Daily Archives: December 21, 2010

True Grit: One-on-One with Hailee Steinfeld, plus Jeff Bridges Speaks, and Aaron Eckhart

Posted on December 21, 2010 by James Rocchi

Calm, collected and carrying herself with a serious-but-not-staid manner that seems somewhat beyond an ordinary 14-year-old, Hailee Steinfeld — picked to play lead character Mattie Ross in the Coen brothers’ new adaptation of the Charles Portis novel ‘True Grit’ – explained, when we met in early December, that the chance to audition for the Coens literally came about by chance: “I actually, oddly enough, heard about it from my mom’s cousin. It’s kind of funny, but her daughter, who is my second cousin, she’s younger than me; she’s just starting to get into acting. Her mom had just learned how to use Actor’s Access (an online casting resource) … and that’s how she heard about it. She saw the description, so she passed it onto my mom and I, and then we called my agents out on it and said, ‘Why aren’t I going out on this?’ So I got a call. I was put on tape the first weekend in January and got a callback two days later to read with Ellen Chenoweth, who was the casting director of the film, and at that point they told us that it would be a month if we were to hear anything at all, and five weeks later I got called in to read for the Coen brothers.”

The Coens didn’t exactly ease her into the casting process, either. “I’ll go into an audition or a meeting and, literally, all the information and everything that happens goes in one ear and out the other, and then I retain it two days later,” she said. “So when I went in for this, just the thought of it was intimidating, but the minute I met them — and I read with Jeff Bridges, Barry Pepper and Dakin Matthews in that audition — and just realizing, really, that they’re just there to do a job and I’m there for the same reason really just made me feel at ease. And knowing that the Coen brothers … they’re so easygoing. They’re amazing, so I really wasn’t intimidated after I met them.”

Considering that the Coens have said, repeatedly, that their aim was to be more true to the book than the 1969 John Wayne version, I asked Steinfeld if she had read the book — and how she wrapped her head around the film’s plainspoken poetics. “I did read the book,” she said. “But I honestly just read what was written. The Coen brothers did such an incredible job of rewriting this, and it’s written so beautifully. The dialogue was definitely something I did have to work on. I had to go through and literally — every line, every stage direction, every subtitle — make sure that I understood what it meant. And then I had to go back through, make sure what it meant to me emotionally and how I could relate to it in my own life. Then with the accent, that just, I’d say it came pretty naturally. I worked on the material with a coach of mine, and he’s originally from west Texas, so he was familiar with the accent.”

And considering that she’s in pretty much every scene, Steinfeld, understandably, felt more than a little nervous. “Of course it was exciting,” she said. “There was definitely that nervous kind of excitement. But I’ve never really felt ‘I can’t do this,’ and my thanks goes to the Coen brothers for that, making sure that there was never a point that I ever felt that, really. They direct me and guide me the entire way through, and all the actors were always giving me encouragement. Honestly, that’s really what helped me push through.”

–From my article at The Rundown

Share
Posted in Interviews, MSN Movies, The Rundown | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Hailee Steinfeld: True Grit and the Way of the West

Posted on December 21, 2010 by James Rocchi

Of course, with “True Grit” being a Coen brothers film, Hailee Steineld’s work as Mattie Ross — and the entire film — contains more than a few dark laughs. I asked Steinfeld if she expected the film to have as much dark laughter in it as it did. “Actually, some of the stuff, we could not get through without laughing, which was fun,” she said. “We’re so pleased that the audience gets that response as well, because it was as funny doing it as it was on-screen. The scene between LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) and Mattie in the bedroom, I could not get through that without laughing. It was the funniest thing. I love the fact that not only is it a Western and drama, it’s got some comedy in it, so it’s great.”

Steinfeld may not have known exactly what to expect from a Western, because, frankly, she hadn’t see many of them. With her casting, that changed. “When I first heard about ‘True Grit,’ I watched the original,” she said. “Just this past year, I’ve been introduced to the genre of a Western. It’s funny. It’s something we don’t have a lot of today, and I think it’d be great to have them back. It’s fun. I think with ‘True Grit,’ what’s so refreshing about it is the fact that not only is it a Western — it has the guns and the horses and the cowboys — but it’s really about the relationships.”

(Later, in the press conference, Steinfeld casually established with co-star Josh Brolin just how quickly the cast had to get into the film’s darker, dangerous Western mood: “Like, 15 minutes after I met you for the first time, we were rehearsing … it was, you were, like, on top of me with a knife to my neck, so it was kind of interesting.” Brolin, for his part, praised his co-star: “She’s so precocious and amazing and present and just kind of went with it. I think it was more nerve-racking for me than it was for her. She’s very comfortable in her own skin, you know?” For Brolin, the biggest trick about working with Steinfeld was watching his four-letter words, as she profited from the on-set swear jar: “Yeah, she made about $100,000. …We really searched a lot in rehearsal for character and all that, but she had already had it; she was the one person who had it down before the rest of us really started.”)

