Moving now into room “245″ for our joint interview session was myself and six of my writing brethren. Everyone had something to say about the latest films, except for the one quiet guy who didn’t really say anything.

We settled down at what are called “roundtables,” like kids in a classroom, when the first person to appear for the interview was Maggie Gyllenhaal. She strikes you as the kind of girl that you could carry on a conversation with for hours because you’ve already known her for years. I hadn’t…. This was the first time I had ever met her, but, there’s an approachability and down to earth sensibility that made me feel welcome. She’s established herself as one of the most unique and intelligent actresses of her time, and she’s done so without forcing herself onto the public scene. In Crazy Heart, she plays a mother that will do anything to protect the well-being of her child even if it jeopardizes being with the man she loves.

“I did find it hard, as a mother, a real mother, I think the line you’re always walking is you always have to sacrifice things for your children,” said Gyllenhaal. “You have to sacrifice things that feel really good, or that you want.”

Gyllenhaal’s character represents the one thing that can make things right for “Bad Blake” (Jeff Bridges). Living his life drunk and singing old hits in bowling alleys and ‘hole in the wall’ pubs isn’t exactly what Bad Blake imagined for himself before he hit his 60th birthday. Still, the only thing that keeps him going is his music and the hunger to get things back to “the way they were.”

“Things don’t always work out the way you want them to work out, which can be the greatest gift…,” said Bridges. “I think of the line from the song in the movie, ‘I used to be somebody, now I’m somebody else.’ You don’t always have to be who you think you are.”

Bridges’ performance will garner a lot of Oscar attention – (a fifth nomination most likely.)  He pours his life out into this sometimes dark and tragic role, but he still doesn’t break away from who he is as a person.

“I don’t know if I ever left Jeff, you just bring that along with you,” Bridges added. “I don’t really consider myself one of those actors who takes his work home with him. [My wife] says, ‘You don’t think you do, but you do.’ Maybe I’m not aware of it.”

The theme of the film talks about the weary kind.

“This ain’t no place to fall behind/pick up your heart and give it one more try,” said Bad Blake.

It’s a film that gives ‘Bad’ a choice; Float forever into the sunset never to me heard from again, or fight to keep the dream alive and get back to the place where he started. It’s a story of redemption…facing weakness head on, armed with nothing but talent and ambition.

Bridges knows a thing or two about redemption:

“I’ve been redeemed, you know,” he said. “I’ve been married 33 years, and in a long marriage like that, there’s a lot of redemption going on.”

And as we all laughed, Bridges left the room. He’d be a tough act to follow for a lot of people. However, when the next person to walk in is Robert Duvall, well, he’s one of the few guys who is clearly up to the task. That being said, he doesn’t walk in like he is about to do an interview, he just sat down like he was ordering a drink at a bar and was here to talk about fishing.

Duvall plays Wayne Kramer. When ‘Bad Blake’s’ life starts to crumble, Kramer is the one to help put the pieces back one by one. What’s even more intriguing than Duvall’s performance is the endearing presence he brings to the room, and I was lucky enough to be in it. Oddly enough, the movie came up during our ten minutes, but we all seemed to enjoy talking about things other than film.

“The most important thing with the tango is the walk,” said Duvall. “It all begins and ends with it.”

Robert Duvall is something of a dance enthusiast, Latin dancing to be exact.

“…I introduced my wife to the Tango,” Duvall stated.  “I was way into the tango, way before I met her…Way before her. The last five years they’ve had the World Championships in Buenos Aires, some of my friends have won it. This year, it makes sense, a Japanese guy won it.”

After our interviews, I finished off some of the leftovers left back in the infamous “217″, and then headed for the elevators. Waiting to go down with me was none other than Robert Duvall, again, still wearing his Texas Longhorns jacket. He couldn’t stop raving about Colt McCoy, The University of Texas starting quarterback.

I asked him who he had in the Alabama and Florida SEC Championship game, “now that Florida might lose their best defensive player.”

“They lost who?”  Duvall replied.

I told him the news again in stride.

“Fu**!!” Duvall said, looking irritated. “Well…that Tebow is pretty tough. Florida is tough. Should be a hell of a game.”

SCOTT:      What was your first five years as an actor like leading up to “The Warriors”?  What kind of things did you do?

J.R.:            It was less than five years.  I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse and studied with Sandy Meisner, ‘75, ‘76.  And then I starved and drove a truck and worked in restaurants and got a couple of little Off-Off-Broadway gigs, and finally managed to get a job in the bus and truck company of the Equity show, “Grease”.

SCOTT:      Playing which role?

J.R.:            Kenicki.

SCOTT:      So you sang and danced.  Were you any good?

J.R.:            Yeah.  Well, I was.  I think they hired me for my energy and attitude more than for my singing and dancing, though.

SCOTT:      Then Walter Hill–how did he cast you in “Warriors”?

J.R.:            By audition.  I had done one feature film prior to that called “On the Yard” with Ray Silver directing.  It was a pretty much massive audition.  Every young man in New York went to the audition for “Warriors”.  And I auditioned for Walter and managed to win the part.

