Watch: First footage of Benjamin Walker and Anthony Mackie from the set of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”

January 13, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Videos 1 Comment

We’ve seen the first pictures and poster of Benjamin Walker as the titular revisionist US President “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”, but today we get our first footage from the set of the film. Walker looks totally transformed and eerily like the Lincoln from history while standing in front of Congress. No vampire shenanigans happening in this first video from the movie, just some green screens and a lot of guys in suits, including Anthony Mackie, who plays William, Ab’s best friend. Timur Bekmambetov directed the film on location in New Orleans this spring and the cast also includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Dominic Cooper.

MTV was on the set to talk to Walker, Mackie, Bekmambetov and more about the film. “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is one of our most anticipated movies of the year and will be released on June 22, 2012.

Interview: British actor Simon Phillips talks Shakespeare, lack of patience and that other British Simon

November 16, 2011 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Interviews 1 Comment

Rising British actor Simon Phillips has a background in Shakespeare and a film career that started in crime and is moving into comedy – with favourable comparisons to that other great British comedian Simon Pegg.

On a promotional tour for new film “How to Stop Being a Loser”, out this Friday, I caught up with the actor who was happy to discuss drama school, acting and producing vs. writing and directing, and why he won’t be moving to Hollywood any time soon.

Alexandra Roach lines up Joe Wright’s “Anna Karenina” and “Girls Night Out” opposite Dakota Fanning

November 9, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Casting 1 Comment

One name that’s still flying somewhat under the radar but that everyone should be keeping an eye on is Alexandra Roach. The 24 year old Welsh actress graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts only last year, but has already been cast in five feature films, some of which involve extremely high profile and well respected talent both in front of and behind the camera. The Guardian reports Roach has joined the cast and is currently shooting Joe Wright’s new adaptation of “Anna Karenina”, starring Keira Knightley and Aaron Johnson, and has also landed the role of Princess Elizabeth opposite Dakota Fanning as Princess Margaret in “Girls Night Out”, about the young royals who were let out of the Palace to celebrate the end of WWII.

But first, Roach will be seen as the young Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd’s “The Iron Lady”, a biopic of the former Prime Minister who will be played in her adult years by none other than Meryl Streep. Roach’s scenes won’t be a quick flashback either. She will play Thatcher from her teen years all the way into her thirties. “I’m mostly responsible for the storyline for Margaret Roberts, the Grantham girl that worked in the shop, got into Oxford and studied chemistry, and met Denis,” Roach tells The Guardian. “I’m the grounding to get people to understand why she was the woman we all know.” Joining her in Thatcher’s earlier years is “Game of Thrones” actor Harry Lloyd, who plays the younger Denis Thatcher. Jim Broadbent plays him opposite Streep.

In addition to such starmaking high profile roles, Roach also stays rooted in British independent filmmaking. She has completed work on “Trap for Cinderella”, a psychological thriller written and directed by Iain Softley, and also on “Private Peaceful”, the WWI drama directed by Pat O’Connor and adapted from the novel by the author of “War Horse.”

Watch: Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and the cast of “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” on set

October 10, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Videos 1 Comment

Based on a beloved young adult novel and chock full of some of the most promising up and coming actors, it’s no wonder “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is already garnering serious buzz before it even near completion. Stephen Chbosky has adapted and directed based on his own 1999 novel, which follows 15 year old Charlie, “an outsider who struggles to to cope with mental illness, first love and the suicide of his best friend, as well as trying to find out where he belongs.”

MTV brings us the first filming footage from the set of the recently wrapped film and also talked to some of its stars, including Ezra Miller, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Nina Dobrev.

More new images of Lily Collins and Armie Hammer in “Snow White”

October 6, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images 4 Comments

Yesterday we posted the first images of Armie Hammer as Prince Andrew in Tarsem Singh’s super colorful and outlandish still untitled “Snow White” film and today a plethora of new images have been released, courtesy of EW, People and Yahoo! Movies. The costumes get bigger and more colorful and Lily Collins, it must be said, looks like a perfect Snow White, delicate and beautiful and always wearing a radiant smile, even in the midst of sword training.

Further details have also emerged from director Singh, who reveals that Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen won’t be outwardly evil at first. “She’s the cat that ate the canary,” he tells EW. “From serial killers to anyone who does evil deeds, they basically have a devil-made-me-do-it excuse, or they hear voices,” he continues. “I decided for the evil queen, this is going to be a person who sees her [good] self — but there’s a mirror personality.” When she sends her henchman Nathan Lane to take Snow White into the woods to be killed, he can’t do it and she takes up shelter with seven dwarfs, who make a living as bandits and wear stilts to appear gigantic when ambushing caravans. Kudos to Relativity for hiring real little people actors to play the dwarfs; the characters are still unnamed but they will be played by Jordan Prentice, Joey Gnoffo , Sabastian Saraceno, Collins, Martin Klebba, Mark Provinelli, Ronald Lee Clark and Danny Woodburn.

