Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue spotlights Jennifer Lawrence, Rooney Mara and 9 more “thoroughly modern actresses”

January 31, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Features, Lists 4 Comments

It’s one of our favorite annual traditions and it’s here! Every March, the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue introduces, celebrates and spotlights some of the hottest rising actors around (so you see why we love it so much) and this year is no different. Choosing to go all-female (unlike last year), the new issue features eleven of our favorite young actresses, who are everywhere at the moment – or soon will be. Rooney Mara, Jennifer Lawrence, Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain take the front panel and are joined on the inside fold-out cover by Elizabeth Olsen, Adepero Oduye, Shailene Woodley, Paula Patton, Felicity Jones, Lily Collins and Brit Marling.

The girls gracing the front cover have certainly earned their spots this year. Two (Mara and Chastain) recently earned their first Oscar nominations, and one (Lawrence) was nominated last year. Mara and Chastain burst onto the scene in 2011 from virtual anonymity, Mara in the transformative role of Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and Chastain in, well, just about every other movie (“The Tree of Life”, “The Help”, “Take Shelter”, just to name three). Both Wasikowska and Lawrence are Hollywood Issue cover repeats, but both have come a long way since their last covers. Wasikowska, featured on 2010′s cover, had broken out in “Alice in Wonderland” but in 2011 proved she had gravitas as a serious leading actress, putting her on many people’s wishlists for the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in “Jane Eyre.” Lawrence, on the other hand, traveled something of an opposite path. She featured on last year’s cover after scoring an Oscar nod for tiny Sundance indie “Winter’s Bone” but 2012 she’ll give blockbuster franchise a shot as she leads “The Hunger Games”, tipped to be the next teen sensation a la “Twilight.”

LA Times Magazine Scene Stealers: Imogen Poots, Jessica Chastain, Deborah Ann Woll and Mary Elizabeth Winstead

September 2, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Features, Lists 1 Comment

The LA Times Magazine proclaims “Hollywood is ripe for a new generation of leading ladies” (we couldn’t agree more) and puts the focus on four lovely young actresses who have that certain indescribable “It factor” that could propel them onto the A-List. Lo and behold, the magazine has included a few of our favorites. So just how bright are the rising stars of Imogen Poots, Jessica Chastain, Deborah Ann Woll and Mary Elizabeth Winstead? We take a closer look at the careers of each actress below.

First Look: Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson as Gale and Peeta in “The Hunger Games”

July 27, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images Leave a comment

Like they did for Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss, Entertainment Weekly gets the distinct privilege of unveiling in costume and in character Liam Hemsworth as Gale and Josh Hutcherson as Peeta in “The Hunger Games”. Hey, that fake forest background looks pretty familiar.

Unlike Lawrence’s reveal though, the guys that will flank our heroine in Gary Ross’s adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ best-selling teen trilogy are less impressive to this writer. Hutcherson is certainly stocky the way his character is described, but that seems to be where the similarities end and the slightly lighter blond hair doesn’t do much to sway me towards agreeing with this casting choice. Hemsworth, on the other hand, should make a fine Gale, but then again, his role was never as crucial as Peeta’s. After all, Hemsworth is apparently already moving on to his next movie.

Though it seems this photoshoot was taken at the same location as Lawrence’s earlier cover, there’s no word yet if any other actors, including Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, Elizabeth Banks as Effie, Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, were involved.

“The Hunger Games” is currently filming in North Carolina and will be released on March 23, 2012. See the full EW cover image below and pick up a copy this Friday for more inside!

First Look: Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games”

May 18, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images 3 Comments

The long awaited moment is finally here. Have Gary Ross and Co. managed to turn buxom blonde beauty Jennifer Lawrence into 16-year-old dark-haired, olive-skinned Knatiss Everdeen, beloved hero of “The Hunger Games”? As Entertainment Weekly unveils on the cover of their new issue, the answer is a resounding yes. Lawrence looks great (and wholly unlike herself) with newly dyed dark hair braided just like Katniss and a slightly darker tan, with Katniss’s weapon of choice – a bow and arrow – slung across her chest, a look of fierce determination on her face, ready to step into a battle to the death in her little sister’s place. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Katniss Everdeen. At least from our perspective.

Filming on the dystopian-set teen action/thriller is set to begin any day now in North Carolina, and Lawrence will be joined by a plethora of established and rising stars, including Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, Liam Hemsworth as Gale, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, Elizabeth Banks as Effie, Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman and more.