SCOTT:      There were a lot of good young actors in that cast: Dorsey Wright, Michael Beck, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, David Patrick Kelley, Tom Waites.  That was a pretty rich cast.

J.R.:            Yeah.  All wonderful talents.

SCOTT:      Was there a sense that you guys were an emerging group of young New York actors in this picture?

J.R.:            You know, at that age, I never thought in those terms.  We all had that energy.  That that’s what we wanted.  We didn’t think in those terms–that we were an emerging group of young actors.  We were just thrilled to be working on a feature film.  You know, and getting to do our thing.

SCOTT:      Was it a tough movie to shoot?

J.R.:            Yeah.  Incredible.  It became a lifestyle.  It was 20 weeks of nights, New York City.  And that affected me for years.

SCOTT:      Albert Ganz from “48 HRS.” was one of the most memorable villains ever–I’m talking cinema history here–on the screen.  You were unforgettable as that character.  The question is: what went into making him so memorable?  “Cause in a weird sort of way, he’s just another bad guy, but you brought a certain energy and menace to him that was outstanding.

J.R.:            Well, thank you, first of all.  And at that particular time, I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the character.  Most actors get the job on Tuesday and they’re working on Wednesday.  Here was a chance that I had to really get into the mind of this particular guy.  And there was some writing going around at that particular time–one book was called “In the Belly of the Beast” by Jack Henry Abbott, and another was “Executioner’s Song”, Norman Mailer, story of Gary Gilmore.  And I delved into these very, very deeply and got as much information as I could about the state-raised convict.  So without it ever having been said in the film, people knew I was a state-raised convict, somebody who had basically spent his life in the care of the system.  And I made a conscious effort to fuse these two guys, to fuse Jack Henry Abbott and Gary Gilmore, and ended up with a completely different new breed.  So it really was for me, that background research.  The simple thing is to understand that my image for this guy was a panther who’d been tormented by his zookeepers.  And he got out of his cage.  And there’s no way he’s going back in it.  And every opportunity he had to punish his tormentors was one he took.

SCOTT:      It seemed to me to be a performance in which Walter Hill had ultimate confidence.

J.R.:           Walter’s always demonstrated ultimate confidence in me.  That’s one of the beauties that he possesses as a director, is that he doesn’t try to layer stuff on you that isn’t there.  He really lets you do your thing.  And that confidence has a way of snowballing.  So your confidence and belief in the character just continues to develop.

SCOTT:      How long of a shoot was “48 Hours”?  It seems like it must have been a long shoot, ’cause you were in so many places.

J.R.:            I think it was a summer.  14 weeks, something like that.  3, 4 weeks in San Francisco and then about 9 or 10 down in LA.

SCOTT:      There’s a great moment in “48 Hours”, too.  I don’t know if anyone’s ever asked you about it.  But you’re in the hotel, and there’s a cartoon….

J.R.:            Oh, yeah.  “Space Kid”.

SCOTT:      And he shoots his gun at all this stuff and then he shoots the policeman.  Your character’s got this great reaction to it.  Where you’re just–you’re just like sucking it all in, and you’re just about to have a huge shoot-out with police and so forth.  What was the idea behind including that scene?

J.R.:            Well, the idea behind that is that the cartoon wasn’t even playing when I was watching the TV.  What I was doing is I was just watching a blank television set.  And I was just letting my mind wander.

SCOTT:      So it didn’t even matter what was on?

J.R.:           No.  It was a nice astute choice on their part.  But I was just letting my mind wander.  Blanking out.  Blankin’ out like I was watchin’ the tube in the joint.

SCOTT:     I don’t know that much about you as a person, but I’m sort of willing to believe that you’re not as bad a guy as Ganz.

J.R.:          We wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation if I was.

SCOTT:     You’d snap my neck.  So, is it hard to divest yourself of Ganz when “Action” hasn’t been called?

J.R.:           No.  The more mature and the older I get as an actor, the easier it becomes.  There was a thing, I think, as a young actor, like staying in character all the time.  And it’s just not truthful.  It’s too energy depleting.  But playing a character in extreme, like that character, is always gonna leave me a little raw.  It gets a little easier as I get older, but as I say, a character in extreme is harder to divest from than a character–not divest, but just–stop doing–than say, a character that is not in such an acute state.

SCOTT:     How young were you when you played Ganz?

J.R.:           28.

SCOTT:     In “Cotton Club,” the most memorable line in that whole movie is when you look at Richard Gere, and you just have this look of disgust on your face and you go, “The mob boss.”  And you kind of  laugh at him.  That was a great moment..

J.R.:          Yeah, it was….

SCOTT:    Totally different kind of guy from Ganz.  Totally different.

J.R.:         Well, I wouldn’t say totally different.

SCOTT:    Well, you’re a classy old-time gangster.  You’re not a menace to society.

J.R.:          Not a menace to society?  Dutch Schultz?  Dutch Schultz was a real enemy of the state.  I mean, this guy fucked people up.