Telluride Breakout: “The Descendants” star Shailene Woodley

September 6, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Features, Interviews 3 Comments

While A-List stars got gussied up in black-tie attire and posed on red carpets over in Italy at the annual splashy, high profile Venice Film Festival, a smaller, more selective group of films were quietly shown in the Colorado Mountains at the Telluride Film Festival, where low-key and secrecy reign supreme. At the conclusion of the unofficial kick-off to awards season, the best received film across the board was Alexander Payne’s long-awaited follow-up to 2004′s “Sideways”, family tragedy/drama “The Descendants.” In addition to what some are calling George Clooney’s career best performance, attention is also being paid to the young actress who more than held her own playing his eldest daughter: Shailene Woodley.

The star of ABC Family’s “The Secret Life of the America Teenager” was familiar to a much different crowd than the one that’s suddenly sitting up and paying attention now after Telluride. Top movie critics are tripping over themselves to laud the young thesp with praise in what is undeniably a breakout role, as a rebellious teenager who reveals a heartbreaking secret to her father (Clooney) in the wake of her mother falling into a coma and facing the inevitability that she will most likely die.

THR calls Woodley “essential to the venture’s success… [she] transforms convincingly from a girl who is reflexively condescending toward her father to one who becomes his eager accomplice and staunchest defender.” Variety singles her out in similar fashion: “Woodley… is a revelation in the role of Alex, displaying both the edge and depth the role demands. At face value, she appears to be going through a rebellious phase, but as the story unfolds, she proves to be the strong one, wiser than she appears and potentially better equipped to deal with the tragedy at hand.” Even First Showing, one of the few to not fully love the film, calls Woodley one of the two best performances, the other not being Clooney but, surprisingly, Matthew Lillard, who shows up in a supporting role later on. Zoinks!

First Look: Julianne Hough and Kenny Wormald kick up their heels in first still from “Footloose”

May 6, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images Leave a comment

It’s been over 25 years since Kevin Bacon fought for his right to dance in an uptight small Utah town, and in 2011, Julianne Hough and Kenny Wormald are picking up where he left off in a new remake of the 80s classic “Footloose”. Craig Brewer wrote and directed the new feature film, which was produced by Craig Zadan, who produced the original as well.

Experienced dancer but newbie actor Wormald is sacked with the daunting task of playing the iconic Ren, a big city teenage rebel who moves to old fashioned and uptight Beaumont, Texas and fights against the small town’s bans on public dancing and rock music. Though Wormald already had an established career as a dancer, appearing in videos and on stage with Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake and Madonna, acting was always in his plans. “Dancing is what I’ve been doing since I was a kid, but I also took acting classes,” he tells USA Today. “I’ve always watched films. I definitely always want to be the guy.” Wormald will make his feature film debut here, after starring in the direct-to-DVD sequel “Center Stage: Turn It Up”.

Also hoping to make a smooth transition from dancing to acting is “Dancing with the Stars” star Hough, in the role of Ariel, the wild-child daughter of the town’s reverend. Hough made her feature film debut only last year in the also dance-heavy “Burlesque” and will headline another high profile musical, Adam Shankman’s adaptation of current Broadway hit “Rock of Ages”.

“Footloose” releases in theaters on October 14 and the first still from the film can be found below.

Jennifer Hudson on Becoming ‘Winnie’

February 23, 2011 | Posted by Tamara Manne in Interviews 7 Comments

Few rise to fame as fast as Jennifer Hudson, who at a speed almost unheard of, flew from an unknown Chicago singer to placing seventh in American Idol to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for Dreamgirls. It was Hudson’s own story as well as her look that drew in Winnie director Darrell Roodt and producer André Pieterse. The South African natives, whose youths were affected profoundly by the Mendelas, were struck with exactly what they needed to bring their vision of Winnie to life. According to Pieterse, there was no one else they would rather see take on the role of Winnie Mandela (now Winnie Madikizela-Mandela) than Hudson.

