tommy Wiseau made his cinematic debut in 2003 with the
The Room (see
trailer and
various scenes),
"a blend between a
softcore porn flick and a Tennessee Williams stageplay." Wiseau ("who's not just one of the most unusual
looking and
sounding-with
an unidentifiable Eastern European accent-leading men ever to
grace the screen, but a narcissist nonpareil whose movie makes
Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" seem
the apotheosis of cinematic self-restraint...may be something of a first: A movie that
prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back-before even
30 minutes have passed." -
Variety),
allegedly raised $6 million outside Hollywood to cover production and marketing costs of the self-described "black comedy about love, passion, betrayal and lies" (see
various rough dress rehersals).
Audience members, including comedian
David Cross, have been
"marveling at the bizarre editing, bad bluescreen, uncomfortably explicit
sex scenes and, of course, the enigma of Wiseau himself" as the film
played monthly for years in Los Angeles. Available on
DVD, diehard "roomies"
swear by the
theatrical experience,
shout out their own commentary,
hurl spoons at the screen and singalong to the
soundtrack. Some call it
"The Rocky Horror of the New Millenium" and stage
"Room"
parties. If you look at the
marketing campaign or
survived a screening you might see The Room as
"a seminar on how
NOT to make a movie." [Inspired by
Boing Boing]
posted by boost ventilator
on Jun 1, 2006 -
28 comments