SCOTT:    True. Ganz had a little more dirt under his fingernails.

J.R.:          No, that’s not true at all.

SCOTT:     No?

J.R.:          Not at all.  Dutch Schultz was a street fighter.  He did it all.  The guy was smart, and he loved money.  You know?  Albert Ganz wasn’t really interested in that stuff.  Albert Ganz was more of a meteor that burns in the night sky.  Enters–zoom–brilliant flare and it’s gone.  He was a guy that burned himself out immediately, whereas Dutch Schultz had a greater constancy to him–a little more gravity  He had a vested interest in living in the world.  You know?  He liked money.  He liked the good life.  Albert Ganz didn’t give a shit.  And he was just takin’ that one last run.

SCOTT:     How is the James Remar who works with Walter Hill different from the James Remar who works with Francis Coppola or Robert Zemeckis?  What do you have to do differently when you meet these different kinds of guys?

J.R.:      Very little.

SCOTT:      You’re doing the same kinds of stuff?

J.R.:      The craft remains the same.  To live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.  To get as truthful as I can with art.  Whatever intercourse or exchanges take place in order to make it more imaginative and interesting is gonna vary from guy to guy.  But those are all truthful directors, and they’re interested in portraying the truth.  And by virtue of that, we’re all in pretty good shape.  They want to be truthful.  They want to keep it real.  And I support them.

SCOTT:      What are you looking for in a director?  What do you want from a director?

J.R.:      Simplicity.  Somebody who listens and is intuitive, who understands the actor’s craft, and can keep it real simple and help me do things in a doing way.  I’m not interested in intellectualizing.

SCOTT:      Any particular reason?

J.R.:      Intellectualizing is the antithesis of acting.  The root word of act–acting–to act is to do.  It is activate, actual.  It is to do.  And somebody that can instruct me and direct me in a doing and active way is the most valuable kind of director I can be involved with.  Then someone that can take it further and liken that doing to a personal experience of the character or of my own, that’s embroidery and it makes it all the more beautiful.  But most people don’t understand that acting is doing.  There’s the popular line that acting is reacting: that’s just nonsense.  It’s action.  Action.  Doing.  Activity.

SCOTT:      Internally, though, you’re thinking about stuff.  You seem to care.  You seem to be very passionate about acting.

J.R.:      Of course.  I’ve devoted my entire adult life to it.

SCOTT:      So you are, maybe not intellectualizing, but you’re thinking very carefully about everything you’re doing?

J.R.:      I review it to make sure that it doesn’t feel untruthful.  Intellectualizing about things is different than examining something and doing it and bringing it to life.  It seems to me that if you can say something in a succinct fashion, if you can say it pretty simply and quickly, you can get a lot of content in that.  The more somebody starts to talk about something, the more in your head, intellectual, it becomes.  And that way, it isn’t something that I can do.  It’s something to think about.

SCOTT:      Yeah.  That makes sense.  Of all the stuff you’ve done in your career, what do you think you’re most proud of?  Or is it more the body of work you look at?

J.R.:      You know, I’m very happy to have survived all these years and made a living as an actor.  I’m proud of relationships.

SCOTT:      You’ve been working since you were—what–mid-twenties?

J.R.:      Early twenties.  I’m proud of the relationships that have developed over the years, where someone comes to me 20 years later and remembers working with me as being a worthwhile experience.  There was a period of my career where I was not a very happy guy or a good guy to be around.  But I was always a pretty competent actor.  And that’s been consistent.  Someone’s  come up to me and said, “You know, you were a jerk, but you’re a good actor.”  And now they come up to me and say, “Hey, you’re not a jerk anymore, but you’re still a good actor.”  That’s very gratifying.

SCOTT:      What period of time was this?  That you were having a hard time?

J.R.:      Eh.  Mid-eighties.

SCOTT:     After “48 Hours”?  You know what?  I saw you in a movie called “Quiet Cool” around then.  That wasn’t a good experience?

J.R.:           Sure.  No, it was.  I never said that the motion pictures themselves weren’t good experiences.  I was not personally a very happy guy.

SCOTT:     What’s your high point in that period after “48 Hours” and say, after “Cotton Club”?  The favorite of your experiences after that in the eighties?

J.R.:           You keep asking me to make something number one.  That’s not the way it is.

SCOTT:      I don’t mean to do that.

J.R.:           Well, it isn’t–you know, the overall experience, the longevity of it is cool.  “Drugstore Cowboy” was a very special point.

SCOTT:      You were excellent as the cop.

J.R.:           Thank you.  That was special point in my life.  You know, it was at the close of the Eighties, and I really got to play a character who was, literally, quite the opposite of most of the characters that people view me as.  That was an important moment.  That came at a perfect time.

SCOTT:      Your relationship with Matt Dillon was also really interesting.

J.R.:            Yeah.  We had a relationship.  You know, it was a small town and, in those days, the cops knew every junkie there was.  There wasn’t a lot of them running around.  Only like three or four heroin dealers, and 30 or 40 junkies, and they all knew each other.  They were all chasing each other all the time.