I also asked Steinfeld if it ever really kicked in that her first big-screen acting job was the lead role in a film directed by two of the field’s biggest talents — and if she was worried about making sure her next film wasn’t a horrible letdown. “That’s definitely something that we’re concerned about, (and) making sure whatever is the next thing is the right choice,” she said. “I’m so, as you can imagine, so honored and so blessed to have been given this opportunity. I’m so proud of it, really, and so proud to be a part of such an amazing cast. I feel like when I got the call, it hit me then, but then when I saw the film … it’s so surreal. It’s a lot.”

And while some are talking about Steinfeld as an awards-season contender for Oscar glory, her interest in the season’s films is as a viewer, not as a competitor: I asked her which film she most wanted to see, and her answer suggests that the precocious actress may need to take along a guardian to the movies: ‘Black Swan.’ I saw the trailer, and I’ve watched it so many times and it never gets old. It looks so intense. I’m really excited for that.”

–From my article at The Rundown

Share
Posted in Interviews, MSN Movies, The Rundown | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Jeff Bridges: From the Game Grid to True Grit

Posted on December 21, 2010 by James Rocchi

Appearing at the press conference for “True Grit,” Jeff Bridges was serenely calm, beaming with charisma — and basking in the good fortune of someone in not one, but two of the season’s most anticipated films. Reprising his role as Kevin Flynn for “Tron: Legacy,” Bridges is simultaneously stepping — stumblingly — into John Wayne‘s footsteps to play Rooster Cogburn in “True Grit.” “Well, that’s the fun of my job that I get to play all different kinds of guys. We did a reshoot for ‘Tron’ about a week after we completed ‘True Grit,’ and I had the same makeup guy, Thomas Nellen, on both. So, going from Rooster, all the dust and the grime and the dirty teeth, to a few days later, back in the (‘Tron’) chair, him putting a hundred little black dots on my face to have motion capture done. It was bizarre — but that’s the gig. That’s the fun of it.”

Bridges had previously, and notoriously, collaborated with the Coens on “The Big Lebowski,” — so when he heard their plans for “True Grit,” he was intrigued. “I was curious why these guys wanted to make that movie again,” he said, “and I think it was Ethan who I talked to first, and he corrected me and he said, ‘No, we’re not making that movie. We’re making the book as if there wasn’t any, you know, no other movie ever made.” He said, ‘Well, check (the book) out and tell me what you think,’ and I read the book and then I saw what they were talking about, because it’s such a wonderful book and it suited them so well. And, God, what a great character. Most Westerns have that strong silent type, and here’s this boorish … guy. So that was going to be a lot of fun, I thought.”

Bridges also did a lot of his own riding, including a famed scene where Rooster pulls his horse’s reins with his teeth so he has both hands free to shoot. “I remember that day well,” he said, “and right in the beginning of the day Joel (Coen) coming over to me and saying, ‘What do you think about really trying this deal?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, that’s kind of interesting, yeah.’ A little anxious, a little fear — I mean, I ride myself, but to (hold the reins) in my teeth? So we did it that way, and it wasn’t as tough as I thought, actually. It was kind of cool.”

And for Bridges, costuming and clothes do make the character — even when that character is a “one-eyed fat man” like Cogburn. “One of the first things you do when you’re hired on to make a film is you work with a costume designer — in this case it was Mary Zophres, who was also the costume designer on ‘The Big Lebowski‘ — and that’s one of the cool things about making movies. It’s a collaborative art form, so you have all these other artists who are concerned about just specific areas. So the first (person) you meet is the costumer, because they have to make all those clothes. So Mary has these wonderful books that she brings out. And see, you look, now here’s a hat like this, like this, and you start — the character starts — to fall in place, and as you dress it, you’re looking in the mirror. And there comes a time when the character starts to tell you what it wants and might prefer: ‘Oh, this scarf looks nice.’ And probably the same thing happens when you’re making a movie, too. Sometimes you want to do something, and it just doesn’t, and it’s not what the movie wants — and that’s a wonderful time when that happens. It’s just kind of a slow process of coming into focus.”

–From my article at The Rundown

Share
Posted in Interviews, MSN Movies, The Rundown | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Aaron Eckhart Goes Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted on December 21, 2010 by James Rocchi

As Howie, the bereaved father in John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” Aaron Eckhart gets to do it all: high-octane drama opposite Nicole Kidman, sure, but gentler moments as well. Speaking with the clean-cut and relaxed actor, he explained how he came onto the project well after Kidman and Mitchell. “Basically what happened was I got a phone call, and it happened to be Nicole and asking me if I would be so kind as to read the script, and — if I liked it — to be in it. That was basically the conversation, and John (Cameron Mitchell) calling me, basically describing what he was going to do with the movie and he would love to have me and that sort of thing. I was as surprised as anybody, and it turned out to be a good thing.”

