ACTORS

It Took 9 Years to Make This 25-minute Sci-fi Film. It Was Worth The Wait

September 29, 2016 By Respiro E Movimento · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

In 2007, filmmakers Jason Gallaty, Josh Grier, and Mike Grier conceived the story for a visually rich science fiction parable filmed in Japan. Nine years, $100,000 in crowdfunding, the founding of one visual effects production company, and a successful film festival circuit later, the fruit of their labor is finally here. And it’s stunning.

Dust is just 25 minutes long, but manages to create a mesmerizing portrait of a society on the brink of collapse. Combining elements of everything from Tarkovsky’s Stalker to Silent Hilland Beowulf, Dust feels more outsized and epic than you’d expect from its short film status. At its heart it’s a classic hero’s journey, a story of man versus monster versus mysterious disease — but one with a succinct, timely modern message.

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Renée Zellweger on Returning to Film After a Six-Year Absence

September 22, 2016 By Respiro E Movimento · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

Renee Zellweger Bridget Jones Baby

“I needed to grow as a person in ways that didn’t revolve around my work”

Zellweger explains that playing Jones again twelve years after Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reasonwas both familiar and challenging. She says, “Familiar because the process is similar, and I feel like I know her pretty well, and a different kind of challenge because I’ve never had to show the ways in which a person evolves in her life and the ways in which she doesn’t.”

In order to decide where the character stands now, Zellweger spoke with the direct about how Jones had changed. She reveals, “There were interesting conversations with Sharon Maguire, the director, about how [Bridget] might have gotten her life together — she’s a little bit more mature, she’s progressed professionally, moved into property ownership in London and has achieved her ideal weight. And still her life is a relative mess. I like the message in that: that we can tick off the boxes, and yet we still don’t quite have it together. And that’s pretty much the truth of growing up, isn’t it?”

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Robin Williams and Steve Martin in Waiting for Godot

September 20, 2016 By Respiro E Movimento · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

Tom Hanks on ‘Sully’

September 16, 2016 By Respiro E Movimento · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

Tom Hanks on Sully

When it was announced that Tom Hanks would portray “Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in Clint Eastwood‘s film Sully, it seemed like perfect casting. Who better to portray an American hero than one of the most likeable actors ever to appear on camera? In the press notes for Sully, Hanks talks about the intimidating aspects of the role and how he prepared to play the much-heralded pilot.

Though Hanks originally intended to take some time off, when the opportunity to play an actual American hero came up, Hanks couldn’t say no. He says, “Sometimes you read something that is so stirring and at the same time so simple, such a perfect blend of behavior and procedure. Now, I’m as competitive as the next actor, so I knew I wanted at least a shot at it, even though I’d been working pretty steadily for about six years. Sure I was beat but, not unlike a solid jolt of adrenaline, this role, Sully, Mr. Clint Eastwood…they all came along. I felt like I couldn’t pass up a chance at playing in this great double-header at the end of this long baseball season.”

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I’m a Deaf Actor. That Shouldn’t Define Me – Or Limit The Roles I Play

September 9, 2016 By Respiro E Movimento · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

Was that because of the tendency to cast able-bodied actors in disabled parts? (A recent study found that 95% of disabled parts go to able-bodied actors.) Was it that the character didn’t fit their perceptions of deaf people? (Silent? Sign-language user? Lost and confused?) Or was it because I’ve worked so hard to improve the clarity of my voice that I now sound more hearing than deaf?

This is where I am stuck between a rock and a hard place.

There is no escaping that I am deaf. I can lip-read and hear with the use of hearing aids. Not as clearly as you, mind, but unlike you, I can crank up the volume. If my back is turned and you’re talking to me, I am probably not deliberately ignoring you. If you call out “house lights going dark” and forget to tell me, I may fall off the stage. Working with me doesn’t sound so terrible, does it? I do sound a little funny though. You’re going to shake your ears for a while as if they’ve got water in them, and then get on with it. It’s not you, it’s me.

It’s a fact I’m comfortable with – I have a disability. There should be no shame in having a disability, only pride in the ownership of the fact. I am proud of who I am. I am proud of being deaf.

But in the same way that being deaf doesn’t define all that I am as a person, I don’t want it to define the roles I play. It’s an incredibly limiting way to live and to work. And because I have a disability that I cannot hide (or fully disguise), that means I stay firmly in the bracket of “deaf actor”, rather than “actor”. In the rigidity of the casting process, that can mean fewer than 10 auditions per year.

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‘Marvin’s Room,’ a Wise Comedy About Dying, Is Bound for Broadway

September 7, 2016 By Respiro E Movimento · Follow us: Facebook · Twitter · Instagram · YouTube

MARVIN'S ROOM

“Marvin’s Room,” a comic play about a dying woman caring for a dying man, will be staged on Broadway for the first time next summer, more than a quarter-century after it was written.

The play, in which a woman with leukemia reaches out to an estranged sister in hopes of finding a bone marrow donor, ran Off Broadway in 1991, at Playwrights Horizons, and was adapted into a film in 1996, starring Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio.

“Marvin’s Room” was written by Scott W. McPherson, who died from AIDS in 1992 at the age of 33. The production will be directed by Anne Kauffman, in her Broadway debut.

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