SCOTT:      You created a character from the period, too.

J.R.:            Yeah, that was a lot of fun.  I gave him a real nice back story and just brought that to my work.

SCOTT:      Excellent.  Thank you.

And with that, James Remar went back to his set to do what he does best – act.

That being said, it may be her first film as a director, but she’s far from learning on the job. “She’s hardly starting out,” said co-star Daniel Stern. He’s done some directing of his own, and acted in a couple of films, too (“Harry….I’ve reached the top!”)

“To have the [directing] responsibility is somewhat new to her, but she knows the set like the back of her hand. She knows the audience and who she’s going for, she knows the results she wants, and she’s open to additions.

“She knows how to protect the set. She’s the wall between the pressure of the production and the pressures of the actors.”

Added Whip It star, Ellen Page; “She’s an awesome person. The luminous, infectious, passionate person you see…that’s who she is — She’s an incredibly powerful human being, an absolute pleasure to work with. She knew what she always wanted, and is remarkably present.”

The most important element with any successful film is the director’s vision; the ability to bring to life what’s on the page and to execute it with precision. Whip It captured all of that and more. And hearing Barrymore speak about the experience made it clear how a life-long actress could nail it, (directing and writing for that matter), so well.

“I wanted to make sure I was prepared,” said Barrymore.  “I worked with the script for three years. I wanted to put a lot into the characters, put a lot of myself into the writing.”

Three years? Yep, three years.

“I worked with the writer on re-writing the script for a year….(stunt) trained for the first couple of months….shot for several months….edited for eight months…and then you have the marketing after that.”

That’s working more than most Olympians!

“It’s a long process, she admitted. “You really have to be in love with it because it becomes your whole world. What’s going to keep you that passionate?

“The film tells the story of the culture of an incredibly unique sport, but it’s not just solely an action flick. It’s not just about roller derby. Its’ a mother-daughter love story… It’s a persons journey. It’s set in a world that’s very unique and a back-drop with a culture we don’t see everyday.”

We do get to see Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut on the big screen. After three years of hard work…Whip It is definitely a film where all her hard work paid off. Go check it out in theaters near you.

One small fact missing from the aforementioned notes is that this is the operation for what might be the most popular current show on television. “The way I explain it is that we are a human resources department for TV or movies,” said Laura Schiff, the casting director for the wildly successful American Movie Classics series, Mad Men. Though she did not cast the pilot which was done in New York, Schiff came aboard the series, set in Manhattan in the early 1960s, to cast episode two. The show, created by executive producer Matt Weiner, has gone on to win numerous awards and is one of the top-rated cable TV series of the past three years.

Of utmost importance to any series is finding the best possible performer for each role. Schiff noted that she is methodical about every casting choice from leading parts to the smallest speaking role. “We sit down with the director or writers or producers to determine what the parameters are,” she explained. “We know age and type, but we have to go out and find it. We are a little like headhunters. We talk to the agents and managers we know to talk about who would be the right fit for the job. If there’s someone we know well, we take them straight to the director or Matt. Then we take care of all of the various things that need to be done with schedules, studio and network clearances, and negotiating their deal.”

Now into season three, Mad Men has tremendous expectations upon it on the part of the viewing public. As such, that pressure translates right down to the tasks facing the casting director. Schiff is well aware of this reality. “Any casting director knows a phenomenal number of actors but we’re always looking for new ones,” she revealed. “Going to plays and movies and saying, ‘who’s that?’ Tomorrow, there’s a role that we’re casting and I’m taking it as an opportunity to meet a whole bunch of new faces. You can’t rely on just the people you know, especially when you are doing episodic television.”

As a Mad Men script comes to her, Schiff is always up against new challenges – and no two episodes are ever alike. “You may have two or twenty roles,” she said of each script, 13 in all per season. “You are maybe showing the producers 10-15 people. If you are showing the same faces all the time, they say, ‘we didn’t cast this person last time.’ Certainly there are people we bring back again because they did well last time and have a good chance of being cast on the show. But you must have a freshness to it.”

Part of the buzz of Mad Men is its unpredictability and uniqueness in every sense – including its largely previously unknown cast. “Matt doesn’t like to cast people who are too familiar to the audience because it removes you from just being immersed in it,” Schiff stated. “Most of the time, he really wants people who the audience won’t recognize. He really feels that as a period show, the fact that you don’t really recognize the actors makes you believe that you believe that it’s that point in time. It’s a good opportunity for young actors or actors in smaller roles who haven’t had that big break. On another show, it might go to an actor with a larger resume. Plenty of our people are still not that recognizable – they might work a lot in a lot of things, or they are chameleons and you don’t realize who they are because of makeup and wardrobe.”

To begin her process, after getting a script, that day or the following one, Schiff has a concept meeting with all of the department heads, including Weiner, the producers and the director to determine the entire goal of the episode. “We talk about everything page-by-page,” Schiff detailed. “As we get to a page that has new characters, we discuss what kind of person she or he is: their background, what their attitudes are even though we can’t share it with the agents and managers. In this show, we cannot be specific with agents because we want to protect the storyline on Mad Men. The overarching mystery on the show makes it more important to keep it under wraps. Part of the journey and enjoyment of the show is the discovery of it.”