EW interviewed the actress as she trained extensively for the role, one that she couldn’t turn down, despite initial misgivings about what it might mean for her status in Hollywood.. “I love this story,” she tells the magazine, “and if I had said no, I would regret it every day.” Author Suzanne Collins couldn’t be more thrilled by the choice and told her as such in a congratulatory phone call. “I feel like when you said yes,” the author told Lawrence, “the world got lifted off my shoulders.”

See the full version of the cover below and check out EW, on stands Friday, for more of Jennifer’s interview and pictures of Katniss!

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!

First official look at Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

January 12, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images, Interviews 2 Comments

Wow! Rooney Mara is nearly unrecognizable on the February cover of W magazine, posing in character as goth hacker Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s adapatation of Stieg Larsson’s Swedish best-selling series “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Fincher and Mara spoke to W’s Lynn Herschberger from the set.

Despite the highly publicized casting process, Fincher wanted Mara from the beginning. He did see other girls, big names like Natalie Portman, who was coming off three movies and was too exhausted, Scarlett Johansson, deemed too sexy, and a then unknown Jennifer Lawrence, who was too tall. “It was hard,” Fincher recalled. “We had five or six girls audition with the rape scene. The girls had to kick a dildo up his ass. That’s Salander’s big scene, and we had to see if they could do it.” Mara, among the final five or six with fellow unknows Sophie Lowe, Katie Jarvis and Emilly Browning, was put through the ringer. “David added the rape scene at the last minute, and I said, ‘Ohmigod! They must be really serious.’ They did one test, then another a week later. They shot me in the subway in L.A. in full hair and makeup with a motorcycle. Every day they had a new request. On a Monday morning, David called me in, and I said, ‘What do you want me to do to my hair now?’ I was at the end of my rope. He told me I had the part. I hadn’t even read the script yet.” Five days later, she was in Sweden and in motorcycle training. An even more in-depth look at Fincher and the film can be read in the full article.

Co-starring Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist, Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgard and Christopher Plummer, the film will shoot well into the spring to be ready for a December 21, 2011 release.

See a bigger version of the W cover and one more from the shoot below.

Elizabeth Olsen: V Magazine’s New Ingenue

January 7, 2011 | Posted by Linda Ge in Interviews, Lists 3 Comments

Elizabeth Olsen steps out from the shadows of older sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley and poses for a feature in V Magazine’s “The Discovery Issue”, nominated as the “New Ingenue” by feature debut “Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding” co-star Chace Crawford. Eschewing her older sisters’ child-acting road to success and refusing the many built-in connections that would get her to the top through the “who you know” route, Olsen took the high road. She did children’s theater and school plays, studied acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and even studied abroad at Russia’s Art Theatre School in Moscow. Her professional work before this year revolved around understudying parts on and off Broadway.

She tells V, “If I could live a parallel life, I would live in Russia. “The [stage combat] teacher and I got along even though he didn’t speak English. He was trying to demonstrate something and asked for a guy. I kind of scoffed and raised my hand, because he didn’t ask any of the chicks to volunteer. And we did this exercise where you have to block someone from slapping your head. It was funny, though, because he wasn’t letting me down easy; I actually had to work to avoid getting hit.”

All her hard work is now paying off as she starts off her debut year as a film actress with no less than three films already under her belt: “Peace, Love and Misunderstanding” opposite Crawford, Catherine Keener and Jane Fonda, the horror film “The Silent House” in which she stars almost exclusively and the indie “Martha Marcy May Marlene”.

Sounds like Olsen will have no problem getting people to see her as more than just Mary-Kate and Ashley’s little sister.

GQ names James Franco Leading Man of the Year

November 16, 2010 | Posted by Linda Ge in Images, Interviews Leave a comment

Hot off his triumphant starring role in “127 Hours”, sure to make him an Oscar front-runner for Best Actor come January, GQ names James Franco one of their annual “Men of the Year”, along with Drake (Breakout Star of the Year), Jeff Bridges (Icon of the Year), Stephen Colbert (Patriot of the Year) and strangely enough, Scarlett Johansson (Babe of the Year). Franco receives the appropriate and well-deserved title of “Leading Man of the Year”.

An NYU graduate student, Franco spoke to the magazine about taking Queer Theory with one of the men who coined the term, Michael Warner: “Basically it’s a wide-reaching approach to whatever—literature, life, politics. It is on the most basic level an anti-normative approach to all of these subjects. One approach to things might be to classify everything as ‘This is straight, this is gay; this is Republican, this is Democrat,’ whatever. The queer approach is to complicate all of that and see the way all of these different things are intermingled and connected.” Sounds like a great approach for Franco to take when tackling the myriad of complex and complicated characters he embodies on screen.

Be sure to pick up a copy to see and hear more from Franco, on newsstands November 23, 2010. [GQ via

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