During an interview with Lorraine Ali of The Daily Beast, Hudson discusses her role in the biopic that follows Winnie Mandela’s life from early teens, her marriage to former South African President Nelson Mandela, her prominent role in the apartheid fight, and onward to the present. As if portraying the living horrors of Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife isn’t challenging enough, Hudson’s job was made more difficult by legal threats from Madikizela-Mandela’s lawyer to stop production of the film. Then, further broadening her challenge, Hudson chose to confine herself to the prison cell set for several days in an attempt to “experience some of the hell that woman went through.”
Read more

Henry Cavill and Zack Snyder talk “Superman” auditions

February 17, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Interviews Leave a comment

The new issue of Entertainment Weekly digs into the unprecedented number of superhero films headed to the big screen in the next couple of years, from “Thor” to “X-Men: First Class” to “The Dark Knight Rises” to “The Avengers”. And playing such iconic roles as Spider-Man, Catwoman, Magneto and Captain America is a new crop of actors, most of whom were relatively unknown when cast, and who are about to become household names. The 2010 awards race has been serendipitous, propelling names like Andrew Garfield (Spider-Man) and Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) into fame before they morph into their superhero alter-egos, but there are still more names to learn in the coming months, like Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill) and the man gracing the cover of EW’s special issue, who is about to become perhaps the most iconic superhero of all time. British actor Henry Cavill was recently chosen to wear the red cape in Zack Snyder’s reboot of “Superman”, and the duo talked to EW about how Cavill convinced Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan that he was their Man of Steel, despite his own misgivings.

Cavill was fairly pessimistic about his chances of becoming Clark Kent, especially since his previous movie before the audition had forced him to tone down any bulk and muscle he had. When putting on a replica of Christopher Reeve’s iconic tights and cape getup, the actor recalls, “All I could think was: Oh, god. They’re going to look at me and go ‘He’s not Superman. Not a chance.’ The actor inside me was going: You’re not ready! You’re not ready!“

For Snyder, it came down to the suit: “If you can put on that suit and pull it off,” he tells the magazine, “that’s an awesome achievement. [Cavill] walked out, and no one laughed. Other actors put that suit on, and it’s a joke, even if they’re great actors. Henry put it on, and he exuded this kind of crazy-calm confidence that just made me go ‘Wow.’ Okay: This was Superman.”

To read the full interview with Cavill and Snyder and EW’s full feature on all the superheroes coming to our rescue over the next two years, pick up the new issue, on newsstands tomorrow!

“Red Riding Hood” star Shiloh Fernandez is glad he’s not Robert Pattinson

February 9, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Interviews 14 Comments

Director Catherine Hardwicke has never made much of a secret of the fact that her choice for the role of Edward Cullen in the “Twilight” saga was not Robert Pattinson. It was the already-cast Bella Swan, Kristen Stewart, who talked Hardwicke and the producers into choosing the little-known British actor after their screen test together. Hardwicke’s idea of the perfect mysterious vampire stalker/lover was then 22 year old Shiloh Fernandez, and not giving up on the star quality she saw in him, she immediately cast him as the male lead in her next film, “Red Riding Hood”, a dark and edgy retelling of the classic fairy tale that sees Amanda Seyfried torn between two guys and fighting off supernatural predators against a pounding and thoroughly modern rock soundtrack. Sounds like fairly familiar territory.

Hardwicke probably is onto something with Fernandez. After all, she’s made a career out of discovering and showcasing promising young acting talent, from Nikki Reed and Evan Rachel Wood in “Thirteen”, Heath Ledger and Emile Hirsch in “Lords of Dogtown”, and Stewart and Pattinson in “Twilight”. Once “Red Riding Hood” hits theaters, Fernandez and co-star Max Irons could easily become objects of teenage girl fantasy, while Seyfried, fairly famous already from her other projects, could finally tap into the female teen market the way her last couple of films (“Dear John” and “Letters to Juliet”) failed to do. History certainly suggests a fairly successful upward trajectory is in their future.

And how does Fernandez, one of our faces to watch in 2011, feel about losing out on that global superstar-making vampire franchise? He tells Wonderland Magazine (via Metro UK) he doesn’t envy Pattinson’s fame one bit. “It makes me happy that I didn’t do it. How can you want that for yourself? How can you wish that on anybody? I think Pattinson handled it really well – he seems like a neat kid, interesting and kind of strange but I wasn’t in the right mind to take any of that. I wasn’t mentally prepared to have any sort of success in that way. Even with this tiny, tiny morsel of fame I’m experiencing now I still feel uncomfortable.”

Fernandez, who also has 80s indie dramedy “Skateland” down the pike, better start getting a little more comfortable with being famous because this tiny, tiny morsel of fame he is experiencing now is sure to increase exponentially when “Red Riding Hood” is released in theaters on March 11, 2011. You can read his full interview with Wonderland magazine in their Spring Issue, on newsstands now.

Page 1 of 312 3 »

interviews