Mitchell, of course, is best known for creating “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and directing “Shortbus,” and I had to ask Eckhart if there was ever any thought on his part that those showy, sexy films were too different from the mood of David Lindsay-Abaire’s play when it was going to be brought to film. “No,” he said. “To be honest, if Nicole wanted him and I felt like I had a good conversation with him — in other words, my questions are can he work with actors, and can he tell a story? It’s not so much his subject matter. Where did he come from? He’s an actor. That gives me a lot of hope. In other words, he’s not like — if somebody had said to me, he’s going to tackle this material, but he’s a special effects guy; or, he’s a stunt man that now wants to direct. That would have been a little bit difficult for me to swallow.”

Eckhart, of course, started his career working with playwright-turned-director Neil LaBute. Was “Rabbit Hole” a nice return to form? “Yeah, well, the thing about the theater and playwrights and that is that they give good word,” he said. “That’s what they do: They’re concerned about words. Words mean something. There’s a cadence, there’s a rhythm. Neil (LaBute) needs to be said a certain way. So does Mamet, so does Shakespeare. It’s got a pentameter. So David Lindsay-Abaire is very cognizant of every word in the script. Now, he wrote the screenplay, so he had to lose some stuff and he had to augment some stuff, put some stuff in, so things change. The answer to that is there are words to say, there are scenes and emotions to play out, and they are allowed to play out. That’s more theatrical as opposed to a movie where you’re just cutting, where nobody really cares what the words are because it’s like ‘Hi-ho,’ or ‘Over there,’ or ‘Kill them,’ or ‘There they are.’ That sort of thing, right? (But) the quality of the words are important. Alliteration, which word follows a word, is more important. We didn’t improvise. Maybe a couple times, but the words were important.”

–From my article at The Rundown

Share
Posted in Interviews, MSN Movies, The Rundown | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Aaron Eckhart: Intensity, Acting and Rabbit Hole

Posted on December 21, 2010 by James Rocchi

Playing a grieving father — and one trying to repair his marriage to Nicole Kidman in the aftermath of losing his son — actor Aaron Eckhart rages, roars and grieves. How, I asked him, do you get in the emotional shape to hit that kind of intensity every day? “Well, you incubate it and you nurture it and you have it ready for you at all times and you have a pretty specific image of your kid and what that means to you,” he said. “So it’s not like you’re just getting up for one day; you’re getting up for two months. You’re saying to your body, ‘For two months I’m going to put you through the ringer.’ So that’s what you’re geared up for. If you tell your body that you’re going to get hit, you’re prepared for it. If you tell your body you’re going to go for the wall for two months, that’s what your body expects of you. Then after your two months, you’re like, see ya.”

Eckhart seems to have done back-to-back films where he’s overshadowed by showier parts, I suggested — Heath Ledger‘s Joker in “The Dark Knight” being more big and brutal than his subtler, excellent work as Harvey Dent, and now in “Rabbit Hole” opposite Kidman. I joked that he’s the Ginger Rogers of American acting — doing everything his partner does, but backward, and making them look great. He laughed at the suggestion — and at the same time rebuked it. “Yeah, I mean, OK, I’ll go with you. I understand what you’re saying. It’s true. That’s my job. That’s my job on this project. You have to understand that the Joker was written differently than Harvey Dent. It’s surprising that Harvey Dent’s in that movie at all because the Joker’s such a complete role.

“But that’s my job for that project, so that’s what I’ve been hired to do. I always say to young actors, if I give a seminar or whatever, I say, ‘You want to work till the day you’re dead?’ And they all say, ‘Yeah.’ I say, ‘Then make the person opposite you the sexiest, most dynamic person you’ve ever laid eyes on, and you will work until the day you die.’ The problem is that young actors don’t understand that. They feel it’s all about them. When I’m in a movie with Johnny Depp, and Johnny Depp‘s number one — I just did ‘The Rum Diary’ with him — when I’m in it with Nicole or whatever, and I’m number two or I’m number three, that’s where the money is. Nicole’s the money in this movie. That’s where my energy goes. I want to make her look good. If I make her look good, she makes me look good. Now, if I’m number one in a movie, then I expect that of my players, but I don’t know if people really understand that. So it’s not, I don’t want to give you … the impression that I am some sort of cinematic sidekick. I understand what you’re saying, but …”

I suggested that, however, he does have a career history of executing those equal-but-different parts well. He smiled. “But then you have to then go back, and ‘In the Company of Men,’ that wasn’t the case. In ‘Thank You for Smoking,’ that’s not the case. I don’t want to give the audience the impression that that’s who I am, because it’s not. You have to give my filmography a whole look and say, ‘In this particular project, that was the case, and he did it well.’ And as long as you add the ‘He did it well,’ I’m happy.

–From my article at The Rundown

Share
Posted in Interviews, MSN Movies, The Rundown | Tagged , , | Leave a comment