In getting to make specific choices for each role, Schiff and her team must who exactly a script is describing on a person-by-person basis. “We want to find specifically what they are looking for,” she said. “We put out a breakdown which is a listing that goes through a service to all of the agents and managers. That could go out to 500 people. The description of the character is pretty oblique. ‘An intelligent poised woman’ and not much else. We don’t want to give away storyline. When we see the submissions based on that breakdown, agents and managers submit ideas to it through the online service. Because we know what it needs to be, we discuss it amongst ourselves and know what the subtle qualities are. We are looking for specifics in a particular character because we couldn’t be specific in the breakdown. We then hold auditions – we might read people just Carrie Audino [co-casting director] and I – then we will call people back to see Matt or the director later that day or the next day. Sometimes he looks at the videotape and calls them back to read them again before making his final decision. That entire process is between five and seven days.”

In television, even with a reduced cable schedule of 13 episodes, with only nine months of work, cast and crew have to move very quickly, and casting is no exception. “We have to very specific about calling in people for Matt,” Schiff said. “Between six and eight people per role, so you have to make sure that they are the right six-to-eight. With Matt, we have a good freedom to try different things, but you have to be specific because it happens so fast. In that seven days of an episode’s production, Matt is doing rewrites and doing post-production, going down to set to make sure things are going well, and meeting with department heads. We only have him for a limited number of hours for an episode.”

Of note, every cast member who has ever been on Mad Men has auditioned. “Matt wants to work with them in the room,” Schiff stated of Weiner’s process. “He plays with them a lot in the room. Someone putting themselves on tape in another city doesn’t work at all on Mad Men. We have never cast off of tape. When the actor comes in the room, they need direction. If they are on tape, they don’t have that opportunity.”

With that, Laura Schiff goes back to her day, both preparing for a future episode and taking care of current business, as Mad Men moves eloquently through its third season on AMC.

He found his niche in film – taking on the challenging characters that are harder to like and not the easiest to understand. Kari Skoghland’s Fifty Dead Man Walking is an example of that. Based on informant Martin McGartland’s memoir where he unleashes his story of making the “death-wish” decision to betray the IRA for the British police, “Fifty Dead Men”…was Zegers next target. Set in Belfast, Ireland, Zegers played the role of McGartland’s best buddy, Sean, a violent thug loyal to the IRA. With a thick Irish accent, Zegers nailed it after a few months practicing in local Irish pubs where the slightest mistake could land him in a bar room brawl.

“I like the idea of playing characters that are not much like me,” Zegers said. “The unfortunate part of this business, now more than ever, is that everyone wants you to do the sort of ‘appropriate thing — What you look like you should be like’ … This was an opportunity to do something different.

“To be totally honest, its [playing characters opposite yourself] that are the most fun. Taking a character and making him come to life out of nothing. It all becomes make believe!”

“Sean did awful things,” Zegers continued. “He was a drunk who wants to kill. But it’s my job to find that one thing that makes him human. Think about it, when there’s the dickhead in high school, it doesn’t always work in movies. There’s really no such thing as ‘that’ guy. You always find out later that the mean guy had a dad who beat him up, or his girlfriend was always cheating. As an actor, you have to realize that the audience still needs to understand you, whether you do bad or good things.

“Sean’s humanity came from his friendship with Jim. There’s nothing he wouldn’t have done for him. He would have died for him.”

Death looming is the central plot of director/writer Adam Green’s upcoming horror. Casting Zegers as one of the unfortunate three who unknowingly walks right into their “reaper,” Frozen begins with a fun getaway at a ski resort. However, when the trip’s end comes way too quickly, the couple played by Shawn Ashmore (X-Men) and Emma Bell (Bedford Diaries) and their third wheel (Zegers) pleads  withone of the employees for one final ride up the mountain before closing time. Reluctantly, he finally gives in and as the happy threesome are lifted up, the resort staff passes along the final responsibility of the night to someone else. Instructed to shut everything down after “three people” leave, he does just that. Unfortunately, the group of three he watched exit the resort weren’t the ones 100 feet above. And with the slopes closed for a few days….slowly, the terror begins to seep in.

“It’s sort of funny at first,” Zegers said. “But, as ten minutes turns into hours turning into days with these people starving, freezing to death…it becomes a pretty gnarly story.”

Calling the way it is shot, “disgusting” and similar to a documentary, Zegers added, “faces falling off…it’s pretty bad and then it becomes a dramatic story about people who are about to die.”

Following in the footsteps of the film Open Water (think ocean, sharks, a couple and no boat), Zegers stated that, “for the entire movie…an hour and a half…we are sitting on a bench. For us, that was our challenge.”

And his current challenge is taking on the role of Clyde Barrow in The Story of Bonnie and Clyde opposite Hilary Duff. With an intrigue in the killing duo, Hollywood filmmakers have produced several movies about the tormented twosome including the famous 1967 version of Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

“I feel like it’s going to be a great movie,” stated Zegers. “I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think that way. There’s a whole other side to them [Bonnie and Clyde] that hasn’t been shown. It’s very much a relationship movie.

“The real thing that interested me is; ‘Why does this woman who has no invested interest other than loving this man go on this killing spree and do all this stuff, putting herself in a position where she inevitably dies?  That, for me, was what was left to be uncovered. That’s what interested me about it. It’s a relationship story about how there’s one dominant presence in a relationship and the other person is just trying to catch up.”

Also starring Michael Madsen and Cloris Leachman, The Story of Bonnie and Clyde is in production and set to hit theatres in 2010. “We are filming in the South, Alabama, Tennessee…We start in New Orleans, make our way to Texas, Chicago…” said Zegers.

“Traveling is fun, especially for work. I think all actors are trying to run from something so it’s a good way to do it.”

Set in the near future, The Roadconcerns a wholly righteous and doting father, played aptly by Viggo Mortensen, caring for his young son after a worldwide cataclysm which has left buildings standing – albeit without electricity or any social services – but has laid waste all animals and crops, leaving every person to fend for himself.  Partially told in flashback sequences where Mortensen and his wife (Charlize Theron) are leading an idyllic farming life before the catastrophe – which is only alluded to but never seen in full or explained – The Road is equal parts love story, travelogue, and tense drama as the abandoned father and son try to reach the ocean in hopes of a better life.

Without question, Hillcoat’s directing career and natural fit for undertaking the assignment ofThe Road was elevated with the completion of The Proposition, a Western set in the 1800s Australian outback.  “It had a long gestation period,” Hillcoat, 48, said of his 2005 revelation as a filmmaker.  “I had always wanted to make a Western and I loved genre – trying to find a new approach.  I had been researching a lot about the conflict between the British and Aboriginal culture in Australia and the lawlessness at the time.”

Starring Danny Huston in what may be his best career role, this time playing a ruthless outlaw, Arthur Burns,  The Proposition also featured Guy Pearce as Huston’s likeable brother and Ray Winstone as Captain Stanley, the lawman trying to bring order to the region.  “That had quite a strange [development] period as well because he [Huston] was originally approached to be the Ray Winston character.  There was quite an opposition to Ray playing that part because he was such a brute and Danny is such a cerebral guy with a visceral quality.  Danny wanted to play Arthur [the eldest brother] and not Stanley.  By a twist of fate, I managed to get Ray on board.  I was very fortunate with the casting of that film.  It was such an amazing team to work with.”

With the similarities in the basic settings of The Proposition and The Road, Hillcoat was able to get key meetings in Hollywood.  “I met with the producers in L.A., and I mentioned howNo Country was a big influence on The Proposition,” he said.  “The producer remembered that, and got the unpublished manuscript of The Road to me.  We share extreme environments that bring out the best and worst in people.  With The Road, you’ve got a whole other dimension that was expected in terms of the personal and emotional love story. I don’t think I’d be on it if it had been published and gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize.”

Given the similarity with the new film and his last outing, Hillcoat drew natural parallels in his preferred themes.  “I am drawn to extreme worlds because they bring out the best and worst in people,” he said.  “It’s an intensive stressful activity, making a film, any film.  I’ve heard stories of behind-the-scenes making romantic comedies which make working on The Road andThe Proposition an absolute pleasure.  It’s the essence of drama in a way – it brings out conflict in how people behave in the choices that they make – that there are no limits on human behavior for the better or the worse.”

Nonetheless, despite the downbeat nature of The Proposition, one can see The Road as an ultimately positive story about the finding the essence of humanity in an unwinnable situation.  “Cormac said that The Road is about human goodness,” the director noted. “There is a real love story [in The Road] as in The Proposition between the captain and the wife.  It’s the loss of things we take for granted: the relationships in our lives and the gift of being able to eat and enjoy the weather.  How rare and special that really is – in the greater context.  This is a very special love story between a father and son – the crux of the story.”

Unlike other post-apocalyptic tales, including I Am Legend and The Road Warrior, Hillcoat’s film is far from an action-adventure story and is more metaphoric for many modern issues. “It was really the reality of the book: having all of your possessions in a shopping trolley conjured images of the homeless in every city,” he said.  “That made it stand apart from the normal apocalyptic genre.  It wasn’t about the spectacle – it was about survival.  It felt weirdly familiar, like we had already glimpsed it because our references were apocalyptic mini-events such as Mt. St. Helens, the Twin Towers, Hiroshima, Katrina or wherever.  It’s not on a global scale but may as well be if you are in the middle of it.”

Trying to recall those tragedies, Hillcoat carefully selected several critical sites throughout the United States for his shooting locations.  “It’s a road trip, so we wanted the change of geography,” he said. “Production designer Chris Kennedy has a keen eye and loves research, so we referenced a lot of events such as mining in Pennsylvania and the grey sand in Oregon.  It was a matter of making up the world in real environments.  It was a creative choice that made it feel free.”

Spanning 55 shootings days, somewhat expanded due to the short days required when shooting with a minor, principal photography on The Road included at least 50 locations with some actual footage of recent disasters.  “There were four states that we went into: Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Washington and Oregon,” said Hillcoat. “Many of [the locations] were in and around concentrated areas in Pittsburgh,” said Hillcoat.  It gave it the look, and we were able to do that because of the simplicity of the story.  There was actual footage from after Katrina hit.  We just replaced the sky because we couldn’t have the sun.  The mass of smoke billowing up in the background is the actual real footage of 9/11 of the smoke tower visible from space.  We just kept referencing the photos of the aftermaths of these events and went to these locations.  It also added poignancy to the crew who were local – it gave it a whole other level.”

To create the verisimilitude that he needed, Hillcoat build as few practical sets as possible, choosing instead to modify real locations.  “We always tried to start with a live location,” he said. “[Visual effects supervisor] Mark Forker came from photography originally, and the visual effects are coming from real locations, enhancing that world and making it all flow. They were sourced from real things.  There were also a lot of practical things [achieved with visual effects] like getting rid of jet streams in the sky and birds.  No matter how dead a location is, life is buzzing around.  We had to do that with sound as well.  We infamously were known to the locals in the way our mood was at a low point when there was beautiful sunshine.  We were elated when things were grim.  It’s an adventure to be on location and is like a forced method – the cast and crew get what world we are making.  Creatively it’s very exciting.”

With the cast of The Road, including veteran Robert Duvall and Hillcoat mainstay Guy Pearce, the director had another key challenge in casting not only the adults but this time needing to find the perfect actor to play The Boy.  “My biggest fear with The Road was getting a boy who could work,” he said.  Hillcoat eventually settled on young Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee.

To help create a believably forlorn group of characters, makeup expert Toni G, who had done much the same for Charlize Theron in Monster, was brought in as makeup department head, coincidentally getting to work with Theron again.  “Toni was a great help in transforming Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce,” said Hillcoat.  “We wanted them unrecognizable and full integrated into the world.  The Road was about not enough sun and too much cold.”

With the film in the can and finally debuting for audiences this fall, Hillcoat feels a responsibility to the material and author which have each gone on to create a wide impact in the time since the director became attached to the project.  “I had no idea the book was going to have the impact that it did,” he said. “It hit me when I first read it.  There were certain people like Nick Cave [Hillcoat’s collaborator on The Proposition] who didn’t want to go near it and take that risk of entering the world of Cormac McCarthy.  As time went on, that pressure kept going.  Once that started, I focused on the task at hand.  Cormac was hugely helpful pointing out the obvious as to what a different medium the two are.  He was very encouraging.  He loved the results.  That was a saving grace for me.  He never wanted to read the script, and we never gave it to him.  That was a mutual choice.  He was happy to see how it would be at the latest stage.  The writer [Joe Penhall] was very adept at adapting difficult material and very eclectic material.  He was well-versed in the intricacies of the movie from one medium to another.”

Of note, McCarthy did ultimately see the film with naturally unpredictable results. “We went out to Santa Fe to show Cormac the film, and we were absolutely shattered initially as he walked out and disappeared for 15 minutes,” Hillcoat revealed.  “We were totally crushed, but he just had to go to the men’s room.  But he loved it, and we went for a seven-hour lunch.  He went on to a great range of subjects.  We talked about film but in more general terms about general subjects.  He had come to the set and brought a fantastic 10-year-old boy who was half responsible for The Road – his inspiration in writing the book.  He was saying that his son wrote half the book.”

For his next film, Hillcoat is sticking to his basic themes but is decidedly switching genres. “We are very close on the next one – a rural Goodfellas,” he stated.  “I’d love to do a gangster film – that’s another great American genre.  But I do want to make something with more energy.  I have a wide range of stuff that I’m looking at.  There’s several different genres that I’d be interested in doing.  I’d like to find a science-fiction, but I love films that have a human element to them. They don’t have to have that degree of extremity.  I hope that I’m not pigeonholed.”

Reflecting on The Road, Hillcoat wished that his film affects audiences the same manner in which the book affected him.  “It hopefully will make you look at your own relationships and value what we take for granted,”
he described.  “It’s looking at ourselves and our own relationships and what makes us human at times of duress.  It’s very timely in that regard.  I’ve always loved to go on journeys with films and get transported into other worlds, and think about it for days to come.  I hope that it has a lingering effect on people the way the book has.”

Photos by Ash Gupta, Make Up by Kiki Benet at traceymattingly.com for Acted By magazine

Jennifer Lawrence is in a special position. At 19-years-old, not only does she have a strong body of work under her belt, but she has the power to decide which project she wants to tackle next. Lawrence’s success is refreshing to see in an industry where so many young artists are grasping at anything thrown their way. So, what is it that Jennifer finds appealing when she looks at a script?

“I love teeth,” said Lawrence. “I love dirt.”

Sure. Why not? There are your gooey, sentimental stories, and then there are the true, sometimes harsh movies that show us reality like we’ve never seen it before. Lawrence has been acting for roughly five years now, and already her career seems to be pointing in the direction of the latter.

“I look at my career in the grand scheme,” Lawrence said. “I can see myself getting more versatile…but right now I just seem to be interested in the movies that are serious.”

Speaking to Lawrence, it is very apparent that she is wise beyond her nineteen years. Most people working in Lawrence’s age group are seeing scripts for characters that are named after handbags. Lawrence, however, is captivating audiences with roles that intrigue us due to the character’s strong maturity, mixed with an endearing innocence inherent with her age.

“I’ve have played roles that have been motherly in The Burning Plain and in The Poker House…but it’s funny you’d mention that (maturity) because my friends who know me would make fun of you for saying that,” stated Lawrence.

The proof, though, is in the pudding. In her most recent film, The Burning Plain

Jennifer Lawrence plays Mariana, a sixteen-year-old girl faced with the daunting task of keeping her fragmented family together. The film weaves us through her conflicts, as the audience shares in her discoveries along the way. While Lawrence seems to be the funny and laidback nineteen-year-old that she says her friends know her as, Lawrence’s character roles prove that she can pull off the “dirty” roles she’s seeks.

I sat down with the star of The Burning Plain and the upcoming release, Winter’s Bone for a video interview on life in the film world, and on her process as an actress.

The Other Man features Laura Linney as Lisa, the apex of a delicious love triangle between husband Peter (Liam Neeson) and her secret lover, Ralph (Antonio Banderas). But there’s a catch – Peter has no idea his wife of 20 years has been leading a secret life with another man. A note left in a pair of her favorite shoes reads simply, “Lake Como.” Peter is then launched into a painful treasure hunt, and the tale that ensues is an intriguing mystery that explores the rocky relationship between Peter and Ralph, as they slowly discover what they have in common – the same woman.

How were you initially drawn to the project?

Laura Linney: I wasn’t really attracted to the role to be honest. I was attracted to being able to work with Liam again, working with [director] Richard Eyre again, [and] getting to know Antonio and work with him. [NOTE:Both Linney and Neeson were directed by Eyre in the 2002 Broadway production of The Crucible]. I didn’t even need to read the script, I just said yes, and then read the script and was like ‘Ok, here’s my challenge now.’

Antonio Banderas: When I read the script for the first time, [it reminded me of] some of the characters, in terms of risk, that I [played] many years ago when I was [working in Spain]. And then when I met Richard, he said, ‘Yeah, I am calling you because I know that you are not afraid [to] actually go for a character like that.’

Laura, why does Lisa leave the Lake Como note? Did she want her husband to find out about her affair with Ralph?

Linney: You can decide that she wanted to take her husband to Lake Como. Or, you can say that she was leading him right to a further intimacy of herself [by finding out about her affair]. She wanted him to know her completely. I wanted to leave it a mystery. I intentionally played it so that it would challenge an audience into trying to figure it out.

Banderas: I think, at the end, clearly she wants her husband to find out.

How does working with a director with a strong theatrical background change your experience as an actor?

Linney: Directors that come from the theatre, they tend to – not all of them – but they tend to understand actors in a deeper way than some people who are just trained in film. Not that one is better than the other, but it’s just different. There’s a much better ease of communication. And there’s just sort of a deeper connection, I find, with directors who really have the same language [as actors]. There’s a real collaborative feel, which is essential in the theatre and I feel is essential in film.

Banderas: At the time we were working together, he [Richard Eyre] took me to places of exploration, unknown places. ‘Here is a cliff and you have to jump.’ And you don’t know if at the end of this jump [there will be] be rocks down there or if you’re gonna find water. That’s the whole entire feeling that I had when I was doing the movie.

How much of your performance in the film is your own choice that you made as an actor, and how much is the unseen hand of the director?

Linney: It’s such a collaborative [effort]. There are so many layers that are added to a film performance. We bring what we bring to the table, and then Richard will sort of guide us to shift or change our behavior [in accordance with his vision].

Banderas: In theatre, the audience is the one who is going to edit you. But, in movies, no. On specific takes you say to yourself, ‘I nailed it.’ And then you see that they used a totally different take.

What would you like people to take away from this film?

Linney: I do know that it will provoke…conversation (she laughs). I think it’s going to affect people in different ways. I think it’s a little provocative — for some people in a good way, and for some in an uncomfortable way.

Banderas: There is a fantastic moment in that dinner party at the end of the movie [where] everybody says, ‘we don’t’ recognize ourselves as good, [or] bad, we are human beings.’ The movie doesn’t give you straight answers, [it gives] the possibility of sitting down in front of a screen and reflect[ing] about things that are very deep [within] the soul of human beings.

The Other Man is definitely just that; a reason to pause for reflection, and examine our beliefs about morality, love, possession, revenge, and the eternal question of trust.

Directed by Sir Richard Eyre and starring Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Antonio Banderas, The Other Man is currently playing in theatres everywhere.